ipl-logo

John Locke's Argument For The Existence Of God

732 Words3 Pages

In John Locke’s, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke develops an argument for the existence of God. In the the following paper, I shall first reconstruct Lockes’ argument for his claim of God’s existence. I shall then identify what I take to be the weakest premise of the argument and explain why I find it in need of justification. The following is a reconstruction of Lockes’ argument: 1) Man has a clear perception of his own being 2) If man knows his own being, then man knows that bare nothing cannot produce a being 3) Therefore, man knows that bare nothing cannot produce a being (from 1 and 2) 4) If bare nothing cannot produce a being, then there has been an eternal being 5) Therefore, there is an eternal (infinite) being …show more content…

With an explosion with infinite energy being the explanation of how our world started there had to be a being to first start the explosion. The explosion would be considered has the first beginning to produce another being. Everything that has a beginning was produce by another being. An eternal being never had a beginning because it has always been in existences. Therefore, an eternal being was never produced by another being. The Big Bang Theory is not wrong but it does not cancel out the fact that an eternal being exists. For the explosion of the Big Bang Theory to happen there had to be something to produce it, which is an eternal being. In conclusion, my reconstruction of John Locke’s argument in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, I rejected premise number 4. Which is “if bare nothing cannot produce a being, then an eternal being exists”. This premise needs further justification for it to be correct. The term “bare nothing” does not cancel out that explanation that nature could have the power to produce another being. Locke responded explaining that nature is the first beginning and every beginning was produced by something else. An eternal being was the reason why the explosion of nature started our world and further produced all of

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Chapter 19 Of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

    1056 Words  | 5 Pages

    Over and over, throughout the essay he mentions that “Belief is no proof of revelation”, “and Reason must be our last judge and guide in everything.” Any revelation that we would want to prove as truth, must not be contrary to the laws and principles of reason. It must also be true to the word of God, which Locke described as “attested

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Equality In The Declaration Of Independence, By John Calhoun

    833 Words  | 4 Pages

    Locke has a better case in regards to the understanding

    Read More

  • John Locke's Argumentative Essay

    179 Words  | 1 Pages

    Martin Luther King Jr. wanted to get his point through in his speech about how cruely colored skins were mistreated and didn’t have rights like everyone else did. John Locke made the three most important rights anyone could have, life liberty and pursuit of happiness. None of these colored men had any of those rights. I believe blacks were treated very poorly. I also believe that all those thousands of blacks around the world should have never been treated the way they were.

    Read More

  • John Locke's The Reasonableness Of Christianity

    56 Words  | 1 Pages

    In his later years, he devoted his time to theology and wrote his major work in the field called The Reasonableness of Christianity. It was to be published anonymously in the year of 1695. This work of John Locke’s was controversial because he argued that many beliefs traditionally believed to be mandatory for Christians were unnecessary.

    Read More

  • Descartes Proofs For The Existence Of God

    717 Words  | 3 Pages

    The truth about the existence of God has been an argument for years and yet we still have no real proof but these past few weeks we have learned about various “proofs” for the existence of God according to a few philosophers. One philosopher by the name of Descartes introduced us to an interesting idea about why he believes God must exist. Descartes begins by saying that he has an idea of God, a perfect being. So this idea must have came from somewhere. But he cannot be the cause of a perfect being because he

    Read More

  • Rowe's Argument For The Existence Of God

    1652 Words  | 7 Pages

    The idea of a divine, omnipotent being had always been accepted through the eyes of the public since the first human civilization. However, the development of science has made philosophers rethink the belief in the existence of a god. William Rowe provided evidence to prove his case about how all the evil and suffering on earth makes atheism a reasonable belief. In order to prove his point even more, Rowe makes a comprehensive argument about how even if theist explain the reasons why God allows suffering, atheism will still find a way to make their case valid. Rowe also discusses the different categories that an atheist view religious beliefs.

    Read More

  • Who Is Victor A Victim In Frankenstein

    965 Words  | 4 Pages

    The word creation emphatically implies that there is a creator. This view is static and impossible to augment. Additionally, it’s a common conception that all life is created

    Read More

  • Cosmological Argument Essay: Does The Existence Of God

    2134 Words  | 9 Pages

    Does God exist? This is a question that a lot of people have on their minds. People want to know how did we get here, is there a being beyond us that got us here, or did we come through from evolution. It has been studied by many philosophers to find the answer to this question. People believe what they want and most of the time ones mind cannot be changed.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast John Locke And Montesquieu

    1227 Words  | 5 Pages

    According to this quote, Locke explains that people are born with empty minds, but individual learning and experiences will help to shape life. Experience comes from two different sources: outer experience and inner experience. Outer experience comes from the senses and provide sensory details like color, shapes, heat, and sweetness. Since these qualities exist in material objects, every human perception is the same and produce the same impact in each human. Inner experience comes through self reflexion and provides ideas such as beliefs, ideas, and thoughts.

    Read More

  • Descartes's Argument On The Existence Of God

    753 Words  | 4 Pages

    If god doesn’t cause my existence, then I am caused by myself, my parents or a lesser cause. There is no infinite regression, so I my existence isn’t caused by my parents or lesser cause, Therefore, God is the cause of my existence (AD 51). As well I am not God, If I created

    Read More

  • Arguments Against The Existence Of God

    270 Words  | 2 Pages

    The universe and everything in it is out come. There must be something that evoke everything to come true into existence. Sooner or later, there must be something whose looking over which is god. In the beginning stage in the argument is a

    Read More

  • The Ontological Argument

    1689 Words  | 7 Pages

    “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

    Read More

  • Ontological Argument In Favour Of God's Existence

    1016 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Thomas Aquinas Cosmological Argument

    585 Words  | 3 Pages

    But if nothing ever created it then nothing would have never been created in the first place and the universe would fail to exist, therefore there must have been a creator itself not created which caused the existence for everything else. An example of this is the argument about the chicken and the egg, there is an egg and chicken come out of it, but where did the egg come from? Another chicken, that chicken came from an egg that was laid from a chicken that came out an egg and if there wasn’t an uncaused causer then my sentence would never ever end so the only logical answer is that there was something that made the first cause -

    Read More

  • Plato's Theory Of Innate Knowledge

    1075 Words  | 5 Pages

    Locke also asserted that humans are blank states at birth. According to him, “All ideas come from sensation or reflection. Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas” (Locke, 1690, p. 96). However, Baillargeon’s research described earlier in the paper showed that infants possess certain knowledge from birth, such as the principle of persistence. Also, Locke’s claim fell into contradiction later in his paper.

    Read More

More about John Locke's Argument For The Existence Of God

Open Document