Popular Arguments For The Existence Of God The Ontological Argument One of the most important attempts to demonstrate the existence of God is the ontological argument of Saint Anselm, an 11th-century theologian. Anselm’s argument maintains that God, defined as the greatest being that can be conceived, must exist, since a being that does not exist would by virtue of that fact lack an attribute that contributes to its greatness. Critics have questioned, however, whether existence actually contributes…
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…
to the question of God’s existence. God’s existence has never been questioned during the times of when Christianity, Judaism and Islam were born. The question of God’s existence comes from our new way of thinking after these religions. Science has made us think of how things work in our world and brings Gods existence into question. There were no scientific studies done during the days of Jesus to prove that God exists, so where did the people in history get this idea of God from? Many philosophers…
Like the British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell, who described himself as an atheist (the absence of belief in God), I have to say, like he did when he was alive, that religion is little more than superstition. Despite any positive effects that religion might have in societies, it is mostly harmful to people. Religions and religious outlook serve to impede human knowledge (science) and to foster fear and dependency on other (clerics) which are supposed to know. Religions are responsible…
The Design Argument for the Existence of God The basis and structure towards the Design Argument is all about a creator and designer whom set things and planned everything to be the way it is today. Unlike the cosmological argument, the Design Argument is a lot simpler to understand and has simple steps towards it. The main point that the Design Argument claims is the fact that everything in nature seems to be put together in just the right manner suggests that an intelligent…
The Argument for the Existence of God It is an undisputed fact that some people claim to have experienced God. It is these religious experiences that have been used by philosophers to argue for the existence of God. The main way of expressing the argument from religious experience is as follows: P1 Someone experiences an entity C1 The entity exists P2 Someone has experienced God C2 God exists Those who champion the argument seek to differentiate ordinary…
ideas of the existence of God but there was one common thing that everyone knew, God existed. Although everyone agreed that God existed, philosophers such Anselm tried to prove God's existence anyway. In the passage Prosolgium, Anselm is trying to prove the existence of God to Ganilo by giving two approaches. The goal of the dialog is to prove that the combination accepting that God exists and not believing that God exists is not possible. The conclusion of Anselm's proofs are that God exists. In…
over the existence of God remains one of the finest pursuits of the human mind to break out of the world and surpass the practical or extraordinary realm of experience. Without a doubt, the question of God's existence is one of the most significant questions of human philosophy. It alters the whole meaning of human life, and it challenges if man is really the Supreme Being in the universe or if man has a greater being that he must love and obey, or possibly defy. So the question is; does God exist?…
"Is it Possible to Prove the Existence of God?" 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…
Discussion of the Existence of God There is a lot of argument about does God exist or not exist. It was long time every person wanted to prove the existence of God. Some people argued that God exist and proved by many philosophical theories or scientific basics and religion reasons. On the other hand, other people do not believe in God existence and they have based their proven by many theories and scientific points. Many people have tried to prove God's existence with rational…
Descartes and the Existence of God Once Descartes has realized that he can know with certainty that “I exist” is true, he continues to build on his foundation of truths. The truth about the nature of God, proof of God’s existence, and the nature of corporeal objects are considered, among others, after Descartes proves his existence. Descartes’ principal task in the Meditations was to devise a system that would bring him to the truth. He wanted to build a foundation from which all further philosophical…
Does God exist? That question has been asked by people for centuries. Christians, Jews, and Muslims would all say that God exists. They would claim that He is the creator of all things and is of a higher being than man is. Others would claim either that God does not exist or that God is not what the Christians, Jews, and Muslims say He is. Both Anselm and Aquinas address this question: Anselm in his "Proslogion" and Aquinas in his "Summa Theologica." The opinions of Anselm and Aquinas as to…
Arguments for Existance of God I have chosen the Christian religion to examine in this particular piece of coursework. Over the centuries philosophers and theologians have put forward a number of different arguments to argue the existence of God. The particular arguments I will be looking at are the Teleological Argument and the Cosmological Argument. ==================================================================== William Paley put the Teleological argument…
second argument for the existence of God. Descartes holds that existence is perfection and so, it can be a predicate for God. I will first explain what is the ontological argument for the existence of God. Next, I will discuss why Descartes decides to bring God into His method of philosophy. I will then try to argue that existence is a perfection and that as a predicate for God, existence reveal certain true about God. Ontological argument tries to prove the existence of God from a priori perspective…
