HS 301: Philosophy

(By C. D. Sebastian, PhD © 2023)

7. METAPHYSICS

Philosophers sometime consider questions about the fundamental nature of the world. Does
every event have a cause? Is there a God? Do human beings possess free will? Does each
person consist of a soul connected to a body? Is life after death possible? Such issues belong
to the field of philosophy known as “metaphysics.”
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy which is concerned with the ultimate nature of reality.
Its primary questions are: “What is there?” that is, “What exists,” and “Why there is something
rather than nothing.”1 The question ‘what is there?’ is not indented to invite as an answer an
inventory/list of things in the universe (like: my shoes, my pen, this paper, this teacher, etc.),
but rather a general account of the fundamental character of reality. In Aristotle’s words,
metaphysics is “the study of being qua being”2 or ‘being understood as being.’3 ‘Qua’ is a
technical expression Aristotle uses to indicate an aspect under which something is to be
considered. The study of being qua being concerns the most general class of things, namely,
everything that exists. And it studies them under their most general aspect, namely, as things
that exist. It thus raises the question of what it is for something to exist.
Ontology and Metaphysics: Ontology (from Greek “On”/ “Ontos” which means ‘being’) is
the doctrine of being, a name given to that part of the science of metaphysics which investigates
and explains the nature and essence of all things or existences, their qualities and attributes. It
is also used as equivalent to metaphysics. Ontology is that part of philosophy which attempts
to discover the essential features of all that exists, independent from actual experience.
There are many metaphysical concepts which we use every day knowingly or unknowingly.
1. Causation/ Causality
The relation between two items one of which is a cause of the other is explained through
causation or causality. In modern philosophy, the notion of cause is associated with the idea of
something’s producing or bringing about something else (its effect): a relation sometimes
called as “efficient causation”. Historically, the term ‘cause’ has a broad sense, equivalent to
‘explanatory feature’. This usage survives in the description of Aristotle as holding ‘the
doctrine of the four causes’: material, formal, efficient, and final cause. However, modern
discussions tend to treat causality as exclusively or primarily a relation between events. On this
approach, examples of paradigmatic singular causal statements are “The explosion caused the
fire”, and “Her pressing of the button caused the opening of the door”. Paradigmatic general
causal statements will be ones like “Droughts cause famines”.
What is distinctive of pairs of events related as cause and effect? Obviously, it is not sufficient,
for an event to cause another, that the second happens after the first. Further, it as been argued
that this is not even necessary, and that both simultaneous causation and ‘backward causation’
(effects preceding their causes) are at least conceptually possible. This poses a problem.

1
See the book: Bede Rundle, Why there is Something rather than Nothing (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004) and
also Leszek Kolakowski, Why there is Something rather than Nothing?: 23 Questions from Great Philosophers
(London: Penguin Books, 2007). .
2
Aristotle, Metaphysics IV: 1
3
A. C. Crayling (Ed), Philosophy: A Guide through the Subject, Vol. 1, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005,
p. 183.

