The rational mind states otherwise. It is what we say in our hearts that allow us to think that God does exist. In Samuel Clarke’s Cosmological Argument it is clearly argued that something has existed for all of eternity. Nothing was ever created without a cause therefore this is a contradiction. Yet if anything is made and there is no cause at all for it, is to say that something is affected when it is affected by nothing or at all affected.
The argument goes like this: 1. Assume God does not exist. 2. 'God' is defined as "that than which no greater can be conceived" 3. "That than which no greater can be conceived" must therefore 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
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.
Anselm’s Ontological Argument The ontological argument is an argument, which is used to distinguish two types of justifications, and is independent of experience. Ontology comes from two Greek words “ontos” meaning being and “logos” meaning theory, therefore ontology is the theory of the universe and all there is in it.. Anselm begins his argument by defining God as ‘Something-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought’, he continues by saying that this definition of God is understood by all even the fool. Anselm understands God as being the greatest conceivable being. In the understanding everyone or anyone believes that there is a being “than which none greater can be thought”, no one could conceive of something greater than the greatest possible being. If God does not exist, though, then something can be imagined that is greater that God, namely a God that does exist.
As a further definition, Mackie posits that an objective moral value has the quality of ‘ought-to-be-pursued-ness’, it is something one should or ought do because it contains an inherently normative aspect. If Mackie’s argument is to succeed, it must prove that this supposed normative aspect has no existence within any act in itself, but has its origin in the agent of said act, and as such, all moral claims are false. Mackie’s exposition of moral relativism comes in the form of two main arguments, the first being his ‘argument from relativity’, the second, his ‘argument from queerness’. It is with the argument from relativity that I shall be here concerned. The argument from relativity is based around the purely ‘descriptive’ idea that it is an empirically observable fact that there seems to be
However, this would be absurd, seeing as that nothing greater than God can be conceived in anyway. So a being, which nothing greater can be conceived, God, does in fact exist. According to Joel Fienberg’s text, Reason and Responsibility, an Ontological argument is defined as “an argument for the existence of God stating that the very concept or definition of God automatically entails that God exists; because the special nature of the concept, there is no way that God could fail to exist” (pg. 722). This argument is formulated around the idea that God is a being, which no greater being can be conceived.
However, the categorical imperative represents an action as “objectively necessary in itself”[3], with no end in mind. While Kant bases morality on strictly categorical imperatives, Aristotle claims (in his Nicomachean Ethics) that the highest form of morality is found through actions which seek eudaimonia, or happiness; actions which fall under the hypothetical imperative. Kant’s categorical imperative is formulates in three different ways – the formula of universal law, the formula of the law of nature and the formula of the end in itself. The formula of universal law is based on two key concepts; universality (or the ability for one thing to apply to everyone) and “maxims”. Kant neglects to clearly define maxims, yet it is footnoted that maxims are “subjective principles of acting”[4].
This theory uses inductive reasoning rather than the more common deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is not the sole claim for proving validity. An inductive argument proceeds from a beginning statement to a conclusion. The truth of the initial statement may not imply the truth of the concluding statement only that the concluding statement can be true. Inductive arguments lead attention to specific areas of reality.
These theories are motivated by diverse concerns and proposed accounts so different from each other that one wonder if they seek to explain the same phenomenon. Coherence theory The coherence theory of truth states that a statement is considered true if it is logically consistent with other beliefs. This is basically saying that a belief is false if it contradicts other beliefs that are held to be true. The coherence theories in general, states that truth requires a proper fit of elements within a whole system. Very often, though, coherence is taken to imply something more than simple logical consistency; often there is a demand that the propositions in a coherent system lend mutual inferential support to each other.