Meditations on First Philosophy, examines Descartes' arguments for the existence of God. The purpose of this essay will be to explore Descartes' reasoning and proofs of God's existence. In the third meditation, Descartes states two arguments attempting to prove God's existence, the Trademark argument and the traditional Cosmological argument. Although his arguments are strong and relatively truthful, they do no prove the existence of God. At the start of the meditation, Descartes begins by rejecting…
All moral arguments for the existence of God work on the principle that we all have a shared sense of morality. Despite cultural differences, broadly speaking, humans worldwide have a vague idea of what is right and what is wrong; a moral argument for the existence of God would say that this mutual understanding is proof of God's existence. Immanuel Kant put forward this argument (although, not a moral argument); God as the source of objective morality. Firstly, he addressed the categorical imperative;…
the minute details of human existence, throughout his work, Mitchell constantly evokes a Canadian persona and creates literature based on the country. Despite Wullie MacCrimmon being a Scottish character, the drama itself is set in Canada during a curling bonspiel. Who has Seen the Wind is characteristic of Canada’s prairie provinces and creates an accurate portrayal of a child growing up in this landscape. Wullie and Brian are both concerned with the existence of God and evil forces in the world…
The Existence of a God Throughout history, the worship of gods has been a part of daily life even amidst those cultures that have been considered "savage". The reactions, movement, existence, comparisons, purposes, and common beliefs of the world show that there must be a god. The existence of a god is an irrefutable fact. Sir Isaac Newton stated that "every action has a reaction." Therefore every reaction is formed from an action which€in and of itself is a reaction to a previous action…
Descartes employs what is known as an ontological argument to prove the existence of God. Saint Anselm who lived during the 11th century first formulated this type of argument. Since then it has proved popular with many philosophers including Rene` Descartes. Even though ontological arguments have lost popularity with modern philosophers there has been some recent attempts to revive them. Descartes formulation is regarded as being one of the best because it is straight forward and relatively…
McCloskey There are many different types of arguments for the existence of God. With each argument there is a conception presented of God. For each argument there are different approaches. I will be focusing on the Cosmological and Teleological Arguments. Teleological Arguments are known to be arguments from divine, arguing from order in the universe to the existence of God (1).With the ordering of the universe, created by an intelligent being, they hold that it…
Argument for Existence of God The real is the rational, and the rational is the real. In philosophical discussion, no statement is, perhaps, more important or more controversial. Yet, this is the very position that I advocate within this paper. The equation of the rational with the real is at the heart of the argument I here consider, that being the ontological argument for the existence of God. There are several versions of the ontological argument for the existence of God, which is to say that…
God’s existence may actually depend upon our belief in his existence but it is more plausible to believe that God exists using the different types of arguments such as the cosmological argument and ontological argument, Leibniz and the Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Problem of Evil, and the definition of basic belief as evidence. The Cosmological argument can be simplified into three reasons that everything that begins to exist has a cause; the universe began to exist, therefore the universe…
The Ontological Argument for the Existence of God The ontological argument is an a priori argument. The arguments attempt to prove God's existence from the meaning of the word God. The ontological argument was introduced by Anselm of Canterbury in his book Proslogion. Anselm's classical argument was based on two principals and the two most involved in this is St Anselm of Canterbury as previously mentioned and Rene Descartes. The ontological argument argues that…
statements established about the unseen and natural forces since the beginning of time. It gave rise to questions such as: Do aliens exist? Is there a world of the unseen? Life after Death and the most popular question since the beginning of times, Does God exists? And the answer is ‘yes’. Here is how I will justify my stance. Imagine yourself walking in the middle of a desert, which shows no signs of life regardless of which ever direction your eyes turn to. When, suddenly, you see something reflecting…
The Existence of God The existence of a God has for generations been the topic of fierce debate. This most usually occurring between members of the religious society and, everybody else. As a matter of fact the religious world itself has not always been able to agree on God. This has resulted in many a holy man to take up the fight for his deity through the realm of words. Many theories have been proposed, and all think that theirs proves beyond a doubt on whether or not God exists. To write…
Title 1: Is there good evidence for or against the existence of God? Throughout the ages, the topic of religion has always been discussed and argued over. Some people will always argue that God does exist, whilst others will argue that he doesn’t. Firstly I would like to start my argument with the famous 13th century philosopher, Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas’ argument is known as the cosmological argument. This is the idea of: the unmoved mover, the uncaused causer and idea of contingency, these…
