It Is Not Possible to Prove God’s Existence Through Definition Alone”

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B) “It is not possible to prove God’s existence through definition alone” Gaunilo would agree with this statement and use his example of gossip. A person could describe to you their family member in such vivid details, but you need to see this family member in order to confirm if the person is true because gossip is unreliable. Gaunilo is suggesting we require evidence in order to prove anything. Aquinas would agree with Gaunillo and say in order to prove God’s existence we need the five ways. Aquinas Five ways consisted of motion, causation of existence, contingent and necessary objects, the argument for degrees and perfection and the argument for intelligent design. Aquinas thought without this we could not assume God’s existence hence why he would have disagreed with proving God’s existence through definition alone. One of Aquinas’s points was that God’s existence cannot be regarded as ‘self-evident’, in other words you can’t simply say God is real you must back it up with evidence. Aquinas believed that although we have a understanding of what God is, God will always remain unknowable to the finite human mind. Kant argued that existence was not a ‘predicate’, in other words existence is not a characteristic or an attribute of something. What Kant is trying to say is that existence is not the same as a predicate because it does not tell us anything about the object that would help us identify it, you can’t describe your favourite animal to a person by saying it exist. When we say something exist we are not say that it has this quality or characteristic what we are saying is that is that this concept, with all its characteristics, has been ‘actualised’. For Kant, all philosophical statements about existence are synthetic, meaning it needs to be verified as true and false. Therefore, Kant would disagree with proving God’s existence through definition alone.
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