The Existence Of God Essay Research Paper free essay sample

The Existence Of God Essay, Research Paper Outline: Rational statements refering the being of God are rather intriguing since they try to set up the being of the `Wholly Other # 8217 ; from things we see every twenty-four hours and from known properties that we fasten to God. The first portion of essay discusses whether we can make this through the `just about ageless procedures # 8217 ; of initiation and tax write-off. It presents a `general # 8217 ; theists definition of God and looks at the a posteriori and a priori statements which arise from this definition before traveling onto a critical scrutiny of the rational procedures of initiation and tax write-off. This is followed by the issues raised by atheists in visible radiation of the inadequacy of rational statements for God # 8217 ; s being. The 2nd portion of the essay involves a presentation and rating of the, ontological, cosmogonic, and teleological statements ; statements which are implied in the theist # 8217 ; s general definition of God and which the theist claims as equal illations to turn out the being of the `Wholly Other # 8217 ; . We will write a custom essay sample on The Existence Of God Essay Research Paper or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Introduction: Last century Thomas Huxley ( 1825-1895 ) remarked that `not a lone job nowadayss itself to the philosophical theist at the present twenty-four hours which has non existed from the clip that philosophers began to believe out the logical evidences and the logical effects of Theism. The fact that the belief in God # 8217 ; s being had withstood repeated assaults during so many ages in the yesteryear is the best warrant of its permanence in the hereafter # 8217 ; . 1 Today this last illation can non be advanced with every bit much assurance sing that `postmodernism # 8217 ; is described as `rejecting teleology # 8217 ; , `denying ontology # 8217 ; and as disputing `the rationalistic thought of the detecting truth by pure reason. # 8217 ; 2 However, Christians still pull on the statements of `philosophical theism # 8217 ; chiefly in excusatory treatment with skeptics. Normally, keeping to the impression that truths about God either can non be established nor falsified by natural ground or like Thomas Aquinas that `the being of God and other like truths about God, which can be known by naturalreason are non articles of religion, but preambles to articles of faith. # 8217 ; 3 Purpose of this Essay: This essay discusses whether the being of God can be proven by manner of the rational statements implied in a general definition of theism. And evaluates these statements in visible radiation of this definition, since theists largely restrict their premises to the features of God as stated in the definition. Of class this presumes an understanding on God # 8217 ; s features and besides suggests a certain disk shape between the definition and the rating. But disk shape tends to be the nature of bad statements about God, since in some sense the statements presuppose the features of God by looking for them in what they investigate.4 Can the Existence of God be Proven? General definition of theism and the statements for God # 8217 ; s being: `Theism is the position that all limited, or finite, things, though to the full existent in their ain right, are dependent on some manner, yet distinguishable from, one supreme or ultimate being, of which 1 may besides talk in personal footings. And this being is called God, who is regarded as beyond human comprehension, perfect, and self-sustained but besides particularly involved in the universe and its events. # 8217 ; 5 This definition is given in two propositions. The first affirms a dependent relationship holds between two or more objects, those which are finite, material and self-conscious and that which is absolute and personal. Pailin describes this relationship as `contingent being # 8217 ; or `a manner of being which belongs to an object that happens to be but whose non-existence is coherently imaginable # 8217 ; and whose being is dependent on factors beyond it.6 It is from this experience of `contingent being # 8217 ; in the existence that `theists # 8217 ; either deduce `something # 8217 ; which is the initial cause of everything finite and hence absolute or deduce `something # 8217 ; which is the concluding cause of everything finite and hence personal or intelligent. The 2nd proposition calls this `something # 8217 ; God and affirms that God has certain belongingss or features, viz. , that God is beyond human comprehension, perfect, and both self-sustained and involved in the universe. From certain of these belongingss or predicates the theist deduces God # 8217 ; s being and can make so `a priori # 8217 ; , without mention to the universe or personal feeling: since the thought of God # 8217 ; s being is contained in the predicates themselves, i.e.