Descartes' argument in the Meditations is circular. Discuss. In trying to prove the existence of God, Descartes will, of course, have to rely on what he can clearly and distinctly perceive, because this is the only way he can know anything. However, Descartes also needs to prove that God exists for us to know what we clearly and distinctly perceive. This leads to the famous objection that he uses the existence of God to establish his doctrine of clear and distinct ideas, and that he uses his doctrine of clear and distinct ideas to establish the existence of God: his argument is circular.
Since humans have the ability to think of a being more perfect then themselves, then this being must have planted the idea in our mind. With the knowledge now that God is existing, perfect and is a non-deceiver – due to him being all-good –, Descartes can now move on to explain why material objects
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.
St. Anselm’s, Ontological Argument defends the conception of God being a great being. There can be no other being greater than God. This theory implies that only God exists or if not there could be another greater existent being. The greatest is God though. I do believe this.
The basic premise of the Kálam argument is that something must of caused the universe to begin to exist, this cause must be necessary therefore it is God. The Kálam argument agrees with the term infinite regression, in which is a chain going infinitely back in time with no beginning. St. Thomas Aquinas was a believer of the cosmological argument, Aquinas set out ex nihilo nihil fit, basically meaning nothing comes from nothing, Aquinas believed since nothing can come from nothing, the universe exists so therefore God must of made it. Aquinas’ theory is equivalent to the second way, in which is ‘causation’. The second way states that cause and effect are natural, whatever happens is caused by something, and something cannot cause itself because that would mean
Bertrand Russell also put forth the argument that the universe is a brute fact and it created itself. He believes that there is no more reason to explain this that there is to explain that God is the prime mover
For example, St. Anselm of Canterbury proposed the first, and best-known Ontological argument in the 11th. Century A.D. In his Proslogion, St. Anselm claims to derive the existence of God from the concept of a being, which no greater can be conceived. St. Anselm reasoned that, “if such a being fails to exist, then a greater being, namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived, and which exists, can be conceived” (Philosophy Encyclopedia). However, this would be absurd, seeing as that nothing greater than God can be conceived in anyway.
Anselm’s Ontological Argument The philosopher Anselm of Canterbury’s ontological argument debates the existence of God to be very much true. Anselm concepts God as a being in which nothing greater can be conceived. He also iterates that this being is too the greatest that one can possibly imagine. Therefore, for God to be the ideal concept of perfection, he must too in fact exist in reality and not just the mind, as in the understanding. An atheist, whom may not believe that God actually exists in reality, surely understands the concept of what God is so he then exists in his understanding.
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
John 17:3 sums up the point of life: to know God. If there truly is this all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God of which the Bible speaks, of course He would be the One worth knowing in this universe. Man was created in God’s image, so his life’s ambition should be to find what that image is and who that God