It is an act of God alone, by which, for his own glory, he brings into existence everything in the universe, things that had no existence prior to his creative word. In creation, we see God’s lordship on display in his control over all things, his authority over all the universe, and his presence in every part of creation Trusting God is one of those truths we think we understand until we are called upon to do it, and then we discover that there is more to it than we realized. Trusting God is an aspect of saving faith which has been said to have three elements to it: knowledge, assent, and trust (cf. John Gill, Body of Divinity, vol. 1 [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, ], ) Jun 12, · God’s existence thus provides the best explanation of moral obligations. If moral obligations are identical with divine commands (or perhaps if they are grounded in or caused to exist by divine commands) an argument for God’s existence from such obligations can easily be constructed: There are objective moral obligations
God - Wikipedia
Ontological arguments are arguments, for the conclusion that God exists, from premises which are supposed to derive from some source other than observation of the world—e. In other words, ontological arguments are arguments from what are typically alleged to be none but analytic, a priori and necessary premises to the conclusion that God exists.
The first, and best-known, ontological argument was proposed by St. Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th century C. In his ProslogionSt. Anselm claims to derive the existence of God from the concept of a being than which no greater can be conceived. 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.
But this would be absurd: nothing can be greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived. So a being than which no greater can be conceived—i. In the seventeenth century, René Descartes defended a family of similar arguments. For instance, in the Fifth MeditationDescartes claims to provide a proof demonstrating the existence of God from the idea of a supremely perfect being.
Descartes argues that there is no less contradiction in conceiving a supremely perfect being who lacks existence than there is in conceiving a triangle whose interior angles do not sum to existence of god essay. Hence, he supposes, since we do conceive a supremely perfect being—we do have the idea of a supremely perfect being—we must conclude that a supremely perfect being exists. Leibniz argued that, since perfections are unanalysable, it is impossible to demonstrate that perfections are incompatible—and he concluded from this that all perfections can co-exist together in a single entity.
In more recent times, Kurt Gödel, existence of god essay, Charles Hartshorne, Existence of god essay Malcolm and Alvin Plantinga have all presented much-discussed ontological arguments which bear interesting connections to the earlier arguments of St.
Anselm, Descartes and Leibniz. Of these, the most interesting are those of Gödel and Plantinga; in these cases, however, it is unclear whether existence of god essay should really say that these authors claim that the arguments are proofs of the existence of God, existence of god essay.
Critiques of ontological arguments begin with Gaunilo, a contemporary of St. Perhaps the best known criticisms of ontological arguments are due to Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason. However, as Bertrand Russell observed, it is much easier to be persuaded that ontological arguments are no good than it is to say exactly what is wrong with them.
This helps to explain why ontological arguments have fascinated philosophers for almost a thousand years. In various ways, the account provided to this point is rough, and susceptible of improvement. Sections 1—6 in what follows provide some of the requisite embellishments, though—as is usually the case in philosophy—there are many issues taken up here which could be pursued at much greater length. Sections 7—9 take up some of the central questions at a slightly more sophisticated level existence of god essay discussion, existence of god essay.
Section 10 is a quick overview of very recent work on ontological arguments:. For a useful discussion of the history of ontological arguments in the modern period, see Harrelson According to a modification of the taxonomy of Oppyexistence of god essay, there are eight major kinds of ontological arguments, viz:. Examples of all but the last follow. These are mostly toy examples. But they serve to highlight the deficiencies which more complex examples also share.
See Redding and Bubbio for recent discussion of this point. God is a being which has every perfection. This is true as a matter of definition. Existence is a existence of god essay. Hence God exists. I conceive of a being than which no greater can be conceived. If a being than which no greater can be conceived does not exist, then I can conceive of a being greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived—namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived that exists.
I cannot conceive of a being greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived, existence of god essay. Hence, a being than which no greater can be conceived exists. It is possible that that God exists. God is not a contingent being, i. Hence, it is necessary that God exists. Hence, God exists. See MalcolmHartshorneand Plantinga for closely related arguments. Hence, the existent perfect being is existent. Hence, existence of god essay, God is existent, i.
God exists. The last step is justified by the observation that, as a matter of definition, if there is exactly one existent perfect being, then that being is God.
See Rescher for a live version of this argument. I exist. Therefore something exists. Whenever a bunch of things exist, their mereological sum also exists. Therefore the sum of all things existence of god essay. Therefore God—the sum of all things—exists. Say that a God-property is a property that existence of god essay possessed by God in all and only those worlds in existence of god essay God exists. Not all properties are God properties. Any property entailed by a collection of God-properties is itself a God-property.
The God-properties include necessary existence, necessary omnipotence, necessary omniscience, and necessary perfect goodness, existence of god essay. Hence, there is a necessarily existent, necessarily omnipotent, necessarily omniscient, and necessarily perfectly good being namely, God. Of course, this taxonomy is not exclusive: an argument can belong to several categories at once. Moreover, an argument can be ambiguous between a range of readings, each of which belongs to different categories, existence of god essay.