The Existence of God What we call religious experience can differ greatly. Some reports exist of supernatural happenings that it would be difficult to explain from a rational, scientific point of view. On the other hand, there also exist the sorts of testimonies that simply seem to convey a feeling or a peace of oneness- something which most of us, religious or not, may possibly relate to. Firstly, I will consider the nature of an experience. Experience involves…
Once Descartes has "proved" his existence by way of the Cogito argument, and has determined what it is that belongs to his essence of being a thinking thing, he must move to examining questions about the world around him. However, before doing this, he thinks it better to examine the question of the existence of God. If he can prove that he was created by a perfectly benevolent creator, then his innate ideas must carry some semblance of truth, as God is not a deceiver and has placed these ideas…
The Existence of God In this essay I am going to explore and analyse arguments concerning the existence of God. I will be investigating all the different beliefs about God from Christians including: 'Moral and Divine Command', 'Ontological', 'Cosmological' and the argument from design. These areas of belief will all be fully considered and analysed in depth. After doing this, I will therefore come to a conclusion of my own sort and explain my own beliefs and there…
Anselm's Existence of God Refuted Anselm's Existence of God Refuted If the only proofs for the existence of God were Aquinas’s five ways and Anselm’s ontological argument, in my opinion, Anselm provides the best reasoning. I am not saying that Anselm’s argument is good, or even valid, but just that given the set of proofs by Aquinas and Anselm, Anselm’s is better. Anselm argues, in effect, that the existence of God is built into the very concept of God. He proceeds by a form of argument…
the Existence of God There are many arguments that try to prove the existence of God. In this essay I will look at the ontological argument, the cosmological argument, empirical arguments such as the avoidance of error and the argument from design. There are many criticisms of each of these that would say the existence of God can’t be proven that are perhaps stronger than those saying it can be. The definition of God for which is being argued is the Christian God who…
I found Aquinas’ theory to prove the existence of God very interesting one. It is easy to understand and it is logical. Summa Theologiae was one of the best works of Aquinas. St. Thomas was a writer too and wrote many commentaries on Aristotle and other theological and philosophical topics. Aquinas categorized his arguments to prove the existence of god into five ways. The first way is the argument from motion. There are many things which are moving, it is not that all of a sudden everything started…
the same, however the thing that is common to all the religions is the fact that the people who follow any religion believe that God exists. Atheists, on the contrary, do not have any such beliefs and this is the main reason why they are known to not follow any religion. Therefore, the main issue that will be discussed in this paper is pertaining to the existence of God and whether or not a person can be morally correct without being religious or without being a follower of a specific religion. Some…
influence on humanity is the notion of whether or not God exists. Philosophers and non-philosophers alike from ancient civilizations to our modern era have contributed their own two cents to the argument. Through the course of the following pages the idea of God will be defined, explained, and defended by the Ontological Argument to ultimately prove that God exists. In the three main Western monotheistic religions of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity God is defined as an independent being that transcends…
the most widely accepted and criticized arguments for the existence of God. My objective in this paper is to explain why the Cosmological Argument is a reasonable argument for the existence of God, the importance of understanding that it is an inductive a posteriori argument, and defend my position against common opposing arguments. To begin, as living human beings on the planet earth we can safely conclude that most everything in existence has a cause. We observe that there is a cause behind the…
the existence of God. This may happen for a number of reasons. For example he or she might have been at a point in their life when their faith alone was just not enough for them to believe. Humans have a natural instinct to find reasons for events that can’t be explained. For some, the existence of God may help give them the answers they are looking for. Philosophers spend a great deal of their time trying to prove or to disprove the existence of God. One philosopher that confronted God’s…
Descartes: The existence of God Over the course of his treatise Discourse on the Method, the philosopher Rene Descartes attempts to refute radical skepticism, or the idea that we can know nothing with the mind, because what we consider reality may simply be a delusion or a dream. Descartes begins, however, by taking a posture of doubting everything, and then attempting to discern what could be known for certain. Rather than attempting to affirm his existence, "I thought that a procedure exactly…
Religion and the Existence of God The existence of God has been questioned since the beginning of time. Religions thrived on answering the unanswerable questions of the universe and people were able to find solace in the answers. As science has expanded and been able to answer these questions with natural, as opposed to supernatural answers, many people stopped looking to God and religion for the causes of things and started looking towards science. God was dead, according to many scientists…
