Anselm (1033–1109) had opposed an Ontological Argument that one understands God as a being and cannot conceive anything greater because God cannot be understood not to exist. On the other hand, another philosopher named Gaunilo objected Anselm’s Ontological Argument by suggesting that the same style of argument can be used to prove the existence of other entities, such as the idea of a greatest possible island. Although this may be the case, Anselm never got the opportunity to plead his case against Gaunilo’s objection. However, there are numerous biblical evidence to help support Anselm’s argument. Anselm’s Ontological Argument states that one understands that God, as a being, cannot be conceived a greater.
Copleston put forward a defines with was based on some ideas of the third way of Aquinas’ ways. Russell disagreed with Copleston’s argument and suggested that the universe was not explainable in the way Copleston described. In their debate was the issue of contingency and necessity and a reason to explain why anything exists. Copleston explained Leibniz’s “Principle of Sufficient Reason”, which is the claim that there has to be a full explanation for everything. There are things in the world that do not have the reason or cause of their existence, this mean that some things in the world are contingent - they might have no existed.
These arguments never get to any particular God. They have all established that the existence can be described by itself; none of this even implies a deity, or a universal consciousness. When you start by rejecting the presumption of a God, all the arguments fall flat on their face. What these three arguments are, are thesis trying to defend the indefensible. Although, these three arguments all agree in the way that they use unfound assumptions to prove what has yet to be proven; they do disagree on the studies of how to prove what really is God.
The third way is the contingency of the matter in the universe, explaining that there must be a being or something that brought everything into existence. Also if nothing was in existence it would be impossible for something to begin to exist, which means that by now nothing would have been in existence and the only possible being can only be God because if God didn’t exist nothing would exist. The Arguments against the cosmological argument and the existence of God has being
Since nothing can move of its own accord, and nothing can change itself, there had to be something else which has no cause and had the ability to initiate the Universe. Aquinas said that this entity without a cause and the power to create a Universe had to be an ‘Unmoved Mover/ Prime Mover’. He surmised that this Prime Mover had to be God. This argument has some positive points, in the fact that the natural occurrence of movement plus change have been brought into it, which makes the argument seem valid and plausible. However,
Thus it’s problematic to claim that God is responsible for everything in such kind of universe. Another argument emphasizes the impossibility of an infinite number of past events. If the universe didn’t have a beginning, then there is an infinite number of past events up to now. As an infinite set should be unaffected by addition or subtraction of one, the past history should be unaffected if we add or remove some events. Yet it’s not plausible to say, for example, the history remains the same if we remove all the wars.
His First Way is based on motion, which, according to Aquinas, does not only include movement from one place to another but also the change of quantity and quality. Aquinas thought that al things within the universe are in motion and that an object only moved when an external force was applied to it, or in other words, nothing can move itself. However, he also firmly believed that this chain of movement or changes could not go back to infinity. According to him, infinite regress was an impossibility. Since nothing can move itself, he concluded that there must be a Prime Mover, a so-called first mover, which itself was unmoved.
Assess how far the cosmological argument proves that God exists (15 mark) Russell opposed to the cosmological argument as evidence for the existence of God. He added that Copleston was making a fallacy of composition, just because humans have a mother it does not mean the universe had to have a mother. The universe does not have to have a beginning. Russell is supporting the possibility of infinite regress or suggested that there may be no explanation for the universe. The universe may have always existed and that this is a 'brute fact'.
From this he asserts that 2): the explanation for the existence of the Universe cannot come from a contingent thing because contingent things are part of the Universe. One cannot use a part of something to explain the
This ‘way’ is derived from the Aristotelian theory of causation, and seeks to explain that nothing in the world exists that has not been caused by something else. Aquinas then concludes that there must have been a first cause at some point, because an infinite chain of causes is impossible. The second was of ‘cause’ is based on the idea that nothing can cause itself to exist, because that would mean it would have had to exist before it existed. This would be impossible;