PsychKidTJL

I'm only perfect when I lie...
2002-02-27 21:59:40 (UTC)

The (Non)Existence Of God

I have recently been debating the existence of God for
philosophical reasons. Here are my findings. I can prove
AND disprove the existence of a God or Gods.

Proofs For God's Existence

While theology may take God's existence as absolutely
necessary on the basis of authority, faith, or revelation,
many philosophers -- and some theologians -- have thought
it possible to demonstrate by reason that there must be a
God.

St. Thomas Aquinas, in the thirteenth century, formulated
the famous "five ways" by which God's existence can be
demonstrated philosophically:

1. The "unmoved mover" argument. We know that there is a
motion in the world; whatever is in motion is moved by
another thing; this other thing also must be moved by
something; to avoid an infinite regression, we must posit
a "first mover," which is God.

2. The "nothing is caused by itself" argument. For example,
a table is brought into being by a carpenter, who is caused
by his parents. Again, we cannot go on to infinity, so
there must be a first cause, which is God.

3. The cosmological argument. All physical things, even
mountains, boulders, and rivers, come into being and go out
of existence, no matter how long they last. Therefore,
since time is infinite, there must be some time at which
none of these things existed. But if there were nothing at
that point in time, how could there be anything at all now,
since nothing cannot cause anything? Thus, there must
always have been at least one necessary thing that is
eternal, which is God.

4. Objects in the world have differing degrees of qualities
such as goodness. But speaking of more or less goodness
makes sense only by comparison with what is the maximum
goodness, which is God.

5. The teleological argument (argument from design). Things
in the world move toward goals, just as the arrow does not
move toward its goal except by the archer's directing it.
Thus, there must be an intelligent designer who directs all
things to their goals, and this is God.

Two other historically important "proofs" are the
ontological argument and the moral argument. The former,
made famous by St. Anselm in the eleventh century and
defended in another form by Descartes, holds that it would
be logically contradictory to deny God's existence. St.
Anselm began by defining God as "that [being] than which
nothing greater can be conceived." If God existed only in
the mind, He then would not be the greatest conceivable
being, for we could imagine another being that is greater
because it would exist both in the mind and in reality, and
that being would then be God. Therefore, to imagine God as
existing only in the mind but not in reality leads to a
logical contradiction; this proves the existence of God
both in the mind and in reality.

Immanuel Kant rejected not only the ontological argument
but the teleological and cosmological argument as well,
based on his theory that reason is too limited to know
anything beyond human experience. However, he did argue
that religion could be established as presupposed by the
workings of morality in the human mind ("practical
reason"). God's existence is a necessary presupposition of
there being any moral judgments that are objective, that go
beyond mere relativistic moral preferences; such judgments
require standards external to any human mind -- that is,
they presume God's mind.

Arguments Against God's Existence

Arguments against God's existence have been given by
philosophers, atheists, and agnostics. Some of these
arguments find God's existence incompatible with observed
facts; some are arguments that God does not exist because
the concept of God is incoherent or confused. Others are
criticisms of the proofs offered for God's existence.

One of the most influential and powerful "proofs" that
there is no God proceeds from "The Problem from Evil." This
argument claims that the following three statements cannot
all be true: (a) evil exists; (b) God is omnipotent; and
(c) God is all-loving. The argument is as follows:

If God can prevent evil, but doesn't, then He isn't all-
loving.

If God intends to prevent evil, but cannot, then He isn't
omnipotent.

If God both intends to prevent evil and is capable of doing
so, then how can evil exist?

Another argument claims that the existence of an all-
knowing God is incompatible with the fact of free will --
that humans do make choices. If God is omniscient, He must
know beforehand exactly what a person will do in a given
situation. In that case, a person is not in fact free to do
the alternative to what God knows he or she will do, and
free will must be an illusion. To take this one step
further, if one chooses to commit a sin, how can it then be
said that one sinned freely?

Hume provided powerful critiques of the main arguments for
God's existence. Against the cosmological argument
(Aquinas's third argument), he argued that the idea of a
necessarily existing being is absurd. Hume
stated, "Whatever we can conceive as existent, we can also
conceive as nonexistent." He also asked why the ultimate
source of the universe could not be the entire universe
itself, eternal and uncaused, without a God?

Hume also criticized the argument from design (Aquinas's
fifth argument). In particular, he emphasized that there is
no legitimate way we can infer the properties of God as the
creator of the world from the qualities of His creation.
For instance, Hume questioned how we can be sure that the
world was not created by a team; or that this is not one of
many attempts at creations, the first few having been
botched; or, on the other hand, that our world is not a
poor first attempt "of an infant deity who afterwards
abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance."

So, does God exist?

Yes and No.

~T




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