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Causality appears to be an asymmetric relation (if A caused B, then B did not cause A). But if
temporal order cannot be relied on to explain the asymmetrical ‘direction of causation’, what
can? Another difficulty is that of explaining what differentiates cause-effect pairs from effect
of a common cause. It is no accident that the kettle switched itself off after it started to whistle:
what, then, makes it false that whistling caused the switching off? One important suggestion is
that causes necessitate the events that are their effects.
2. Universals and Particulars
Universals: Universals are the supposed referents of general terms like ‘red’ , ‘table’ and ‘tree’
understood as entities distinct from any of the particular things describable by those terms. But
why should we suppose that such entities exist, and what must be their nature if they do? One
traditional argument for their existence, traceable to Plato, is that they are needed to explain
why all and only the particular things correctly describable as red, say, are indeed correctly
describable as such. Surely all these distinct particular things must have something identifiable
in common in order to be legitimately classified alike? – and that which is common to all and
only red things is precisely the universal red. Red things are all red by virtue of their
relationship to this one universal, according to traditional realism. 4
Particulars: Particulars are normally contrasted with universals, the former being instances of
the latter – as a particular apple is an instance of the universal, or kind, apple. Particulars, in a
broad sense, may be concrete, existing in space and time – as does a particular apple – or they
may be abstract, as in the case of mathematical particulars like sets. Some philosophers,
notably P. F. Strawson, draw a distinction between particulars and individuals. On this view,
some but not all individuals are particulars, though all particulars are individuals – particulars
being spatio-temporally existing individuals governed by determinate criteria of identity. 5
Nominalism: Nominalism is doctrine which denies the real existence of universals, conceived
as the supposed referents of general terms like ‘red’ and ‘table’. According to nominalism,
there are no universal, but only particulars. The entities which we encounter in experience are
all particular things: particular people, particular houses, particular books, etc. One main reason
for being a nominalist is the thought that universals are mysterious, obscure entities. We know
pretty well what an object is, but no one has yet been able to tell us, in a philosophically
satisfactory way, what a universal is. So we should delete the ‘universals’ from our
metaphysics.
3. Time
Time seems to be both one of the most obvious and one of the most puzzling aspects of reality.
Our lives take place in time. We think about time constantly – what we are doing at present
time, when we are going to do something in future, what we have done in the past, and how
little time we have left. Yet when we try and think about what time is, we find it very
perplexing. Time seems to so different from other aspects of our world.6 As St Augustine wrote
in his Confessions: “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one
that asks, I do not know.” 7
We see colours, hear sounds and feel textures. Some aspects of the world, it seems, are
perceived through a particular sense. Others, like shape, are perceived through more than one
sense. But what sense or senses do we use when perceiving time? It is certainly not associated
4
Ted Honderich (Ed), The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 933
5
P. F. Strawson, Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics, London, 1959.
6
Tim Crane, “Time” in A. C. Crayling (Ed), Philosophy: A Guide through the Subject, Vol. 1, Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 2005, p. 194.
7
St Augustine, Confessions, Book 11, Chapter XIV, 17

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with one particular sense. In fact, it seems odd to say that we see, hear or touch time passing.
And indeed, even if all our senses were prevented from functioning for a while, we could still
notice the passing of time through the changing pattern of our thought. Perhaps, then, we have
a special faculty, distinct from the five senses, for detecting time. Or perhaps, as seems more
likely, we notice time through perception of other things. But how? Time perception raises a
number of intriguing puzzles, including what it means to say we perceive time.
Time has, it seems, both a ‘forward’ (future) and a ‘backward’ (past) direction, unlike any of
the dimensions of space. Then what is ‘present’ or ‘now’? Is the concept of time a myth or an
illusion? Past, present, and future: are they internal to time itself? If an event A is earlier than
another event B, then, unless time is circular, B is not also earlier than A. Why should we say
that the Big Bang was at the beginning, as opposed to the end, of time?
4. Space
We all ask where things are, how big they are, and what room there is for them or in them.
Classifying these enquiries generates the concepts of extension in one or more dimensions,
distance, direction, and emptiness; and discussions of these more sophisticated concepts may
be grouped together as philosophizing about “space”.8
Space has been an interest for philosophers and scientists and for much of human history. There
are several reasons why it is difficult to provide an uncontroversial and clear definition of
space. One reason is that the term is used somewhat differently in different fields of study.
Disagreement also exists on whether space itself can be measured or is part of the measuring
system. An issue of philosophical debate is whether space is an ontological entity itself, or
simply a conceptual framework we need to think (and talk) about the world. Another way to
frame this is to ask, "Can space itself be measured, or is space part of the measurement system?"
The same debate applies also to time, and an important formulation in both areas was given by
Immanuel Kant. In his book Critique of Pure Reason, Kant described space as an a priori
intuition that (together with another a priori intuition, time) allows us to comprehend sense
experience. With Kant, neither space nor time is conceived as substance, but rather both are
elements of a systematic framework we use to structure our experience.
5. Substance and Attributes
Substance: The idea of substance has been widely and differently used throughout the history
of philosophy. What is the notion of substance: substance is a persisting and somehow basic
object of reference that is there to be discovered in perception and thought, an object whose
claim to be recognized as a real entity in understanding the world.
Substance and Attributes/Properties: What perhaps the main distinction between substance
and attribute originally gave support to the feeling that reality is independent and objective,
that there is something out there which is abiding and remains the same in spite of varieties
and changes encountered in the world. Substance was taken as abiding and constant, while
attributes and properties changed. Substance- attribute distinction is parasitic on some other
distinction. One reason is that when we see an apple, for instance, we grasp it at once as a whole object.
We do not see it, as it is, compositionally, first seeing its red shape, then conjoining with this a taste, its
crispness, etc., and finally proceeding to unify these elements into a single apple. We do not perceptually
grasp an apple through the distinction between substance and attribute. With the imposition of the
substance-attribute distinction, objects which initially were perceived as whole now come to be
analyzed.

