The Idea Of Being Present

St. Thomas Aquinas’s first cosmological argument, the prime mover, defines things in the world as being either in a state of potentiality or in a state of actuality. Those things that are in potentiality are things that have the capability of being reduced to another form. Such as a boy is potentially a man, or tree is potentially a house. Things that are in a state of actuality are things that are currently reaching their potential; such as that boy becoming a man, or that tree becoming that house. Aquinas observed that all things in a state of actuality had to have been put into that state by something that was already in actuality. In thinking about this he concluded that there would have to be an infinite regress of actual things making potential things actual. He concluded that this would be impossible because given that, there would be no first mover. He instead, postulated that there must be a first mover. A being that never had potential but only has existed in a state of infinite actuality. That what we call God.

To begin with, Anselm introduces the Ontological argument as a viral component of the religious aspect of mankind. The presence of a God should not be debated. He portrays this God as an all perfect being that represents the divine concept. He argues that no being is greater than God whether imagined or perceived by the human mind. From the human perspective of divinity, God’s existence is merely an idea of the mind. Even though man’s imagination can present an even higher being than God, it fails to make sense in philosophical principles since it is contradictory. Also, the existence of God can be conceptualized. This means that the senses of man are enough to act as proof of the presence of a being higher and more powerful than him. Philosophy allows for proof to be logical and factual as well as imaginative. From this point, the objection to an idea or imagination such as the existence of God makes his

In the construction of the Large Hardon Collider, physicists seek and hope to unlock the mysteries of the universe by analyzing the attributes of the most miniscule particles known to man. In the same way, theologians have argued back and forth over the course of human history with regards to the divine attributes of God, seeking and hoping to unlock the mysteries of the metaphysical universe. Although these many attributes, for example omnipresence, could be debated and dissected ad nauseum, it is within the scope of this research paper to focus but on one of them. Of these many divine attributes of God, nothing strikes me as more intriguing than that of God’s omnipotence. It is intriguing to me because the exploration of

There are two arguments going on in this article, “Proslogion and Exchange with Gaunilo” and “Treatise on God”. It is an ontological argument between Anselm, Gaunilo, and Aquinas. I like this article because it is about god is real or not. Anselm is born in Aosta, in 1033. He wants his readers to believe that god does not exist but he is in our thoughts. If there is something better than god is foolish. He is saying in his article that,” Better to be just than unjust, and better to be happy than unhappy.” I believe the thought. He is trying to explain that god is everywhere and he is helping us. He is little upsets with Gaunilo because he does not agree that god exists. Gaunilo thinks that nothing better than the thought and true nature.

Aquinas argued the existence of God with five main points. Aquinas began by saying that nothing can be a cause of itself; rather every event was caused by some prior event. Therefore event A causes event B that leads to event C and so forth. He believed in this cause and effect relationship but believed that there must be a first cause as a starting point. When contemplating this starting point Aquinas rejected the possibility of an infinite series of events. This means that the universe has not existed forever and there must have been something from which every single event stems. There must be an uncaused first cause, which Aquinas concluded to be God. The first cause is called the unmoved mover. The unmoved mover is what set all other events and beings in motion.

The traditional God in the Judeo-Christian tradition is known to be as an “Omni-God” possessing particular divine attributes such as omniscient, which means he knows everything he is also omnipotent, or all powerful. God has also been said to be also he is omnipresence which means he exists in all places and present everywhere, however there are many philosophical arguments on whether if any of that is actually true or if there is a God at all. This paper argues that it is not possible to know whether the traditional God exists or not. While there have been philosophers such as Aquinas, Anselm, Paley and Kierkegaard who are for god and present strong argument, likewise philosopher like Nietzsche and arguments like the problem of evil both make valid point on why God isn’t real.

The nature of God with a physical presence was also Christian dogma during the New Testament times. Early Christian theology, like its close cousin, Jewish theology, was built upon a literal reading of the Hebrew sacred writings (aka Old Testament scriptures) with its habitual use of direct anthropomorphisms. The early Christians in antiquity, like the Jews, were quite comfortable with this anthropomorphist God in whose image and likeness man was created. This would not be the case for long, for within a few centuries the Christians would feel a need to modify this theological concept by adopting, adapting and merging Greek philosophical elements.

Sir Thomas Aquinas and William Paley present two arguments for the existence of God. Aquinas defines God as omnibenevolent (all good) for his argument, and he continues in “The Five Ways” to present arguments to prove God’s existence (Rosen et al. 11). Paley, on the other hand, primarily defines God as a designer worthy of our admiration for his work (Rosen et al. 27). During class discussion, defining God involved three major qualities: omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence. Both Aquinas and Paley are attempting to prove the existence of the (Christian) God associated with these qualities. Although Aquinas’s “Cosmological Argument” and Paley’s “Argument from Design” have different premises, both have a similar logical gap in their

And truly God claims, and would have us grant him, omnipotence -- not the empty, idle, and almost unconscious sort that the Sophists imagine, but a watchful, effective, active sort, engaged in ceaseless activity. Not, indeed, an omnipotence that is only a general principle of confused motion, as if he were to command a river to flow through its once-appointed channels, but one that

Medieval philosophers developed very precise notions of God and the attributes that he has, many of which are even now well-known among believers. For example, God is all-powerful all-knowing and all-good Other commonly discussed attributes of God are that he is eternal, that he is present everywhere and that he has foreknowledge of future events. While these traditional attributes of God offer a clear picture of the kind of being that he is, many of them present special conceptual problems, particularly when we try to make them compatible them with potentially conflicting facts about the world.

So existent belongs to the essence of God. Descartes can no more think of God as not existing than he can think of mountain without a valley(550).

Most major arguments of God are rooted in the existence, or lack thereof. However there has been a continuous debate regarding the specific characteristics of God. In this debate, Charles Hartshorne, Alfred North Whitehead, and other the processed theologians oppose Anselm, Augustine, and other classic theologians. Although there are many points of disagreement, there are some characteristics for which both sides can agree upon. I will show one strong point of agreement and one strong point of opposition, and allow you the opportunity to decide for yourself how different, or similar, these two camps are.

"For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that

This matters because although we cannot see God, he is there. It may seem as though God is far away when he sitting on his throne, but as Augustine states, “it is not a matter of spatial distance.” WE cannot see or feel the distance, although it is there, and while we are not physically standing with Him, God is holding us in His hands.

When St. Thomas wrote this section of his ground breaking essay what he ultimately was claiming, was that through philosophy and observation, there is a way to see how the natural world points to there in fact being a God. Although to some it may seem absurd, modern day science based upon observation and experimentation, does not completely discredit or debunk the first, second, third, and fifth arguments from St. Thomas Aquinas’s Five Ways, but rather it suggests substantial evidential credibility, in regards to his theories on God’s existence.Concepts, theories, and laws drawn from the