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Ontological Argument For God's Existence Of God

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The ontological argument is a priori argument. A priori argument is one that does not rely on sense experience. They give necessary or certain truths about the way ideas relate to one another. These truths do not tell us about the world however we know them to be true. For example; a triangle has three sides, either it is raining or it is not. Priori reasoning appeals to pure reason and not to the senses at all. It is knowledge derived independently of sense. On the other hand, the cosmological and teleological argument is a posteriori argument. A posteriori argument relies on sense experience to demonstrate something. They give us contingent truths or inductive knowledge about the world. For example; broccoli is nutritious, that bachelor has a dog named spot. …show more content…

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. It would be important to understand that one cannot separate God’s essence from existence. For example; think about the concept of a triangle. What makes a triangle a triangle? It has three sides, each adding up to 180 degrees that meet. If the triangle lacked these attributes then it would not be a

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The ontological argument states that perfection is a part of the concept of God, and that perfection entails existence, and so the concept of God entails God’s existence. However, it can be argued that if God is an infinite goodness, then its contrary, evil, should not exist. Alas, there is evil in the world, and, therefore, God cannot exist. The ontological argument also seeks to demonstrate that God exists on the basis of concept alone. Pascal’s Wager attempts to justify the belief in God with an

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In other words, Anselm argued that if one can conceive a being that possesses all perfections, it is greater for that being to exist in reality rather than just in the mind. Therefore, with God being defined as the greatest conceivable being, He must exist in reality to solidify the definition. Anselm's argument relied on the concept of God being a necessary being, which is a being whose nonexistence is logically impossible. According to Anselm, if God’s nonexistence is a possibility, then He would not be the greatest conceivable being.

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1377 Words | 6 Pages

The definition of God is the greatest being. A thought of something that exists is greater than a thought of something that does not exist. That means if God is just a thought that does not exist, there must be a being greater than Him. This would contradict the definition of God. Therefore, God must exist so that the definition would be true.

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Arguing for the existence of God from a philosophical perspective would need a more solidifying use of reason instead of evidence based logic. Because when trying to qualify your main thesis within an argument using evidence based logic and reasoning would aid in establishing credibility with your audience. So in Pascal's "The Wager" it utilizes argument theory of deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning or theory is similar to cause and effect inference, an example could be if you drop a ball it will hit the ground. However deductive theory validates the end result through the consequence of the action.

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The existence of God is a highly debatable topic; the different views of believers, atheists and agnostics, show us that God's Existence remains a question with no definite final answer. Descartes is one of many philosophers who tried to establish a number of arguments in order to prove God's Existence. In fact, the French philosopher formulated the "trademark argument", an argument that he developed and defended in order to prove that God does exist despite the doubt that many have. In the first place, I will start by defining the trademark argument and the procedure Descartes used to attain it including the first principle summarized in the Cartesian method and the theory of ideas which puts God at the origin of the idea of His Existence.

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Saint Anselm delivered the strongest ontological argument for God through conceptual analysis. The ontological argument is a deductive argument that is an analytical statement that can be constructed by definition(s). He argues that one thing is necessary to exist, and that thing is God. God is a necessary being. His argument is known as reductio ad absurdum, which demonstrates through a contradiction that God exists.

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The argument for God’s existence is that God is a perfect being, he is infinite, independent, supremely intelligent, and supremely powerful. Descartes goes on to talk about how God exists because he can conceive of him as better than himself (AD 40). God is perfect and perfect at everything, and was the first thing that sent everything into motion (AD 45). God is the ultimate cause.

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Descartes defined God as a supremely perfect being, meaning that he contains all supreme perfections. Descartes argued that it is more perfect to exist than to not exist, therefore existence is one of God's supreme perfections and God must exist. ' God exists' must be true by definition because the subject (God) already contains the predicate (exists). Descartes also believed that God is a necessary being meaning that it is impossible to imagine him as not existing because it is part of his essence as a supremely perfect being, concluding therefore that God must exist.

