Pascal pointed out that Aquinas’ made the assumption that the uncaused cause, which is necessary for the Cosmological Argument, was the Christian God. As there is no empirical or scientific evidence for this to be the case then his argument does have little value for religious faith. For this reason, I agree with this claim. Karen Armstrong also criticises the Cosmological Argument as she says that Christians do not need to find reason, as Aquinas is trying to do, in order to debate with science. In her book “The Case for God” she writes that religion requires leaps of faith and should accept that there is no scientific proof for the existence of God.
Lovely bride!” bring the story into the present tense and the use of short sentences make the words more powerful. Also the phrase “She hurried at his words…” gives the reader a sense of time- by using a mixture of dialogue and the author saying that someone has spoken gives the poem more depth, showing that some points are more relevant than others. Keats did this as to point the reader at the points which create the story. The phrase “’Hark! ‘tis an elfin-storm from faery land…” has a bit of ambiguity about it.
Examine the strengths and weakness of the argument for the existence of God based on Religious Experience (18) Religious experience presents an argument for the existence of God far different from more traditional teleological or cosmological arguments; its defining feature being an inductive argument with a posteriori factors of experience. A religious experience means there has been an encounter with the divine, making it backed among religious believers as convincing evidence of God. Religious experiences occur in an extraordinary way that does not apply to straight forward empiricism, but rather happen in a spiritual, mystical or religious condition. This often makes them somewhat unfathomable, as they are so outside the normal ‘I-It’ experiences. These experiences would be referred to as ‘I-Thou’ by Buber.
Even reading the work he has produced is intimidating in itself. Watching This is Water provides an interesting insight into Wallace’s character. He is very perceptive. He understands humor, strong “down to earth” analogies, and shows clear delivery in his work. While reading his work I feel that Wallace displays arrogance, but after hearing his presentation I see that he reflects a great amount of talent and intellect in the literary
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.
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”.
The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was one of the early founders of existentialism. Although Kierkegaard was a devout Christian, he rejected the Christian Church due to its legalistic nature and the false relationship that people were receiving with God as a result. Kierkegaard believed that the key relationship of an individual was with God. He argued that God has given people freedom to make their own decisions and therefore our decisions are not determined. He thought that our existence is not something determined rationally or part of an on-going process but that it is something specific which is created through the choices we make.
According to Descartes, we simply have no idea what is and what is not possible for God, so we cannot lay down any limitations on God’s absolute omnipotence. However, this theory does not come without weaknesses. The biggest weakest, in my view, is that if God could do the logically impossible, why didn’t he create a world in which we are free yet at the same time always choose and do good? This could eradicate the problem of evil and suffering which all of humanity are faced with. Furthermore, even the Bible
Human wisdom is limited, because its bases off of prior knowledge and instinct, the wisdom of the world from philosophers, scholars, Greeks, Jews, and Gentiles is foolish to God. The only way to have true wisdom is by the Spirit which is the Holy Ghost through Jesus Christ. “No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely giving us. (1 Corinthians 2:11-12 NLT).
He gives God human characteristics to denounce the image of Him being omnipotent and all-mighty. Suggesting that God was created in our own image, he suggests that God is not much better off than we are. Most of these songs Brock, although admittedly does not believe in God, assumes His existence in order to present flaws in both God and the belief of God. Just as George Carlin and Richard Dawkins, as mentioned previously, mocks God by calling him a “sky-fairy” and speaking about Him as just an ordinary guy that was created by people, Modest Mouse songs satirically represent God as fallible in many of their