Aquinas's Argument On The Existence Of God

sense for him to be the reason we are born to then die leaving a question mark to our existence and the world.

Faith is the root of many actions and thereby reactions in our society, and world today. These religious practices must go through many trials and questionings from the always cynical, ever searching individuals. Due to the questioning of God’s existence, St. Thomas Aquinas and Anselm devised three arguments as was of explanation for His existence. Ontological, cosmological and teleological arguments are put forth to hopefully one day prove God’s existence. We are a people who crave for simplicity, there is nothing simple about the devout in their faith, we will look to find simpler explanations, or Ockham’s razor, for the three arguments put forth by Aquinas and Anselm.

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.

In this essay, I will set out to prove that Thomas Aquinas’ First Cause Argument does not show that God exists and the conclusion that God exists does not follow from the premises of the first cause argument. I do think that the conclusion is valid and could be sound/or has the potential to be, but the premises fail to provide the basis upon which to reach such a conclusion. Hence, I will be raising some objections to the premises and will try to disprove any counter-arguments that could be raised in its defense. This would be done by examining Aquinas’ First Cause Argument and trying to disprove it whilst countering arguments in its defense.

Mike Allan S. Nillo BS Physics Comm 1 C Then his wife said to him, “Are you still unshaken in your integrity? Curse God and die!” But he answered, “. . . If we accept good from God, shall we not accept evil?” (Job 2:9-10)

Anselm’s argument is based on this known definition of the concept of God alone. Descartes’ argument for the existence of God is based on his foundation of knowledge, logic. Humans have the idea in their minds of infinite perfection. Humans also have the idea of themselves as inferior to this idea as imperfect. For humans to have the idea of infinite perfection, there must be truth in the reason for them having this idea.

All of the philosophers that we've studied so far have made some valid arguments concerning the existence, or non-existence of God. If I had to be swayed by an opinion for God's existence, or non-existence it would have to be by William Paley's argument.

On Being an Atheist The existence of God has been a huge issue for many years. The main McCloskey's issue with the idea of God is the presence of many evils in the world. McCloskey implies that the "proofs" of the existence of God cannot establish a factual evidence which supports the existing argument of whether there is God or not. Some proofs explaining the existence of God should be dismissed because they are not valid.

The debate of the existence of God has always been a controversial topic and has been going on for centuries. Till this day it is still a debate. We have people who strongly believe in God and others who questions his existence. Those who have strong faith will try to convince everyone who does not believe in God that he exits. They will try to come up with arguments to show he is real and good.

Thomas Aquinas is the second critique of Anselm’s position. Take note that Aquinas assumed that the existence of God is obvious. He supported cosmological argument to prove that God exists. The cosmological argument uses the physical things that exist in the universe to demonstrate God’s existence. In his criticism of Anselm’s argument, Aquinas disagrees with the use of the word “God” and argues only some who hear the word “God” understands what it means (Himma, 4).

IV. The Problem of Evil So far, we have examined only arguments for the existence of God. But for each argument, we have also discussed some objections. Some theists may accept all these objections and yet maintain a belief in the existence of God.

Many philosophers believe that there are reasons to demonstrate the God does exist through arguments. There are three main types of arguments that explain the existence of God. These include Cosmological, Teleological, and Ontological, which are all traditional arguments. There are two groups that divide the arguments “An a posteriori argument is based on premises that can be known only by means of experience of the world (e.g., that there is a world, that events have causes, and so forth). An a priori argument, on the other hand, rests on premises that can be known to be true independently of experience of the world (Pojman 19).

Pascal makes the argument for the belief in God through the use of Decision Theory. He states that there are two options of belief and two possible realities, creating the four combinations: you believe in God and God exists, you believe in God and God doesn’t exist, you don’t believe in God and God exists, and you don’t believe in God and God doesn’t exist. Next Pascal assigns predicted measures of gain or lose for each combination, as if it is proven true. Here he reasons that If a person truly believed in God and God does exist, they will be rewarded infinitely, furthermore he says that if they believe and God doesn’t exist they lose nothing On the Other hand he says that a person doesn 't believe in God and God exists they stand to lose, and if they don’t believe and God doesn’t exist they neither lose nor gain. Through these predicted measures of gain and lose Pascal proves that choosing to believe is not only the most appealing option but the only rational choice.

Title: Critical evaluation of existence of god Name: Lokesh Singh Roll No. : 13110054 Word Count: 1010  Critical evaluation of existence of god There are many theories and explanations on the concept of god. God is a word which has different meanings for different persons, for example, for an atheist god is just an idea or concept which is evolved by time. But for others this is far greater than that. Many philosophers thought about the definition of god. St. Anselm is the one of the great philosopher who clarified the definition of god and gave an argument about existence of god.

Argument for the existence of god is being proposed in several ways. Some based on science while some are about personal experience and some on philosophical arguments such as ontological arguments, first cause arguments, arguments based on deign, moral arguments. Each of these support conception.