God

1
God

• A Priori Arguments

2
Classical Theism

• Classical conception of God God is
• Omnipotent all-powerful
• Omnipresent everywhere
• Omniscient all-knowing
• Eternal everlasting
• Transcendent beyond the world
• Compassionate caring

3
Dissident conceptions

• Via negativa-- the negative way
• We can know only what God is not
• Deism
• God created the world, but has no further
  interaction with it no miracles
• Pantheism
• God is everything
• Panentheism
• God includes everything

4
Argument from Thought

• Where do we get our concept of God?
• Its the concept of something perfect
• We never experience perfection
• So, the concept of God cant come from experience
• So, the concept of God is innate
• It must come from something perfect
• So, God must exist

5
Descartess Premise

• Now it is manifest by the natural light that
  there must at least be as much reality in the
  efficient and total cause as in its effect. For,
  pray, whence can the effect derive its reality,
  if not from its cause? And in what way can this
  cause communicate this reality to it, unless it
  possessed it in itself?

6
Descartess Premise

• And from this it follows, not only that
  something cannot proceed from nothing, but
  likewise that what is more perfect -- that is to
  say, which has more reality within itself --
  cannot proceed from the less perfect.

7
Descartess Argument

• The cause of the idea of X must have at least as
  much reality as X
• We get the idea of fire from fire
• We get the idea of red from red things
• The cause of our idea of God must have at least
  as much reality as God
• Only God has as much reality as God
• So, our idea of God must come from God

8
The Ontological Argument

• Augustine God is something than which nothing
  more excellent or sublime exists
• Anselm (1033-1109) God is that the greater than
  which cannot be conceived-- the greatest
  conceivable being

9
Anselms Argument

• Even the Fool ... is forced to agree that
  something, the greater than which cannot be
  thought, exists in the intellect, since he
  understands this when he hears it, and whatever
  is understood is in the intellect.

10
Anselms Argument

• And surely that, the greater than which cannot
  be thought, cannot exist in the intellect alone.
  For if it exists solely in the intellect, it can
  be thought to exist in reality, which is greater.
  If, then, that, the greater than which cannot be
  thought, exists in the intellect alone, this same
  being, than which a greater cannot be thought, is
  that than which a greater can be thought. But
  surely this is impossible.

11
Anselms Argument

• Therefore, there can be absolutely no doubt that
  something, the greater than which cannot be
  thought, exists both in the intellect and in
  reality.

12
Anselm in outline

• Suppose you could conceive of Gods nonexistence
• Then you could think of something greater than
  God-- something just like God, but existing
• But nothing can be conceived as greater than God
• So, Gods nonexistence is inconceivable

13
Descartess Ontological Argument

• God has all perfections
• Existence is a perfection
• So, God has existence