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Ontological proofs for God's existence
Existance of God
The conclusion near death experiences
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Recommended: Ontological proofs for God's existence
There are two types of arguments to approach the existence of God. A posteriori argument is defining things based on the premises of what is true by our own experiences. This is the idea that we cannot know what is true unless we have experienced it using our five senses of sight, smell, hearing, touch, etc. This type of truth according to the book Core Questions in Philosophy written by Elliot Sober, is a posteriori truth, which is “one that requires experience to be known (or justified)”(84).
A priori argument is a conclusion based on the understanding of the concept, not through prior or innate experience. One can claim their preposition is a priori even if they have no innate knowledge or experience of the subject, as long as they understand the concept. This approach takes no observation or experience into account, just the definition given to the subject. (Sober 85)
Originally formulated by Saint Anslem, the Ontological Argument is defined as
(1) God is by definition the greatest being possible. (2) A being who fails to exist in the actual world (while existing in other possible worlds) is less perfect than a being who exists in all possible worlds. (Core Questions in Philosophy, 86) The basis of the Ontological Argument “often do not deal directly with perfect beings, beings than which no greater can be conceived, etc.; rather, they deal with descriptions of, or ideas of, or concepts of, or the possibility of the existence of, these things” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Meaning, this argument states what God is and then asks if he exists.
Sober states that “the Ontological Argument for the existence of God is a priori argument”(85). And one can establish the truth of theism without posteriori premise. Thi...
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... proof of his existence can be through miracles or signs of God in our life. The way we can reason our argument of God existing is through things like near death experiences where we might see or hear God, and affirm he is real. Because not everyone has those experiences, we can only reason God’s existence based on the definitions by scholars or individual experiences that only ones self can deem valid. That is why I believe the argument of God’s existence must be done individually based on one’s own experience and should not be generalized by one concept or argument.
Works Cited
Oppy, G. 2009. “Ontological Arguments”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),
Sober, E. 2009. Core Questions in Philosophy. Prentice Hall. Chapter 8.
The Ontological Argument, which argues from a definition of God’s being to his existence, is the first type of argument we are going to examine. Since this argument was founded by Saint Anslem, we will be examining his writings. Saint Anslem starts by defining God as an all-perfect being, or rather as a being containing all conceivable perfections. Now if in addition of possessing all conceivable perfections t...
Whether god exists or not has been in discussion for thousands of years, and an important discussion. Whether it is rational to believe in god or not is another story, like believing in god itself, this topic has brought many discussions. It is one thing to discuss whether god is real or not and it is a complete other to discuss whether it is rational to believe in god or not. I believe that while there may not be any convincing evidence or arguments that God does exist, I do still believe that it is still rational to believe that god does exist. I think this because, believing in God is not simply just believing that he exists, but believing that it can bring good to our lives, we otherwise would not have. It teaches us to have a moral responsibility not only to others, but ourselves. It is obvious that many people do believe in god, but many of us choose to do so for reasons other than just believing in God. I do believe that just because there is no evidence, that does not mean God doesn’t exist. Like I said, God brings more to our lives than just a belief, but an ability to achieve a better one. And even if God is just an imaginary figure, he is an imaginary figure that brings hope and goodness to our lives, which we can never discount.
Reasoning like this, alone is not sufficient to prove the existence of God, but it provides us with firm ground to rationally approve and understand the existence of God. One must have faith, to truly acknowledge and believe in the existence of God because as God is perfect and we are not, we cannot see or know the true perfect with full confidence, unless God intervenes--"faith is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8).
Anselm’s classical ontological argument is criticized precisely for its attempt to define God into existence. The argument is deductive and its form known as reduction ad absurdum. “That is, it begins with a supposition S (suppose that the greatest conceivable being exist in the mind alone) that is contradictory to what one desires to prove” (Pojman 41). In other words, the argument attempts to show a contradiction or absurdity in the opposite view in order to claim his own view is correct.
stronger than those saying it can be. The definition of God for which is being argued is the Christian God who has the qualities of being. perfect and who created the universe. The ontological argument follows that God is perfect and no greater. being is imaginable.
