ipl-logo

Cosmological Argument

998 Words4 Pages

Many philosophers believe that there are reasons to demonstrate the God does exist through arguments. There are three main types of arguments that explain the existence of God. These include Cosmological, Teleological, and Ontological, which are all traditional arguments. There are two groups that divide the arguments “An a posteriori argument is based on premises that can be known only by means of experience of the world (e.g., that there is a world, that events have causes, and so forth). An a priori argument, on the other hand, rests on premises that can be known to be true independently of experience of the world (Pojman 19). To begin, the Cosmological arguments is an a Posteriori argument. The argument goes as follows, there exists things …show more content…

The Teleological argument was created by William Paley, human artifacts are products of intelligent design for purpose. The universe resembles these human artifacts. Therefore, the universe is probably a product of intelligent design. But the universe is vastly more complex and gigantic that a human artifact. Therefore, there probably is a powerful and vastly intelligent designer who designed the universe (Pojman 32). Paley is famous for his watch argument. He placed his foot on a stone and wondered how it got there, he answered that it has always been there. Then he found a watch on the ground and knew that it had not always been there, it had been put together piece by piece for a purpose. The watch must have been made by someone in some point in time, who put it together for a specific purpose. The watch exits as a work of nature just as the universe does. If there is an intelligent designer that made the watch for a purpose, then there must be an intelligent designer that created the universe for a purpose, which is the main idea of his argument (Pojman …show more content…

Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury in the eleventh century created the Ontological argument. Suppose that the greatest conceivable being exist in the mind alone and not in reality, existence in reality is greater than existence in the mind alone, we can conceive of a greatest conceivable being that exits in reality as well as in the mind, therefore there is a being that is greater than the greatest conceivable being, but this is impossible for it is a contradiction, therefore it is false that a greatest conceivable being exists in the mind alone and not in reality (Pojman 41). The second Ontological argument is by Immanuel Kant, which criticizes Anselm’s argument. Kant’s argument is, it is possible that God exists. God must be conceived as being the greatest possible being. The greatest possible being must be a necessary being. The existence of a necessary being must be either impossible, merely possible, or necessary. We can conclude, for it cannot be impossible for a necessary being to exist, there is no contradiction in the concept of a necessary being. Nor can it be that a mere possibility the God exists, for such existence would be dependent and happenstance, and such a being could not be God. Therefore, a necessary being necessarily exits, that God does exist (Pojman

Open Document