...existence of God. McCloskey is one of those people. The following paper will discuss some of the arguments Mr. McCloskey has against God, as well as, a proper rebuttal for them. Mr. McCloskey would argue that the different arguments, or “proofs” as he calls it, do not provide an accurate case for the existence of God, therefore they should be ignored (McCloskey 51). The problem is, that the arguments were never meant to be used as definitive proof, but rather as a “best explanation” as explained by Dr. Foreman (Foreman Presentation: God’s Existence). The arguments for God’s existence are just that, arguments. Those who use these arguments would understand that the arguments are not perfect and theoretically they...
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...Guide: Lesson 18 Arguments for the Existence of God Lesson Overview: In this lesson, we arrive at 1 of the most important questions of the course for Christians: Do we have good reasons to believe that God exists? Today, many are claiming that there is no evidence for God’s existence and those who believe in God are just deluding themselves. However, this lesson will show that some very interesting arguments have been developed throughout the history of philosophy that demonstrate that the theist is within his epistemic rights in believing in God. While the case is not 100% certain (few things are in philosophy), it is certainly reasonable in the absence of any contrary evidence to hold that God exists as the best explanation for certain effects we observe in creation. Tasks: View and take notes of the presentation: “Arguments for God’s Existence.” Read “The Absurdity of Life without God” by William Lane Craig. This reading by Christian philosopher William Lane Craig is titled the “The Absurdity of Life without God.” In this powerful argument, Craig seriously considers the ramifications for us if in fact there really is no God. I assign it to my students on campus and they always tell me it is their favorite reading of the semester. I think you will really enjoy it. It is not a difficult reading and is very powerful on a personal level. While it does not prove God's existence, it does add positive epistemic evidence for the cumulative case for God as the best explanation...
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...Theology in itself is the study of God and we need to study all of the other aspects because inside of the other ones is revelation that helps us to understand who God is but this is the study the Father God Himself, His attributes and the ways in which He has revealed himself to the believer. The study of God Himself is imperative to the Christian life, who He is and how He has revealed Himself to those that He has created. If He has seen fit to reveal parts of Himself to us then it is our privilege and responsibility to learn as much as we are able to about who He is and what He can and is doing for us as we live this new life in Him. It is impossible and in my opinion an unfortunate waste of the Christians time to attempt to prove the existence of God to a fallen world. In the Bible we see that even people who were there with Jesus Christ and were first hand witness to all of the amazing works that He did as He revealed the Father were blind to who He was and were so caught up in their religion that they tried to come up with many different reasons for the works other than Him being who He claimed that He was (John 10:1-38). He has sufficiently revealed Himself to everyone through His creation, through the Bible and through fulfilled prophecy and our duty is simply to honor Him and bring Glory to Him in our lives by showing His love to the world and being salt and light in a fallen world (Matthew 5:13-16, Romans 12:9-21, 1 Cor. 2:9-13). The proof cannot be found in...
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...Does God Exist The question of God’s existence has lingered in the mind of man since the dawn of religion. The simple fact that billions of people consider themselves to have some allegiance to a deity means that this question deserves to be seriously considered. In this paper I will argue for the sake that God does exist and the reasons why. I will include many of the arguments found in our philosophy book and those covered in class as well as other subjects such as human suffering and the reasons God chose to make the world as it is today, also including examples from life and the movies we watched in class. St. Thomas Aquinas had many arguments for the existence of God and one of those was the fifth way. In the argument of the fifth way Aquinas says “The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that they achieve their end, not fortuitously, but designedly. Now whatever lacks knowledge cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is directed by the archer. Therefore, some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God”. Here St. Thomas Aquinas is basically saying that the existence of order and apparent purpose in the universe...
