The existence of God

• The ontological argument

  • A priori (based on logic)
  • Deductive (reaching a conclusion based on facts)
  • Analytic ( true by definition)
• Anselm's argument

  1. God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived.
  2. Things can only exist in our imagination or reality.
  3. Things that exist in reality are better than things that exist in the mind.
  4. If god only existed in our mind, he wouldn’t be the greatest thing because god in reality would be better.
  5. Therefore, god must exist in reality.
• Descartes

  
  

  Uses perfect being instead of greatest being
• Criticism of ontological argument:

  
  

  Guanilo argues that anything can be argued into existence e.g. replaces god with an island.
• Humes criticism of the ontological argument:

  1. You cannot establish the truth of something by analysing it.
  2. We cannot derive existence from assumed perfection.
  3. You cannot compare the mind to reality by applying logic.
• Anselm responded to Gaunilo that islands are contingent but god isnt.
• Kants criticism:

  1. Existence is not a predicate, doesn’t tell us anything about god.
  2. It helps affirm faith but doesn’t make an atheist believe in God.
• Strengths of the ontological argument:

  1. Argument doesn't rely on observation.
  2. supported by descartes.
  3. no need for empirical evidence.
• Weakness of the ontological argument:

  1. You have to accept the definition of god.
  2. You cannot define god into existence
  3. Gods characteristics are contradictory e.g. problem of evil.
• The cosmological argument:

  • A posteriori (based on experience and evidence)
  • Inductive ( drawing a conclusion based on facts)
  • synthetic
• The third way: cosmological argument

  1. Everything is contingent
  2. These things require something else to create them and so on
  3. This chain of contingency cannot go back forever (infinite regress)
  4. so there must be an uncreated and uncaused being
  5. This must be god.
• Cosmology= study of the universe
• Ontology: study of ‘being’, the nature of reality, and the nature of existence.
• Criticism:

  Russel came up with the fallacy of composition where you cannot infer that something is true of the whole from the truth of a part. E.g. all bricks are small, so the wall is small.
• Criticism of the cosmological argument:

  Experience shows that parts of the universe are contingent but that doesn’t mean the universe as a whole is contingent, the universe is a brute fact.
• Paley's watchmaker analogy - if we see a watch lying around it has been made by someone who had a purpose in mind. If we look at the complexity of the natural world then this was also created by a designer who had a purpose in mind.