Questions On An Argument On The Existence Of A Prime Mover, Or Creator ( Or God )

The nature of God is not well described in the prime mover argument but certain justifications can be made given the framework that has been provided. We can postulate first that God is intelligent, second that God is all powerful, and third that God is all

Nagel’s argument is harder to refute, owing to its lack of definitive conclusion. Nevertheless, its effectiveness remains debateable. It is interesting that he embraces the incomprehensibility of

1. The Cosmological Argument for the existence of God is based on the principle of cause and effect. What this basically means is that the universe was the effect of a cause, which was God. One of the oldest and most well known advocates of the Cosmological Argument was Thomas Aquinas who outlines his argument for the existence of God in his article entitled The Five Ways. The first way in his argument is deals with motion. Aquinas says that in order for something to be in motion something had to move it because it is impossible for something to move without the presence of some sort of outside force upon it. Therefore the world around us, nature, and our very existence could not have been put into motion without the influence of the

The series also can not have a cause from within because no one being within the series is necessary. An example of this would be the set of real numbers we use today. Taking one number away from the set would not cause the set to cease in existence. There is no beginning to the number set and no end as well. If we view the Universe with the same concept then Aquinas’ theory can be seen to have a major flaw.

One burning and enduring problem in philosophy to which we have given considerable examination is the question of the existence of God--the superlative being that philosophers have defined and dealt with for centuries. After reading the classic arguments of St. Anselm and St. Thomas Aquinas, the contentious assertions of Ernest Nagel, and the compelling eyewitness accounts of Julian of Norwich, I have been introduced to some of the most revered and referenced arguments for and against God's existence that have been put into text. All of them are well-thought and well-articulated arguments, but they have their holes. The question of God's true existence, therefore, is still not definitively answered and put to rest; the intensity of this

The actuality of a divine being the cause of our existence is a topic that has been debated by philosophers for centuries. To this day there is no clear answer as both sides of the argument give reasons to refute the opposing side’s arguments. Ernest Nagel is a well-known philosopher as he is recognized for his works against theism and for supporting atheism in his literary works. In Nagel’s “A Defense Of Atheism” he criticizes the theistic arguments that claim a god is overseeing our world. The ontological, cosmological and teleological arguments are known as the classical arguments for theism. Nagel swiftly pokes many holes in these arguments and runs them to the ground. Besides attacking the flaws in these arguments, Nagel also brings up

Weaknesses of the argument One of the weaknesses of the argument is that if all things need a cause to exist, then God Himself must also, by definition, need a cause to exist. But this only pushes causation back and implies that there must be an infinite number of causes, which cannot be. This is contradictory. Also, by definition, God is uncaused.

In the following paragraphs, I will explain why Mackie believes the premises, and then evaluate the argument.

On the topic of the existence of God, Ernest Nagel and Richard Swinburne have construct arguments that challenge one another. In Nagel’s article, “Does God Exist?” he argues that if God is all-powerful, omniscient, and benevolent; he would know when evil occurs and has the power to prevent it. Because evil occurs, God does not exist. This is the problem of evil. Challenging Nagel, the article by Swinburne, “Why God Allows Evil,” argues that God has the right to allow moral and natural evils to occur because those evils reap greater goods that make the lives of human-beings meaningful. He extends his argument to the idea that God seeks to provide human beings with goods such as freewill and responsibility of not only ourselves, but of the world and others. While Nagel utilizes the problem of evil as an objection to the existence of God, Swinburne employs it to show that God allows evil to occur to provide human beings with goods that go beyond moments of pleasure and joys of happiness.

Different ways of abstracting the absurd will unsurprisingly induce altered proposals about how we might go about challenging it. Nagel states that the absurd arises exclusively within the cognizant mind of a person, and he all but associates it with epistemological skepticism. However, as previously contended, Nagel apparently fails to distinguish the metaphysical requirements that

One cause causing another cause and so on. However, in order for the first domino to fall, there must be an external force applied to it. This could be compared to the first cause which started the universe. The idea of a necessary creator is mirrored in Thomas Aquinas' version of the argument. He believed that there is no such thing as an infinite sequence of moves, therefore nothing can move itself and there must have been a "first mover" to begin everything which Aquinas believed to be

Edward also distinguishes between the two types of causes: fieri and esse. He states "A cause in fieri is a factor which brought or helped bring an effect into existence. A cause in esse is a factor which sustains the effect in being" (Edwards, p2.) With these different types of causes it is possible to have more than one being that brought the universe into existence, ergo it is not absurd to have an infinite series of causes in fieri. Edward also denies the privileged status of First Cause to God by stating that the universe could be substituted for God and the Principle of Sufficient Reason provides this to be a more reasonable answer.

Aquinas argues that the ‘first cause’ triggered the other causes to follow and the result is a sequence of causes. A sequence can only occur if there is a starting point, according to Aquinas. Aquinas argues in his cosmological argument that there must be a first cause for the origin of the universe because “otherwise there would be no subsequent causes in the world” (Textbook, p. 66). If no first cause existed then no causes could come after, and for that reason Aquinas argues there has to be a first cause, God.

Now if this were true, even now there would be nothing in existence.” One could argue that if nothing was in existence how does God exist? One might think his argument is flawed. One could say there has always been nature in this world, and nature has developed over time creating new and better things which lead to human beings. With no existence, there would be nothing to exist, and nothing would have begun to exist either.

In “Does God Exist?” Nagel points out the flaws found within the three classical arguments that support God’s existence. Once again, these arguments include the cosmological argument, the ontological argument, and the argument of design. First, the cosmological argument will be discussed. Basically, the cosmological argument implies that every event was