8
Ted Honderich (Ed), The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 886

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6. Soul
What is soul? What is self? The soul, according to many religious and philosophical traditions,
is a self-aware ethereal substance particular to a unique living being. In these traditions the soul
is thought to incorporate the inner essence of each living being, and to be the true basis for
consciousness. Souls are usually considered to be immortal and to exist before their incarnation
in flesh. The concept of the soul has strong links with notions of an afterlife, but opinions may
vary wildly, even within a given religion, as to what may happen to the soul after the death of
the body. Many within these religions and philosophies see the soul as immaterial.

7. Freedom: Will of God and Human Freedom

7.1. Now it is sometime in the technologically distant future: You are a judge => case before
you: a student made a robot=> It murdered someone and fled => The police unable to catch it,
catches the student => student is held responsible by the prosecutor for the robot’s behaviour
=> The student defends herself by arguing that she programmed the robot to make choices of
its own free will => the prosecutor rejects that telling – robot has no say in how it is constructed
and programmed : the student is responsible.
• The student claims => then denying free will to robot is equally applicable to humans
too, because they have no control over their birth/arrival/environment. => If God or
Nature programmes humans, then humans are not any freer than robots. => So she
concludes, since humans obviously can have free will, so too the robot.
What is your verdict?
7. 2. Are Humans Free if everything is happening according to God’s Will?
How can the believers in God hold that God is “taking care of” the world and each of us,
especially in such a way that human freedom doesn’t become an empty word? If everything
that happens in the world is part of some “vast cosmic plan” – and this is what Divine Will
means to many of us – then where does human initiative and free choice come in? As the
French thinker, Maurice Blondel (1861-1949)9 put it, “if the history of human thought and
action unfolds to some pre-established plan, if the whole of it has already been thought out –
not to say ‘written out’ – by God, then it loses its human import”.
It is a matter of our experience that we have a limited freedom 10. If we are not in any way free
at all, then the whole system of rewards and punishments, of law courts and jurisprudence, as
well as of gallantry awards would have no meaning. Nor would I have any justification to scold
a child who stole money or prosecute someone who robbed me of my life savings or molested
my dear ones! No one would want a society based on such implications.
7.3. Relevance of the Problem:
Apart from trying to find a way to harmonize one’s understanding of Divine Will with one’s
convictions about human freedom, there are other ticklish issues that equally deserve our
attention. There is the whole area of prayer of petition. What is the role, if any, of prayer of
petition in the life of the believer? If we really are free and have some meaningful responsibility
in this world, wouldn’t it be better to get down to action, rather than pray when confronted with
some need or problem? And, if there is such a thing as Divine Will, if God is taking care of

9
Maurice Blondel developed a PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION that integrated classical Neo-Platonic thought with
modern Pragmatism. He held that action alone could never satisfy the human yearning for the transfinite, which
could only be fulfilled by God, whom he described as the “first principle and last term.
10
R. Double, The Non-Reality of Free Will, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993

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things, why should we waste time asking him to do what he is doing already? And if God has
fore-ordained everything, what’s the point of asking him to revise his plans?

