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Existentialism the stranger
Existentialism the stranger
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William P. Alston, a professor of philosophy at Syracuse University, discusses in his essay “Perceiving God” the sense of perception: “the experience, or… the perception, of God plays an epistemic role with respect to beliefs about the physical world” (Alston 431). Alston continues to justify his position “that the very considerable incidence of putative perception of God creates a certain initial presumption that these experiences are what they seem to be and that something can thereby be learned about God” (Alston 432). Alston’s argument is that the perception of God is enough to justify your belief that He exists because of the similarity between your senses and how you perceive God (431-432). Alston’s argument is both fideistic (relying on faith and not reason) and inductive. In his thesis, he alludes to the fact that a person must have an experience first before they can trust the perception. The experience, which would normally be a religious experience, must occur before the faith in God’s existence comes about. It is this experience that changes a person’s point of view. This is an illustration of Existentialism. It is based on experience from oneself. It is also known as a “leap of faith.” The rest of Alston’s arguments are …show more content…
It is definitely a sensitive subject to breach, and there may never be a true answer to it, but the perception of God must have a part in these manifestations. Individuals that may not find themselves having an “experience” because of their beliefs should not, in turn belittle someone else claiming to have an experience. No proof of the “experience” should be required from them. As Alston describes the double standard of not proving proof for using your normal senses to detect things, then why, when it comes to God, should people have to prove that they had an “experience?” Alston identifies that there are unrealistic requirements for people that have a religious
Not the least of my problems is that I can hardly even imagine what kind of an experience a genuine, self-authenticating religious experience would be. Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me.-
Both Bubar and Fackenheim claim that there argument is not one that argues from a religious experience; hence they are immune to the fallacies of that argument. Yet critics counter that they are presenting an argument from a religious experience, one that is incompletely stated. One might remark that many people, who claim to have had glimpses of God, as Fackenheim puts it, are in both of these philosophers mind delusional. Charles Guiteau who assassinated President Garfield acted upon what he thought was instructions from God. As John Baillie puts it, there must be some criteria to distinguish fake encounters from real. We simply cannot take Bubar’s word that certain glances are illusionary while others are not.
The world is not what it appears to humans, but there are things that may be recorded, repeated, and experienced by others. Though each person is different, it is believed that we all experience the world in the same way more or less. Touch, taste, sight, smell and sound are the ways we interpret our environment. However, from time to time people have experiences that occur beyond those five senses and defy explanation as anything other than an otherworldly. Those experiences became a large part of religion, yet the manner in which most occur begs the question – why?
H.J McCloskey’s article, “On Being an Atheist,” is an attempt to show atheism as a more practical alternative to the Christian belief. McCloskey reasons against the theistic beliefs of the cosmological argument, the teleological argument and design. He references the presence of evil in a world created by God and the absurdity of living by faith. This article is an attempt to reason that God does not exist because He is perfect and the world is not perfect; evil exists therefore God cannot exist. McCloskey’s article labels these arguments as “proofs” and concludes none of these arguments would be evidence of God’s existence. I find McCloskey’s article to lack logic and coherence which only serves to invalidate his arguments. I find this little more than an attempt to justify his own atheistic worldview.
middle of paper ... ... The operations of our own mind have created this idea of God, which rebuts Descartes’ argument that we have knowledge of the external world because of God. Descartes would argue that Humes’ idea of God is natural and never derived from impressions. Hume’ consequently has the better argument, claiming that the idea of God is actually based on ideas of perfection and infinity is inferred from the ideas of imperfection and finitude.
Rene Descartes meditations on the existence of God are very profound, thought-provoking, and engaging. From the meditations focused specifically on the existence of God, Descartes uses the argument that based on his clear and distinct perception that cannot be treated with doubt, God does exist. In the beginning of the third meditation, Descartes proclaims that he is certain he is a thinking thing based on his clear and distinct perception, and he couldn’t be certain unless all clear and distinct perceptions are true. Before diving into the existence of God, Descartes introduces smaller arguments to prove the existence of God. For example, Descartes introduces in his argument that there are ideas in which he possess that exists outside of him. Utilizing the objective versus formal reality, Descartes states “If the objective reality of any of my ideas turns out to be so great that I am sure the same reality does not reside in me, either formally or eminently, and hence that I myself cannot be its cause, it will necessarily follow that I am not alone in the world, but that some other thing which is the cause of this idea exists” (29). In other words, the ideas of objective reality that resides in Descartes can potentially only come from a supreme being, which is God; God possess more objective reality than he does formal reality. We as humans, as Descartes states, are finite substance, and God is the only infinite substance. The only way for us as a finite substance to think of an infinite substance is possible if, and only if, there is an infinite substance that grants us the idea of substance in first place. After these smaller arguments, Descartes states that while we can doubt the existence of many things, due to the fact that ...
