Success of Aquinas’s Cosmological Argument Thomas Aquinas’s cosmological argument is a posteriori argument that Aquinas uses to prove the existence of God. Aquinas argues that, “Nothing can move itself, so whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this causal loop cannot go on to infinity, so if every object in motion had a mover, there must be a first mover which is the unmoved mover, called God.” (Aquinas, Question 2, Article 3). I do agree with Aquinas’s cosmological argument in proving the existence of God with several reasons. According to the cosmological argument, first of all, Aquinas claims that, “it is impossible that a thing should be both mover and moved, namely it should not move itself.” (Aquinas, Question 2, Article 3) This part of the argument is obviously correct.
Aquinas generalizes everything in the universe based on the small amount of things he has actually seen or experienced. These generalizations should not be made without strong evidence. It can also be argued that not taking your surroundings into account whilst considering the universe is a huge error of over simplification, which makes the argument of induction seem week. David Hume however had a very strong empiricist view on the universe and can say that the assumptions based on what’s around us can only be applied to the present and do not provide any information on the past or future of the universe. Bertrand Russell also put forth the argument that the universe is a brute fact and it created itself.
Although this possibility does not address the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” It supports certain finite causes. An infinite regress of causes for existence could have not started off from a first cause because the finite cause caused the first and a finite cause caused that find and so forth, meaning that the if you Consider C then you have to consider A because both possibilities acknowledge that there’s an infinite cause of existence. This possibility is implausible because it is already confirmed that the universe is finite and that a first finite cause caused the universe into being. This possibility infinitely fights off the problem of
This leads to the famous objection that he uses the existence of God to establish his doctrine of clear and distinct ideas, and that he uses his doctrine of clear and distinct ideas to establish the existence of God: his argument is circular. It seems that Descartes says that firstly “I am certain that God exists only because I am certain of whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive” but secondly
As with all debates, however, there is more than one side, and I am going to present my arguments as rebuttals for McCloskey. According to McCloskey, We can’t say that there is a necessarily existing being that is the cause of the universe. There are a few issues with this idea. First, to say that an uncaused cause would not exist would be faulty. If you are to look at the universe and say that there was no cause, it just is and always has been, then you are making the point of an uncaused cause.
One goes by the name “Cartesian spiral”. This suggests that the distinct and clear perception that proves Gods existence is different from the other perceptions. The Cartesian spiral is based on a mathematical equation, as “2+2=4” is clear and distinct, but a judgement and that is open to error. While the clear and distinct perception of Gods existence is just an idea and with no judgement attached. We know clear and distinct perceptions independently by God, and his existence provides us with a certainty we might not possess otherwise.
However, I do not find the argument to be that convincing. After reading this argument, I did not find it to have stimulated my mental capacities. However, based on what it has presented, the argument is valid and most of all makes sense because it originates from definitions that provide a solid base for the argument. The objections to this argument do raise several valid points to the concept of whether or not the “maximally great” being in question does have a universal position across all the worlds he may or may not exist in. What if there is no level of “maximal greatness” in one world?
In this essay I am going to focus on Anselm ontological argument and comment on its strengths and weakness of his argument to prove the existence of God. Anselm’s ontological argument can be seen as a Reductio ad absurdum, which means it is a logical argument that aims to prove contention by demonstrating that its denial leads to absurdity. Anselm’s argument explains that it is contradictory for someone to accept that God to exist in understanding and not in reality. This is because according to the existence of perfection a doctrine that something is greater if it exists in addition t being thought of, and God is greater than which nothing can be thought therefore He has to exist in both understanding and reality. The argument goes like this: 1.
It also puts limits on God’s power. According to the definition of a theistic God, God is omnipotent. If God is all powerful then he should be able to command whatever he wants but by saying that morality is independent of God would mean that God is subject to the rules of morality (Fisher, 359). All in all the main issues with the Autonomy Thesis are that it would only be reasonable if one was not considering the existence of a theistic
Kant then argued that God’s existence in the ontological argument is based on a synthetic statements (‘God is that which than greater cannot be imagined’ and ‘existing is greater than not existing’) therefore more evidence and proof is required in addition to the ontological argument in order to verify the existence of God. The ontological argument also features the idea that God has necessary existence – because his definition is that he is perfect and existing is more perfect than not existing, God must have necessary existence. However Kant opposed this idea and said that if we reject the whole idea of God that his definition is no longer important and thus he