According to him, there must be as much reality or perfection in the cause of anything as in the effect. Moreover, he believed that the notion of God represents something so ideal that he could not have been the cause of this idea. I believe that Descartes arguments are not really such convincing because of the following reasons which I would like to point out. We may all come to this point and consider that we all exist; however, it’s not completely true because Descartes had an idea of the perfect being in his mind, but I surely don't have such an idea. Now what am I to believe?
One could argue that the logical positivists were unsuccessful in arguing that religious language is meaningless because the verification principle has many weaknesses. For example Strong verification is not possible to talk meaningfully about history as no self- observation can confirm historical events. Swinburne stated that strong verification excludes all types of universal statements as there may be a random event that occurs that may mean that this cannot be verified. However, A.J Ayer developed a solution for this which is the weak verification principle. This form of the principle allows for statements to have meaning if the means to which a statement can be verified are known.
In the face of the possibility that something is deliberately setting out to deceive him, he is left only with the knowledge that he is a thinking thing. From there, Descartes considers the possibility of the existence of God, and what precisely that would entail. (Beyssade) Descartes starts by pointing out that in order for any effect to occur, its cause must be in possession of the effect itself or at least an equal amount of ‘reality’. From this he concludes that “It follows from this both that something cannot arise from nothing, and also that what is more perfect – that is, contains in itself more reality – cannot arise from what is less perfect.” (Baird and Kaufmann 32) His example here is that a rock cannot be created by anything that does not contain
The Sense of authority implied in “The Crucible” always implies authority without inner sanction, with a persistent hint of skepticism. Note Proctor’s struggle against the theocracy’s repressive, irrational and destructive use of authority. Reverend Samuel Parris – gives the impression of having a grasping form of materialism, hypocritically concealed behind a façade of piety and religiosity, while not fulfilling the actual spiritual needs of the congregation at the present. This is evident in the way John Proctor can “see no light of God” in Parris. Danforth and Hathorne – were convinced that since their cause is right and just (the destruction of the works of Satan) – any
Richard Dawkins in his book the blind watchmaker however argues that this cannot be the case as there are so many faults in the world that it could not have been planned and that things came about through natural selection, the “blind, unconscious, automatic process" which explains the existence and purposeful form of all life. He also argues that if it was God who created the world then he did not do a very good job as there are so many faults which in turn cause us pain and suffering. This can the lead us to believe that god may not be all loving, all powerful and all knowing. As if he was all these things then he would know of suffering and be able to and would do something
The lack of clarification for the term “proofs” does a disservice to McCloskey’s opening. The very things he considers “proofs” to the theist are in most studious circles actually considered “arguments” for the case of theism not “proofs”. It may appear the he is attempting to run it altogether to misdirect the reader into believing something that is not. McCloskey refers to the arguments as proofs and he often implies that they can’t definitively establish the case for God, but the Cumulative Case using the Cosmological Argument, the creator, the Teleological Argument, the intelligent designer and the Moral Argument, that He is a personal, morally perfect being is the best explanation that God exists which is the best explanation for the universe we experience. The claims of science aren’t a hundred percent indisputable or even a hundred percent factual and yet they are still accepted as valid, rationally convincing or highly probable, thus the belief in theism doesn’t have to be irrefutable to be accepted as the same.
Overall, I believe that Aquinas’ 3 ways are not very convincing as a proof of the existence of God. The different ways in which Aquinas try to prove the existence of God just make it either impossible for there not to be a God, which rejects any other ideas or, they make misleading assumptions that are not justified. My first reason for believing that Aquinas’ 3 ways are not very convincing is the 2nd way – from Cause. David Hume argues that you cannot see, hear or use any of your senses to see a cause. You cannot see a cause only two things happening in conjunction with one another.
Aquinas Five ways consisted of motion, causation of existence, contingent and necessary objects, the argument for degrees and perfection and the argument for intelligent design. Aquinas thought without this we could not assume God’s existence hence why he would have disagreed with proving God’s existence through definition alone. One of Aquinas’s points was that God’s existence cannot be regarded as ‘self-evident’, in other words you can’t simply say God is real you must back it up with evidence. Aquinas believed that although we have a understanding of what God is, God will always remain unknowable to the finite human mind. Kant argued that existence was not a ‘predicate’, in other words existence is not a characteristic or an attribute of something.
If God is all knowing and all powerful and all good, therefore god would not want us to suffer and not put evil on earth. I believe that evil and suffering does exist because of the simple fact that we wouldn’t know the difference between good and bad, sad and happiness, love and hate. We wouldn’t know to appreciate god and everything he does for us. God being an all tri-omni god would not put anything on earth that he knew we couldn’t handle. There are two varieties of evil, moral and natural evil.
But this contradicts the definition of God. Therefore, we must posit that God exists.” (p. 5). Despite the many debates Anselm’s theory created over the meaning of “greater” and “being”, Crutcher (2010) argues that Anselm’s theory fails “as an argument against non-theists because its premises can be freely doubted.” (p. 5). If one doubts that God exists, they will also doubt the qualities predicated to God. “The conclusion