Arguments for the Existence of God
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Arguments for the Existence of God
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Arguments for the Existence of God
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Arguments for the Existence of God
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Arguments for the Existence of God
Arguments for the Existence of God – Questions
1. In what way was Anselm’s argument a reductio ad absurdum argument?
2. How did Rene Descartes define God?
3. Russell argued that Anselm’s use of the notion fo ‘necessary existence’ represented a …
4. What is the ‘Kalam argument’?
5. The teleological argument fpor God’s existence is based on the idea that there is ‘design’ in th world. Does the teleological argument
argue a priori?
6. Paley compared the world with a watch. Hume said it would be more accurate to compare the world with …?
7. Who pout forward a mechanistic universe where life continues owing to biological impulses?
8. explain the anthropic principle
9. What was the name of the monk that challenged Anselm?
10. What did Aquinas develop to porove the existence of God?
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Arguments for the Existence of God
Arguments for the Existence of God – Answers
1. The existence of God cannot be denied. To suggest otherwise would be absurd
Rowe's table illustrating "existence in reality" and "existence in the understanding":
Things which exist both in the
understanding and in reality
Things which exist only in
the understanding
The Empire State Building
The Fountain of Youth
Dogs
Unicorns
The planet Mars
The Abominable Snowman
Rowe's reconstruction of Anselm's argument
Rowe notes that Anselm's ontological argument employs a reductio ad absurdum argument. A reductio ad absurdum argument has the
following form:
1. Assume the opposite (more precisely, the denial) of the conclusion you are trying to prove.
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2. Show that a contradiction or absurdity would follow.
3. Conclude that your assumption must be false, that is, assert the conclusion you're trying to prove.
Here is a table with the steps in Anselm's argument written exactly as Rowe formulates them in the text (the numbered steps printed in black),
with my comments (in small italics), and with blue and red used to make it obvious where and how the reductio ad absurdum part occurs.
ANSELM BEGINS FROM THESE THREE GIVEN PREMISES:
1. God exists in the understanding.
That is, we have the idea of God as Anselm defines him (as "the being than which none greater can be conceived"
(TBTWNGCBC).
2. God might have existed in reality (God is a possible being).
There is nothing internally inconsistent in the notion of God as Anselm defines Him (that is, "TBTWNGCBC" is not like
"square circle").
3. If something exists only in the understanding and might have existed in reality, then it might have been greater than it
is.
This is a general principle which Anselm effectively takes for granted. If it's true that existence is a perfection, and
"greatness" is analogous to "perfection," then this this would seem to be true. We will want to think more critically about
this premise later, however!
ANSELM THEN PERFORMS HIS REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM:
The numbered statements in this part of the argument are printed in blue and red here to emphasize that Anselm does not believe that
any of these things are true -- he is just saying that if the assumption in step 4 were true then the things in steps 5 through 7 would
follow. But step 7 is a contradiction, so the conclusion of the argument (steps 8 and 9) follows from the given premises by reductio ad
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absurdum.
4. Suppose God exists only in the understanding.
This is an assumption which Anselm makes for the sake of proving just the opposite.
5. God might have been greater than He is. (2, 4, and 3)
If the assumption in step 4 were true, then this would follow from 2 and 3.
6. God is a being than which a greater is possible. (5)
If the assumption in step 4 were true, then this would follow because then 5 would follow.
7. The being than which none greater is possible is a being than which a greater is possible. (from step 6 by substitution
of Anselm's definition of "God")
If the assumption in step 4 were true, then this would follow. That is, given the premises from which Anselm begins (steps 1 through 3),
the assumption that God exists only in the understanding (step 4) implies a contradiction (step 7).
ANSELM THEN CONCLUDES HIS ARGUMENT BY DRAWING OUT THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM:
8. It is false that God exists only in the understanding.
From the reductio ad aburdum argument (steps 4 through 7) Anselm concludes that his given premises imply that God does not exist
only in the understanding (step 8), which is to say that God exists in reality as well (step 9).
9. God exists in reality as well as in the understanding. (1, 8)
Source: http://philosophy.tamu.edu/~gary/intro/handout.ontoarg.html
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2. A supremely perfect being. As Gos is supremely perfect He possesses all perfrections. This perfect state incldues existence which is a
predicate of a perfect being. Therefore God exists.
More plainly, this proof consists of three basic premises: The first states that God is perfect. Secondly, as he is perfect, he has every
perfection. Finally, if he didn’t exist, he would lack perfection. Therefore, God must exist.