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...Title: Proof of God’s Existence By: Vicki Williams PHI208 Ethics and Moral Reasoning Instructor: Barbara Palomino de Velasco June 10, 2013 The Bible diagnoses humanity's deepest need and then prescribes what it claims is the only antidote: God saves sinners. Is there an intellectual basis for believing in God? Or is being religious just a matter of faith? Christianity invites scrutiny into its claims and its reasons for having faith and these deserve examination... Some people feel that acceptance of God is entirely a matter of faith. But the Scriptures actually claim that it is the truth which is the basis for this faith (Rom. 10:17). Truth is only truth if it is objective truth, that is, it is true for everyone regardless of time or circumstances. Thus, God is either true (and there can be objective proofs to support this), or He is not true and only subjective 'truth' can be offered for 'proof'. Some ancient Philosophers have argued that the fact mankind can imagine there being a God is a proof that there must be one. While this argument does have some merit, it mainly has limitations. Taken to its natural application this means that if anything can be imagined it must exist. Based on the nightmares I had as a three and four year old boy- I really hope this theory isn't true or I'm not going to sleep well tonight! On the other hand, 'beliefs' and 'truth' are sometimes not entirely related. Tertullian once bragged that the main reason he so readily accepted...
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...question is whether or not God exists. This is the very question that has grasped the imagination of humanity since the birth of reason, and the same question that has plagued scientists and philosophers without coming close to an accepted conclusion. God is a word that means different things to different people. The definition for God, according to most monotheistic religions is the creator and ruler of the universe, and the source of all moral authority. When it comes to the possibility of God's existence, the Bible states that there are people who have seen sufficient evidence, but they have suppressed the truth about God. Up to this day, there are many differing opinions as to whether a God exists or not. The great controversy has led to my personal belief that God exists through the teleological, ontological and cosmological arguments. These major ideas help to back up my statement that God exists. Based on our everyday experiences, just about everything seems to have a beginning. William Paley was a philosopher during the eighteenth century who is best known for his exposition of the teleological argument for the existence of God. Derived from the Greek word "telos" which means "design or purpose", the teleological argument proposes that God must exist because the inner workings of the universe are too complicated and precise to just have come about on it's own. Through often confused with the argument from simple analogy, the watchmaker argument from Paley is a more sophisticated...
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...Is believing in God reasonable or is he even real for that matter? Why do people choose to believe or not to believe in him? If you do believe is there any true value in doing so? The question of God’s very existence has been discussed throughout time. H.J. McCloskey, an atheist, expounds on this matter in his article “On Being an Atheist.” Of course this article is from the atheist point of view. McCloskey alleges that atheism is a more agreeable explanation of the world than theism, and the very existence of God must be dismissed. He believes this because of the presence of evil in the world and states that without definitive “proofs” God therefore cannot exist. McCloskey refers to arguments for God’s existence as “proofs.” I believe that McCloskey stresses this word to much. The term “proof” comes from the field of mathematics and it implicates certainty. For example 5 + 2 = 7 and 2 + 5 = 7 is a math formula that can be proved. It is a formula that can be proven according to the addition property of mathematics. The reality of God is not that simple. One should not look to prove his existence, but one should look to present the ideal that God is the best explanation for the world and life itself. A theist could do this by overlapping multiple ideas and together there is enough strength to present an argument for God being the best explanation for the world. McCloskey presents the following on the cosmological argument: He claims that “the mere existence...
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...Arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed by philosophers, theologians, scientists, and others for thousands of years. Inphilosophical terms, arguments for and against the existence of God involve primarily the sub-disciplines of epistemology (theory of knowledge) andontology (nature of god) and also the theory of value, since concepts of perfection are connected to notions of God. The debate concerning the existence of God is one of the oldest and most discussed debates in human history. A wide variety of arguments exist which can be categorized asmetaphysical, logical, empirical, or subjective. The existence of God is subject to lively debate in philosophy,[1] the philosophy of religion, and popular culture. The Western tradition of the existence of God began with Plato and Aristotle, who made arguments for God's existence that would now be categorized as cosmological arguments. Later, Epicurus formulated the problem of evil: if God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, why does evil exist? The field of theodicy arose from attempts to answer this question. Other thoughts about the existence of God have been proposed by St. Anselm, who formulated the first ontological argument; Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and Aquinas, who presented their own versions of the cosmological argument (thekalam argument and the first way), respectively; Descartes, who said that the existence of a benevolent God was logically necessary for the evidence of the senses to be meaningful;...
