The Existence of God, The existence of evil.
There are four main arguments for the existence of god: teleological, cosmological, ontological, and moral. Each argument is fairly innovative and original. Despite this, they all are flawed and not one actually holds up to serious inspection. All the arguments attempt to prove the existence of a completely irrational being through rational means. They all fail. Because of this duality, I will explore both their positive qualities and detracting features, then look at the ultimate enigma pertaining to the existence of the Judao-Christian god: Evil.
The teleological (or design) argument works in concert with scientific thought by ethically allowing for endless scientific discovery on the premise that the scientist is discovering God's creation. The teleological argument postulates that the universe is simply just too complex a place to exist without a designer. We can look at large scale aspects like the spinning of our planet and solar system providing a completely accurate "clock", or small things like the boiling point of water being just right to sustain natural systems. One of the major champions of the view that only God could create a universe of this complexity is William Paley. Though Paley presented this argument in 1975, Plato was the first to introduce it.
The first failing of this argument is that we have no other universe to look to and say "look it is imperfect and so much more poorly designed, ours must have been created by God". For all we know this universe is the worst, most imperfect ramshackle in all existence. Secondly as David Hume put it in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion "Even if we could validly infer a divine Designer of the world, we would still not be entitled to postulate the infinitely wise, good, and powerful god of the Judaic- Christian tradition." .
Next we look at the cosmological argument, which was first introduced by Thomas Aquinas.
There must have always been some kind of existence, and that existence is God. ... Evil is simply the absence of God. ... God did not create evil. ... This means that in fact God did not create evil, but evil is just the result of 'what happens when man does not have God's love present'. Einstein asserts: 'Evil is simply the absence of God.' ...
The presence of evil in our society the thought to be existence of an omnipotent god is known as Theodicy. ... The existence of Moral evil is explained by claiming that God allows the existence of Moral evil because human beings have free wills. ... Does the existence of disease and death need to be attributed to the evils of the world, thus the cosmos and thus God? ... This displays, although on a larger scale, the existence of evil disproves the existence of an all-knowing all-good and therefore all-powerful god unless viewed through this theodicy. ... Furthermore from my limited knowled...
The existence of evil is rationally incompatible with the existence of a "good god", therefore an outside force must be involved, which is called free-will. ... God told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, yet they were tempted by the serpent to disobey God and as a result they ate the forbidden fruit. So the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. ... Still, some people believe that if God is the Creator of all things and evil is a thing, then God is the Creator of evil, and he is to blame for its existence. ... God is...
Existence of God and the Problem of Evil Throughout history atheists and theist alike, have argued to disprove or prove the existence of God. ... Therefore, theists have found themselves defending the existence of God by responding to the question of how a wholly, good God could allow evil to exist. Atheists bring up two very important points when trying to disprove God's existence. ... The existence of God will always be in dispute, especially when there is the problem of evil. ... Therefore, God does exist in a world where evil coexists. ...
All the answers to life's big questions such as: is there a god? ... We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God... ... "Remain under control of our own decisions", Gods will is for us to have free will and the freedom to do good and avoid evil. ... God gave humans a soul, a spiritual existence that distinguishes us from plants, animals, and other created elements. ... Human existence may be characterized as freedom. ...
Descartes Existence of God Rene Descartes lived from 1596-1650; he was a rationalist who wrote a book named, Meditations on First Philosophy. ... Through this foundation, he attempted to prove the existence of God. ... Descartes ruled out that the Evil Genius could be implanting thoughts of the existence God in his mind due to the fact that God is perfect, and I said above, the Evil Genius is not perfect. ... Descartes presupposition is that everyone who reads his meditations is people who believe in the existence of God and that he is perfect. ... I believe that Descartes argument for the e...
Existence of God The Truth Behind the Existence of God As a flesh and blood we seem to aspire to be untimely immortal, we have created stories guidelines ways in which we our able to become immortal. ... What scares people so bad is the fact that many people hide in this world of God. God is what created us what made us it is what we must untimely answer to. ... The sad thing many people die long before life arrives, this makes them droids they have no proupose spending there whole lives searching for this life with a died green piece of paper, some call it greed some call it evil but the...
Part I One of the topics discussed in class earlier in the semester that really stuck out to me was the existence of God. ... Paley pointed out that, just as the existence of a watch indicates the presence of an intelligent mind, the existence of the universe and various phenomena within it indicates that there is an even greater intelligence, which is God. A final reading in which I particularly found interesting was the excerpt in Saint Thomas Aquinas' "The Existence of God.... But first, just as our textbook provided written works of philosophers who believed in the existence of ...
Augustine attempted to define evil, and in doing so he explains its existence. ... Evil is clearly see evil in the world, did God allow it to enter? ... Augustine state forth a reason for the existence of what we call evil: free will exercised wrongfully. ... Evil does not come from God rather evil is a reduction of good. This explains the existence of evil in God's creation without threatening either omnipotence, or His goodness. ...