From the beginning of his proof, Descartes makes an error: that God must be perfect. As he states it himself, “I understand by the name ‘God’
a certain substance that is infinite, independent, supremely intelligent, and supremely powerful.” (45) This definition cannot be used generally,
as it is based purely in his own intuition. While Descartes sees God in his mind as a supremely perfect being, this may not hold true for all the
people he is trying to convince. It is possible to conceive of a supreme being, namely God, without perfection as an essential trait. A purely
omnipotent being could have simply created life and the world, all omniscience, omni benevolence, and other perfections aside. Some people
might see God in this light, not the ultimately perfect being that Descartes presumes exists, in addition to others who may believe in alternate
deities such as the Greek Gods commandeered by Zeus and not Descartes’ God at all. As such, they would disagree with Descartes from the
very beginning, thus limiting the effectiveness of his entire argument.
Besides the point that God may not be perfect, there is another flaw in Descartes’ evaluation of God’s traits. He views God as follows:
“For if [the thing that created me] got its existence from itself, it is evident from what has been said that it is itself God, because,
having the power of existing in and of itself, it unquestionably also has the power of actually possessing all the perfections of which it has in
itself an idea—that is, all the perfections that I conceive to be in God.” (50)
In that passage, Descartes describes the feeling he has of an ultimately powerful creator who can bestow any possible perfection
onto the world, and as such, possesses all of them itself. This is, in theory, God. There is, however, a problem with this argument. First,
Descartes assumes that since perfections exist, God must contain all of them. This does not have to be true. For example, I can imagine a
being unlike anything I have seen in reality. In my mind’s eye, an equine body may walk upright, peering from side to side with eyes perched
on a canine muzzle and shrouded by a striped mane, while swishing the tail of a great lizard in its wake. This and other more unearthly
creatures can be seen within the plane of my thoughts. I know that such ideas have come from nothing, as I recognize them to be unique and
not resulting from any prior knowledge I may have outside of my own imagination. Some parts of these creatures, however, may be derived
from or analogous to aspects of things I have seen in the physical world. The parts all exist separately, but the combination to make one whole
being of them all is not real beyond the confines of my own mind. Descartes’ God may be much the same to him. A supremely perfect being is
something natural to imagine, as we know of many perfections separately. Why not amalgamate them all together to create a perfect being?
The thought of our ultimate being as something entirely perfect and thus knows what He is doing in all His decisions is comforting, and
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something that is pleasing to think about, but not necessarily true. God may be like the creatures in my mind; believable, distinctly different
from anything else on Earth, but not real. The idea of God as a supremely perfect being exists, but this is separate from whether or not God
truly exists, and as such this belief that God exists because all of his components exist separately and combine to make him cannot be logically
upheld.
The second problem with Descartes’ idea that God contains every perfection is that Descartes himself may not be reading his own feelings
accurately. In the beginning of his meditations, he threw out all trust in his senses, saying that he would “regard the heavens, the air, the
earth colors, shapes, sounds, and all external things as nothing but the bedeviling hoaxes of [his] dreams.” (23) Why then should a person
now trust another impulse from his mind, the “sixth sense” of intuition, and believe that he does have a distinct idea of God as a perfect being
derived from God Himself? If senses can be fooled in dreams, such that one may feel himself sitting before a fire when in reality he is lying in
bed, there is nothing to say that something as vague and inexplicable as intuition isn’t just as inaccurate. After all, sensing an ultimate being is
not as “clear and distinct” as feeling the warmth from a fire. Due to vagueness, intuition should in fact have even greater chances of error and
deviation from what is real than more base senses. Thus, since according to Descartes his own senses cannot be trusted, his argument can no
longer be trusted since it is founded in this idea that his perception of God is indeed accurate.
Source: http://www.revivify.net/star/writing/descartes.txt
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3. Syllogism
The temporal, kalam cosmological argument, dates back to medieval Muslim philosophers such as al-Kindi and al-Ghazali. It has recently been
restored to popularity by William Lane Craig.
Like all cosmological arguments, the kalam cosmological argument is an argument from the existence of the world or universe to the existence
of God. The existence of the universe, such arguments claim, stands in need of explanation. The only adequate explanation, the arguments
suggest, is that it was created by God.
What distinguishes the kalam cosmological argument from other forms of cosmological argument is that it rests on the idea that the universe
has a beginning in time. Modal forms of the cosmological argument are consistent with the universe having an infinite past. According to the
kalam cosmological argument, however, it is precisely because the universe is thought to have a beginning in time that its existence is thought
to stand in need of explanation.
This argument has the following logical structure:
The Kalam Cosmological Argument
(1) Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence.
(2) The universe has a beginning of its existence.
Therefore:
(3) The universe has a cause of its existence.
(4) If the universe has a cause of its existence then that cause is God.
Therefore:
(5) God exists.
The first premise of the argument is the claim that everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence. In order to infer from this that
the universe has a cause of its existence the proponent of the kalam cosmological argument must prove that the past is finite, that the
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universe began to exist at a certain point in time.
