Optional theme: Philosophy of religion practice questions.

Which feature is shared by the cosmological and teleological arguments but not by the ontological argument?

• They begin from observed features of the world
• They define God as the greatest conceivable being
• They treat existence itself as a perfection
• They conclude that God exists as a matter of logical necessity

Answer: They begin from observed features of the world

Cosmological and design arguments are a posteriori: they start from causation or apparent order and infer a cause. The ontological argument is a priori, which is why an objection to the concept of God wounds it while leaving the other two untouched.

Gaunilo replies to Anselm by describing an island than which no greater island can be conceived. His reply is intended to show that

• the concept of a greatest conceivable being is contradictory
• existence in reality is no greater than existence in thought
• no one can form a coherent idea of an unlimited being
• the form of Anselm's reasoning would prove far too much

Answer: the form of Anselm's reasoning would prove far too much

Gaunilo grants the premises and attacks the inference by parody: if the reasoning works, parallel arguments would populate the world with perfect anythings. Anselm replies that only a being greatest without qualification cannot be conceived not to exist, so the parody does not carry across.

Hume objects that the universe resembles a growing organism at least as closely as it resembles a manufactured machine. The force of this objection against the design argument is that

• the universe displays no order that requires explanation
• the analogy underdetermines what sort of cause to infer
• the argument assumes the conclusion it sets out to prove
• no effect whatever can be traced back to its cause

Answer: the analogy underdetermines what sort of cause to infer

The design argument is an inference by analogy, so a rival analogy weakens the move to a single intelligent designer without denying the order the argument starts from. It is an attack on inductive strength, not the charge of circularity or a denial of order.

A writer accepts that God's existence is not strictly incompatible with there being some evil, but argues that the sheer quantity of apparently pointless suffering makes God's existence improbable. This is a version of

• the logical problem of evil
• Plantinga's free-will defence
• the evidential problem of evil
• a soul-making theodicy of the kind Hick defends

Answer: the evidential problem of evil

The logical version alleges an outright contradiction between the divine attributes and any evil at all, whereas the evidential version concedes consistency and argues probabilistically. That is why a successful free-will defence answers the first without settling the second.

On Aquinas' account of omnipotence, the puzzle whether God could make a stone too heavy for God to lift is answered by holding that

• omnipotence extends only to what is logically possible
• God's power is bounded by the laws of nature
• omnipotence includes the power to bring about contradictions
• the question shows that no being could be omnipotent

Answer: omnipotence extends only to what is logically possible

On this account a self-contradictory task describes nothing at all, so failing to perform it is no limitation on power. Descartes takes the rival line that God's power extends even to the necessary truths, so the two views must not be run together.

On Ayer's verification principle, the sentence 'God exists' is

• false, because no empirical evidence has ever supported it
• meaningful but unverifiable, and therefore probably false
• meaningful only within the practice of a religious community
• literally meaningless rather than true or false

Answer: literally meaningless rather than true or false

The verificationist charge concerns meaning, not truth: a sentence that says nothing cannot be false either, so atheism is ruled out along with theism. Locating meaning inside a community's practice is the later Wittgensteinian reply, not Ayer's position.