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Zach Floyd Intro to Philosophy Dr.

Gibbs November 5, 2011

The Existence of God All throughout the entirety of mankind there have always been the thought of Gods being present. Every culture has has its gods. All the way back to the ancient times such as the fertility gods, the God of rain, God of the sun, God of the stars, and ext. People have always had the thought that there was more than what the eye could see. Many people seem to think that they can find answers to the unknown through the study of God. There has been many people that argue for and against the existence of God such as Plato, Aquinas, and Descartes. These arguments about God have come in many different ways though. Some have come from the study's of religious text, science, some personal experience, and mainly though philosophy. With the thought of a higher being present in the minds of people, of course there are going to be people that will deny there being a higher power. This causes some issues to arise about the subject and this brings problems. One thing for sure though is that there will always be people that have arguments for and/or against the existence of God. As the thought of God seems to be present in todays world, this brings about quite a conflict between the people who believe in God and those that dont. Let's start by examining how the non-believer sees the world and their relationship with a so called God. Those people that dont believe in any sort of God are called atheists. They believe that there is no such of a higher being present. One of their main points for the argument against God is the problem of evil. The problem of evil says that the concept of God implies that if God exists the he knows

how to and is able to prevent all sufferings and wrong doings in the world. If a God existed then we would expect him to prevent all sufferings in the world and since there is evil and suffering everyday in the world then therefore, there is no God. Their next argument against the existence of God is a confusing one. It is the paradox of the stone argument and this raises the question: Can God create a stone so heavy that he can't lift it? Either he can or he cant. If he cant, the argument goes, then there is something that he cannot do, create the stone, and therefore he is not omnipotent. If he can, it continues, then there is also something that he cannot do, lift the stone, and therefore he is not omnipotent (Existence of God. Dec 4, 2011. Web). One of their last main points against the existence of God is the argument of Free will. This argument states that if we as humans have free will then we are free to choose what to do at any point in time. If God is omniscient then he must know beforehand exactly what a person will do when presented with a certain situation. So in that case, a person is not truly free to do what they want, such as the alternative to what God knows what he/she will do. So therefore there is no free will with a God. So if you believe that there is free will then it is said that you cant possibly believe in God because those two opinions clash together. All of these arguments combined along with other facts provide a pretty good argument against the existence of God, but on the other hand the argument for the existence of God provides a much wider and stronger range of evidence for God's existence. The argument for existence of God has many different ways that it can provide evidence for its' argument. Many prominent philosophers have provided ways that they think the existence of God can be proven. St. Thomas Aquinas, a philosophers from the thirteenth century, provided the famous five ways that God's existence of God can be proven philosophically. These five ways are: the unmoved mover, nothing is caused by itself, the cosmological argument, objects in the world have different degrees of qualities, and the teleological

argument. Starting with the unmoved mover, we know that there is motion in the world that we live in. Whatever is in motion must have been moved by something in the first place. So Aquinas says, To avoid infinite regression, we must first posit a first mover, which is God (Proofs For And Against The Existence of God. Web. Dec 4, 2011). That brings us to Aquinas's next point that nothing is caused by itself. This point is pretty basic in the sense that nothing can be made by itself. Such as a table is made by a carpenter, who is made by his parents, they are made by their parents, and so on. So since we cant go to infinity with human beings being the ultimate start then there must be a first cause, that being a God. Now some people will argue against that point by talking about the big bang theory and saying that is how everything got started but if you take it one step further and say, well then what created the molecules and atoms that started the so called big bang. Then we are back to there being a God. The next point about the cosmological argument is shared by many philosophers such as Descartes, Leibniz, and Aquinas. The cosmological argument states that all physical things such as mountains, rivers, and other land formations at some point in time have came into being. Therefore since we see time as being an infinite variable, then there must have been some point in time when none of these things existed. So then we are back to the point of how something can come from nothing. Therefore there must be first cause, God. One of the arguments that I think weighs more in favor of God's existence is the teleological argument or argument from design. This is basically the way that the universe is ordered. Consider the basics such as the laws of physics, the order of the planets, the way that the human body works, and many more. There can be no question as to whether the universe just happens to be fit for life or whether it was deliberately created that way; the universe clearly exhibits the marks of intelligent design (Existence of God. Dec 4, 2011. Web). One of the last main points for the existence of God is the moral argument. The moral argument basically states that there is moral law, therefore there

must be a moral law maker and that being God. If there is no God, then everything is permissible and because hat there are moral laws, then, that not everything is permissible, proves that God exists (Existence of God. Dec 4, 2011. Web). That brings about the fact that commands imply a commander present. Commands simply can't exist without something else that exists being the commander. That ultimately puts God as being the commander. Therefore God exists. I personally believe that God does exist. I was brought up in a southern baptist home and was always taught that God existed and that he was the ultimate ruler of the universe. As I got older I began to question that more and more and began to ask questions about how this could be. I wondered how such a higher power could exist and we never see any sign of his presence. I began to learn the different argument that were given for and against God's existence. The Big Bang Theory didnt prove anything for me so I continued to look deeper. Then I get to the teleological argument for the existence of God. For me the teleological argument is one of the more important proofs for God's existence. Think of the design and making of a grandfather clock. There are so many little bitty mechanisms that cause the biggest things to go right. Such as the rising and setting of the Sun allows for plants to grow, which in turn allows for the plants to produce oxygen, which allows humans to live from day to day. The world as we know it is way to complex to be just simply cause by a big bang. There has to be a greater cause behind all that we see and know as the world around us. Next time you look you look up on a clear night and see the stars, think about how all those stars came into existence and them being millions and millions of light years away. How could something so complex and yet so far away have come into existence without the help of a higher being? Only with the help of a higher deity. In conclusion, todays world has many different views about the existence of God. It can range from the diehard atheists, to the naturalist, to the hardcore bible-beating Christian.

Everybody seems to have a different view of God even if they have the same religious status. Two people that are both baptist will more than likely not have the exact same opinion of God. There will be some aspect about God that those two people do not see in the same way. So with all the different views about God, there is no wonder that there are many problems and complications. There will always be people with different views of God and his existence. So the next time that you have a question about the existence of God, you should just weigh the proof that is presented to come to a logical conclusion.

Works Cited Armstrong, Karen. A History of God: the 4000-year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. New York: Ballantine, 1994. Print. Existence of God. Web. 04 Dec. 2011. <http://existence-of-god.com/index.html>. Neville, Robert C. Creativity and God: a Challenge to Process Theology. New York: Seabury, 1980. Print. "Proofs For And Against The Existence of God." The Site for Breaking News and Information on the Web. CFTech. Web. 04 Dec. 2011. <http://www.cftech.com/BrainBank/OTHERREFERENCE/PHILOSOPHY/.html>

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