The existence of God has long been a topic of debate. It is the ultimate topic of discussion, as everyone seems to have an opinion on it. I will look at the traditional arguments for the existence of God, the ones that have stood the test of time, and find out how convincing the arguments really are by looking at each one in turn, analysing the logic behind each argument, and finally looking at its criticisms and the responses to the criticisms. The first argument for the existence of God I will…
The Existence of God and Evil The problem of evil has been around since the beginning. How could God allow such suffering of his “chosen people”? God is supposedly all loving (omni-benevolent) and all powerful (omnipotent) and yet He allows His creations to live in a world of danger and pain. Two philosophers this class has discussed pertaining to this problem is B.C. Johnson and John Hick. Johnson provides the theists’ defense of God and he argues them. These include free will, moral urgency,…
views on God. Does he exist? Does he not exist? These questions can be argued with countless theories as to why he does exist and how there is no way that he does not exist or he does not exist and there is no way that he does exist. Theists would argue that God does exist and there is good reason to think that he exists. Agnostics, Atheists, and Fideists, on the other hand would argue that there is no good reason to think that God exists. For some people they have no doubt that God exists…
The existence of God has been a question since the idea of God was conceived. Descartes tries to prove Gods existence, to disprove his Evil demon theory, and to show that there is without a doubt something external to ones own existence. He is looking for a definite certainty, a foundation for which he can base all of his beliefs and know for a fact that they are true. Descartes overall project is to find a definite certainty on which he can base all his knowledge and beliefs. A foundation…
for the Existence of God God can be defined as a being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions (1). There are many people that do not believe in any religion. People who do not believe in a religion have no reason for believing in a God. People who do not believe in a God and argue against the existence of God are proving something that is completely false. There is a God for numerous…
The Design Argument for the Existence of God While theology may take God's existence as absolutely necessary on the basis of authority, faith, or discovery, many philosophers have thought it possible to demonstrate by reason that there must be a God. The teleological argument, also known as the argument from design quite simply states that a designer must exist since the universe and living things display elements of design in their order, consistency, unity and pattern…
The Existence of God Works Cited Not Included For centuries, the idea of God has been a part of man's history. Past and present, there has always been a different integration consisting of the believers and the non-believers of God. The group of those who have "faith" in God tend to be related to one religion or another. On the other hand, the skeptics find the existence of God somewhat puzzling and try to seek the answers through scientific methods. Even as of today with all the modern…
The Existence of God "No one can think the opposite of that which is self evident…But the opposite of the proposition "God Exists" can be thought…therefore the proposition that God existence is self evident."( Thomas Aquinas) Some people may say that God is an omnipotent, omniscient being that the universe revolves around. In other words, God is all-powerful, all knowing, and runs the universe, but the mere claim, to prove Gods existence, seems to invite ridicule. The people who…
In answering questions regarding God, the argument from evil is a very peculiar argument. Most of the arguments we deal with will try to prove the existence of god. This argument on the other hand attempts to do the opposite and I really stress on the word attempt. Another reason why I say it is peculiar is because it is not just one argument, but rather a series of three arguments. In my opinion, this argument is quite weak and does not prove what it was intended to prove but rather it does the…
In the Third Meditation, entitled “Of God: That He Exists”, Rene Descartes presents an argument for the existence of God. Meditation III talks about what is real and how to justify it. Descartes acknowledges of being doubtful of bodily things but is absolutely assured that he exists and he clearly and distinctly perceives this fact. As he confirms: I am a thinking (conscious) thing, that is, a being who doubts, affirms, denies, knows a few objects, and is ignorant of many, - [who loves, hates],…
Strengths. Weakness and Objections Anselm argument has strengths, weaknesses and some have gone as far to give objections to his argument altogether. Anselms argument only relies on logical reasoning to prove that his proofs for the existance of God is correct. What makes his argument so strong is that he a “fool” or the athesists accepts the defintion in which Anselm gives to start the his argument. The argument is strenghtened by the languge that Anselm uses as he gives his argument and the proofs…
utilization of the senses, and an empirical mindset, one can substantiate the existence of God. Aquinas holds the conception that in the quest for God’s existence, philosophy and theology are interwoven together and both play complementary roles. He infuses numerous theological doctrines, mainly from Saint Augustine, alongside Aristotelian ideals such as, the first mover, to corroborate his argument for the existence of God. Instead of basing his argument on human reason and rationality like his predecessor…