INDUCTIVE + DEDUCTIVE PROOFS - A* - A-Level Religious Studies - WJEC/EDQUAS

Full set (6 pages) of revision notes on both inductive and deductive proofs, covered in theme 1 (a-c) and theme 1 (d-f) of the WJEC/EDQUAS Religious Studies A-Level specification. These notes are necessary for component 2, the Philosophy of Religion paper. I have ensured they contain sufficient depth of knowledge to fulfill both A01 and A02 elements of questions.

CONTAINS NOTES ON
Inductive arguments – cosmological:
Inductive proofs; the concept of ‘a posteriori’.
Cosmological argument: St Thomas Aquinas’ first Three Ways - (motion or change; cause and
effect; contingency and necessity).
The Kalam cosmological argument with reference to William Lane Craig (rejection of actual
infinities and concept of personal creator).
Inductive arguments – teleological:
St Thomas Aquinas’ Fifth Way - concept of governance; archer and arrow analogy.
William Paley’s watchmaker - analogy of complex design.
F. R. Tennant’s anthropic and aesthetic arguments - the universe specifically designed for
intelligent human life.
Challenges to inductive arguments:
David Hume - empirical objections and critique of causes (cosmological).
David Hume - problems with analogies; rejection of traditional theistic claims: designer not
necessarily God of classical theism; apprentice god; plurality of gods; absent god (teleological).
Alternative scientific explanations including Big Bang theory and Charles Darwin’s theory of
evolution by natural selection.
Deductive arguments - origins of the ontological argument
Deductive proofs; the concept of ‘a priori’.
St Anselm - God as the greatest possible being (Proslogion 2).
St Anselm - God has necessary existence (Proslogion 3).
Deductive arguments - developments of the ontological argument:
Rene Descartes - concept of God as supremely perfect being; analogies of triangles and
mountains/valleys.
Norman Malcolm - God as unlimited being: God’s existence as necessary rather than just
possible.
Challenges to the ontological argument:
Gaunilo, his reply to St Anselm; his rejection of the idea of a greatest possible being that can be
thought of as having separate existence outside of our minds; his analogy of the idea of the
greatest island as a ridicule of St Anselm’s logic.
Immanuel Kant’s objection - existence is not a determining predicate: it cannot be a property that
an object can either possess or lack.