We hear a lot about “God’s will” and his “divine plan” in religious preaching by the religious
leaders. We meet people who tell us how their prayers were heard and how they or someone
they knew was “miraculously healed” or saved from some impending disaster. But, on the other
hand, there seem to be equally as many people who have contrary experiences: prayers
apparently unanswered, no miraculous healing in a situation equally meritorious or urgent. To
make matters worse, the bad people seem to be prospering (witness the corrupt politicians,
shady business folk and mafia bosses) while the decent, honest and fair-minded people are left
out in the cold. What sort of ‘Will of God’ is this if it can’t stand by those who try to live by
right human values or support innocent widows, orphans and deprived poor people against the
ravages of those who spurn all laws and boldly proclaim that they “fear neither God nor the
devil”!
7.4. What is Sin then?
If we accept that there is “Will of God” prevailing, and things take place according to the
Divine Will or even by Destiny, then how can we account for Sin? Man is not free, for
everything takes place according to God’s Will. In everything we do, we merely “follow the
script” set out in the divine decrees! Are we not then in the role of puppets being manipulated
by a puppet master?11 Further, it may be asked, if “everything in this world is exactly as God
wishes for it to be, then what are we to do with sin? The concept of Sin (Papa) is strongly
emphasised in the Scriptures. If I am not free, and controlled by Divine Will, then I am not at
all responsible for my sins, for it was all predestined to be so.
7.5. Humans are not Free: Human is born without his own consent; his ideas come to him
involuntarily; his habits are in the power of those who cause him to contract them, he is
unceasingly modified by causes, whether visible or concealed, over which he has no control,
which necessarily regulate his mode of existence, give the hue to his way of thinking, and
determine his manner of acting. He is good or bad, happy or miserable, wise or foolish, reasonable
or irrational, without his will being for anything in these various states. But, in spite of the chains by
which he is bound and tied, it is pretended that he is a free agent, or that independent of the causes by
which his is moved, determines his won will, regulates his own condition.. .. 12
Actions of human are never free; they are always the necessary consequence of his
temperament of received ideas, and of the notions, either true or false, which he has formed to
himself of happiness; of his opinions, strengthened by example, by education, and by daily
experience. => Man is not free agent in any one instant of his life. He is necessarily guided in
each step by those advantages, whether real or fictitious, that he attaches to the objects by
which his desires are aroused for happiness.
7.6. Choice does not prove freedom: Man in performing some action which he resolved on doing,
does not by any means prove his free agency. Eg. “Am I not the master of throwing myself out of the
window?” No. It was the violence of his temperament and frustration which spurred him on to this folly.
Madness is a state that depends upon the mental state of an individual, and not upon the will.
7.7. Answers:
Clearly these questions raised above do not admit easy answers. However, there are many answers
given by philosophers and theologians in this regard. They might satisfy you or may not.

11
Michael Peterson et al, Reason and Religious Belief, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 159
12
Baron Holbach, “The Illusion of Free Will”, in Daniel Kolak and Raymond Martin (ED), The Experience of
Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 153

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(i) What is freedom? Freedom maintains that given the same causal conditions, a person can
choose to do or refrain from doing a certain action. In that way, we are free beings.
(ii) Our world is definitely not a “finished product” world, but one that is still “in the
making”. God’s creative evolution is an ongoing process and that process is unfolding right
now. Seeds are growing into plants, bushes and trees. Animal and human fetuses are growing,
clumsily learning to make sounds and walk. In the making world, the Divine Will would
basically consist of the fact that God provides each reality with the inner dynamism (laws of
nature) to orient and guide them to the full flowering and development of their being. Sub-
human things, as well as humans, have been “provided” with various physical, chemical, and
biological laws or in-built mechanisms that non-consciously direct them to grow into what they
are meant to be. All this is done non-consciously. We grow from infancy to childhood to
adolescence and puberty up to adulthood, not as the result of deliberate decisions on our part.
It “just happens” whether we will it or not.
(iii) (this one is a continuation of the previous one as an answer) In addition, humans are
further provided with “freedom”. A person might be quite manly, with a well-developed
physique, plus “film-star features” to boot, but still be very inhuman. That is because authentic
humanness is also a question of freely choosing and living by certain values. That is why God
“provides” us with freedom, to enable us to become fully human, fully alive, over and above
the provision of those internal dynamisms and biological laws that bring out our physical
development and perfection.
(iv) God set the goal; the humans must freely assume or reject a decisive role in God’s plan.
We become active participators in the process of divine will.
(v) Personal Protection: Many people, particularly religious believers, think that there is
personal protection, a kind of special divine care and guidance for persons, humans. Human
being is special beings before God. What is specific with human beings is that each one has a
rational soul.

(vi) The “fore-knowledge” = Pre-determination Fallacy: It appears to be a straightforward

consequence of God’s omniscience that he has knowledge of the future. Some wrongly argue:
if God is able to fore-know something, then God must have pre-determined it. The fallacy
arises out of the assumption that God’s way of knowing is exactly like ours and is also
dependent on objects. God’s way of knowing is diametrically opposite to ours. We know the
world first and, by knowing the world, come to know ourselves. God knows Himself
exhaustively and directly and, by knowing Himself, knows all actual and possible creatures.
God is pure spirit and so is able to know Himself perfectly and directly. Now, all that exists
and all that can be is but a participation in God. Thus by knowing Himself, God knows all
beings, for they are nothing but participations in God; but this doesn’t imply any interference
or pre-determination from God’s part. God is eternal and that from his perspective everything
is present and thus not future.
7.8. Will of God and Human Freedom
God knows all things before they come to pass, and that we do our free will whatsoever we
know and feel to be done only because we will it. => Our wills by which we live uprightly or
wickedly are not predetermined; for we do many things which, if we were not willing certainly
we would not do. This is primarily true of the act of willing itself – for if we will, it is, and we
will not, it is not – for we should not will if we were unwilling.
God is called omnipotent on account of his doing what he wills, and not on account of his
suffering (=lacking) what he wills not. So also when we say that is necessary that when we will

