The answer for me is simple. At the start of every philosophical thought, the thinker must decide whether or not God exists and use this as a basis for the rest of his ideas. The great questions, is there a God? Why is this question so important? Well, it’s the determining factor in what human beings naturally are. Disregarding the argument for his existence or nonexistence, the basis of a philosopher determines how they will think of ideas and concepts. An atheist may see many men doing charitable work and few men doing evil work, and he can come to the conclusion that man is naturally good but corruptible. A theist may look at the same men and note they are part of church, and the evil men are not, and come to the conclusion that men are …show more content…
These opposing ideas have created vase diversity in the realm of philosophy that have helped mold and create the society we are today.
Every philosophical idea, when rooting out its origins and what ideas it was built upon, will come down to determining whether or not God exists. Free-will vs determinism, creationism vs evolution, the origins of morality, the origin of the universe, these are all common arguments that at the core is an argument for God’s existence. And, each one is a defining principle in human reasoning. Heck, even the quarrel over climate change boils down to the existence of God. Because, if there is a God, he is responsible for the well-being of Earth and what humans do will not largely impact the planet; and if there is no God, then humans are responsible for our blue pearl floating in the vast nothingness of the universe. Whether or not he exists is irrelevant to these arguments, because each one objective views come from the basis of God’s existence or nonexistence. If God does indeed exist, it would not change any of the atheist’s arguments and it could not change them unless God himself showed his existence to them. And if God does not exist, the theists arguments wouldn’t change unless God was
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
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.
Truth, what is truth? This question itself has a thousand answers, no person can ever be sure of what truth is rather, truth can be justified, it can checked for reliability with strong evidences and logic. If the evidence proves to be accurate then it can be established that a certain answer is the truth. However, have we ever tried to think about what intrigues us to seek the truth? To think about a question and set foot firmly on the path of knowledge. Definitely it has! That was the very cause itself which is why this world has witnessed some of the greatest philosophers like Aristotle, Plato and Socrates etc. along with the school of thought. The ability to think and reason is one of the greatest ability humans have, it is what
The argument for the existence of God has been a debate for many centuries. God, in terms of philosophy, must be a supernatural being that: is all-knowing, is all-powerful, and is all-good. Theists believe God exists based on these terms; atheists on the other hand don’t believe in God. Atheists believe that if there is evil present in the universe, then there is no possible way God can exist if he is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. Evil is defined in three different categories: human evil (evil we humans cause), natural evil (not in our control, of the Earth), and sufferings of the heart (not necessarily human/natural evil). The argument for the problem of evil is that God doesn’t exist because evil exists. In
Descartes’ ontological argument is an echo of the original ontological argument for the existence of God as proposed by St. Anselm in the 11th century. To illustrate the background of the ontological argument, Anselm’s argument works within a distinct framework of ontology that posits the existence of God as necessity by virtue of its definition. In other words, for the mind to conceive of an infinite, perfect God, ultimately implies that there must indeed be a perfect God that embodies existence, for perfection cannot merely exist as a mental phenomenon. God is, according to Anselm, self-evident in the mind. Criticisms to this argument can be found in Anselm’s contemporary, Gaunilo, who argues that such an argument can be used to - put
The Cosmological Argument attempts to prove that God exists by showing that there cannot be an infinite number of regressions of causes to things that exist. It states that there must be a final uncaused-cause of all things. This uncaused-cause is asserted to be God. Arguments like this are thought up to recognize why we and the universe exist.
In this essay, I am going to argue that God exists. The three main concepts that I’m going to talk about which which are the problem of evil, the fine tuning argument and the moral argument. According to theism, God is: “that being which no greater is possible, and he is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent.”. By having a God who only desires good, and us living in a world where evil exists, it is logically impossible and that is what created the problem of evil. There are two sides of the problem of evil which are the logical and evidential argument. The logical side states that:
If he is as all loving and powerful as people claim, then why not do anything to stop it? Arguments against Gods existence will say that if he really existed, he would want to prevent evil from happening in the world and that it is a logical contradiction that he allows it, therefore, He does not exist. On the other hand, philosophers who are for the existence of God will claim that he allows evil because it is for a greater purpose, that it is there for reasons beyond human understanding, it was not in his power to stop it, or that one cannot know evil without good. Philosophers use logical reasoning to determine whether the presence of evil alone is enough to prove whether God
Two weeks ago we discussed about “Existence of God” in our class. We had an argument about God and religion. Six arguments for the “Existence of God”, one argument for “The rationality of belief in God”, and one argument “Against the reality of religion”. I didn’t like this topic and the concept of this topic at all. Because God and religion stuffs are entirely personal issue.
The philosophical arguments presented in this document are not of religious text, nor scientific observation or established fact. Rather the premise of this God proof is bring together and share the various theories on which other God proofs have established foundations. I have heard it quoted that “Philosophy goes where hard science can 't, or won 't. Philosophers have a license to.” Therefore, with this in mind, I attest that it is more than problematic to construct an argument authenticating the unequivocal proof of the existence God. If nothing else this may be food for thought.
The existence of God has been in question for as long as mankind has existed and thought logically. Many questions have plagued the human mind in regards to God, and there have been many arguments drawn with the hopes of proving the existence of a supreme being whom we know as God. The “God” question has been presented to every individual at some point in their lives. It is a topic that will bring forth never-ending questions and an equal amount of attempted answers. Many philosophers have formulated different rationales when examining the topic of God, some of which include how the word itself should be defined, what his role is in human existence, whether or not he loves us, and ultimately, if he even exists at all. Mankind cannot
Throughout the course of this essay we shall examine two of the major philosophical arguments for the existence of God. The arguments that we are going to focus on shall be the Design argument and the Ontological argument. We shall compare, evaluate and discuss both the Design (or teleological) argument for the existence of God and the Ontological Argument for the existence of God, as well as highlighting philosophical criticisms of both theories too. By doing so, we shall attempt to draw a satisfactory conclusion and aim gain a greater understanding of the respective theories and their criticisms of each theory.
The question of God's existence has been debated in philosophy to great lengths. E.K. Daniel has listed all common philosophical arguments for the existence of God in his essay "A Defense of Theism", consisting of The Ontological Argument, The First-Cause Argument, The Argument of Contingency, The Design Argument, The Moral Argument, The Argument from Religious Experience, and The Natural Law Argument (p. 260). These arguments are familiar to any basic student of philosophy, along with the critiques that have been raised by philosophers such as Ernest Nagel in his essay "The Case for Atheism" (p. 274-283). These arguments have almost reached a virtual impasse, since there seems to be as much rational proof against the existence of God as there is fervor to believe in God. K.D. Ellis states this by saying "They may offer some support for the plausibility of the belief in a god, but they are not sufficiently strong enough to compel our assent to the conclusion that a god exists" (p. 297). This difference of perspective results in theism, atheism and agnosticism.