Arguments For The Existence Of God example essay topic

Existence of God The dilemma of the existence of God has troubled mankind for thousands of years. Many philosophers have put forth their theories in order to prove the existence of God. Most of these arguments can be termed as ontological. These arguments differ from other arguments for the existence of God since they are not based on empirical data such as the existence or nature of the universe, but are rather grounded in pure logic.

First we will consider the arguments presented by Anselm. He believed that God is 'that than which nothing greater can be conceived'; if one understand this, then God exists in his mind; but it is greater to exist in reality as well as in the mind than to exist only in the mind; therefore, something that exists only in the mind is not 'that than which nothing greater can be conceived'; therefore, God exists in reality as well. Anselm also puts this another way: we can conceive of a being that cannot be conceived not to exist; such a being is greater than one that can be conceived not to exist; therefore the greatest conceivable being cannot be conceived not to exist; therefore, the greatest conceivable being exists. This argument does seem to conclude that something resembling the traditional theistic God exists - unlike the cosmological and teleological arguments, which seem restricted to a creator and a designer respectively. This argument was immediately criticized by Gau nilo, who argued that parallel reasoning could be applied to prove the existence of a perfect island. This is a reduction of Anselm's position: it shows it to have absurd consequences.

However, it is not clear that there is a coherent concept of the perfect island to start with: how many palm trees is the perfect number? Anselm's own reply seems to distinguish the perfect island - which is a perfect example of one kind of thing - from the perfect being - which is a perfect example of a thing, with no restriction to kind. It is no virtue, excellence, perfection of an island qua island that it exists, but it is a virtue, excellence, perfection of a being that it exists, so the argument works only for the concept of a perfect being. The bigger criticism is the one Kant levied at Descartes's version of the argument, but applies equally to Anselm's.

It is that existence is not a great-making quality of a being, because it is not a quality of a being at all; in Kant's terms 'existence is not a real predicate'. Now let us consider Descartes's argument. He was of the notion that 'existence can no more be separated from the essence of God than the fact that its three angles equal two right angles can be separated from the essence of a triangle, or than the idea of a mountain can be separated from the idea of a valley. Hence it is just as much a contradiction to think of God (that is, a supremely perfect being) lacking existence (that is, lacking a perfection), as it is to think of a mountain without a valley. "I am not free to think of God without existence (that is, a supremely perfect being without a supreme perfection) as I am free to imagine a horse with or without wings" (Descartes 53). This is usually taken to include Anselm's idea as a hidden premise: that it is greater to exist in reality than not to, so a 'supremely perfect being' must have existence as part of its definition.

Taken this way, it is subject to Mackie's criticism that you can define anything into existence since you can in principle add existence to the definition of anything. For example, it is not part of the definition of a martian that it exists, but you could invent the concept 're martian', defined as 'an existing martian', and thereby prove that re martians exist. Descartes responds to this type of criticism by saying that existence is an integral part of the definition of God, whereas here it is merely added to the concept of a martian, much as wings might be added to the concept of a horse. But it is unclear why existence should be integral to the concept of God, unless his argument should not be taken to have the hidden premise at all, but instead it should be read in the light of the 'hierarchy of being' that he outlines in the Third Meditation: nonexistent things; properties of substances; created substances; uncreated substances. His definition of God (Descartes 32) automatically places God in the top category: 'a substance that is infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, supremely intelligent, and which created both myself and everything else (if anything else there be) that exists'. But this ultimately does not rescue Descartes, as his hierarchy of being is itself subject to Kant's criticism (Hatfield 24-67).

Plantinga's argument states that maximal excellence entails omniscience, omnipotence, moral perfection; maximal greatness is maximal excellence in every possible world; a maximally great being is possible; therefore, exists in some possible world; therefore, exists in every possible world; therefore exists in the actual world. Mackie defines 'no-' as the property of a possible world having no maximally excellent being. Since 'no-' is instantiated in a possible world, there is no maximally great being in any possible world.

Bibliography

Descartes, Ren'e. Meditations on First Philosophy. Translated by John Cottingham. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Hatfield, Gary. Descartes and the Meditations. New York: Routledge. 2003.