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Existence of God Does God exist? Theology, cosmological, teleological and ontological arguments are all have ways to prove the existence of God. With all of these great arguments how can one deny that there is a God. There is a God and with these reasons I will prove that.
There are two types of theology discussed in chapter nine of Kessler "Voices of Wisdom, " revealed and natural theology. Revealed theology comes from such sources as the Bible and according to St. Thomas Aquinas gives us the knowledge for our salvation. Natural theology supports my argument on a level that someone who does not believe in God can understand better.
This kind of theology defines God's nature and provides for his existence. St. Thomas tells us that natural theology does not give us saving knowledge, because even if you know God exists does not mean you have salvation. St. Thomas gave the example that even devils know God exists.
All of my arguments provided are philosophical theology or natural theology. For my first basis for the existence of God I will use the a posteriori, ontological arguments. Ontological arguments are a priori, which show that God exists without appealing to a sense experience. These ontological arguments argue about what God is to where he is from. St. Anselm, the creator of the ontological argument, based his theory on that we cannot think of anything greater than God.
Therefor God must exist, why you might ask? If the greatest thing that we can conceive does not exist than we can still conceive the greatest thing that does exist, and that would be God. Descartes views God in a similar way to St. Anselm. Descartes sees God as the perfect being while St. Anselm describes God as "that than which nothing greater can be thought. " In Descartes "the Argument from Perfection" he reasons that if existence is one of the perfections and God has all the perfections, then God must exist.
Along with these arguments others in the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic communities have similar views. Cosmological arguments are a posteriori, these tend to lean toward proving the existence of God through a sense experience. Cosmological arguments come in many varieties, such as the existence of the universe to God as its creator, cause, or explanation. Cosmological arguments were started at the time the questions of the universe were first asked. The existence of motion to the existence of a first mover as the cause of movement, was argued by Aristotle. This first mover he called God.
The reason for this was that nothing caused God to move yet God was responsible for the motion of all other things. This argument is based on presumptions in other cosmological arguments. The first was that something could not cause itself, second something cannot come from nothing, last there could not possibly be an infinite amount of cause and effects. St.
Thomas' view was of God is an infinite, all-good, all-knowing, all powerful, perfect being who created the universe and now has sole command over it. This view is known as theism. St. Thomas states that a first cause must be in order to have cause and effect now. For if we take away the first cause there would be no effect following there for the universe would have never been created which is impossible because we can prove the universe does exist. He also argues that there are things in the universe that have the possibility of existing and not existing, we have seen things that have existed and than destroyed, thus proving that there is the ability of being and not being.
There was a time when nothing was in existence in the universe, if this is accurate then nothing would be here now, because anything that is not in existence cannot come to be without the help of something in existence. If once there was nothing than nothing could be in existence now. This we know is inaccurate. So if once there was nothing there must have been something which is needed to make things into existence this greater being is known as God. Deism is a scientific view that God created the universe along with the natural laws existing in it that make it work.
According to Deism the universe now runs on its own without the interference of God. One of the main challenges in proving the existence of God is that scientists had evidence to solve a problem in nature that didn't have a need for God so they thought since there is no need for God then he must not exist. Many scientists are fascinated by deism because it proves that God and science can exist together in harmony. Yet another type of a posteriori argument for the existence of God is the teleological argument, otherwise known as the argument from design. This type of argument starts with the basis that the universe has order and shows that a higher being is responsible for this order in the universe. William Paley, a patron of the Christian evangelical cause in England, thought that the universe is an interconnected created for a purpose.
He states in his writing "Natural Theology, " that there is a watch found lying on the ground, can we assume that it has always existed there? Of course not the watch at one time was not in existence, it has parts that were put together to form the watch, each one of those parts had to be formed and then they were all fit together in harmony to form the watch by the watchmaker. On a greater scale the universe was not always in existence, it had to be formed by a greater being, God. Without God the universe would not be and the non-existence of the universe is obviously false. He goes on further by saying that we had never seen the watch being made, nor the person who made the watch, and we may not be able to make the watch ourselves, yet the watch exists. You can say the same about the universe.
We may have never seen the universe being created, or the being that created it, and we may not be able to create a universe ourselves but the universe does exist. He further states in his arguments that even though the watch has no proof of an ingenious plan, it does have a motive to make a person think so. Meaning that even if the universe had no proof of being created, it is only apparent that it was created by God for a purpose. So through teleological, cosmological, and ontological arguments as well as deism and theism
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