For many years, man has pondered whether one can in fact prove the existence of God. We have covered three arguments in class including ontological, cosmological, and argument of design. The argument of design says that in order for things to come about, there has to be a designer. The cosmological argument says that everything has a cause and at some point, we must come to a First Cause. This cause would be God. And finally, the ontological argument says that God is a necessary being, for reasons that will be explained later. I believe that none of these arguments provide concrete proof for the existence of God. The argument of design says that in order for things to come about, there has to be a designer. It states that the world constitutes
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 conclusion is there is God. A theoretical proof for the existence of God, then, is only intended to mediate a reflexive awareness of the fact that man always and inevitably has to do with God in his intellectual and spiritual existence, whether he reflects upon it or not, and whether her freely accepts it or not (Sabourin, 1986, p. 32). It is what you believe. For believers, God is the explanation of why there is anything at all: why there is intelligibility, why there is freedom (Brown, 2012, p. 4). You desire to believe in God; you want that in your life. It is probably hard for some people not to believe in God. They may have had disappointments in life, tragedy, or not been taught about God. I think so many people have doubts
The famous William Paley has a different ontological argument within his text Natural Theology. The title of the reading gives insight to the theory, which focuses on something called natural design. The writing is based on an intricate and extensive analogy between the man made and the natural. For instance, Paley describes a man made watch in great detail. This intense detail sets the notion that each piece must have been put in place by someone, whom we can infer is a watchmaker. He then compares this to the intricacy of nature, which must have been made by a supreme diety. Such complexity could not have come about by chance. Only the most
Many philosophers have posed the question: How can I prove that God exists? Thomas Aquinas attempted to prove the existence of God in a rational way through his Cosmological argument. Aquinas argued that every event as we observe it has a cause and a casual chain cannot be infinite. Therefore, a first cause is necessary and this cause is God. Aquinas’ argument is unsuccessful because it assumes that God is a necessary being, fails to prove that the world is not an infinite chain of events, and undermines the basis of his argument by saying that God is infinite.
The four classic arguments for the existence of God are the Cosmological Argument, the Teleological Argument, the Moral Argument, and the Ontological Argument. The Cosmological and Teleological arguments are a posteriori arguments, whereas the Moral and Ontological arguments are a priori arguments. The Cosmological Argument argues that the world had to have a first cause, and this first cause is an independent being, or God, that did not need a cause itself. The Teleological Argument argues that an intelligent creator or God designed the world in such a complex way. The Moral Argument cites God’s existence as the cause of morality.
Existence of God as a perfect being who has created the world has always been the subject of continuous debate for the scholar people and philosophers. During the history many different arguments have been proposed for the existence of God. Some of these arguments are based on science, some based on history and some based on philosophy. Two of the most important philosophical arguments in this matter are the ontological argument and cosmological argument. Each of these arguments tried to proof existence of God in different way.
However, the teleological argument is convincing and is probably the most popular argument in attempting to prove the existence of God. This argument or belief has even been found to go back to the Greeks. Most religious people today use this argument as to the existence of God. Yet, to find hard data to prove the existence of God would be complex. We must rely on faith and commitment to our belief in
The question of the existence of God has troubled mankind for thousands of years. Many philosophers and theologians have always searched for prove whether God exists. Many of them constructed valid arguments which support theist believes. The existence of God was once never denied, as His presence, His existence was evident in miracles and the people 's faith. But time and the advancement of modern science have called God and His very nature into question. The Perfect Being has become the source of much doubt and controversy. The faithful, believing people have become unsure. It seems that we will never find the answer to this question, but I think that we should take a look at one of the most famous arguments that prove the existence of God: Ontological Argument. It was made in the eleventh century by Anselm who was one of the most important Christian thinkers of his time. He proved that God exists by relying only on a priori reasoning. We do not need any physical evidence of God to prove that he exist. We can prove it just by our ability to thinking about it.
* Respond to "I don't believe that God exists. How can anybody be sure?" Recognize that, logically, neither atheism nor agnosticism make sense. Atheism requires complete knowledge of everything (which no human has) in order to declare for certain that there is no God. Agnostics claim that they can't know anything for sure, but it's a contradiction to say, "One thing I know about God: You can't know anything about Him." Explain the evidence for God's existence: Every effect has a cause (Both science and the Bible acknowledge that the universe had a beginning, and that it couldn't have arrived without a force behind it), Every creation has a Creator (Nature itself points toward its Creator and reveals what He is like), Every design has a Designer
In this essay I will discuss the ontological proof of the existence of God. First, I will discuss what ontology is and how it connects to this proof about God. There are two kinds of proofs that are going to be talked about in this essay. The ontological proof was created by Anselm who made this argument that God does exist. To begin this discussion, ontology is a part of metaphysics and concerns itself with the nature of being. Ontology seeks to answer questions about existence, what’s real and what is not real. The ontological proof is set out to prove why God does indeed exist. These two are connected because they both are set out to answer life’s difficult questions. In our world today, people have different beliefs and not everyone believes that there is one God. Some people believe that there is more than one God and others believe that there is no God at all. Anselm, who wrote the argument, wanted to prove in two ways that God exists. He wanted people to believe one way or the other and that is why he wrote more than one interpretation of the proof. We are going to compare and contrast both interpretations and come to a conclusion on what interpretation answers the God question and if he is believable. In this essay, I hope to give you more detail about both interpretations and will help you choose which interpretation best fits your belief.
Two scientists decided to take Godel’s theorem and see if it actually worked. Christoph Benzmüller and Bruno Paleo were able to mathematically prove correct Godel’s theorem using an ordinary Mac book. Their formulas appear in the same order as the above arguments.
The evaluation of the five arguments made clear that a perfect being, God, must exist in all possible circumstances in order to satisfy the definition of perfection. The Argument from Motion, The Argument from Efficient Cause, The Argument to Necessary Being, The Argument from Gradation, and The Argument from Design are considered the five ways Thomas acknowledge if God does or does not existence. Through reading Aquinas’s work, it is hard to determine which one proves that God does or does not exist. Logically, each argument can be denied or accepted. Consequently, people can choose to believe whatever they want. However, it is a personal belief that The Argument from Necessity is the most agreeable at this time. The other four arguments do not provide relevance to why people die if God is perfect.
There are many arguments that have been brought forward to support or refute the existence of God. Even in early times, these arguments were there and a number of philosophers argued on the possibility of God’s existence. St. Thomas Aquinas is one of the philosophers who supported the existence of God. In one of his writings that is referred to as Summa Theologica, he provides five ways in which God’s existence can be proved (Aidan, 2001). I belong to this school of thought which believes that God does exist. Therefore, this paper seeks to present arguments that prove the existence of God.
Aquinas says we experience causality Nothing is the cause of itself causes are other than their effects. There cannot be an infinite regress of caused causes. If there were an infinite regress, the effects we experience here & now would not exist. Therefore, there must be some first cause and this we call "God." There is also the law of argument by design, we naturally work towards a goal, we also lack the knowing of the outcome, but we reach our goal by being pointed in the direction, therefore there is an intelligent being pointing us in the direction and that would be proof of “God”.
which is equal or greater than it. If this were the case then even the