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we will by free choice. Our wills, therefore, exist as wills, and do themselves whatever we do
by willing, and which would not be done if we were unwilling. But when any one suffers
anything, being unwilling, by the will of another, even in that case will retains its essential
validity – we do not mean that will of the party who inflicts the suffering, for we resolve it into
the power of God.
7.9. Free Will and Determinism
Those students of philosophy who deny the existence of free will do so only in their
professional moments and in their studies and lecture rooms. For when it comes to doing
anything practical, even of the most trivial kind, they invariably behave as if they and others
were free. They inquire from you at dinner time at Gulmohar whether you will choose this dish
or that dish. They will ask a child why he told a lie, and will punish him for not having chosen
the way of truthfulness. All of which is inconsistent with a disbelief in free will. This should
cause us to suspect that the problem is not a real one, and this, I believe is the case. The dispute
is merely verbal, and is due to nothing but confusion about the meaning of words….
Throughout the modern period, until quite recently, it was assumed, both by the philosophers
who denied the free will/freedom and by those who defended it, that determinism is
inconsistent with free will. If a man’s actions were wholly determined by chains of causes
stretching back into the remote past, so that they could be predicted beforehand by a mind
which knew all the causes, it was assumed that they could not in that case be free. This implies
that a certain definition of actions done from free will was assumed, namely that they are
actions not wholly determined by causes or predictable beforehand. Let us shorten this by
saying that free will was defined as meaning indeterminism. This is the incorrect definition
which has led to the denial of free will. “As soon as we see what the true definition is we shall
find that the question whether the world is deterministic, as Newtonian science implied, or in
a measure indeterministic, as current physics teaches, is wholly irrelevant to the problem.” 13
At a murder trial some of the accused had signed confessions, but afterwards asserted that they
had done so under police pressure. The following exchange might have occurred:
Judge: Did you sign this confession of your own free will?
Prisoner: No. I signed it because the police beat me up.
Now suppose that a philosopher from HS 301 had been member of the jury. We could
imagine this conversation taking place in the jury room:
Chief of the Jury: The prisoner says he signed the confession because he was beaten, and
not of his own free will.
Philosopher from HS 301: This is quite irrelevant to the case. There is no such thing as free
will.
Chief of the Jury: Do you mean to say that it makes no difference whether he signed
because his conscience made him want to tell the truth or because he was beaten?
Philosopher from HS 301: None at all. Whether he was caused to sign by a beating or by
some desire of his own – the desire to tell the truth, for example – in either case his signing
was causally determined, and therefore in neither case did he act of his own free will. Since
there is no such thing as free will, the question whether he signed of his own free will ought
not to be discussed by us.
The chief of the Jury and rest of the jury would rightly conclude that the Philosopher from HS 301
must be making some mistake. What sort of mistake could it be? There is only one possible answer:
Philosopher from HS 301 must be using the phrase “Free will” in some peculiar way of his own
which is not the way in which men usually use it…

W. T. Stace, “Free Will and Determinism,” in Steven M. Cahn (Ed), Exploring Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford
13

University Press, 2000, Pp. 99 -100

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What, then, is the difference between acts which are freely done and those which are not?.....
The free acts are all caused by desires, or motives, or by some sort of internal psychological
states of the agent’s mind. The un-free acts, on the other hand, are all caused by physical forces
or physical conditions outside the agent… We may therefore frame the following rough
definitions. Acts freely done are those whose immediate causes are psychological states in the
agent. Acts not freely done are those whose immediate causes are states of affairs external to
the agent.
It is plain that if we define free will in this way, then free will certainly exists. And the
Philosopher’s (from HS 301) denial of its existence is seen to be what it is – nonsense. For it
is obvious that all those actions of men which we should ordinarily attribute to the exercise of
their free will, or of which we should say that they freely chose to do them, are in fact actions
which have been caused by their own desires, wishes, thoughts, emotions, impulses or other
psychological states.
In applying our definition, we shall find that it usually works well, but that there are some
puzzling cases which it does not seem exactly to fit. These puzzles can always be solved by
paying careful attention to the ways in which words are used, and remembering that they are
not always used consistently. I have space only for one example: Suppose that a robber
threatens to shoot you unless you give him your purse, and suppose that you give do so. Do
you, in giving him your purse, do so of your own free will or not? If we apply our definition,
we find that you acted freely, since the immediate cause of action was not an actual outside
force but the fear of death, which is a psychological cause. Most people, however, would say
that you did not act of your own free will but under compulsion. Dose this show that our
definition is wrong? I do not think so… In the case under discussion, though no actual force
was used, the gun at your forehead so nearly approximated to actual force that we tend to say
the case was one of compulsion.
(For your Reflection:
What do you think about it my Friends: Are you free?
“Man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is
nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible
for everything that he does,” wrote one of the most famous thinkers of 20 th century Jean Paul
Sartre (1905 – 1980).
Are you condemned to be free?
“Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains” - Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s most famous
line in his book The Social Contract)