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...Response_Paper_Tarnell_Brown.docx 2 It has long been the contention of the atheist that there are no good arguments for the existence of God. In his article “On Being an Atheist,” H.J. McCloskey seeks to nullify the classical arguments for God’s existence by contending that they are not rationally sound. He further holds that the existence of evil proves the impossibility of an omnipotent, all-good necessary being who has created the universe. This missive is an attempt to give refutation to Mr. McCloskey’s argument, also by means of reason and logic. It is the presupposition of the author that God does in fact exist, that He is a necessary being, and that the existence of evil in no way poses a problem to the logic of His existence. Mr. McCloskey essentially begins his argument by implying that the known arguments for the existence of a theistic God are made up of a series of proofs, none of which can be definitively proven. In fact, he is dismissive of such proofs, contending that “most theists do not come to believe in God as a result of reflecting on the proofs, but come to religion as a result of other reasons and factors.”1 While this statement is most likely true, it is erroneous to dismiss the theist’s belief on the basis of its origins. In doing so, McCloskey commits the fallacy of genetics. At the outset, McCloskey demands that the teleological and cosmological arguments provide definitive proof of God’s existence; failing this, they should be abandoned. This is an unreasonable...
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...In The short Story on Being an Atheist, MCcloskey argues that the cosmological proof, the teleological proof and the Ontological argument should be abandoned because they do not established with any degree of certainty, that God does exist. The cosmological argument is used to prove the existence of a necessary or eternal Creator. Philosophers argue that because the universe exists, some God like being had to cause it to come into existence. It was established that everything that exist had to have a beginning that caused them to exist, and in their opinion that cause was God who is outside of the universe. The Teleological arguments are arguments from the order in the universe to the existence of God. They are also known as arguments to design. These arguments purport to prove the existence of God from empirical facts, the premise being that the universe shows evidence of order and hence design. The Ontological arguments is a priori argument for the existence of God, asserting that as existence is a perfection, and as God is conceived of as the most perfect being, then God must exist. With MCcloskey or any atheist they offer no evidence on how the universe came into existence scientifically or otherwise. On the Cosmological Argument MCcloskey says that the “mere existence of the world constitutes no reason for believing in such a being.” But according to Evans and Manis the cause of the universe is necessary because any explanation of any contingent being’s existence...
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...searching for definitive proof that God exists. He is unable to find proof and therefore comes to the conclusion that God must not exist. He believes that the existence of evil discredits arguments made in support of believing in God. There is not one single thing in this world that we can know definitively without looking at the evidence. You have to look at the whole picture. Just like in a criminal investigation, the crime scene investigators gather evidence they are not looking for just the bullets or just the body. They look and gather all the data before coming to any conclusions. We will discuss each of the arguments and some additional reasons McCloskey gives as reasons not to believe that God exists. Cosmological Argument When we examine the cosmological argument we find that for something to exist there has to be a cause for its existence. The universe exists and was necessary for human beings to exist. We are contingent beings; our existence relies on the existence of the universe. We exist, and therefore so does the universe exist and there must be an ultimate cause of that existence. McCloskey makes a good point when he says the cosmological argument does not prove there is an all powerful, perfect uncaused cause but it provides strong evidence that there is some necessary cause to the world we live in and instead of being dismissed it should move us to investigate that “necessary cause” in more detail. The argument certainly has its weaknesses. For instance...