The crucial premise of the kalam cosmological argument, then, is the second: �The universe has a beginning of its existence�. How do we
know that the universe has a beginning of its existence? Might not the universe stretch back in time into infinity, always having existed? The
proponent of the kalam cosmological argument must show that this cannot be the case if his argument is to be successful.
Advocates of the kalam cosmological argument claim that it is impossible that the universe has an infinite past. In support of this claim,
modern advocates of the argument often appeal to modern science, specifically to the Big Bang theory. Modern science, they say, has
established that the universe began with the Big Bang.
Source: http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/kalamcosmological.html
5. No, a posteriori i.e. the proof relies on external evidence.
6. A carrot.
Another philosopher, David Hume (1711-1776), took up the design analogy a few years before Paley, in his Dialogues Concerning Natural
Religion. One of the characters, Philo, suggests that "If the universe bears a greater likeness to animal bodies and to vegetables than to the
works of human art, it is more probable that its cause resembles the cause of the former than that of the latter, and its origin ought rather to
be ascribed to generation or vegetation than to reason or design." (Book VII) "The world," says Philo, "plainly resembles more an animal or a
vegetable than it does a watch or knitting-loom. Its cause, therefore, it is more probable, resembles the cause of the former. The cause of the
former is generation or vegetation. The cause, therefore, of the world we may infer to be something similar or analogous to generation or
vegetation." Hume, apparently thought the analogy was a joke, but perhaps Paley is still laughing from that Great Carrot Patch in the Sky.
Source: http://skepdic.com/design.html
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7. Richard Dawkins
8. See box
First proposed by Brandon Carter in 1974,{5} the Anthropic Principle has assumed a number of different forms, generating a great deal of
confusion concerning what it is precisely that the principle means to assert. In their recent monumental book, The Anthropic Cosmological
Principle, physicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler state various versions of the principle, the most fundamental being the Weak Anthropic
Principle (WAP):
WAP: The observed values of all physical and cosmological quantities are not equally probable, but they take on values restricted by the
requirement that there exist sites where carbon-based life can evolve and by the requirement that the Universe be old enough for it to have
already done so.{6}
Barrow and Tipler regard WAP as "in no way speculative or controversial," since it is "just a restatement . . . of one of the most important and
well-established principles of science: that it is essential to take into account the limitations of one's measuring apparatus when interpreting
one's observations." For example, if we were calculating the fraction of galaxies that lie within certain ranges of brightness, our observations
would be biased toward the brighter ones, since we cannot see the dim ones so easily. Or again, a ratcatcher may say that all rats are bigger
than six inches because that is the size of his traps. Similarly, any observed properties of the universe which may initially appear astonishingly
improbable can only be seen in their true perspective after we have accounted for the fact that certain properties could not be observed by us,
were they to obtain, because we can only observe those compatible with our own existence. "The basic features of the Universe, including
such properties as its shape, size, age, and laws of change must be observed to be of a type that allows the evolution of the observers, for if
intelligent life did not evolve in an otherwise possible universe, it is obvious that no one would be asking the reason for the observed shape,
size, age, and so forth of the universe." Thus, our own existence acts as a selection effect in assessing the various properties of the universe.
For example, a life form which evolved on an earthlike planet "must necessarily see the universe to be at least several billion years old and . . .
several billion light years across," for this is the time necessary for the production of the elements essential to life and so forth.
Source: http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/teleo.html
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9. Gaunilo
One problem with this argument is that it invites parody. Parallel arguments purporting to prove the existence of any perfect thing at all can be
constructed.
This objection was first raised by one of Anselm’s contemporaries, the monk Gaunilo of Marmoutiers, who constructed an ontological argument
for the existence of the perfect island in his On Behalf of the Fool.
The perfect island, this argument goes, is the island than which no greater can be conceived. Any island that does not exist, though, cannot be
the island than which no greater can be conceived, for it could be conceived to exist which would be greater. Anyone who thinks that the
perfect does not exist, then, is confused; the concept of the perfect island entails that there is such a thing.
Similar arguments for the existence of the perfect baseball pitcher, or the perfect husband ‘for the existence of any perfect thing at all’ can be
constructed. If any of these arguments is sound, it seems, then they must all be sound.
Clearly, though, these arguments are not all sound; the perfect baseball pitcher does not exist, and neither does the perfect husband. There is
something wrong with the logic of these arguments. Each of these ontological arguments, though, uses the same logic. They must therefore all
be unsound.
The fact that there is no perfect island, and no perfect baseball pitcher, then, shows that the logic of the ontological argument for God’s
existence is flawed
Source: http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/perfectisland.html
10. The Five Wats. Check this site out: http://www.thatreligiousstudieswebsite.com/Articles/Philosophy_of_religion/God/five_ways.html
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