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Cosmological Argument

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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

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The conclusion, thus, is that Nature was created by intelligent design. This argument is the centerpiece of Paley’s “Argument from Design”, as he spends the previous two sections deliberately lining the specifics of a watch, the clear order a watch follows, and that there must be a creator for a watch. In this section, he puts forward an analogy that nature is like a watch in that both have specific orders and contrivances which thus mean that both were created by an intelligent

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Paley simply responds to this by saying that something doesn’t have to perfect to show that there was a designer. Another problem with this argument is that things in a watch (or a universe) contain different parts that look like they have no function, so these parts are somewhat proof that he universe wasn’t designed. Paley replies to this by saying that just because we do not know the function of something it doesn’t mean that it has no function, Paley looks at different parts of the watch (or universe) and from this he decides that it must have been

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According to William Paley’s argument in “The Teleological Argument" everything was created for a specific purpose. Paley uses the watch and mentions its maker to compare the creation of the world and God. In order to explain why certain objects have a specific design and purpose, Paley uses the watch to develop this idea. According to Paley, the watch has many intricate parts which contribute not only to the overall design but to the overall function of the watch. This can be compared to God and how he created each individual to serve a purpose.

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84). Thus if something being unable to cause itself means there is a first cause, which must necessarily be God that causes the universe. Goldstein’s argument instead argues that since the universe cannot cause itself (Premise 4), something outside universe must have caused the universe to exist. Goldstein’s framework is far weaker, particularly after her 4th premise, as it falls into a range of fallacies and presumptions. Indeed Goldstein’s framing reads as a simplification of the cosmological argument designed to be easier to criticised.

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Of the three main styles of arguments for the existence of God – the cosmological, the teleological, and the ontological – the teleological is probably the second strongest of these arguments. The teleological argument is also the only one of these arguments that reasons to its conclusion inductively. This means that, unlike the cosmological and ontological arguments, the acceptance of the premises of the teleological argument does not commit you to the acceptance of its conclusion. It only commits you to a judgement about the probability of the conclusion. The style of reasoning typically adopted by this method is one that starts from a posteriori observations about our reality, and then reasons a priori – typically through analogy – to the

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Such arguments start with an empirical observation of the world that motion, causation, or simple regular things exist, and draw the conclusion that God's presence explains this observation. For example, “a house results from the actions of its builder, and rain results from certain meteorological conditions. But if everything that exists depends for its existence on something else, then the world itself depends for its existence on something else, and this “something else” is God” (Cahn 52). 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. “It makes no appeal to empirical evidence but purports to demonstrate that God’s essence implies God’s existence” (Cahn 53).

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In “Why Believe” by Saint Anselm, there lies a compelling argument which utilizes a Reductio Ad Absurdum argument to prove his conclusion. Anselm begins his argument with four premises, then states his Reductio Ad Absurdum argument, and finally concludes his whole argument with “God exists.” The argument for the existence of God by Anselm begins with his definition of God which is “a being than which nothing greater can be conceived.”

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The Cosmological Argument argues that the universe had to have been created by something greater, and more powerful than itself, such as God. This argument contends that the first cause of anything has no cause itself. The Teleological Argument asserts that the complex design of the world proves an intelligent, powerful creator. The Moral Argument cites God’s existence as the cause of morality. This argument asserts that humans follow moral laws that must have been created by a law giver.

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A priori argument for God’s existence will attempt to prove that God necessarily exist by examining the idea of God and not by using our senses. A posteriori argument for God’s existence will attempt to prove that God must exist based on what we experience of the world through our senses. If I had to imagine being a mind (A) floating in a world of being and was only able to grasp concepts like forms I may try to explain Gods existence to mind (B) in the following; Using the ontological argument and the mere idea of God and God’s existence, I would explain that God is a being than which none greater can be conceived. God is the greatest conceivable being. God is all-powerful, all-good, and all-knowing.

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The so called Transcendental argument which is an argument which states that x is a necessary condition for y to be present so based on this philosophy, there is a God and if there was not a God, we would not be here and if there was not a God we couldn’t figure out anything at all. Why because there is nothing greater than God himself. Anything created had to come from someone or something greater than the person him or herself that was created by, a designer. Example like a child building something from Legos.

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Anselm famously associated with the “ontological argument” for the existence of God. Anselm, in Proslogion, coined the term “ontological” to describe a branch of philosophy that deals with the notion of “being or existence.” (McGrath & OverDrive, Inc. 2001 p. 181). Proslogion is a work of meditation, not of logical argument.

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Personally, I believe the conclusion of the transcendental argument for the existence of God. In my opinion, Immanuel Kant is more credible because he created the argument and supported it using many examples, whereas Michael Martin only found errors with the TAG. I agree with Kant because this theory is a cause and effect, meaning that God’s existence caused human reason. In Critique of Pure Reason, Kant states that logic originates from an individual’s belief in God. If someone believes that God created the world, then He is the reason why the laws of logic exist.

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Detail both the strengths and weaknesses of the cosmological arguments for the existence of the god of tradition, and make an argument for whether or not they effectively establish the certainty or probability of the existence of a Judeo-Christian-Muslim sort of god. The cosmological arguments formed by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century in order to validate the existence of God are subject to both strengths and weaknesses. The cosmological arguments are composed of the first four out of Aquinas’ Five Ways to Prove the Existence of God. The first four ways are Motion, Causation, Contingency, and Degrees, all of which take part in concluding the presence of a god as definite, and possesses the roles of the unmoved mover, uncaused causer, the

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As a result of my life experience, nature helped me to become a Christian and look more into evidence that points towards a Creator through the universe. The Cosmological and Teleological arguments provide evidence of a Creator. The Cosmological argument is that everything that is created has a cause, for example, an egg comes from a chicken. But there has to be a first cause that was uncaused. More accurately, “ Whatever begins to exist, has a cause of its existence.

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221 Words | 1 Pages

The design argument is an argument for the existence of God, and proving his existence is the major source of debate in the creation hypothesis. Rowe compared the universe to a pocket watch, with all parts arranged perfectly causing the other to move (Rowe, 2007, p. 57).   The design argument employs analogical reasoning to understand the way we are inter-connected to nature and the universe. In my opinion, the universe is similar to a machine, a teleological system, working in grand harmony for a purpose, .

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