This latter fact may help to explain part of the curious fascination of ontological arguments. Finally, the taxonomy can be further specialised: there are, for example, at least four importantly different kinds of modal ontological arguments which should be distinguished. See, e. It is not easy to give a good characterisation of ontological arguments.
Consider, for example, the claim that I conceive of a being than which no greater can be conceived. However, it is unclear how that traditional characterisation should be improved upon.
This procedure would make good sense if one thought that there is a natural kind—ontological arguments—which our practice carves out, but for which is existence of god essay to specify defining conditions. Moreover, this procedure can be adapted as a pro tem stop gap: when there is a better definition to hand, that definition will be adopted instead, existence of god essay.
On existence of god essay other hand, it seems worthwhile to attempt a more informative definition. Focus on the case of ontological arguments for the conclusion that God exists. Theists and non-theists alike can agree that there is spatio-temporal, or causal, or nomic, or modal structure to the world the basis for cosmological arguments ; and that there are certain existence of god essay of complexity of organisation, structure and function in the world the basis for teleological arguments ; and so on.
But theists and non-theists are in dispute about whether there are perfect beings, or beings than which no greater can be conceived, or … ; thus, theists and non-theists are in dispute about the indirect subject matter of the premises of ontological arguments.
Of course, the premises of ontological arguments often do not deal directly with perfect beings, beings than which no greater can be conceived, etc, existence of god essay.
However, the basic point remains: ontological arguments require the use of vocabulary which non-theists should certainly find problematic when it is used in ontologically committing contexts i.
Note that this characterisation does not beg the question against the possibility of the construction of a successful ontological argument—i. For it may be that the vocabulary in question only gets used in premises under the protection of prophylactic operators which ward off the existence of god essay commitments. Of course, there will then be questions about whether the resulting arguments can possibly be valid—how could the commitments turn up in the conclusion if they are not there in the premises?
Before we turn to assessment of ontological arguments, we need to get clear about what the proper intended goals of ontological arguments can be. Suppose we think of arguments as having advocates and targets: when an advocate presents an existence of god essay to a target, the goal of the advocate is to bring about some change in the target. What might be the targets of ontological arguments, and what might be the changes that advocates of these arguments aim to bring about in those targets?
In the coming discussion, it will be supposed that the targets are atheists and agnostics, and that the goal is to turn them into theists. Suppose that an advocate presents an ontological argument to a target.
What conditions must that arguments satisfy if it is fit for its intended purpose? A plausible suggestion is that, minimally, it existence of god essay make the targets recognise that they have good reason to accept the conclusion of the argument that they did not recognise that they have prior to the presentation of the argument.
Adopting this plausible suggestion provides the following criterion: a successful ontological argument is one that should make atheists and agnostics recognise that they have good reason to believe that God exists that they did not recognise that they have prior to the presentation of the argument. Note that this criterion has a normative dimension: it adverts to what atheists and agnostics should do when presented with the argument.
There is an important discussion to be had about whether we should suppose that the targets of ontological arguments are atheists and agnostics, and that the goal is to turn them into theists.
However, it is simply beyond the scope of this entry to pursue that discussion here. Objections to ontological arguments take many forms. Some objections are intended to apply only to particular ontological arguments, or particular forms of ontological arguments; other objections are intended to apply to all ontological arguments. It is a controversial question whether there are any successful general objections to ontological arguments.
One general criticism of ontological arguments which have appeared hitherto is this: none of them is persuasivei. Any reading of any ontological argument which has been produced so far which is sufficiently clearly stated to admit of evaluation yields a result which is invalid, or possesses a set of premises which it is clear in advance that no reasonable, reflective, well-informed, etc.
non-theists will accept, or has a benign conclusion which has no religious significance, or else falls prey to more than one of the above failings. For each of the families of arguments introduced in the earlier taxonomy, we can give general reasons why arguments of that family fall under the general criticism. In what follows, we shall apply these general considerations to the exemplar arguments introduced in section 2. An obvious problem is that claims involving that vocabulary cannot then be non-question-beggingly detached from the scope of that definition.
In the example given earlier, the premises license the claim that, as a matter of definition, God possesses the perfection of existence.
God's Existence In 2 Minutes! - Irrefutable Evidence For God!
, time: 2:19God, Western Concepts of | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
In monotheistic thought, God is conceived of as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. God is usually conceived of as being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and omnibenevolent as well as having an eternal and necessary blogger.com is most often held to be incorporeal, with said characteristic being related to conceptions of transcendence or immanence Arguments for the earlier view, that God is eternal but exists within time, include: personhood requires existence in time because only in time can there be intending, acting, knowing, remembering, and the like; it is difficult to explain how a timeless God can know or respond to events; and the notion of timeless eternity is incoherent Trusting God is one of those truths we think we understand until we are called upon to do it, and then we discover that there is more to it than we realized. Trusting God is an aspect of saving faith which has been said to have three elements to it: knowledge, assent, and trust (cf. John Gill, Body of Divinity, vol. 1 [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, ], )
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