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. Understanding Ockham’s razor, and the three arguments is essential before seeing if seeing if the three arguments can be simplified and will finally lead to better understand a religious person’s acceptance of faith, and all it encompasses.
The Cartesian Circle is an objection to Descartes’ proof of God’s existence as it begs the question. In his proof, Descartes starts off with his two premises, his idea of God and the principle, which states that the cause of an idea must have at least as much formal reality as the idea has objective reality, which leads to a conclusion that God exists. Descartes’ conclusion then adds on to say that God is not a deceiver that will then follow to develop the General Rule, which states that if we have a clear and distinct perception of something, we would be certain of it. According to critics, Descartes is able to use the principle as his premise because Descartes relies on the General Rule in order to be certain of it.
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).
Saint Anselm came up with the ontological argument that only a fool would believe that God does not exist. An ontological argument is hand in hand with a Platonic a priori where there is a strong attempt made to prove that God exists by the concept of his existence. Saint Anselm’s argument is that even someone thick minded, or has a low IQ can state that there is a God, and for this to be possible, God must exist. He backs his argument up by comparing what is imagined up in the mind and what is in reality. Reality is existence, and imagining something up is nonexistent. In order for us to have understanding and think up our representation of the divine God there must be existence of him. How else would we be able to imagine a perfect holy being that is above all? If there is understanding of this being, the knowledge to imaging this being up had to come from somewhere, and this is how Saint Anselm tries to prove Gods existence.
To begin his argument, Descartes first leads readers into his line of thinking in order that they might understand the possibility of the existence of a supreme being. Throughout his argument, Descartes relies on
Saint Anselm’s Ontological Argument was most likely constructed during a time when the majority of the population was religious, in order to strengthen the belief that God exists. The thesis of the argument is as straightforward as it gets – that God does indeed exist. In this argument, God is defined to be the greatest entity that an individual can ever conjure in his or her mind.
The existence of God is a highly debatable topic; the different views of believers, atheists and agnostics, show us that God's Existence remains a question with no definite final answer. Descartes is one of many philosophers who tried to establish a number of arguments in order to prove
Throughout the Meditations, Descartes tries to prove the existence of God while rebuilding the knowledge that he recently casted much doubt over. He uses the cosmological argument to provide the proof needed to show Gods existence through arguing his own imperfections and Gods perfections. The main concepts within this argument
“The Ontological Argument, which was first clearly formulated in the Middle ages, proposes that one can prove the existence of God simply by analyzing the concept of God”(3). The history of the ontological argument is a long one that started with St. Anselm of Canterbury, who wanted to find a single argument for the proof that God exists. He puts forward the argument that God is defined to be ‘that-than-which-no-greater-can-be-thought’. This is an acceptable argument because many believed that “God is a perfect being and no other creatures are superior to God” (6). Attributes of Omniscience, knowing everything; Omnipotence, being able to do anything possible; and omnibenevolence, being morally perfect. “Anselm says that once this definition of God is accepted, we can prove that such a God exists merely by analyzing the concept of God alone” (6). Because anyone one can understand the phrase: ‘that-than-which-no-greater-can-be-thought’, even a fool will agree that God exists within the mind. Concepts of omnipotence, omniscience, and amnibelevolence are complex philosophical concepts, these of which are said to be formed in
In “Why Believe” by Saint Anselm, there lies a compelling argument which utilizes a Reductio Ad Absurdum argument to prove his conclusion. Anselm begins his argument with four premises, then states his Reductio Ad Absurdum argument, and finally concludes his whole argument with “God exists.”
In this paper, I will deliver a reconstruction of Descartes’ Cogito Argument and my reasoning to validate it as indubitable. I will do so by justifying my interpretations through valid arguments and claim, by showcasing examples with reasoning.
In this paper, I will deliver a reconstruction of Descartes’ Cogito Argument and my reasoning to validate it as indubitable. I will do so by justifying my interpretations through valid arguments and claim, by showcasing examples with reasoning.
Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, first proposed the ontological argument about the existence of God. The Archbishop relies on ontology to prove that God indeed does exist. In this way, the archbishop was able to show God’s existence using His definition. Although the ontology was used for such purposes before Anselm, it is thought that he put it in the most comprehensive manner. The basis of the argument is the use of logic, which means that to prove that God exists one needs not apply experience. The Archbishop developed this argument to disapprove the fool mentioned in Psalms 14:1 who says that God does not exists. Anselm argues that the position taken by this fool is self-contradictory. In the verse
In this argument we already assumed that there may be possibility that God exist and finally we reached where we started. So this argument does not give us the exact information about existence of God. There are many objections on this argument but still it is a powerful argument. In my opinion, this argument is not much satisfactory. It describes that existence is greater than imagination. That is right but here we are only imagining two situation one is just idea of God and another is idea plus reality. But how can we assume that God exists in reality even we don’t know about God’s existence. It seems just a logic which is self-contradictory. We can also apply this logic to other things, maybe this logic will not work. Let’s imagine that electricity is not available in a room, so fan, which is hanging there, is not working. Then we cannot say that fan is not working because electricity is not available. There may be some other problem with the fan. So reverse is not always true. So this argument is ambiguous.