Philosophy Week 1 - Existence of God

Mid-Term Revision

What is the Ontological argument

An ontological argument is a philosophical proof for the existence of God that relies purely on logic and reason rather than physical evidence or observation

Ontological argument Premise 1

God is defined as aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit—"that than which nothing greater can be thought'.”

Ontological argument Premise 2

God exists in the understanding (the mind) as a concept, even if someone denies God's actual existence.

Ontological argument Premise 3

To exist in reality (in fact) as well as in the mind is greater than to exist in the mind alone. Example of the painter, the idea of the painting has less grounding than when the artist creates the real thing.

Premise 3 (The Reductio Assumption): If God existed only in the mind/understanding and not in reality, then a greater being could be conceived—namely, a being that exists both in the mind and in reality. If it is greater to exist in the world than just in understanding, then it must exist in reality and therefore if we except the first premises, then god exists.

Ontological argument - Conclusion

C. God Exists (in reality.)

Because God must be thought of as that than which nothing greater can be thought, then it falls out of the very idea of God, that God has to exist.

Anselm - parity of reasoning

God exists necessarily.

-       It is not necessary that I exist in the world (although that would then be a different world but that’s by the by).

-       BUT it is necessarily that God exists, as if God exists but not necessarily, then there is something greater than God. So therefore God exists, and exists necessarily.

-       Somethihg existing necessarily, is more powerful than things existing contingent

God is not necessarily all loving, or kind, or interested in us. But he has to be supreme – because we can’t think of anything greater than that. And we get one God. Not Gods, because there cannot be multiple because then there would be something as great or greater than God

The fool’s reply, and Anselm’s response

“The fool has said in his heart there is no God” (Psalms 14:1, 53:1)

Anselm - the painting analogy.

Who came up with the Ontolgocial argument?

St Anselm of Cantebury

Who came up with the Cosmological proof?

St Thomas Aquinas

Cosmological Proof Premise 1

“In the world of sense we find… an order of efficient causes.”

-       What caused the tree to fall over? The wind. That’s an efficient cause. In the world of senses, we find these causes, things happened because they were caused to happen.

Cosmological Proof Premise 2

“Nothing can be the efficient cause of itself.”

Something can be both the effect of something and the cause of something else, but nothing can cause itself, something else caused that thing to be brought.

Cosmological Proof Premise 3

“To take away the cause is to take away the effect.”

-       In the world of sense, removing the cause, would mean that that thing won’t exist.

Cosmological Proof Premise 4

“[I]n efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity.”

-       In a world of sense and efficient causes, you cannot go on forever. There has to be a point where that thing was caused.

Cosmological Proof Premise (5)/Therefore, the conclusion is…

-       C. There is a first efficient cause, “to which everyone gives the name God.”

-       Whatever God is, that was the cause before anything else.

An objection to the cosmological proof

“If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause.  If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God.”

Who came up with the argument from design?

William Paley (1743-1805)

Who said the following quote:

“[W]hen  we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose.

“This mechanism being observed… the inference, we think, is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker.”

William Paley

The design argument - the inference is not weakened…

1. Had we never seen a watch made; or

2. If the watch told time poorly; or

3. Were there parts in the watch whose role in its working we could not understand.

 

Nor is the inference weakened if we discover that the watch we found (watch A) was made by another watch (watch B), fitted with a mechanism to make other watches.

 The only possibly conclusion is that there was a designer - God

The alternative view to the design theory…

that “no art or skill whatever had been concerned in the business”—can only be maintained “with absurdity.”

‘Yet this is atheism’

“This is atheism: for every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which exists in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater and more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.”