Metaphysics of God: Set texts — AQA A-Level Philosophy

This guided-reading row directs you to study Anselm's ontological argument in Proslogium II–IV alongside Gaunilo's reply in the appendix. Read Anselm II for the move from the thought of a being than which nothing greater can be conceived to its existence in reality, and III–IV for the further claim that such a being cannot be conceived not to exist and how Anselm answers the 'fool'. Then read Gaunilo's appendix, which uses the imagined perfect island to test whether the same reasoning would prove anything into existence. Track each premise, the role of 'in the understanding' versus 'in reality', and whether Gaunilo attacks the logic or only its application. Build a premise-by-premise map and note where you accept or reject each step.

This guided-reading row pairs two articles from Aquinas's Summa Theologica. Question 2, Article 3 asks whether God exists and sets out Aquinas's Five Ways, each moving from an observed feature of the world (motion, causation, contingency, degrees of perfection, and governance of ends) to a first cause or source, concluding that this is what people call God. Question 25, Article 3 concerns God's power, asking whether God can do all things and clarifying what 'all things' excludes, such as logical contradictions and things contrary to God's nature. Read each article's objections, Aquinas's reply and his answers to objections. Note how the argument form works and how the limits on divine power are drawn, then prepare to assess both.

This row is a reading-list entry, not an assessed task. It names two Ayer sources for the Metaphysics of God unit: the specified pages 22–29 of The Central Questions of Philosophy (1973/1991) and Chapters 1 and 6 of Language, Truth and Logic (1946 second edition). Read both, keeping within the listed pages and chapters. In Language, Truth and Logic Chapter 1 Ayer sets out the verification principle and the analytic–synthetic distinction; Chapter 6 applies this to theology, arguing that talk of God fails to meet the verification test and is therefore neither true nor false but literally meaningless. The Central Questions extract develops his later, more cautious restatement of the same empiricist criterion. Track how the criterion is stated, what counts as verifiable in principle, and how religious language is treated. Note where the later text modifies the earlier one.

This row is a reading-list entry, not an assessed task. It directs the learner to Meditations 3 and 5 of Descartes's 1641 Meditations on First Philosophy for the Metaphysics of God unit. In Meditation 3 Descartes, having established the cogito, examines what he is and finds within himself the idea of a perfect, infinite being; he argues that this idea cannot have come from his own finite mind and so must be caused by God, whose existence he thereby claims to prove. In Meditation 5 he offers a further argument from the essence of God as supremely perfect, treating existence as belonging to God's essence, and considers the reliability of clear and distinct perception. Read both meditations closely, separating the causal (trademark) argument of the Third from the essence-based argument of the Fifth, and note the role of clear and distinct ideas.

This set text is a short symposium in which three philosophers respond to one another about religious language. Flew opens with the parable of the gardener: two explorers find a clearing, one claims a gardener tends it invisibly, and every test proposed is absorbed by qualification, so the claim dies 'the death by a thousand qualifications'. Flew's challenge is that a genuine assertion must be falsifiable: something must count against it. Hare replies with the parable of the lunatic, whose unfalsifiable conviction about dons is called a 'blik' — an unverifiable, unfalsifiable way of seeing the world that is not simply irrational. Mitchell answers with the parable of the partisan and the stranger, arguing that belief in God is a blik held with commitment and qualified by trust despite evidence, not a blik immune to all evidence.

This set text presents Hick's 'Irenaean' type theodicy, developed across chapters 13–17 of the revised edition, with chapter 13 as the core statement. Hick rejects the Augustinian fall-based approach and instead treats evil and suffering as necessary to a world that functions as a 'vale of soul-making'. Two ideas do the work: an epistemic distance between God and humans, so that we are free to respond to God without overwhelming evidence, and the claim that moral and spiritual growth require a challenging environment, including pain and hardship. Hick distinguishes the 'image' of God in which humans are created from the 'likeness' they are to achieve through free response. Read chapter 13 closely for the soul-making argument, then use chapters 14–17 to see how Hick develops and defends it, including his universalist hope that all persons are ultimately brought to fulfilment.

This row is a set-text reading target, not an assessed answer prompt. Read Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) with attention to Parts II, V, VIII and IX. In Part II, Philo and Cleanthes dispute whether the order of the world supports an inference to an intelligent designer, with Cleanthes invoking the analogy of a machine and Philo pressing the weakness of the analogy. Part V develops the argument from apparent design and its difficulties, including the challenge of inferring a single perfect mind from a universe containing imperfection. Part VIII examines the Epicurean hypothesis and the possibility that order arises from chance over infinite time. Part IX considers the a priori argument that whatever exists must have a cause. Track who speaks, distinguish direct speech from the narrator's framing, and note where each argument is located.

This row is a set-text reading target, not an assessed answer prompt. Read Part XI of Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748). Here Hume examines the argument from design and the appeal to analogy between the universe and human artefacts, weighing how far experience can support an inference to an intelligent author of nature. He considers the limits of our knowledge of divine attributes and the evidential weight of apparent order and of apparent imperfection. Track the argumentative structure: what premise is drawn from experience, what inference is made, and what Hume says about the strength of that inference. Note that this is Hume's own authored prose, so claims are his argument as presented, and distinguish his stated conclusions from positions he reports and then critiques.

