Mccloskey: The Proof For The Existence Of God

One of the many inquiries that have been pondered throughout time has been the question of God’s existence. McCloskey was an atheistic philosopher that denied the existence of God and gave certain “proofs” to verify his absence. Two of the main arguments that theistic philosophers use are the cosmological and the theological arguments. McCloskey takes these arguments and uses his “proofs” against them to disprove God. Although the cosmological and the theological argument do not prove that God is an absolute being, these arguments use certain reasons and evidence to support and build a claim that God does exist. As with many scientific phenomena, such as the quandary of intangible objects such as black holes, the question of God is most amply

69) The logical formula for the contingency theory is fairly simple, containing two premises and a conclusion. The first premise asserts, “some contingent beings exist.” The second, which is most highly debated, claims that the existence of a contingent being demands the existence of a necessary being. Finally, the conclusion is that a necessary being must exist. (p. 70) There are a plethora of counterarguments that attempt to discredit the theistic view; for this analysis, we will briefly discuss three of them. First, the opposition may claim that the universe has always existed. The non-temporal cosmological argument is not oscillated by such claims because, as discussed previously, it does not depend on the earth’s age, only its constituents and their origins. The second, and perhaps most famous, rebuttal used by those attempting to disprove God’s existence concerns His origin. Many non-theists contend that if theists’ demand causation for every being, then God Himself must confirm to this

Oftentimes such arguments are much more personal than logical. Nonetheless, he seems to propose the contradiction in an irrefutably logical manner. McCloskey’s confidence in determining God’s limitations seems to be a bit alarming. If there is in fact a higher power, one could infer that humans cannot dictate or condemn His actions. According to Alvin Platinga, the only concept necessary to rectify God’s existence and the presence of evil is the possibility that He has a valid reason for doing so. (Plantinga, 1974) One highly plausible argument for God’s allowance of evil is the fact that a redeemed world is far superior to a perfect one. For example, the Bible purports that God is both omnipotent and all good, but is waiting until the right time to redeem the world and rid it of evil. If this were so, the world’s inhabitants could both see how life plays out when man decides to stray from God and make his own decisions (which is what most theists would agree is happening currently). Thus, in the new, redeemed world, man would recall the destruction, calamity, disease and violence present in the man-ruled world and choose to subordinate himself to God’s rule. Platinga then argues that God’s omnipotence is limited in the sense that He could not construct a world in which there were free creatures that simultaneously abstained from evil choices. The very act of