God\'s Existence Arguments for God\'s

God's Existence

Arguments for God's Sake

Traditionally there have been four main arguments for the existence of God, the ontological argument, the teleological argument, the cosmological argument, and, of course, the moral argument. Each has certain unique properties, but all tend to bow to the principle that God exists because there is a need for Him to. Each argument, whether suppositional or deductive, posits God as the only logical foundation of what would otherwise be a void in the order of the universe.

The Ontological Argument: This argument is solely based on pure reason and logical argument. One of the firsts to ponder this was St. Anselm, the archbishop of Canterbury during the eleventh century CE (McIntyre) as well as many other theologians and philosophers most memorably Rene Descartes (Schacht). The basic argument begins with the supposition that God is the perfect being, and this creates the basic assumptions that to be perfect must mean to be all-powerful, omnipresent and so on. In this rationale the proof of God is considered to be self-evident or a priori. The very idea that God can be conceived of means that He exists and therefore becomes a primary tenet of existence and there is no need to search any further.

Gaunilo of Marmoutier, a Benedictine monk and contemporary of Anselms was one of his the first critics of this argument. He posits that one could construct the same ontological argument for the existence of the perfect anything, island, chair, lamp, and so on. (McIntyre) Gaunilo, therefore, finds this argument absurd. Kant also refuted the argument saying that the property of existence is an illusion, therefore imagining existence is even more so (Schacht)

The Teleological Argument: Also known as the argument from design and thoroughly advocated by the followers of Intelligent Design / Creationism.The teleological argument sates that the Universe that is present with us today has some amazingly complex design that could not have come about by chance. (Lamprecht) an original designer that was so all encompassing that He could connect the myriad of reactions together to create the Universe and to keep it going must have created it. Therefore, He must exist. The key opponents to this are the scientific community since the time of Darwin, whose theory of evolution finds adequate explanations for the development of complex organisms without any reference to a Creator.

The Cosmological Argument: This argument begins with the tenet that for the Universe to exist something outside the universe must have created it. Also refereed to as the First Cause or the Uncaused Cause theory, here God exists as the prime mover that brought the universe into existence. The universe is a series of events, which began with God who must exist apart from the universe, outside of time and space as well. (Martin) the detractors of this theory say that if everything has a creator than God must also have a creator and that perhaps an infinite series of creators and universes exist as well. Also if God is an uncaused cause than why could not the universe be one as well.