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The Kalam Cosmological Argument The Kalam Cosmological Argument is a theory of religion that attempts to explain the existence of God by the following: Whatever began to exist must have a cause, unlike God, the Universe began to exist, Thus, there must be an uncaused cause of the Universe, namely God. Through examining the many criticisms of this argument, it is discernible that it is not valid and does not achieve the purpose of proving God's existence. The Kalam Cosmological Argument is favorable over Tomas Aquainas’ traditional Cosmological Argument, which says: Some things are caused, nothing can cause itself, so everything must be caused by an external force, namely God, because it is more specific, especially by encapsulating evidence

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Then we look at the second argument of Aquinas, The Argument of Causation- everything that is caused has to be caused by something else, there cannot be an infinite number of causes, and same as argument number one that must mean there is a God since all effects have causes. The Argument from Contingency asks if everything already exists contingently has a reason to do so, does the universe exists for a reason and if the universe has a reason for its existence that that reason must be God. Aquinas’ fourth argument is the Argument from Degrees Aquinas says in order to compare two things in terms of good or bad, we must have something to compare it to, this would have to be an absolutely perfect thing aka God. Aquinas’ fifth and final argument is The Teleological Argument-

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In the Casual Argument for the existence of God Descartes concludes that he is an imperfect person with the ability to free will, but the idea of perfection was placed in his mind by something, and that God must be perfection. He also claims that “something can have an eminent level of existence when it has a level of existence greater than the object it produces,” as if to say, we must come from somewhere, and where we come from must be greater than the substances we have been created as. Descartes also claims in his Casual Argument for the existence of God that God is “the only explanation of the idea of God in the mind then God must exists,” and that “God is infinite and perfect” and “cannot be a deceiver; deception implies defect or lack of power,” as if to say that God is a perfect all powerful being. Through the fear of doubt, Descartes concludes that there is something that cannot be doubted, and that is the existence of God through the idea of perfection, and that “God guarantees his

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1444 Words | 6 Pages

There have been an innumerable amount of arguments for the existence of God for hundreds of years. Some have become much more popular due to their merit, and their ability to stay relevant through changing times. Two arguments in particular that have been discussed for a very long time are the ontological and cosmological arguments. Each were proposed in the period of the high middle ages by members of the Roman Catholic Church. They each have been used extensively by many since their introduction.

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945 Words | 4 Pages

St. Anselm and Descartes are known for presenting the first ontological arguments on the existence of God. The word ontological is a compound word derived from ‘ont’ which means exists or being and ‘–ology’ which means the study of. Even though Anselm and Descartes’ arguments differ slightly, they both stem from the same reasoning. Unlike the other two arguments on God’s existence (teleological and cosmological), the ontological argument does not seek to use any empirical evidence but rather concentrates on pure reason. The rationale behind this school of thought

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1585 Words | 7 Pages

While there are many arguments for the existence of God, as well as arguments against His existence, Pascal 's argument is the most basic and relatable. Pascal explains his wager theory as a wager where you’re better off betting that God exists rather than not due to a bigger reward. When you believe that God exists, and you’re right, you gain eternal life; if you’re wrong you lose nothing. In contrast, if you bet against God, and you’re wrong, you miss out on the eternal life that you could’ve had. While further explaining his theory, this paper will explore his theory with different religions and different Gods as opposed to an Abrahamic God which we assume Pascal is talking about; this paper will analyze different Gods and different wagers and decide, if

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872 Words | 4 Pages

An Ontological argument is an argument that concludes with accepting the existence of God, from evidence, which is supposed to originate from a source, other than, that of your senses or observation of the world. In other words you come to the conclusion from reason alone. They are formed from nothing but analytical, and necessary premises, to arrive at the conclusion that God exists. A cosmological argument uses a general outline of arguments that makes a conclusion from clear obvious facts about the world, to the existence of an all-knowing being, that is God. Among these original facts, are certain beings, or events in the world that are causally dependent or reliant on the premise, that the universe is depending in that it could have been other than what it is, or why there is something rather than nothing.

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