Throughout much of the short time that humankind has spent on this planet, few questions have been raised and torn apart as often as that regarding the existence of God. Philosophers throughout the ages have tackled this monumental issue, and some of them have gone so far as to try to prove the existence of God from a logical standpoint. Arguments for and against the existence of a Creator abound, but two of these stand above the rest. The first of these is the cosmological argument which while arguable, is unfortunately not entirely disprovable. Easier to argue against is the teleological argument, which actually can be broken down so quickly that one begins to question why it ever became popular in the first place. While neither one of these is guaranteed to convince a dedicated non believer, their interest as philosophical arguments is unquestionable. In the Western tradition of philosophy, the cosmological argument can be traced all the way back to Plato’s Laws. However, its first appearance as a fully formed argument appears in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Thomas Aquinas was a Roman Catholic philosopher who lived in the thirteenth century, and had a phenomenal effect on Western philosophy. In his writings, he came to what he believed to be a basic proof for the existence of God. In summary, the argument stands as such: All things that exist must have beginning, and therefore a cause. The Universe as a thing which exists, must have had a beginning and therefore a cause. A dumbed down version of this is simply that no matter how far one chooses to go back, even before the Big Bang, the Universe had to have started at some point, so something had to coax it into existence. Supporters of the cosmological argument ... ... middle of paper ... ...od strong against the test of time. The cosmological argument for the existence of God is fundamentally flawed, but impossible to disprove by nature. The teleological argument for the existence of God is actually somewhat clever, but easily disprovable. Ultimately, neither philosophy nor science can ever definitively state whether or not God exists. God, if real, exists outside of the realm of what science can measure. Philosophy, while useful in the never-ending debate regarding the great possible being in the sky, is too speculative and this cannot be tested. Arguments for and against God’s existence have been around for a very long time and will likely be around either until God himself makes an appearance, or until the human race dies out. It is not our place to know whether or not there is some higher creative being than us, and personally I am okay with that.
Thomas Aquinas, a leading scholar of the Middle Ages, argued that “Everything in the universe has a cause. Trace those causes back and there must have been a First Cause that triggered everything else. God is that First Cause.” This was known as his “First Cause” argument.
Within William Rowe’s Chapter two of “The Cosmological Argument”, Rowe reconstructs Samuel Clark's Cosmological Argument by making explicit the way in which the Principle of Sufficient Reason, or PSR, operates in the argument as well as providing contradictions of two important criticisms from Rowe’s argument.
begin with. This we call God, so we call God the prime mover i.e. the
First off, The Cosmological Argument was developed by St. Thomas Aquinas in 1274 through his work entitled Summa Theologica (otherwise known as Five Ways). Its purpose was to prove God’s existence through sensory perception. In Part One, Article Three of Prima Pars, Aquinas states that in order to debate, one must become involved in the opposing argument, then afterwards argue their view. In this case, one must look at both the argument for God’s existence (Theism) and for God’s non-existence (Atheism) in order to truly understand the argument that they are arguing for or against. The cosmological argument is divided into three parts, each containing varying sub-arguments:
In conclusion I am left pretty much in the same place as I have started. It is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God philosophically. For every philosopher who publishes his or her opinions on the subject, three more are there to tear it down. In the end I think it is best that man does not figure out the answer to this lifelong question. Some things are better left unanswered.
Throughout history there has always been discussions and theories as to how the universe came to be. Where did it come from? How did it happen? Was it through God that the universe was made? These philosophies have been discussed and rejected and new theories have been created. I will discuss three theories from our studies, Kalam’s Cosmological Argument, Aquinas’s Design Argument, and Paley’s Design Argument. In this article, I will discuss the arguments and what these arguments state as their belief. A common belief from these three theories is that the universe is not infinite, meaning that the universe was created and has a beginning date. Each believe that there was a God, deity, or master creator that created the universe for a reason. They also believe that
The Proof of the Existence of God There are many arguments that try to prove the existence of God. In this essay I will look at the ontological argument, the cosmological. argument, empirical arguments such as the avoidance of error and the argument from the design of the. There are many criticisms of each of these that would say the existence of God can’t be proven that are perhaps.
The cosmological argument is the existence of God, arguing that the possibility of each existing and the domain collected of such elements in this universe. The inquiry is that 'for what reason does anything exist? Why as opposed to nothing? In this paper, I will explain for what reason does everything need cause? Why is God thought to be the principal cause?
For the purposes of this debate, I take the sign of a poor argument to be that the negation of the premises are more plausible than their affirmations. With that in mind, kohai must demonstrate that the following premises are probably false:
The Main Strengths of the Cosmological Argument There are many strengths within the Cosmological Argument which have proven theories and ways to prove the existence of God. Many of these strengths have come from such scholars as; Copleston, Aquinas and Leibniz, all of which have put together major points to prove the existence of a non-contingent being. One of the main strengths of the Cosmological Argument is from Aquinas way I that was about motion. This would be a posteriori argument because you need to gather evidence from the world around you.
The argument from design or the teleological argument points to the existence of order and direction in nature to a kind of purpose. The argument essentially proves the existence of God. A designer must exist because the universe and living things exhibit marks of design in their complexity. Design-type arguments are unproblematic when based upon things nature plainly could not or would not produce, like human artifacts. If designs entail a designer, and the universe shows marks of design, then the universe was created. An intelligent designer is an entity that the intelligent design movement argues had some role in the development of life. Essentially, the claim being made is that certain aspects of the universe are too perfectly arranged to have not happened because of a supernatural being called God.
...nough to support the idea of God’s existence, I consider the debate to have no winner, because, the arguments of Dr. Dacey are also strong enough to prove his position. However, in these debates the double answer is not possible, because in reality the existence of God can be true of untrue, without anything in between. In my opinion, God exists, and I strongly believe in His existence. I consider the question “Does God Exist?” to be the issue of faith, and there cannot be true or false arguments, because all the people are willing to decide, whether they believe in existence of God, or not. It is the inner choice of everybody, and sooner or later we will all find out the truth.
William Paley and David Hume’s argument over God’s existence is known as the teleological argument, or the argument from design. Arguments from design are arguments concerning God or some type of creator’s existence based on the ideas of order or purpose in universe. Hume takes on the approach of arguing against the argument of design, while Paley argues for it. Although Hume and Paley both provide very strong arguments, a conclusion will be drawn at the end to distinguish which philosophiser holds a stronger position. Throughout this essay I will be examining arguments with reference to their work from Paley’s “The Watch and the Watchmaker” and Hume’s “The Critique of the Teleological Argument”.
In the following I intend to prove that the ontological argument is in and of itself, insufficient in proving that God exists. There are a few problems with the argument that I will be discussing in detail in an attempt to illustrate exactly why ‘The Ontological Argument’ is unsatisfactory.
In this essay I discuss why there is proof that there is a supernatural being known as God, who has created everything we know and experience. The mere claim, that there could be a "Proof for the Existence of God," seems to invite ridicule. But not always are those who laugh first and think later. Remember how all-knowing doctors/scientists laughed at every new discovery?