It is also deductive, so the conclusion is the only possible one that could be deduced give the premises. Therefore, it is theoretically strong. Anselm proposed in the Proslogian that the existence of God was true for him by the virtue of faith and logical necessity. He proposed a reductio ad absurdum argument that aimed to demonstrate he impossibility of denying God’s existence. His first form of the argument runs as follows: (P1) God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived (P2) If God exists in the mind alone (in intellect) then a greater being can be conceived (in re) (P3) God to be the greatest being, has to existing the mind and in reality, otherwise another being would be greater than God.
His cosmological argument states that every affect has a cause, which itself has a cause. You cannot have an infinite chain of causation so there must be a first cause. This first cause must be God. The second role that was established by Aquinas for God is Causa Sine - the first cause. God being transcendent does not need a cause but he is the first cause for everything within the universe.
Critics such as Dawkins and Russell say the universe is here today due to ‘brute fact’ whereas Swinburne would argue highly with that and say ‘God is simpler than anything we could imagine and gives an explanation for the system’. Incorporation Aristotle’s notion of a prime mover, Aquinas formulated his version of the cosmological or "first cause" argument. The first cause incorporates the theory that there must be a contingency/necessary being. According to this argument, the things which we see around us now are the products of a series of previous causes indicating a prime mover. But that series cannot go back in time forever.
a) Give an account of the fundamental ideas of the design argument for the existence of God (21 marks) The design argument for the existence of God is also called the teleological argument. The design argument is based on observation on the obvious order in the natural world, to conclude that it’s the result of design not just by chance. The evidence from design indicates that there is a designer and the argument concludes that this designer is God. ‘With such signs of forethought in the design of living creatures, can you doubt they are the work of choice or design?’ Socrates. The design argument is based on the view that the universe has order, purpose and regularity.
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.
(Exodus 20:3 You shall have no other Gods me.) I would answer the Teleological question by saying, “We are the Kingdom of God, and because we belong to God’s Kingdom we have purpose and destiny on my life. Since God has purpose on our lives that means he has a plan. Jeremiah 29:11 states, “I know the thoughts I think towards you thoughts of good and not of evil to give you an expected
Compare the concept of a Prime Mover with the idea of God as a Craftsman The concept of a Prime Mover was thought of by Aristotle who suggested there was a God because of the way things exist in the universe. Aristotle said that the chain of cause and effect cannot go on forever so there must have been something that started off this chain, he argued that there must have been an uncaused first cause that started off this chain of events, he said that this was the Prime Mover. The idea of God as a Craftsman suggests that God designed the universe in this specific way and it was not random at all. Genesis 1 and 2 portray God as a craftsman with a clear plan as to how he was going to create the world in six days. The repetition of the words ‘And God said’, ‘And it was so’, ‘And God saw it was good’ show that God is a craftsman who was very much aware of what he was creating; it is said that this God is omnipotent.
AO1: Give an account of the fundamental ideas of the Design Argument for the existence of God. Target: To improve my AO1 essay I should link two or more scholar through each paragraph and make the conclusion a short summary. The Argument of Design aims to prove God’s existence through a posteriori premise, that the universe is too complex to just came into existence by chance and therefore it has to be designed by God. All of its scholars using inductive reasoning, Aquinas and Paley aim to prove the existence of God through Analogy and Swinburne, Tennant and Stannard using Probabilities. Theist Stannard and Paley both start their arguments with the premise, that the universe has complex features, but Stannard proceed further the idea, that the universe is too complex to just happen by coincidence.
It has also sought to explain a modern formulation of the argument as put forward by Richard Swinburne. In both of these versions of the argument, the key idea is that the order and purpose which we all experience through our senses, a posteriori, requires an explanation. For believers like Paley and Swinburne, the most likely explanation is that there is a designer God who created the world lovingly and for a purpose. Hume presents a fictitious dialogue between three characters: Cleanthes, Philo, and Demea. Although Hume focuses primarily on the global design argument, it should be clear that his objections to the global argument can be applied to the local design argument presented by Paley.
Both of them would be right because the truth is relative to what they believe. The first major problem that is seen with this is that you can believe god exists and you can believe he does not exits but that does not change the existence or non existence of god. You can not change what actually is by what you believe, there is proof of this in our