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    Perspectives
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    42
    God is intelligent — Carmelics
    Home/Divine Attributes
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Part of a larger discussion

    Supports→God must be an agent (have a free will in the libertarian sense)

    God is intelligent

    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    2 reasons for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.There are intelligent beings in the world
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    • 2.Intelligence is a perfection
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    • 3.A perfection must exist to at least as great a degree in the cause as in the effect (causal principle of sufficient reason)
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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The world exhibits order and beauty
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    • 2.Order and beauty in the world indicate an intelligent cause (teleological argument)
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Spinoza argues that God is infinite substance whose attributes include thought, but not as a discrete faculty directed toward ends like human intelligence.
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    • 2.Clarke's causal principle—that perfections must exist at least as greatly in the cause—assumes univocal predication, but Aquinas himself held divine intelligence is only analogically related to creaturely intelligence.
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    • 3.If 'intelligence' applies to God only analogically, the term may be so transformed in meaning as to lose the descriptive content Clarke's argument requires.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Hume's Dialogues shows apparent order in nature can be explained by blind natural selection, material necessity, or chance without invoking intelligence.
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    • 2.Analogical reasoning from human artifacts to a cosmic designer commits an illicit inference across radically dissimilar domains of causation.
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    Topics

    Divine Attributes

    Connections

    3 topics

    Natural Theology5 linkedCausation1 linkedFree Will & Foreknowledge1 linked

    Related

    A perfection must exist to at least as great a degree in the cause as in the eff...Analogical reasoning from human artifacts to a cosmic designer commits an illici...Clarke's causal principle—that perfections must exist at least as greatly in the...God must be an agent (have a free will in the libertarian sense)
    +8 moreShow less
    Hume's Dialogues shows apparent order in nature can be explained by blind natura...If 'intelligence' applies to God only analogically, the term may be so transform...

    Source

    AI-extracted
    SEP: clarke
    View source passageHide passage
    If successful, Clarke’s argument a priori establishes all the metaphysical attributes of God (independence, eternality, immutability, infinitude, omnipresence) by examining the nature of necessity and positing the contingency of the world. To reach the personal and moral attributes of God, it is necessary to draw upon further features of the world and argue a posteriori (D 38, W 2.543). Clarke attempted a variety of arguments to establish that God is an agent (that is, that God is not only intel

    Details

    Type
    premise
    Perspectives
    4 (2 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    Intelligence is a perfection
    Intelligence without liberty is really no intelligence at all with respect to an...
    Order and beauty in the world indicate an intelligent cause (teleological argume...
    Spinoza argues that God is infinite substance whose attributes include thought, ...
    The world exhibits order and beauty
    There are intelligent beings in the world