Having faith is believing in things that you don’t see. According to the Meditations, Descartes gets rid of beliefs that he isn’t certain of and keeps the ones that are undoubtable. He tries to prove that God has must exist since we have such a clear and distinct idea of him. I believe it is impossible to prove without a doubt that God exists.
In this paper, I will examine the ontological argument of Anselm for the existence of God. Anselm defines God as “that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought,” which means, at least for Anselm, that God must exist because he is the greatest being that can be conceived. Furthermore, he argues that all people, whether or not they believe in the existence of God, at least understand his definition, including the fool who denies that God exist. Anselm, in addition to that, describes two main differences between understanding the definition of God, and understanding God to exist.
Second, Descartes raised a more systematic method for doubting the legitimacy of all sensory perception. Since my most vivid dreams are internally indistinguishible from waking experience, he argued, it is possible that everything I now "perceive" to be part of the physical world outside me is in fact nothing more than a fanciful fabrication of my own imagination. On this supposition, it is possible to doubt that any physical thing really exists, that there is an external world at all. (Med. I)
Existentialism is a Humanism, written by French philosopher Jean- Paul Sartre, was written in 1946 based on a lecture that Sartre gave at Club Maintenant in Paris in 1945. Existentialism is defined as “a philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of will” (Merriam- Webster Dictionary). In Existentialism is a Humanism, Sartre portrays existentialism as an essentially optimistic philosophy. He uses key existentialist terms such as anguish, abandonment, and despair to defend his view as well as provide examples that help us to analyze his claim. After doing so, we can conclude that Sartre’s claim is wrong and existentialism
Instinctually, humans know that there is a greater power in the universe. However, there are a few who doubt such instinct, citing that logically we cannot prove such an existence. St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, wrote of five proofs for the existence of God. The Summa Theologica deals with pure concepts; these proofs rely on the world of experience - what one can see around themselves. In these proofs, God will logically be proven to exist through reason, despite the refutes against them.
In addition to the senses, beliefs can also be deceiving. Descartes (1999) expresses how some of these beliefs derived from the senses are undeniably true. One belief he refers to is his presence by the fire (p. 13). This belief is unquestionably true until he considers his thoughts while dreaming, because he is unsure whether he is awake or asleep (p. 13). According to Descartes (199), all of these deceivers are questionable; however, there is one being, God, that will not deceive us because he is “supremely good” (p.
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.
To make this clearer we can use the clockmaker example. If a clockmaker makes a clock that never tells the right time, then I can rightfully blame its maker for making a defaulted clock. Therefore, if I think that material objects exist and possess certain attributes, independently of my mind, and that they cause my ideas of them, and I am wrong about this assumption, God would also be considered a bad “clockmaker” (Sperring, Descartes’ Proof of the External World, 3). Except that since God is a good “clockmaker”, I can’t be wrong about my assumption. In other terms, since I don’t have any faculty that can make me recognize that my sensory experiences aren’t of material objects that are extended, “existing in a mind independent realm of extended items”, and since they do not reveal a divine origin that would make me think my ideas of material objects are placed directly in my mind by God, then the material objects I observe must exist and my ideas of them cannot be placed in my mind by God.
However, if we picture God as something that could be everywhere, surrounding us like air or awareness, then, understanding if and what God is - all of a sudden - becomes a possibility. I am sure you can agree: if there is a God, then God has to exist and has to be aware of His Existence (can you even picture an unconscious God). Also, He must exist on his own, which means God must be self-energetic. That is the safest thing we can say without too much speculation. And, in fact, that is precisely what God is: God is self-energetic awareness.