8. God
Does God exist? On this topic everybody has a belief. What is yours: Yes? No? May be?
Having beliefs is easy. Understanding how you came to have them and then questioning your
beliefs with an open mind is extremely difficult. Whatever your belief about God, you are
not likely to change it on the basis of anything you read. On other topics, reading and
discussing opposing views often leads people to change their minds. But on the topic of God,
people are not usually openly searching for truth but merely defending their beliefs. It is bit
like watching a cricket game: no matter which team is better, you root for your side.

The one question that is of supreme importance to humans is the existence of God. Is it rational
to believe that God exists? In the history of philosophy, perhaps no subject has consumed so
much time, talent and energy as the question of whether or not God’s existence can be rationally

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demonstrated. The great Medieval Philosopher, Thomas Aquinas points out that while the
proposition ‘God is’, or ‘Absolute Being is’ is one which is self-evident in itself (since the
predicate is included in the subject), nevertheless it is one which is not self-evident to us
because we cannot grasp the divine essence. Human beings are not naturally capable of
perceiving or experiencing God as they perceive or experience the things with which they are
normally acquainted. Our perception and seeing of things is based on sensory experience.
Aquinas states: “Our soul, as long as we live in this life, has its being in corporeal matter, hence
it knows naturally only what has a form in matter, or what can be known by such form … the
divine essence cannot be known through the nature of material things”14. Since God is not a
physical object, Aquinas concludes that there can be no natural perception or seeing of God on
the part of human beings.

8. 1. (a) Atheism: The word atheism is made up two words: ‘a’ (= not) and ‘theism’ (= God-
ism). Atheism15 (not-God-ism) is the belief that there is no God of any kind. It is the view
that there are no gods. Strictly it denotes a belief that there is no God. Atheism is a conscious
and reasoned rejection of God. According to the most usual definition an atheist is a person
who denies the existence of God. The term God has no importance or meaning to him.
8.1. (b) Agnosticism: The literal meaning of the word agnosticism is ‘not- know-ism’ (without
knowledge). Agnostics hold that we know nothing of the ultimate substances, causes and soul.
It asserts that it is impossible for man to attain knowledge of a certain subject matter. The
literary meaning of agnostic is one who holds that some aspects of reality are unknowable. In
the most general use of the term agnosticism is the view that we do not know whether there is
a God or not. In a strong and specific sense, to be an agnostic is to hold that knowledge of God
is impossible because of the inherent and insuperable limitations of the human mind. To assert
confidently either the existence or the non-existence of God with definite, clear and intelligible
attributes was to transgress these limits. In fact, agnosticism does not deny God’s existence. Its
claim is that God is humanly unknowable and so it is not incompatible with belief in his
existence, provided one does not attempt to prove it. An agnostic maintains that whether there
is a God or whether there is not One, is not known.
8.1. 1. Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939), the originator of psychoanalysis, devoted a good deal
of attention to the nature of religion. 16 He regarded religious beliefs as “illusions, fulfilments
of the oldest, strongest, and most insistent wishes of mankind” 17. Religion was a mental
defence against more threatening aspects of nature-earthquake, flood, disease, and inevitable
death. According Freud, “With these forces, nature rises up against us, majestic, cruel and
inexorable”. 18 But the human imagination transforms these forces into mysterious personal
powers. Humans remain helpless. So he imagines a supreme power who controls all these
impersonal forces.
8.1.2. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900) was a German philosopher of the late 19th century
who challenged the foundations of traditional morality and religion. He believed in life,
creativity, health, and the realities of the world we live in, rather than those situated in a world