`the thought of a `perfect being # 8217 ; contains the impression of existent being # 8217 ; . The Burden of Proof: Harmonizing to rule that `the load of cogent evidence prevarications with person who takes a positive place on an issue, # 8217 ; 7 it is up to the theist to supply the sufficient grounds or the negative place of the sceptic prevails. The inquiry of whether initiation and tax write-off provide sufficient grounds for `God # 8217 ; s being # 8217 ; needs to be dealt with on two degrees. The first degree relates to the adequateness of initiation and tax write-off as a vehicle for truth and is linked to the inquiry `Can the being of God be proven? # 8217 ; . The 2nd relates to the uniformity and soundness of the theist # 8217 ; s claim: whether the premises are certain or whether expostulations to the theists claims are valid. This is linked to the rating of the statements. Is Induction an equal vehicle for truth? : The basic rule of initiation can be stated as `if your informations consists of grounds that a series of objects of some sort has some belongings or characteristic and you know of no object of that sort that does non hold that belongings, so conclude that all objects of that sort have that property. # 8217 ; 8 Ideally the forms in the grounds will give us beliefs about the universe that we can hold assurance in and from which we can deduce God # 8217 ; s being. For illustration: A series of non-sentient existences has the feature of order I have non seen methodicalness and excellence that does non hold the belongings of design : The presence of a design indicates the presence of a interior decorator. But initiation is non without its jobs. First, `the value of the grounds which supports the decision can be discredited by the production of a individual contrary instance. # 8217 ; 9 A job which besides applies to those statements where the universal has been inferred from observation, such as the following `first cause # 8217 ; argument:10 Every event has a cause So there is something that is the first cause : Sol there is a God. Can we believe of cases where some event does non hold a cause or where order is non apparent in the universe? 11 And even if no cases can be found does this prove that there is a `Designer # 8217 ; or a `First Cause # 8217 ; ? This latter inquiry is a major expostulation to the causal arguments claiming God # 8217 ; s existence.12 In some respects the first inquiry relates to a 2nd expostulation raised by David Hume. Hume believed that in `causal concluding about affairs of fact # 8217 ; there is no necessary connexion between cause and consequence alternatively the thought of a necessary connexion is derived from an internal thought and misidentify for something nonsubjective. `It is a belief that exits in our heads non in the objects. # 8217 ; 13 Morton describes it like this: Knowledge of correlativity is all that is needed to set up decisions about cause and consequence Many of our beliefs are about cause and consequence Therefore: Many of our beliefs are based merely on inductive logical thinking. 14 A 3rd job is raised by `Goodman # 8217 ; s perplex # 8217 ; and is related to the pick of constructs, footings and belongingss which describe informations and formulate generalisations.15 Harmonizing to Goodman the verification of `predictions` , i.e. `Every event in the yesteryear had a cause so every event in the hereafter will hold a cause # 8217 ; can be defined in footings of past success by appropriately inventing a `strange predicate # 8217 ; . This means that anything can be made to conform to anything else.16 These jobs at best throw uncertainty on initiation as a trusty vehicle for truth. They tend to reason that initiation is merely every bit good as its experimental informations yet true information does non needfully vouch a true decision and that initiation is no more than a belief which at times can be manipulated. Is Deduction an equal vehicle for truth? : Tax write-off argues from `the more cognizable in its ain nature # 8217 ; ; the simpler rules implied in the facts to `the more familiar to us ; extremely complex facts:17 from the general to the particular, and come in the signifier of syllogisms. For illustration: Premise: All As are Bs God is perfect Premise: All Bs are Cs Perfect implies being Decision: All As are Cs God exists Aristotle defines `syllogism # 8217 ; as `a discourse wherein certain things ( six. the premises ) being admitted, something else, different from what has been admitted, follows of necessity because the admittances are what they are. # 8217 ; 18 The last clause points to the all important thing in an illation ; that the decision should be proved or demonstrated. In other words, we may already cognize `God exists # 8217 ; ; but to cognize why this is true a `middle term # 8217 ; has to be found to link the truth `God exists # 8217 ; with the less complex truths which appears as the premises from which `God being # 8217 ; is draw. The in-between term as we can see from the illustrations above is the thought of `perfection # 8217 ; or `B # 8217 ; , which must be taken universally at least one time in the premises. The strength of tax write-off as a vehicle for truth sing statements for God # 8217 ; s being can be considered on two degrees: The first is apparent from the treatment above and involves formal construction and true premises, and can be stated as `a deductive statement is sound with regard to the significance of its words if merely true sentences are derivable under the illation regulations from premises which are themselves all true. # 8217 ; 19 The other degree concerns jobs of epistemology. For illustration, `How have we come by our cognition that `God is perfect # 8217 ; ? # 8217 ; Theists who rely on tax write-off see it an analytic truth apprehended intuitively ; an thought. Aristotle on the other manus, would see `perfection # 8217 ; to be known to us as a consequence of induction.20 Aquinas, sees `perfection # 8217 ; as being indirectly and analogically deduced from creation.21 