That question is the one raised by absurdism. Being, how can we derive meaning when nothing that exists has meaning, nothing exists on purpose, and therefore human life is absurd. Spinoza’s substance monism directly confronts this question by asserting the claim that there is essentially meaning in life because we are all a part of one substance which is God. However, while this may seem like it directly refutes the absurdist’s claim that nothing in existence has meaning it does not. The issue with the solving of this problem is in Spinoza’s definition of God.
Ontological arguments are a priori, which show that God exists without appealing to a sense experience. These ontological arguments argue about what God is to where he is from. St. Anselm, the creator of the ontological argument, based his theory on that we cannot think of anything greater than God. Therefor God must exist, why you might ask? If the greatest thing that we can conceive does not exist than we can still conceive the greatest thing that does exist, and that would be God.
Berkeley`s states that everything is an idea and that there has to be a supreme spirit (god) out there that has the ability to put ideas in our mind. Thus, being the one who controls everything that we are able think. The way that I understood Berkeley`s argument is that he believes that the existence of “God” is essential in order to know anything from the external world. Comprehending Berkeley`s argument wasn’t an easy task, but I have come to my personal conclusion that this so called; “Supreme spirit” is not necessary for me to have knowledge about the things that I can observe. Therefore in this paper, I will argue that Berkeley`s response to skepticism is not successful because he thinks that god is the base of knowledge.
Thus, Anselm tends to base his argument on the definitions and terminology used. Anselm’s first form of the argument is that God is "that than which none greater can be conceived". Firstly, it must be emphasised that Anselm’s definition does not limit God to being the "greatest" but makes it known that nothing greater can be thought than God himself. Therefore, God should not in any way be linked to terms such as ‘omnipotent’ as terminology such as this limit him to what he really is. With this definition, he attempts to prove that not only does God exist in the mind but also in reality.
(C) Hence, God does exist.” 1 The first objection is that existence does not follow from essence. One might imagine, for instance, a minotaur and what would constitute its essence. However, even if one could 1 1 DESCARTES, René. “ Repli... ... middle of paper ... ...rcle. The ideal is always “more perfect” than the real.
How can anyone rationally conclude that there is a God from the simple statement that a first cause is necessary for the existence of anything? A first cause does not prove God, it only assumes that there is a God, at best. Could one not put matter in the place of God in St. Aquinas’s argument and still assume there is a first efficient cause? The theory that matter “is”, is just as plausible as the theory that God “is”. Matter is closed and finite in extent, with no beginning nor end.
Epictetus’s god does not merely possess these qualities, but he is goodness, he is rationality itself. That is the defining difference between the good of Epictetus’s god and that of a personal god. The texts make it clear that Epictetus sees god as all powerful. He describes god as being the artificer of the universe and that no one could possibly possess power equal to god (Discourses 6:10, 14:11). This could be interpreted as a personification of god because being an “artificer” and the ab... ... middle of paper ... ...e of ourselves, but simply to preserve ourselves as nature intended (Discourses 8:23).
René Descartes' Argument on the Existence of God The problem with René Descartes' argument about the existence of God has to do with his rationalist deductive reasoning. Descartes deduces that truth about the existence of God lies within his idea of a perfect God and God's essence (as a perfect being who must exist in order to be perfect). A rationalist philosopher, Descartes discounts human knowledge as a product of our sensory data (our senses) but supports the epistemological stance that our knowledge is obtained through the reasoning processes of our own minds. Because Descartes believes deductive inference is the only path to absolute certainty, he endeavors to use logical arguments and principles (a mathematically natured process of reasoning) to validate the existence of God. But how can principles of logic be used to prove the existence of God?
However, a thing cannot possess a characteristic unless it first exists. In his reply to Descartes's argument, Gassendi complains that "... ... middle of paper ... ...trying to demonstrate, namely that a most-perfect being must exist in order to be a most-perfect being. Last, predicating the existence of God as a divine attribute seems to be unhelpful in addressing His actual existence. Descartes needs to arrive at God's existence through empirical means that do not rely on a restatement of the problem in the form "if x then x" as a solution to God's actual existence. Works Cited Barnes, Jonathan.
He attempts to show that the position of the fool -- the non-believer who has said in his heart, "There is no God" -- is incoherent and leads to absurdity. (Cottingham, 1996: 246) How does Anselm's reductio work? A fully satisfactory answer to this question is not exactly simple. The idea appears to be this: The argument depends on a definition of sorts. Anselm says of God: “We believe that you are something than which nothing greater can be thought.” (Cottingham, 1996: 246) We can put this in shorthand by saying that Anselm understands God to be the greatest conceivable being -- the GCB, for short Now you might protest that you do not use the word "God" in this way.