what is the ontological argument for the existence of god.
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The Cosmological argument is an argument that starts from the existence of the universe, and from this attempts to prove the existence of God. The argument what is the ontological argument for the existence of god a posteriori, i. It is important to state that the most this argument can hope to prove are that there exists a necessary being who caused everything in the universe; it cannot arrive at the Judaic-Christian conception of God i. The Cosmological Argument is mainly attributed to St.
Thomas Aquinasalthough may well have originated from Platonic or Aristotelian ideas. Aquinas was already a firm believer, and so it is not entirely clear what the purpose of the arguments was; i. Aquinas starts his argument with what he considers to be a universal truth; that all things in the world come into and go here of existence, that they are contingent or depend upon other factors for their existence. He then moves on to state that if everything cannot exist if everything is contingentthen given infinite time, there will be a time when everything does not exist a time when there will be nothing.
His next premise states that if there was once nothing, nothing could come out of it, which leads to the first conclusion of the argument; that something not necessarily God must necessarily exist. This can be considered as the first half of the click the following article. The fifth premise of the argument is that everything is either caused or uncaused.
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Hence the next premise states that the series of necessary things cannot go on to infinity, as there would be no sufficient reason. However, this is not a weakness in the argument itself and so will not be treated as such. The first and best strength of the Cosmological argument is that it starts from the seemingly indisputable fact that the universe exists. The argument also follows a logical form, guaranteeing a successful outcome, provided that the premises are true.
The first apparent weakness of the argument is the first premise; that thing can either exist or not exist. For example, when I die, the arrangement and form of the energy matter that makes me up will no longer exist, and so in one sense, I will not exist. However, the energy itself will still be in existence.
If the first premise is found wrong, the whole argument will be useless. Another weakness in the argument was proposed by David Hume, who argued that it was illegitimate to move from saying that every event exisetnce the universe has a cause, to the conclusion that the universe as a whole has a cause.
A further weakness of the argument is whether or not the principle of sufficient reason is correct or not. Why should it be any more probable that there is a necessary cause than an infinite regression? I do not believe that this question can be answered. Immanuel What is the ontological argument for the existence of god also criticised the Cosmological Argument as he held that it is impossible to speculate about something that lives outside space and time when we are confined to the limits of them. The final criticism that I will mention is the same as I mentioned at the beginning of this essay; that this argument is incapable of arriving at the existence of many peoples conception of God; that at best it can only prove the existence of a necessary being. The cosmological argument is, in my opinion, incredibly weak.
I have only mentioned a few of the arguments against the Cosmological Argument and yet all of the strengths that I can think of. I believe that the argument is out of aargument in the light of recent discoveries. However, despite this, considering the lack of knowledge of Aquinas, it is of very logical form and may have been whar more persuasive at the time.
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