This row directs learners to read a set portion of Leibniz's Monadology, sections 32–39, written in 1714. The task is guided reading of a primary philosophical text, not an assessed answer. Learners should read the specified sections closely, identify Leibniz's argument about sufficient reason and contingency, and note how he moves from the principle of sufficient reason to a necessary being. They should track his key terms, follow the steps of the argument in order, and record questions for discussion. The guidance is to read the exact sections named, situate them within Leibniz's wider case, and prepare to explain and evaluate the reasoning in their own words.

This row is a set-text reading target, not an assessed answer prompt. Malcolm's article distinguishes two forms of Anselm's argument. The first, found in Proslogion 2, moves from the idea of a being than which nothing greater can be conceived to its existence in reality. Malcolm argues this form is flawed because existence is not a perfection or a property that can be added to a concept. He then reconstructs a second argument from Proslogion 3, which does not claim that existence is a perfection but argues that a being whose non-existence is conceivable is less great than one whose non-existence is logically impossible. Read for the distinction between 'exists contingently' and 'cannot not exist', and for Malcolm's claim that only the second argument deserves serious attention.

This row is a set-text reading instruction, not an assessed answer target. Read Midgley's Wickedness (1984), Chapters 1 and 5, as a philosophical account of moral evil that you can bring to the Metaphysics of God unit, especially the problem of evil. In Chapter 1, track how Midgley treats wickedness as a real feature of human life rather than a mere illusion, and note how she frames the question of what makes an action or character genuinely evil. In Chapter 5, follow her discussion of how ordinary psychological capacities and social conditions can produce serious wrongdoing without requiring a monstrous or wholly exceptional agent. As you read, build a notes grid: Midgley's claim, the reason she gives, an example she uses, and a possible objection. Link each point to the theodicy and problem-of-evil debates you meet elsewhere in 3.

This row sets the reading scope for Paley's Natural Theology (1802, OUP edition 2008): Chapters 1, 2 and 5. It is guidance on what to read, not an assessed answer target. Chapter 1 develops the watchmaker analogy: a watch found on a heath implies a designer, and Paley extends the inference to the natural world. Chapter 2 anticipates objections, such as the watch being able to reproduce itself, and argues the design inference survives them. Chapter 5 applies the argument to instances of design in nature. Read each chapter for its claim, its supporting example and its response to objection, and record page or chapter locations so you can cite evidence precisely. Connect the reading to the design argument and its criticisms in the specification.

This row names a set text for the Metaphysics of God unit: Plantinga's God, Freedom and Evil, specifically pages 29–34 and 59–64 of the 1975 George Allen & Unwin edition. The learner's task is guided reading of those extracts, not memorising the whole book. Pages 29–34 present Plantinga's free-will defence against the problem of evil: he argues that a world containing free creatures who may do good or evil can be better than a world of automata, so God's existence is not logically inconsistent with evil. Pages 59–64 develop the modal ontological argument, using possible worlds and the idea of a maximally great being to argue that if such a being is even possible, it exists in some world and therefore in every world, including ours. Read closely, note the structure of each argument, and prepare to explain and evaluate the reasoning.

This row names Plato's Euthyphro as a set text for the Metaphysics of God unit. The learner's task is guided reading of the dialogue, which dramatises a conversation between Socrates and Euthyphro outside the court in Athens. Socrates asks what piety (holiness) is, and Euthyphro offers several definitions that Socrates examines and rejects. The central passage poses the Euthyphro dilemma: is something holy because the gods love it, or do the gods love it because it is holy? This raises whether morality depends on God's commands or stands independently, a question central to the metaphysics of God. Read the dialogue tracking each proposed definition, Socrates' objection to it, and the dilemma's two horns, then prepare to explain and evaluate the reasoning.

This is a set-text reading entry, not an assessed answer target. Stump and Kretzmann's 1981 article in the Journal of Philosophy examines the concept of eternity, especially the claim that God is eternal in the sense of being outside time altogether rather than existing at every moment. Read it as a scholarly argument to be reconstructed: identify the authors' account of eternity, the distinctions they draw between timelessness and everlastingness, and how they relate divine eternity to human experience of time. Your task is to select and annotate relevant passages, summarise the argument in your own words, and connect it to the metaphysics-of-God debates you study. Do not treat the article as a list of quotations to memorise; use it to sharpen your own analysis.

This is a set-text reading entry, not an assessed answer target. Swinburne's 1968 article in Philosophy develops a version of the argument from design, reasoning from apparent order and regularity in the universe towards a designer. Read it as a philosophical argument to be reconstructed and evaluated: identify the form of the argument, the evidence Swinburne draws on, and the inferences he makes from order to a designing mind. Your task is to select key passages, summarise the argument accurately in your own words, and connect it to the design arguments and criticisms you study. Use the article to strengthen your own analysis rather than to memorise quotations.