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.
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. Anselm’s ontological argument can be seen as a Reductio ad absurdum, which means it is a logical argument that aims to prove contention by demonstrating that its denial leads to absurdity. Anselm’s argument explains that it is contradictory for someone to accept that God to exist in understanding and not in reality. This is because according to the existence of perfection a doctrine that something is greater if it exists in addition t being thought of, and God is greater than which nothing can be thought therefore He has to exist in both understanding and reality. The argument goes like this: 1.
The verification principle had originated from philosophers in a group called ‘The Vienna Circle” where they believed that dome statements were meaningful and some simply were not, they distinguished these statements by coming up with a theory called, The verification principle. The verification principle is used to show that a statement is only meaningful if it can be verified by an actual experience, or if it is a tautology. A tautology meaning that a logical statement that we can know to be true just by it’s definition. The philosophers who came up with the verification principle were the logical positivists, who believed that a statement could only be meaningful if it could be proved by observation or experience. However this version of the verification principle has been criticized as being too strict as statements such as History, can not be seen as meaningful as they cannot be empirically verified by the senses, and it neither a tautology of all the events that have taken part in the past.
Although both the empiricists and rationalist both came to the same problem how could we ever know anything outside of our own perceptions. The rationalists believed in a priori knowledge, knowledge that is innate that you come into this world with. It is gives you the ability to use rational thought and reason to gain
McCloskey contended against the three mystical verifications, which are the cosmological argument, the argument from design and the teleological argument. He called attention to the presence of evil on the planet that God made. He likewise called attention to that it is irrational to live by trust or faith. As indicated by McCloskey, confirmations do not essentially assume a fundamental part in the conviction of God. Page 62 of the article expresses that "most theists do not come to have faith in God as a premise for religious conviction, however come to religion as a consequence of different reasons and variables."
Kant then argued that God’s existence in the ontological argument is based on a synthetic statements (‘God is that which than greater cannot be imagined’ and ‘existing is greater than not existing’) therefore more evidence and proof is required in addition to the ontological argument in order to verify the existence of God. The ontological argument also features the idea that God has necessary existence – because his definition is that he is perfect and existing is more perfect than not existing, God must have necessary existence. However Kant opposed this idea and said that if we reject the whole idea of God that his definition is no longer important and thus he
Among these were William L. Rowe, a professor of philosophy who counter argued Anselm’s beliefs with the support he took from many critics on the subject. One of these critics happens to be philosopher Immanuel Kant, who offered a rather interesting but strong counter claim to Anselm’s statements. A reoccurring idea in Anselm’s argument is that there is a precise difference in existing in reality and existing in the mind, AKA the understanding. Rowe interprets this idea and explains that Anselm is arguing that if a being only exists in one’s understanding, it is not as great as it could have been had it existed in reality as well. In Kant’s views, he believes Anselm’s mistake was in stating “existence” as a quality as well as a property that one may possess to add to the list of other’s one could conceive
He believes there truly is no comparison. In fact, he believes that there is nothing we can compare this world to because, as far as we know, there is not another world even similar to us. We have no standard in which we can judge our world because our world is all we know. According to Hume, we cannot assume a Christian God as the creator. He was not sure we could even assume a creator, let alone choose one religions God to be the true one.
Irvin Segovia Spinoza Midterm TA Jason The Reality of Substance Part A In this paper I will discuss Spinoza’s view on the nature of substance, specifically on propositions six and seven in part 1 of his Ethics. Proposition six states that one substance cannot be produced by another substance. Spinoza provides the following reasons for this claim: (1) that in the universe there cannot be two substances with the same nature or attribute. This premise stems from proposition five which on closer inspection reveals an ambiguity. It’s not clear as to whether Spinoza meant (a) there cannot be two substances with all the same attributes in common; or (b) there cannot be two substances with an attribute in common.
How do we know things? There are different ways of knowing; through emotions, feelings, sense perceptions etc. We use logic, deduction, and induction, to reach conclusions we think are true. Conclusions reached in this way are considered more certain than sense perceptions on their own. In the other hand, if such reasoned conclusions are only built originally upon a organization of sense perceptions, then the arguments what are being considered.