Is Belief in God Reasonable Faith Seeking Understanding

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Is Belief in God Reasonable?Faith Seeking
Understanding

• A posteriori arguments (based on experience)
• The teleological argument (from design)
• The cosmological argument
• A priori argument (independent of experience)
• The ontological argument

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The Cosmological ArgumentSt. Thomas Aquinas
(1225-74)

• Like all things in it, the universe is contingent
  (it depends on something else for its existence)
  otherwise, its existence is unintelligible
• If there is no cause of the universe right now
  (that is, if its cause is infinitely remote),
  then nothing would exist right now. But things do
  exist here and now, so God exists here and now

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Humes Criticisms of the Cosmological Argument

• No being (including God) exists necessarily
• If God is eternal, why not the universe too?
• Fallacy of composition parts ? whole
• Why think everything has a cause or reason?
• Besides, the argument does not prove that God is
  anything other than a cause of things who might
  not care at all about his creation

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The Ontological Argument St. Anselm
(1033-1109)

• P1 God means the greatest conceivable being
• P2a A being that exists in ones mind and in
  reality (outside of ones mind) is greater than
  one that exists only in ones mind
• P2b A necessarily existing being is greater than
  a merely possible being
• Therefore, God must exist in reality

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Objections to Anselms Argument

• Gaunilo imagining anything as perfect does
  not make it exist
• Reply the non-existence of everything other than
  God is conceivable
• Immanuel Kant to say that God exists does not
  say anything about God his existence is not one
  of his properties. To deny that God exists does
  not address what he is, only that he is
• Reply the (non)-existence of some things (e.g.,
  unicorns) is part of their definition

Kant
(1724-1804)