14
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, 11-12.
15
N stika is the term for an Atheist in Indian tradition. One who rejects the authority of the Vedas like the
C rv ka, the Jains and the Buddhists are N stikas. For Gandhi, an atheist is one who denies truth.
16
His famous books which highlight the nature of religion are Totem and Taboo (1913), The Future of an
Illusion (1927), Moses and Monotheism (1939), The Ego and the Id (1923), and Civilization and its Discontents
(1930).
17
The Future of an Illusion (The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, James Strachey (Tr.& Ed.),
New York, Liveright Corporation, 1961, XXI), p. 30
18
The Future of an Illusion, p. 16

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beyond. Central to Nietzsche's philosophy is the idea of “life-affirmation,” (“affirmation of
life” = “yes” to life and not a ‘life-denial”) which involves an honest questioning of all
doctrines which drain life's energies, however socially prevalent those views might be. In a
well-known aphoristic work, The Joyful Wisdom (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1882) Nietzsche
set forth some of the existential ideas for which he became famous, namely, the proclamation
that "God is dead" and the doctrine of "eternal recurrence"- the idea that one is, or might be,
fated to relive forever every moment of one's life, with no omission whatsoever of any
pleasurable or painful detail. Nietzsche's atheism - his account of "God's murder" (section 125)
- was voiced in reaction to the conception of a single, ultimate, judgmental authority who is
aware of everyone's hidden, and personally embarrassing, secrets. His atheism also aimed to
redirect people's attention to their inherent freedom, the presently-existing world, and away
from all escapist, pain-relieving, heavenly other worlds. To a similar end, Nietzsche's doctrine
of eternal recurrence (sections 285 and 341) was formulated to draw attention away from all
worlds other than the one in which we presently live, since eternal recurrence precludes the
possibility of any final escape from the present world.

8.1.3. Karl Marx (1818 – 1883), philosopher, social scientist, historian and revolutionary, is
without a doubt the most influential socialist thinker to emerge in the 19th century. According
to Marx, religion is an expression of material realities and economic injustice. Thus, problems
in religion are ultimately problems in society. Religion is not the disease, but merely a
symptom. It is used by oppressors to make people feel better about the distress they experience
due to being poor and exploited. This is the origin of his comment that religion is the ‘opium
of the masses.” He wrote, "Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress
and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of
a heartless world, and the soul of the soulless situation. It is the opium of the people".

8. 2. Arguments (Proofs) for God’s Existence

8.2.1. The Ontological argument

8.2.1.1. History: This way of reasoning was first proposed by Anselm of Canterbury (1033-
1109). He presented it in his famous book Proslogion (chapter 2-4). It was Immanuel Kant
(1724-1804) who nick-named it the “ontological” (Greek to on, from the present participle of
the verb ‘to be’) argument, because it started from a certain way of conceiving the notion of
being. It is an argument from the concept of a supremely perfect being to the existence of such
a being. It offers the view that God is a logical necessity. Anselm started like this quoting from
the book of Psalms - “The fool has said in his heart: ‘There is no God’”19. He then proceeds to
show why the Psalmist is justified in calling the atheist a fool. His reasoning is that an atheist
is a fool because he contradicts himself when he denies God’s existence. He contradicts himself
because the very fact that he is able to form the concept of God obliges him to grant God’s
existence. In other words, the very concept of God implies God’s existence. The concept of
God as the most perfect being means he has all the perfections attributable to a being. Existence
is a perfection. So God, the supremely perfect being has existence. The idea of God is the idea
of a necessarily existing being.

19
Psalm 14:1. For a modern exposition of arguments for and against the existence of God, see Terry Miethe
and Antony Flew, Does God Exist?, (New York: Harper Collins, 1991).

