Essay/Term paper: The existance of god

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Philosophy

The Existence of God

Does God exist? Theology, cosmological, teleological and ontological arguments are
all have ways to prove the existence of God. With all of these great arguments how can one
deny that there is a God. There is a God and with these reasons I will prove that.
There are two types of theology discussed in chapter nine of Kessler "Voices of
Wisdom," revealed and natural theology. Revealed theology comes from such sources as the
Bible and according to St. Thomas Aquinas gives us the knowledge for our salvation. Natural
theology supports my argument on a level that someone who does not believe in God can
understand better. This kind of theology defines God"s nature and provides for his existence.
St. Thomas tells us that natural theology does not give us saving knowledge, because even if
you know God exists does not mean you have salvation. St. Thomas gave the example that
even devils know God exists. All of my arguments provided are philosophical theology or
natural theology.
For my first basis for the existence of God I will use the a posteriori, ontological
arguments. Ontological arguments are a priori, which show that God exists without appealing
to a sense experience. These ontological arguments argue about what God is to where he is
from.
St. Anselm, the creator of the ontological argument, based his theory on that we cannot
think of anything greater than God. Therefor God must exist, why you might ask? If the
greatest thing that we can conceive does not exist than we can still conceive the greatest thing
that does exist, and that would be God.
Descartes views God in a similar way to St. Anselm. Descartes sees God as the perfect
being while St. Anselm describes God as "that than which nothing greater can be thought."
In Descartes "the Argument from Perfection" he reasons that if existence is one of the
perfections and God has all the perfections, then God must exist. Along with these arguments
others in the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic communities have similar views.
Cosmological arguments are a posteriori, these tend to lean toward proving the
existence of God through a sense experience. Cosmological arguments come in many
varieties, such as the existence of the universe to God as its creator, cause, or explanation.
Cosmological arguments were started at the time the questions of the universe were first
asked.
The existence of motion to the existence of a first mover as the cause of movement,
was argued by Aristotle. This first mover he called God. The reason for this was that nothing
caused God to move yet God was responsible for the motion of all other things. This
argument is based on presumptions in other cosmological arguments. The first was that
something could not cause itself, second something cannot come from nothing, last there
could not possibly be an infinite amount of cause and effects.
St. Thomas" view was of God is an infinite, all-good, all-knowing, all powerful, perfect
being who created the universe and now has sole command over it. This view is known as
theism. St. Thomas states that a first cause must be in order to have cause and effect now.
For if we take away the first cause there would be no effect following there for the universe
would have never been created which is impossible because we can prove the universe does
exist. He also argues that there are things in the universe that have the possibility of existing
and not existing, we have seen things that have existed and than destroyed, thus proving that
there is the ability of being and not being. There was a time when nothing was in existence in
the universe, if this is accurate then nothing would be here now, because anything that is not
in existence cannot come to be without the help of something in existence. If once there was
nothing than nothing could be in existence now. This we know is inaccurate. So if once there
was nothing there must have been something which is needed to make things into existence
this greater being is known as God.
Deism is a scientific view that God created the universe along with the natural laws
existing in it that make it work. According to Deism the universe now runs on its own
without the interference of God. One of the main challenges in proving the existence of God
is that scientists had evidence to solve a problem in nature that didn"t have a need for God so
they thought since there is no need for God then he must not exist. Many scientists are
fascinated by deism because it proves that God and science can exist together in harmony.
Yet another type of a posteriori argument for the existence of God is the teleological
argument, otherwise known as the argument from design. This type of argument starts with
the basis that the universe has order and shows that a higher being is responsible for this order
in the universe.
William Paley, a patron of the Christian evangelical cause in England, thought that the
universe is an interconnected created for a purpose. He states in his writing "Natural
Theology," that there is a watch found lying on the ground, can we assume that it has always
existed there? Of course not the watch at one time was not in existence, it has parts that were
put together to form the watch, each one of those parts had to be formed and then they were all
fit together in harmony to form the watch by the watchmaker. On a greater scale the universe
was not always in existence, it had to be formed by a greater being, God. Without God the
universe would not be and the non-existence of the universe is obviously false. He goes on
further by saying that we had never seen the watch being made, nor the person who made the
watch, and we may not be able to make the watch ourselves, yet the watch exists. You can
say the same about the universe. We may have never seen the universe being created, or the
being that created it, and we may not be able to create a universe ourselves but the universe
does exist. He further states in his arguments that even though the watch has no proof of an
ingenious plan, it does have a motive to make a person think so. Meaning that even if the
universe had no proof of being created, it is only apparent that it was created by God for a
purpose.
So through teleological, cosmological, and ontological arguments as well as deism and
theism we can conclude that there is a God and He does exist.