One more job concerns the footings that figure in the premises. For illustration the term `perfect` . Is it bespeaking something that exists or non and in what manner is it related to the existent universe? Immanuel Kant gives heed to this issue with respects to Anslem # 8217 ; s tax write-off sing God # 8217 ; s being. Kant believes that Anselm confuses `the order of things with order of thoughts # 8217 ; when he tries to set up the experiential proposition `God exists # 8217 ; , on the footing of an `idea # 8217 ; of perfection.22 All told these issues tend to convey the `feeling # 8217 ; that the strength of deductive logical thinking as a vehicle of truth is correlated to the prejudice of your presuppositions ; whether you are an dreamer, a realist, a nominalist or an empiricist. This is inclined to open the door for the `atheists # 8217 ; . Are Atheists # 8217 ; expostulations valid? : Alvin Plantinga takes issue with atheists who hold that `a individual who believed without sufficient grounds that there are an even figure of ducks would be believing unwisely or irrationally ; the same goes for the individual who believes in God without sufficient grounds # 8217 ; . Consequently this individual has either violated an rational or cognitive responsibility of some kind, is someway intellectually flawed or disfigured, or believes as a affair of wish-fulfilment. 23 Plantinga # 8217 ; s rejoiner is to mention to the impression of a individual # 8217 ; s presuppositions. `What you take to be ratio nal depends upon your metaphysical and spiritual stance. Your position as to what kind of animal a human being is will find, in whole or in portion, your positions as to what is rational or irrational for human existences to believe in.’ 24 At a glimpse the push of Plantinga’s rejoiner seems to be reduced to the undermentioned statements: 1 ) If you believe that God exists so your belief that God exists is justified. 2 ) If you believe that God does non be so your belief in God # 8217 ; s non-existence is justified. But Plantinga ties to measure up the first statement as the better place. Consequently, the atheist may prefer it if people didn # 8217 ; t believe in God without sufficient grounds but it is more sensible to believe in God since our cognitive equipment maps decently when it functions in the manner God designed it to function.25 This seems to bespeak that theism is rationally acceptable merely if you believe that theism is rationally acceptable. Possibly this best indicates where many claims to objective truth base in this present `existentialist # 8217 ; coevals. Measure the assorted sorts of statements advanced for the being of God. The Ontological Argument: This statement aims to infer the being of God from a construct or thought of God. It maintains that a proper thought of God entails that it is paradoxical to keep that God does non be. The most famed statements are by Anslem, Descarte, Leibniz and Hartshorne. Two are presented below. Anslem: ( 11th. cent ) God is that that which no greater can be thought Being is greater than non-existence : Supreme being exists Hartshorne ( 20th. cent ) The godly manner of being is a province of `necessary being # 8217 ; It is in rule a manner of being which can non be conceived as either coming into being or discontinuing to be It is cosmopolitan and omnitolerant in that it is present to and compatible with whatever else may go on to come to be or non come to be and which is its ain intrinsic land. 26 That `God is perfect # 8217 ; or `necessary being # 8217 ; is consistent with the theist definition of God. Sing a formal sense the statements seems rather sound but run into problem on the epistemic and semantic degree. The chief expostulations raised are: 1 ) Being is non a quality! 2 ) How does a definition of being relate to world? 3 ) God exists is non a axiomatic truth! Kant objects to the thought that `God is that in which being coincides with kernel # 8217 ; . Alternatively he holds that `existence is non a predicate like `perfect # 8217 ; hence can non be included in the construct of a perfect being # 8217 ; .27 The 2nd issue is raised by Evans and Teichman who believe that deducing the being of God from a definition of being is unconvincing.28 And thirdly, Aquinas insists that `knowledge of God is natural from the order of the universe # 8217 ; 29 Kant # 8217 ; s expostulation is difficult to reason against, one merely gets the `feeling # 8217 ; that being is a province of being, either in the head or concretely, and non an property, like flawlessness. Anslem tries to squelch the 2nd issue with the thought that: `there is being in the head and in world and since bing in the head is a less perfect sort of being than bing in world, so for God to merely be in the head would intend that we could concieve of a being greater than God ; one that existed in world every bit good and this being would be God. # 8217 ; 30 The 3rd issue is a affair of presuppositions. The Cosmological or First Cause Argument: This statement either assumes the cogency of the rule of causality or sufficient ground and entreaties to the beginning of the existence or merely entreaties to the former. The undermentioned two versions best illustrate this:31 1 ) Thomas Aquinas: ( 13th. cent ) `There is no instance known ( nor so is it possible ) in which a thing is found to be an efficent cause of itself, because in that instance it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficent causes it is impossible to travel