In the allegory of the cave, Plato’s main goal is to illustrate his view of knowledge. A group of prisoners have been chained in a cave their whole lives and all they have ever been exposed to were shadows on the wall and voices of people walking by. The prisoners in the cave represent humans who only pay attention to the physical aspects of the world (sight and sound). Once one of them escapes and sees the blinding light, all he wants is to retreat back to the cave and return to his prior way of living. This shows that Plato believes enlightenment and education are painful, but the pain is necessary for enlightenment and it is worth it. Once he finally gets past the pain and is able to view the truth of the world, he feels pity for the
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 ontological argument is an argument based, not on the observation of the universe as cosmology and theological arguments but rather using only the reason. Everything we see today in the universe was created by a God, which created the humans in a predict time and perfect time. The first and most popular form of this argument starts from Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th century. It begins with the statement that the concept of God is such a being, that nothing greater can be conceived. Since existence is possible, and existence is greater than non-existence, then God must
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. However, one of the arguments is superior ant that is the ontological argument. The Ontological argument is the stronger of the two due to the fact that it is based in pure logic and reasoning.
In the argument from design, the world must have been created by an intelligent being. It could not have been created otherwise. Paley argues this when he analyzes the existence of world, corresponding with god’s purpose in its existence. He claims that “there must have existed, at some time, or [an]other, an artificer or artificers who formed [the world] for the purpose which we find it actually
Anselm 's ontological argument is a philosophical argument which aims to prove God 's existence. The ontological argument is an argument for God’s existence based on reason alone. According to this argument, there is no need to go out looking for physical evidence of God’s existence; we can work out that he exists just by thinking about it. (Anon., 2004) Anselm’s argument is a reductio argument, it seeks to demonstrate that a statement is true by showing that an absurd result would follow from its denial. I will be discussing three objections to Anselm’s argument which I will reply to, namely: “the perfect island” objection by Gaunilo; “existence is not a predicate” objection by Immanuel Kant and Aquinas objection “not everyone has the same concept of God”. I agree that that Anselm’s ontological argument does indeed show that God exists.
The ontological argument is one of the three main arguments for the existence of the Judeo-Christian God. This argument is designed to appeal to rational rather than non-rational reasons for the existence of God. Rational reasoning can be identified through the use of reason, logic, argumentation, and our shared observations of the world, whereas non-rational reasoning is characterized by subjective religious experience. However, the ontological argument does not appeal to the logic consisting of our shared observations of the world because it focuses on the reflection of our own idea of God, therefore validating the cosmological argument to be a priori since none of it’s premises require empirical support. St. Anselm of Canterbury provided a renowned version of the cosmological argument around 1080 AD that establishes the existence of God by reflecting on our idea of Him.
All human beings are children of God in the creation sense. Intelligence, conscience, belief, moral nature.
The teleological argument to me is what makes God’s existence real because of the design of our world and the creation of the living things. Who else could have created the earth and all the living things around us? It couldn’t be the humans; because it brings us back to the question on how were humans created? Everything has a starting point, and this starting point happens to be an intelligent designer who created the universe. A man can create such things as electronics, statues and buildings but can’t design the world and all the living things. Teleological argument is the argument for God’s existence based on the evidence of design in the world
H.J. McCloskey’s article “On Being an Atheist” he argues the existence of God and we should abandoned all “proofs” of this idea. In approaching the question of God’s existence, we cannot prove God or that other things exist. Proof is a certainty and without a shadow of doubt. However, it is possible I could be wrong, but I don’t believe I am. The best explanation of God’s existence is seen in certain effects we see in the universe such as science. Scientist tell us there is a hole in the ozone layer, however, we can’t see that, yet many people believe it. Let’s consider another example, cancer, known to kill millions every year, yet science is still unsuccessful in finding a cure, but it does not mean one is not out there. There are many other
So the first cause argument proves that God does not exist assuming the first cause argument is sound then there must be some other cause because it is not God.
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. St. Anselm and Descartes are known for presenting the first ontological arguments on the existence of God. The word ontological is a compound word derived from ‘ont’ which means exists or being and ‘–ology’ which means the study of. Even though Anselm and Descartes’ arguments differ slightly, they both stem from the same reasoning. Unlike the other two arguments on God’s existence (teleological and cosmological), the ontological argument does not seek to use any empirical evidence but rather concentrates on pure reason. The rationale behind this school of thought
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
The traditional claim of all Cosmological Arguments is defined as “something outside the universe is responsible to explain the existence of the universe” (PowerPoint 380). In the “causal argument,” or the First Cause Argument on the cosmological argument, “something” outside of the universe that is supposed to inform us about the existence of the universe is argued to be explained as God. As the first cause argument goes into depth and with the help of Thomas Aquinas, it is easy to see how God is responsible for explaining the existence of the universe around us. Within the first cause argument on the cosmological argument the following premises and conclusions are discussed:
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.