But because it’s impossible to conceive a greater being that God he must exist in both reality and our minds. In Anselm’s view only a fool can therefore doubt the existence of God, because the ‘fool’ has the idea of God in their mind to doubt him,
Anselm’s argument is based on the idea that anyone who hears about God or thinks about God, has an idea of who God is. Even if a person denies the existence of God, he or she have to accept that God at least exists in a persons understanding, as an idea. Anselm argues that there is therefore the possibility of God existing purely in the mind alone, or alternatively in the mind and also in reality. Anselm defined God as “that…which nothing greater can be conceived”, he is all powerful, all-loving and all-knowing. Central to Anselm’s argument is the belief that it is greater to exist than not exist, and if God is the greatest-possible being, then by definition, God must exist.
Although, these three arguments all agree in the way that they use unfound assumptions to prove what has yet to be proven; they do disagree on the studies of how to prove what really is God. The ontological argument believes that God is a “being”. The cosmological argument believes that God is “the universe”. Then there is the design argument which needs evidence to prove that there is a God. The Ontological argument seeks to prove that God does exist by proving, that He cannot not exist.
As Paley explains, just as the function and complexity of a watch implies a watchmaker, so likewise the function and complexity of the universe implies the existence of a universe-maker. I will examine the argument presented by William Paley, in which he offers an argument from design that claims to show a clear reason why one should believe in God, due to the natural features of the world. I disagree with Paley in that there are many flaws to his argument. In my opinion Paley's argument is a deductive argument, in the sense that he first establishes a belief and uses it in order to reach his final conclusion, hence a deductive argument in which Paley’s premises might be somewhat true but his conclusion is false. .
Explain Paley’s version of the teleological argument (25) The teleological argument, or the design argument, is an argument to prove the existence of God, it is an A Posteriori argument which attempts to show that the design, order, complexity and purpose of the universe imply the existence of a God who gives the world such characteristics. The design argument follows the logical pattern that when we see things that are manmade, which are in an ordered pattern, or are particularly beautiful, complex or which work well then we must infer that they have been created that way by an intelligent designer. We must see that these things do not arise by chance, therefore when we look at the natural world and see that there is order, beauty, complexity and purpose we can see that the natural world closely resembles human inventions and therefore must also have and intelligent designer. The only thing that is powerful enough to design something as complex as the universe must be God. Therefore, God exists.
Explain Anselms ontological argument Part A The ontological argument is used as a rational explanation to support the existence of God. Anselms ontological argument is known as a “classic “explanation of the ontological argument and is used widely to support the existence of God. The ontological argument is a priori argument meaning that theories are developed to prove the existence of God using nothing but intellectual insight and reason: it does not depend upon our experience of the world to be verified. Anselm defines God by saying God is that “which nothing greater can be conceived.” A way to simplify this explanation is thinking of God as being the greatest thing there can be, i.e. defining God as maximal perfection, there literally cannot be anything greater than God as God is the greatest thing that can possibly exist.
Explain Anselm’s Ontological arguments and Gaunilos’ challenges The ontological argument claims to demonstrate the statement ‘god exists’ as analytically true meaning that it would be ridiculous or incoherent to think that it was false. Another way of defining it is that once you have an understanding of the meaning of ‘God’ you must recognise that God exists. Anselm puts forward two ontological arguments. His first argument is as follows: This argument is reply to a fool who states that there is no God; this thus gives Anselm his starting point. He states that for the fool to say that there ‘is no God’ the fool has to have an idea of what God is in their minds.
Chapter Two of Proslogion introduces Anselm’s argument. This particular part of the Ontological Argument focuses on the definition of God. Anselm defines God as ‘something than which nothing greater can be thought.’ Moreover, he claims that everybody, whether they believe in God or not agrees with this definition (even the fool in the Psalms who claims he doesn’t believe in God). As well as this, Anselm agrees to the fact that there is a difference between understand God as a concept and understanding him to exist. To further explain this point, he uses the analogy of a painter.
We need to investigate and see why it is valid or invalid. COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT On the subject of cosmological proof, God is the first cause. The universe is contingent because everything with in the universe is contingent, thus making the universe in need of a first cause (Foreman, 2012). McCloskey wrote that theists do not study or think far enough ahead to realize that one must be an existing being to be a first cause. “The first, or “no cause,” is a claim that some contingent objects have
It is not a question whether evil exists in the world. The question that arises is that if there is an all-good and all-powerful God why is he not preventing evil and suffering from occurring. In 1955, a philosopher by the name of J.L. Mackie published “Evil and Omnipotence.” Mackie explores the debate with an atheistic view and believes that the greatest argument against the existence of God is the fact that evil does exist. Mackie assumes that there are three statements that every theist must accept.