“The ontological argument does not succeed in going beyond defining God” to what extent is this true? The ontological argument, originally proposed by Anselm in his book ‘The Proslogion’ and later adapted by philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga and Descartes, defines God as “a being that which nothing greater can be conceived”. In my opinion the argument does not only fail to go beyond this definition, but we cannot be sure than it defines God correctly either. Firstly we cannot argue that the
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being whose essence is to exist is called a necessary being. The universe contains only contingent beings. God would be the only necessary being because he exists. Dependent beings cannot cause themselves. They are dependent on their causes. If there is no independent being, then the whole chain of dependent beings is dependent on nothing and could not exist. But they do exist. Therefore there is an independent being. I learned that there must have been an unmoved mover (GOD) who first put things in
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Philosophy essay #3: Descartes’ Meditations 996922415 The debate as to whether or not God exists is a crucial question in philosophy. René Descartes formulates the idea of the all good being, God, in Meditation Three of his essay entitled, Meditations on First Philosophy. The philosopher begins his essay doubting everything that is around him, his senses, his thoughts, and even basic arithmetic. The reason he wrote the essay was to find truth to his existence. It seems logical that Descartes
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existence or qualities of the God of classical theism. For example, the inconsistent triad as proposed by J.L. Mackie has three different corners, where it is impossible for all three corners to be true at the same time. The corners of the triangle are “god is omnibenevolent”, “God is omnipotent” and “evil exists”. If God was omnibenevolent he would not want evil to happen, and if he was omnipotent he would have the power to stop evil from happening. Therefore, as evil exists, one of these qualities must
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| | |Is God required as the basis for Ethical Justification | |Philosophy 116 | |
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atheist, stated the meaning that God is the full existential realization of every perfect, ideal or essential attribute of God. Sartre described that as an impossibility, but it is also a good description of what a believer believes God to be. 2. The first principle of existentialism is humanism. Atheistic existentialism declares with greater consistency that if God does not exist there is at least one being whose existence comes before its essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any
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Justin Maman 4/8/14 PHI101 Critical Response 4 The problem of the existence of God is one of the most interesting subjects in philosophy. Many avoid discussion regarding God, and sometimes for good reason. The word “God” often comes loaded with such varied meaning and symbolism that is bound to create confusion when trying to agree on who or what or where God even is, let alone whether or not God exists. As with nearly every other philosophical subject matter, I find myself relating to each
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believe in a triune, personal God. God is both transcendent and immanent. Meaning, He exists independent of His creation and exerts full sovereignty over it but that He is also omnipresent and entirely involved in His world. What are the basic assumptions about the nature of reality? Theism views reality as both material and spiritual. Theism asserts that God is volitional, moral, creative, purposive, rational, and knowable to other persons. Transcendent means that God is distinct form the universe
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Science: The Possibility of a Loving God Before enrolling in a theology course, I was biased about the views of the possibility of a Christian God. I’ve seen far too many people say that God is their savior and everything they do is because of him, or for him. It was always to some far-fetched point, where I was unable to comprehend where their views came from. I never had the evidence or background to fall back on for a reason to have a foundation for the belief in God. Taking into consideration the
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Is the existence of God logically consistent with the existence of evil? The existence of evil is a seemingly irrefutable fact of life, one which Davies considers to be “the most discussed topic in the philosophy of religion.”1 This presents the theist with a dilemma, forcing them to make attempts at reconciling the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent and wholly good God with that of evil. Kreefy stresses the extent that this ‘problem of evil’ challenges theism, going so far as to claim that
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