Outline two key objections to the Ontological Argument and explain the responses made to them. The ontological argument was first introduced by Anselm in the ‘Prosologian’. It is an a priori argument as it is not based on empirical evidence but id deductive and analytic in that it allows one to use logical reasoning to reach a logically necessary conclusion which, in theory, cannot be disputed. Anselm defines God as ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived’ (TTWNGCBC) and states that everyone, theist or not, can accept this definition. He argues that ‘the fool’ in Psalm 53 can conceive of God but fails to believe he exists.
Descartes declares he has to determine if there is a God and if he does exist, whether he can be a deceiver. The reason he has to determine the existence of God and what he is, rests in his theories of ideas. This is because we do not know if there is an outside world and we can almost imagine everything, so all depends on God’s existence and if he is a deceiver. “To prove that this non-deceiving God exists, Descartes finds in his mind a few principles he regards as necessary truths which are evident by the “natural light” which is the power or cognitive faculty for clear and distinct perception.” If arguments is presented in logical trains of thought, people could not help but to be swayed and to understand those arguments. Natural light
Descartes' argument in the Meditations is circular. Discuss. In trying to prove the existence of God, Descartes will, of course, have to rely on what he can clearly and distinctly perceive, because this is the only way he can know anything. However, Descartes also needs to prove that God exists for us to know what we clearly and distinctly perceive. 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.
McCloskey attempts to make an argument for the non-existence of God and to give reasons why atheism is more comforting than theism. This paper is a response to that article which will address certain ideas raised by Mr. McCloskey. This author is a theist and will present arguments to show the reasoning for the existence and necessity of God. To begin with, McCloskey suggests in his article that the theist’s arguments are “proofs” which do not provide definitive evidence for the existence of God, so therefore, they should be discarded. This is not a justified argument due to the fact that theists do not try to definitely prove the existence of God.
The relationship between a theistic God (considering there is one) and morality cannot be explained in simply a few sentences. One may immediately come to the conclusion that God decides what is moral and immoral. This is known as Divine Command Theory which says that morality is dependent on God’s commands. However, this gives rise to the other side that says an action is moral because God approves of it. This is known as the Autonomy thesis which says that morality is not dependent on God’s commands.
To what extent is the via negativa the only way to talk about God Within this essay I will be arguing that the via negativa is a very unhelpful way to talk about God as if we were to only talk about him negatively we would ultimately never know anything of God’s nature. Instead, I will argue that analogy is a better way to talk of God and I will refer to Aquinas’ ideas of analogical language. The via negativa (or apophatic way) claims that people can only talk about God in negative terms because he is transcendent and utterly different and greater than anything we can comprehend. Thus we cannot say what God is because his nature is beyond our comprehension. The word “good” in reference to God is meaningless as we cannot know what this entails; it is completely different from saying “the man is good”.
Present and critically assess one version of the ontological argument for the existence of God. (This can be an existing version, such as Anselm’s or Descartes’, or a generic or composite version.) The ontological argument is a priori argument that means that it is based on reasoning and independent of experience. With the ontological argument being a prior it gives a theoretical certainty, like in mathematics the idea that 1+1=2. 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.
Examine the cosmological argument for the existence of God. – 25Marks The cosmological argument is an argument which proves the existence of the first cause; the first cause is ’motion’. In which everything that exists is in motion or has the potential to change. Meaning all change is caused by something, as nothing can more by itself therefore there must be a necessary being, like a God. The cosmological argument is a posteriori argument and also a deductive argument; this is because it is based on logical thinking about the existence of God.
One of Aquinas’ ways of proving God’s existence; ‘the uncaused causer’, states that every cause in the universe has an effect, the chain of cause and effect must have a terminus to avoid infinite regress. Aquinas rejects infinite regress because it denotes that there cannot be an answer to the question “what is the explanation?” Therefore there must be a necessary being that started the chain, this for Aquinas is God but this is not a satisfactory answer for everyone. Bertrand Russell, somewhat like Aristotle, states that the universe is a “brute fact”, although unlike Aristotle did not see that there needed to be a Prime Mover or Uncaused Cause. Russell made another criticism when he suggested that one cannot go from saying that every event has a cause thus the whole universe has a cause, it is like moving from saying that every human being has a mother to the claim that the human race as a whole has a mother. One cannot move from individual causes to the totality (whole, everything) has a cause.
Anselm was attempting to prove that god existed “a priori,” or through reason alone. He argued that not everyone needed a personal experience with God to believe in him – God’s existence was a logical conclusion if you thought the argument through. Specifically Anselm aimed his argument at “The Fool.” This does not refer to any