Denys Turner makes the point that Aquinas is misread, he says that Aquinas is just clarifying the existence of God for people who already believe rather than in an attempt to persuade non-believers. If this is the case, then this would mean that the Cosmological Argument does have value for religious faith. In conclusion, the Cosmological Argument shows no reason to believe in the loving Christian God which is why it has little
Although there are different sources, morality all depends on teachings from religious sources of authority. There is also evidence in the secular world that there is an association between religion and morality. It is influenced by religion when it comes to making decisions about important issues, such as abortion. Atheists and the secular world may not accept religious teachings, but their consideration of religion having an input on moral issues suggests that there is a link between the two. The divine command theory suggests that an act is right if it has ben commanded by God, and morally wrong if God has forbidden it.
With god/s grounding the moral the foundation of the moral becomes arbitrary because it would only be good because god says its so. Also calling god good would not make any sense since he decided what good is or isn't, so how could he be good unless the moral was grounding him? If piety was a certain care of the god’s we could look to do always what is Pious and in return we would be worshiping/caring for the god/s if they exists. If the God’s are looking to something the “moral,piety” then if you act pious in your actions through life you will be in a way worshiping the god’s, because you are honoring what they already honer. The problem with this idea is when people think god grounds the moral
Augustine defends the god of theism by rejecting the existence of evil as a force or power opposed to god as it would reject the premise that god is omnipotent. Below are the ways in which he justifies moral and natural evil, which respectively mean evil caused by human acts, and evil events caused by the processes of nature. To justify evil, he solves the problem by defining evil as a ‘privation’ – which means when something is ‘evil’, it is not defined to contain bad qualities but is seen to be falling short of perfection, or what it is expected to be. Take a rapist as an example. Adopting Augustine’s idea of ‘evil’, we are to say that he is not living up to standards expected of human beings.
P3: It is possible to have an experience of God. C: Therefore God must exist. This shows the inductive nature of the argument as well as the synthetic experiences it is based on. As Swinburne's proof of god through religious experience shows, there is a logical thought process that can systematically prove the existence of god if these premises are agreed upon. Some philosophers such as Ayer argue that experience cannot provide a stable base for the indication of reality because it is the interpretation of the experience that we are hearing for the experiencer, therefore we can never have concrete evidence that that is how the experience occurred.
The action of duty must exclude the influence of inclination so it may only be influenced by the objectivity of the law and therefore subjectively respected by us as good. Kant then goes on to confront the claim that moral worth is linked to agreeable condition and the promotion of happiness by stating that the moral worth of an action lies in the principle and not the effect of the action. Kant claimed that agreeable conditions and happiness can be brought about by too many other causes that do not require human rationality, and that human rationality is the only place where the “supreme and unconditional good” (P.2) can
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. (C) Therefore God must exist both in the mind and in reality. This method of reasoning aims to demonstrate the truth of something by reducing to absurdity the very opposite of what you are trying to prove. In Anselm’s case this would be that God does not exist, which he claims is absurd by means of an argument which he claims is logically necessary. For Anselm, God cannot not exist.
This essay concerns itself with proving that God does not exist, however my personal belief is that God does exist. The argument against the existence of God based on the existence of evil is outlined as: 1. If God were to exist, then that being would be an omnipotent, omniscient, and Omni-benevolent. 2. If an all-PKG being existed, then there would be no evil.
He said morality was innate; a part of us (a priori), and it was our moral duty to carry it out for good, which must lead to God. Accordingly Kant says good actions should be universalisable and free, so basically when making our ethical decisions we should ask ourselves a simple question "What if everybody did that?" if the answer is no, then the categorical imperative tells us that the action is wrong. So if I cheated on my AS-level exam to pass and be successful in the future, this would be my maxim, however I would not want others to do the same and therefore this action would be wrong according to Kant’s Categorical Imperative. My cheating pre-supposes that most people do not cheat even though they have the same reasons to cheat as I have.
Boethius used this theory to illustrate how God is not able to relate to humans as he is not in time with them, nor one of them. This means that he can also not interact them including punishing and rewarding humans. Boethius explains that if God were to interact, punishing and rewarding, it would mean he would be experiencing time as one and so undermining Boethius’ theory of god being eternal. This idea is more consistent with the idea that God is immutable and is not contingent. On the other hand, Boethius also states that humans do not have free will.