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...existence of God, there are numerous teachings and arguments, some more rational than others, the classical arguments being the most well known to all. The claim in all these arguments uses a non-religious approach to logically reason the existence of God, rather than argue on the premise of faith to obtain a rational belief; a belief reasoning as justification. The classical arguments are divided into what is considered empirical and rational arguments, with every individual finding their own reasoning to relate to them. In this essay, I will explore the extent of how the classical arguments can proves God existence, and why some people counter-argue they cannot. The first of the classical arguments being Anselm’s Ontological argument, an argument attempting to prove God’s existence through abstract reasoning alone. The argument is entirely a priori as it does not include real evidence or anything factual, seeking to demonstrate that God exists based on the concept of God alone. The outline of the argument is that because we have an idea of God, an idea of a being which no greater can be thought, therefore God must exist. The argument relates to three concepts: the concept of God, perfection and of existence. The three concepts associate with one another, arguing that perfection is part of the concept of God, and that perfection entails existence, therefore the concept of God entails God’s existence. Anselm’s argument is set on the basis of a conception of God as “that than...
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...philosophical arguments in the book is the Ontological Argument. Ontological Argument is highly recognized as one of the most remarkable arguments ever set forth not just an argument for God’s existence but a purely analytic argument. Ontological argument was regarded as the most intriguing of all arguments for theism. It also regarded as family of arguments. This particular argument is also called “a priori” argument. This does not rely mainly on the facts on observable world. But , it tries to show that the existence of God comes from the very definition of God itself as the most perfect being without using facts. An “a priori” argument about God’s existence depends on how we define God. The point of this argument is very crucial because, if the Ontological Argument proves to be valid, it is not just the mere existence of God is established, but more significantly, also traditional attributes that theists believe God to have. Nonetheless, the Ontological argument has been influential that it has both earned numerous passionate critics and defender of various philosophical learning from the time it was advocated until today. One of them is Immanuel Kant who is believed to have delivered a fatal blow to the this argument by pointing out that “existence” is not the real predicate. The problem to say “God exists” does not tell us anything about God. The use of the word exist does not add anything new to our understanding of God. Another argument is also the Cosmological Argument. The...
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...the existence and the belief of God. The essay will explain the philosophers view points on the religion of God. There are a few arguments of which existence is the strongest. It will explain many aspects on science and religion, atheism, moral and human freedom on God’s existence. Believing in God and believing in God’s existence can have many aspects with different views from philosophers, the arguments will explain which philosopher is more compelling than the other. When it comes to the existence of God, some philosophers believe that it is necessary to have proof and some believe that proof is not necessary if we have faith. One philosopher named, Thomas Aquinas believed that God is from faith and first cause is the proof of God. Let’s take a look at what Thomas had to say, “that the existence of God is not demonstrable: that God's existence is an article of faith, and that articles of faith are not demonstrable, because the office of demonstration is to prove, but faith pertains (only) to things that are not to be proven, as is evident from the Epistle to the Hebrews, 11.” (Paul Halsall, 1988.) Therefore, I don’t believe that we need proof of God’s existence. I agree with Thomas that God is faith. No, proving God’s existence is not necessary because God is faith, we have to believe in God to have the faith, If we do not believe in God then we might try to prove him, but will not get anywhere. There are arguments on the existence of God. The ontological proof explains...
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...Essay 1. Existence of God 2. Religious sects The debate concerning the existence of God is one of the oldest and most discussed debates in human history, and has raised many philosophical issues. A basic problem is the existence of both monotheistic and polytheistic views. A wide variety of arguments exist which can be categorized as metaphysical, logical, empirical, or subjective. The existence of God is subject to lively debate both in philosophy – the philosophy of religion being almost entirely devoted to the question – and in popular culture. The ontological argument has been formulated by philosophers including St. Anselm and René Descartes. The argument proposes that God's existence is self-evident. The logic, depending on the formulation, reads roughly as follows: 1. God is the greatest conceivable being. 2. It is greater to exist than not to exist. 3. Therefore, God exists. Aquinas' Five Ways 1. The unmoved mover argument asserts that, from our experience of motion in the universe (motion being the transition from potentiality to actuality) we can see that there must have been an initial mover. Aquinas argued that whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another thing, so there must be an unmoved mover. 2. Aquinas' argument from first cause started with the premise that it is impossible for a being to cause itself (because it would have to exist before it caused itself) and that it is impossible for there to be an infinite...
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