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There are three different arguments for the existence of God. These would be the ontological, the cosmological, and the teleological arguments. All three are very interesting and have one or two good points each, but there is only one that I find convincing. I’m going to tell you a little bit about each one and tell you why I do or do not agree with them. One argument used to rationally support the existence of God is the ontological argument. The ontological argument for the existence of God was first structured in the Proslogion of Saint Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury (1033-1109 A.D.); though it was actually Kant who first called the argument “ontological.” (Tisthammer) Ontology is a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and relations of being. (Tisthammer) Ontology attempts to answer such questions like, “What is real?” (Tisthammer) Thus Anselm’s ontological proof attempts to answer the question of whether or not God is real. (Tisthammer) Besides Anselm, Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza also made notable versions of the ontological argument. (Tisthammer) Anselm defines God by saying God is that “which nothing greater can be conceived.” (Tisthammer) One way to interpret this phrase is to define “God” as maximal perfection, i.e. the greatest possible being. (Tisthammer) Defining God as “the greatest possible being” has a number of interesting consequences. (Tisthammer) One of them is that it becomes significantly more difficult, if not impossible, to demonstrate that God is not possible. (Tisthammer) For instance, God is said to have perfect power: omnipotence. (Tisthammer) But can God create a round square? (Tisthammer) Can he defy such basic rules of logic? (Tisthammer) The theist under this definition of God could reply that God is only omnipotent to the greatest possible extent. (Tisthammer) Thus, this theist could respond by claiming that God cannot do what is logically impossible, but He can do anything that can be done. (Tisthammer) If a certain level of one of God’s traditional qualities is proved “impossible,” this theist could then lower the bar on that aspect of God down to where that quality is possible, such as from, “God is omnipotent and can do literally anything,” to “God is omnipotent to the greatest possible extent.” (Tisthammer) There are a number of ways to describe the ontological argument. One way to do so is through reductio ad absurdum (“reduction to absurdity”). (Tisthammer) In a reductio ad absurdum argument, the negation of the conclusion is assumed, and then demonstrated that the opposite of this conclusion leads to an absurdity or contradiction. (Tisthammer) There are some objections to the reductio ad absurdum argument. (Tisthammer) But there are also ways to disprove some of them. (Tisthammer) For example, someone could object by saying that the argument is wrong. Well, if the argument is wrong, there must be a reason why it is wrong. (Tisthammer) There are essentially two ways a deductive argument like this one can fail. (Tisthammer) One is that at least one of the premises is incorrect. In that case, the question would be “which premise fails and why?” (Tisthammer) The other way is that the argument is invalid, i.e. the argument does not logically follow somewhere along the way. (Tisthammer) If that is true, which line of the argument does not logically follow from the statement(s) it’s based upon? (Tisthammer) There is also a symbolic argument for the ontological argument. One reason to use symbolic logic is that this can actually provide us with a formal proof. (Tisthammer) A formal proof in symbolic logic can only demonstrate the argument to be valid. (Tisthammer) Valid just means that, if all the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true also. (Tisthammer) A valid argument isn’t necessarily sound. A sound argument is an argument that is both valid and has all its premises being true. (Tisthammer) An invalid argument is where one can have all true premises, and yet still has a false conclusion.
Approximate Word count = 2556
Approximate Pages = 10.2
(250 words per page double spaced)
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