onto eternity. Now to take away the cause is to take away the consequence. Therefore, if there is no first cause, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. Therefore it is necessary to acknowledge a first efficent cause, to which everyone gives the name God. # 8217 ; 32 2 ) Leibnitz: ( 17th. cent. ) Everything in the universe is contingent We can say that the whole existence has ever existed Therefore: The existence as a whole must hold a sufficent ground This sufficeint ground must be outside the existence This sufficent ground is God. These are both `a posteriori # 8217 ; statements since they move from the experience of the consequence to an `efficient cause # 8217 ; or `sufficient ground # 8217 ; ; something which has necessary existence.33 The `principle of sufficient ground # 8217 ; has raised a few jobs. At bosom it means that there must ever be a ground that suffices to explicate anything that is. The problem is that Leibniz reduces the rule of sufficient ground to the rule of contradiction therefore taking causal dealingss out of the kingdom of clip and infinite and into the kingdom of dealingss between concepts.34 Kant criticed this on the footing that it carries the rule of causality beyond the universe of sense experince where alone it is valid. 35 This is perchance why Aquinus can presume a first term ( continuance ) for every species while Leibniz does non. The impression of continuance raises the most expostulations. For illustration: `How do we cognize that there is non an infinite arrested development of causes ; a fortiori statements imply an infinite figure of causes? # 8217 ; Is God # 8217 ; s infinity non-temporal such that contingent things are dependent on a ego -existing cause? If God is a self-caused cause so how does a being which does non be conveying itself into being? Possibly it is the universe itself which exists of absolute necessity and is infinite in every sort of flawlessness? # 8217 ; For all of these counter-arguments there are plausible negations. With both statements there is an incompatibility with respects to the theist definition since at that place seems to be an disconnected spring with respects to the last point `to which everyone gives the name God # 8217 ; and `is God # 8217 ; yet there is no indicant of the `personal # 8217 ; God of the theist in the premises. Although there is a counterargument to this place one on the footing that `the cause must incorporate somehow in itself every flawlessness of being that is realised in the effect. # 8217 ; 36 Finally Hume may hold the last say since `How do we cognize that their is non more than one necessary being? 37 The Teleological Argument and the Argument signifier Design: Frequently a differentiation is made between the Design and teleological arguments38 both of which attempt to demonstate that an apprehension of the orderly character of the universe suggests an intelligent Godhead or Final Cause. The Deisgn statement can be illustrated as such: Saint thomass: ( 13th. cent. ) Non animate existences behave in orderly ways that produce the best consequences This ordliness and excellence indicates the presence of design The presence of a design indicates the presence of a designer.39 Paley: ( 19th. cent. ) : Nature shows beneficent order Beneficial intent in mechanical aparatus point to a designer.40 And the teleological: Swineburne: ( 20th. cent ) Orderly design in the existence is logically possible to be simply the merchandise of opportunity but improbable It is more likely that the universe is the merchandise of an infinite theistic God.41 These statements all reflect empirical premises. They are consistent with the theist # 8217 ; s thought of a personal or intelligent Godhead who is perfect 42 and instills intending into the universe by His involvment yet don # 8217 ; t truly turn out if this Godhead is self-sufficing or issues needfully. The analogical statement of Paley and the probabilty statement of Swineburne besides tell against any accustation that good order could be merely unsighted opportunity. They do this by the sheer weight of Numberss ; greater logical possiblity 43 and analogy to the legion illustrations in nature. Yet the main critic of the design statement, David Hume, raises other expostulations which need to be mentioned and answered. For illustration: `Other analogies from nature, like a works from a seed, seem to reflect an immanent system. # 8217 ; Yes! But what about the design component in DNA? Besides, `Since we have no analogies to reflect the entirety of creative activity so how do we cognize that design is reflected in the existence as a whole, we could merely be imaging design? # 8217 ; As above, the reply to this and to induction as a whole procedure is fundamentally `science puts faith in analogies without all the empirical grounds so why can # 8217 ; t the theist? # 8217 ; Decision: Natural theologcians or theists put away many bad statements which make claims to turn out God # 8217 ; s being. Yet the three presented in this essay best represent the history of `western mans # 8217 ; rational contemplation about God since the clip of Plato and Aristotle and whether they remain as the pivots about which to pull other theories and thiesm from either in understanding or a reactionist manner remains to be seen. All of them in some regard fail to come up Bibliography: Aquinas.Thomas. , ` Whether the Existence of God is Axiomatic? , Summa Theologica. 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