Therefore, as the supreme perfection is in God, one could say that He directs worldly events to their rightful conclusion. In the book of Job, St. Thomas tried to reject the view that God is somehow not personally involved in the lives of people, that He is indifferent and people are subject to vicissitudes of nature. This is the type of argument the deists try to assert, that God, after creation, cares no more for his creatures. St. Thomas argues that by understanding that God as the universal cause, He ordained that the universe would be governed by a series of inferior or secondary causes. Hence, conclusively, providence works through a hierarchy of
Ontological argument by St. Anselm in favour of God’s existence: The ontological argument of the existence of the God is entirely based upon the fact of contradicting the non-existence of God. The original statement on which St. Anselm’s ontological argument of God is based upon is that "God is that than which no greater can be conceived." The statement means that there cannot be a being which can be greater than God and there cannot be a being which can be imagined greater than a God as God is treated as an ultimate perfect being that can be imagined. One of the prominent feature that God has is perfection i.e., something can’t be called a God unless it’s completely perfect. Perfection implies that there cannot be something which is greater than perfection or being flawless.
Why there is an idea of God as the perfect being? Why there is an idea of God as the intelligent designer? It is because God exist and all of those questions are answerable by the existence of God. Where St. Thomas does got the proofs of God's existence? St. Thomas' Five Ways strongly prove the existence of God, but the idea of God is already there.
Irenaeus emphasised on self-sufficiency and perfection of one God to counter Gnostics. Bible taught that the primary divine attributes of God are eternity, immutability, omniscience and omnipotence and they were
I then present a reply that I believe to be in accordance with something Anselm might have responded to Gaunilo with. This reply includes the explanation that the Perfect Island cannot be compared to God because the Perfect Island, if it were to exist, would be a finite and empirical Island and therefore imperfect by nature but God is infinite and therefore can and is perfect by nature. I will end with the conclusion that, based on St. Anselm’s argument, Gaunilo’s criticism and a possible reply to Gaunilo’s criticism, Anselm’s argument is true but only if
Then we look at the second argument of Aquinas, The Argument of Causation- everything that is caused has to be caused by something else, there cannot be an infinite number of causes, and same as argument number one that must mean there is a God since all effects have causes. The Argument from Contingency asks if everything already exists contingently has a reason to do so, does the universe exists for a reason and if the universe has a reason for its existence that that reason must be God. Aquinas’ fourth argument is the Argument from Degrees Aquinas says in order to compare two things in terms of good or bad, we must have something to compare it to, this would have to be an absolutely perfect thing aka God. Aquinas’ fifth and final argument is The Teleological Argument- According to Aristotle, everything has a purpose or Telos. If everything in the natural world has purpose, there must be someone who created that
Then we look at the second argument of Aquinas, The Argument of Causation- everything that is caused has to be caused by something else, there cannot be an infinite number of causes, and same as argument number one that must mean there is a God since all effects have causes. The Argument from Contingency asks if everything already exists contingently has a reason to do so, does the universe exists for a reason and if the universe has a reason for its existence that that reason must be God. The Aquinas fourth argument the Argument from Degrees Aquinas says in order to compare two things in the terms of good or bad, we must have something to compare it to, this would have to be an absolutely perfect thing aka God. Aquinas’ fifth and final argument is The Teleological Argument- According to Aristotle, everything has a purpose or Telos. If everything in the natural world has purpose, there must be someone who created that purpose,
Hume argues the empirical theism. Empirical theist believes in an anthropomorphized (human-like) God. He argues that given how much evil there is in our reality, we can not gander at our universe and reasonably infer from the evidence that God is infinitely or even moderately good, wise, and powerful. Therefore, drawing the conclusion from the evidence presented by nature, the only conclusion would be that God is indifferent between good and evil, morally neutral. Consequently, this argument cannot possibly tell us about God’s moral nature.
Anselm’s argument focuses on the definition and the logic behind it while Descartes’ argument focuses on self-reason for the cause of the idea of infinite perfection. An obvious similarity between Anselm and Descartes’ methods is that they are both arguing for the existence of God instead of against it. They both come to the conclusion that God must exist based on their logical
Anselm begins his argument in proslogion two by stating that there is no greater being than God. This greatness does not necessarily mean large, but it entails that God is the most perfect conceivable being in every single way. Furthermore, Anselm does not say that God is the most perfect being in existence, but rather that God is so perfect, that no greater being can be thought off. This is his reply to the Fool, who firmly states that God does not exists. Anselm continues by