There are many theories to why a God might exist, but the Ontological argument tells us that a God is a necessary truth based on the self-contradictory or denying the existence of God. They use the proposition of the concept of God to argue the implied existence of God. This is to suppose that God is by definition the greatest thing imaginable and that to imagine something greater which can also exist is impossible. They use the general rule of positive and negative existential claims to try and prove the existence of God. they do this in a number of ways, with the classic version of the ontological argument being the most recognized, the reductio ad absurdum ("reduction of absurdity") of the ontological argument and the modal versions of the argument. It explains that nothing can exist in the imagination alone, it must also exist in reality to truly exist, and they have decided that there has to be such a being that exists in the imagination and in reality that noting greater can exist. I do not find this argument to be true in stating the fact that God must exist in reality, al...
Rene Descartes’ third meditation from his book Meditations on First Philosophy, examines Descartes’ arguments for the existence of God. The purpose of this essay will be to explore Descartes’ reasoning and proofs of God’s existence. In the third meditation, Descartes states two arguments attempting to prove God’s existence, the Trademark argument and the traditional Cosmological argument. Although his arguments are strong and relatively truthful, they do no prove the existence of God.
Truth, what is truth? This question itself has a thousand answers, no person can ever be sure of what truth is rather, truth can be justified, it can checked for reliability with strong evidences and logic. If the evidence proves to be accurate then it can be established that a certain answer is the truth. However, have we ever tried to think about what intrigues us to seek the truth? To think about a question and set foot firmly on the path of knowledge. Definitely it has! That was the very cause itself which is why this world has witnessed some of the greatest philosophers like Aristotle, Plato and Socrates etc. along with the school of thought. The ability to think and reason is one of the greatest ability humans have, it is what distinguishes us from the animals. It is what gives us free will, the ability to control our own outcomes. However, it is that ability to ‘think’ itself which has caused men to rebel with the myths and statements established about the unseen and natural forces since the beginning of time. It gave rise to questions such as: Do aliens exist? Is there a world of the unseen? Life after Death and the most popular question since the beginning of times, Does God exists? And the answer is ‘yes’. Here is how I will justify my stance.
The ontological argument argues that if you understand what it means to talk about God, you will see His existence is necessarily true. Anselm defined God as 'that than which nothing greater can be conceived', hence God must exist. Anselm also believed that even atheist had a definition for God even just to disregard his existence; hence God exists in the mind. Anselm said this is so because that which exists in reality is greater than that which exists purely in the mind.
The concept of God can be a difficult one to grasp especially in today's world - a world in which anyone that believes in God is trying to define exactly what God is. To even attempt to grasp such a concept, one must first recognize his own beliefs in respect to the following questions: Is God our creator? Is God omnipotent (all-powerful) or omniscient (all-knowing) or both? Does God care? Is God with us? Does God interfere with life on earth? These questions should be asked and carefully answered if one should truly wish to identify his specific beliefs in God's existence and persistence.
God can be defined as a being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions (1). There are many people that do not believe in any religion. People who do not believe in a religion have no reason for believing in a God. People who do not believe in a God and argue against the existence of God are proving something that is completely false. There is a God for numerous reasons.
Thomas Aquinas uses five proofs to argue for God’s existence. A few follow the same basic logic: without a cause, there can be no effect. He calls the cause God and believes the effect is the world’s existence. The last two discuss what necessarily exists in the world, which we do not already know. These things he also calls God.
A priori knowledge is knowledge that rests on a priori justification. A priori justification is a type of epistemic justification that is, in some sense, independent of experience. There are a variety of views about whether a priori justification can be defeated by other evidence, especially by empirical evidence, and a variety of views about whether a priori justification, or knowledge, must be only of necessary, or analytic, propositions, or at least of ones believed to be necessary or analytic (Russell, 2011).
But I don't want to presuppose that God's existence is a fact before the proof is established. Simply by looking at what constitutes our world, we can say that all matter consists of energy, proving the existence of energy. How, then, do we know this energy exists? The simple answer is, we are aware of it. We then only have to find out how this awareness came about.
... God and how He is related to us – how powerful He is to make everything in this world works; how He made everything almost perfect for us. I have also learned that believing He exist, makes me understand more about His existence, just like what St. Anselm said. I believe that believing He exists, is what makes Him exist. For me, Yes, God really exist.