His cosmological argument states that every affect has a cause, which itself has a cause. You cannot have an infinite chain of causation so there must be a first cause. This first cause must be God. The second role that was established by Aquinas for God is Causa Sine - the first cause. God being transcendent does not need a cause but he is the first cause for everything within the universe.
The actual existence of this being is a greater thing than merely a concept or understanding. Therefore, that than which nothing greater can be thought must exist both in the mind and in reality. Descartes' ontological argument is an a priori argument, which means that it is based upon reason, rather than empirical evidence or experience. Descartes stated that God is a being with all perfections. He goes on to say that existence is a perfection.
His first form of the argument runs as follows: (P1) God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived (P2) If God exists in the mind alone (in intellect) then a greater being can be conceived (in re) (P3) God to be the greatest being, has to existing the mind and in reality, otherwise another being would be greater than God. (C) Therefore God must exist both in the mind and in reality. This method of reasoning aims to demonstrate the truth of something by reducing to absurdity the very opposite of what you are trying to prove. In Anselm’s case this would be that God does not exist, which he claims is absurd by means of an argument which he claims is logically necessary. For Anselm, God cannot not exist.
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
P3: It is possible to have an experience of God. C: Therefore God must exist. This shows the inductive nature of the argument as well as the synthetic experiences it is based on. As Swinburne's proof of god through religious experience shows, there is a logical thought process that can systematically prove the existence of god if these premises are agreed upon. Some philosophers such as Ayer argue that experience cannot provide a stable base for the indication of reality because it is the interpretation of the experience that we are hearing for the experiencer, therefore we can never have concrete evidence that that is how the experience occurred.
Omniscience is a word more often than not given to a divine power that means all knowing. Every monist religious faith claims that there is a creator who knows all of His creation, which includes both how it exists and why. The Christian Bible states ‘I know you through and through, even before birth’. There is however two understandings of omniscience, the first understanding is that God has a limited omniscience and only knows what is possible to know and the second and perhaps the most obvious yet complex, is that God know everything there is to know past, present and future. The two definitions of omniscient each raise different problems, the former raises questions about God’s omnipotence, as one needs to assess if the laws of nature can limit an omnipotent God.
Examine the view that the cosmological argument provides an explanation for the world and is a trustworthy basis for belief in God? (21) The cosmological argument is an à posterioriargument based ultimately on the existence of the cosmos, and the indication it leads to a supreme being generally identified as God. The existence of the universe, the argument claims needs an explanation or a cause, the only appropriate cause for this could be God, this argument is based on experience rather than theoretical logic. Aristotle claims ‘if there is movement and change then there must be an unmoved mover’ although there is one huge problem with this, why does God have no cause? Most scientists argue that "God" is not a scientifically proven cause, whereas Aristotle would argue that God is ‘a remote and unchanging being who allows his world to be changeable so that it can gradually move towards the perfection which he already enjoys.’ A further fault with this would be the principle that the universe can’t explain its own existence, Why is it here at all?
PHL 11 | The Five Ways | How does Thomas Aquinas 'prove' the existence of God? | | Rebeca Martinez 5/6/2013 | | Can we know anything about God? Of course, through the gift of faith we know that God exists. But is that merely a blind faith unsupported by reason? Obviously, our reason cannot of itself provide us with complete knowledge of God, if it could we would ourselves would be God.
The ontological argument is further defined as analytic, which means when you look at the word (which in this case is God) and you already know what it means. In Proslogion, St Anselm uses a phrase to define God. This phrase is “that than which a greater cannot be thought”. He uses this phrase because he believes God to be the greatest being ever, and the being which the best at absolutely everything. Also he believes that if you asked someone who doesn’t believe in God what their definition of God was, then it would also be something along the lines of this.
Christianity Worldviews Origin-Genesis 1:1 shows God creating the heavens and the earth in the beginning. Christianity affirms that “God is the infinite, personal (triune), transcendent and immanent, omniscient, sovereign and good being who created the universe.” (James Sire, The Universe Next Door, p.23, 26). To say that God is infinite is to say that He is a necessary Being and there was never a time when God did not exist. God is transcendent in that He is not part of the creation, but separate from it. However, He is also immanent, in that He cares for His creation, enough to reveal Himself to mankind.