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8.2.2. The Cosmological Arguments: Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas
A cosmological argument is understood to be an argument from the existence of the world to
the existence of God. => The chief characteristic of all sense objects is that their existence
requires a cause. That every event or every object requires a cause is something the human
intellect knows as a principle whenever, but not until, it comes in contact with experience. By
the light of natural reason, the intellect knows, by experiencing events that for every effect
there must be a cause, that nothing comes from nothing (ex nihilo nihil fit). The existence of
God is inferred from his creation and it is done by the a posteriori method, that He is the First
cause. The cosmological arguments are based on motion, cause, finitude of creatures, and the
gradation of perfection.
8.2. 2.1. Argument from Motion to Unmoved Mover: It starts from the sense experience of
motion or change in the universe. Something is changing only if it is caused to change by
something else. A causal chain cannot be infinitely long. Therefore there is something that
causes change but is not caused to change by something else, that is an unmoved mover namely
God20. There is motion. Motion in the world is only explicable if there is an unchanged changer
or a first unmoved mover. There must therefore be a Mover, which is able to move things but
which does not itself have to be moved, and this, says Aquinas, “everyone understands to be God”.
8.2.2.2. Argument from Efficient Cause to Uncaused Cause: Whatever happens in the world
requires a cause. The efficient cause of the statue is the work of the sculptor. If we took away
the activity of the sculptor, we should not have the effect, the statue. But there is an order of
efficient causes; the parents of the sculptor are his efficient cause. But it is impossible to go
backward to infinity, because all the causes in the series depend upon a first efficient cause that
has made all the other causes to be actual causes. The series of efficient causes in the world
must lead to an uncaused cause. God is the first uncaused efficient cause in the limited finite
series of events. There must then be a first efficient cause to which everyone gives the name of God21.
8.2.2.3. Argument from Contingent Being (=dependent) to Necessary Being: This is an
argument from the existence of finite beings to the existence of a necessary being (God) that
accounts for the existence of the world. In nature we find that things are possible to exist and
not to exist. Such things are possible or contingent because they do not always exist; they are
generated and are corrupted. All possible beings, therefore, at one time did not exist, will exist
for a time, and will finally pass out of existence. Our experience clearly shows that things do
exist; this must mean that not all beings are merely possible. Aquinas concludes from this that
“there must exist something, the existence of which is necessary”. We must therefore admit,
he says, “the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it
from another, but rather causing in others this necessity. Now the Necessary Being needs no
cause in order to exist; precisely because it is necessary, it exists of itself. There is therefore a
first Necessary Being, to whose necessity all possible beings owe their existence, and this is
what all men call as God.
8.2. 2.4. The Argument from Gradation (perfection) in things: There are different degrees
of perfections among beings (some are more nearly perfect than others). But things cannot be
more or less perfect unless there is a wholly perfect being. Whatever is perfect is the cause of
the less-than-perfect (the higher is the cause of the lower). Therefore, there must be a perfect
Being that is causing the perfections of the less-than-perfect beings. This we call God.
8.2.2.5. The Teleological Argument (Just see below):

20
Thomas Aquinas, Basic Writings, ed. A.C. Pegis (New York: Random House, 1945), Vol. 1, p. 22.
21
Summa Theologiae, 1, 2.3.

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8.2.3. The Teleological Argument
The teleological argument for the existence of God is developed from the observation of signs
of planning and order in the universe. From the perception of order, it is argued that there must
be an intelligent designer (ID) to explain the order or design. Teleological (from Greek telos
means ‘end’ or ‘purpose’) argument found in most popular text-books, as it is quite easy to
understand and appears to base itself on scientific discovery. This argument is also known as
design argument. Design argument is based on the general features of the universe as its beauty,
its orderly or law-like operations, the interconnectedness of its parts, and its intelligibility; or
to more specific features such as suitability for life, its providing the right conditions for
growth, etc. A teleological universe is one that is ordered for the sake of an end. Teleological
argument makes a case for the existence of God based on the fact of design or purposiveness
in the natural world. The presence of order and purpose in the universe can only be explained
with the belief in the existence of a Great Designer who is called God.
Formulation: The starting point is the phenomenon of goal-directedness in nature. The world
exhibits conclusive evidence of design. It is founded on the evidence of design in the universe
and, in particular, in the forms of life that the universe contains. Each species is apparently
designed in such a way that its individual needs are met, with the implication that an intelligent
creator planned it so. If the world exhibits conclusive evidence of design, then the world has a
designer, who is God. Order requires a Wise Orderer. It is based on the presupposition that
mere chance can’t explain order and regularity. There is a natural order in the world – the
various ‘laws of nature’ that science is ever discovering, both at the microscopic and the
macroscopic level. Since there exist natural laws which govern the motion of inanimate objects
that are devoid of intelligence, there must be some intelligence that is responsible for these
laws.
1. The natural objects that make up the universe (that is, the non-sentient, non-man-
made objects, such as trees, rocks, mountains, planets) act to achieve some end or goal.
2. If something acts to achieve an end, then it is directed toward that end by some
intelligent being. Order can arise only through the effort of a being that tries to create order.
3. No natural objects are intelligent beings. What lacks intelligence cannot move
towards an end, unless directed thereto by some beings with knowledge and intelligence.
4. Therefore there exists some intelligent being that directs the natural objects to
achieve some end or goal.
5. This director or designer, who has planned the course of the universe, is God. He is
the ultimate wise orderer of the universe.

***

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