INTRO PHILOSOPHY

· St. Augustine (354-430 A.D.), the greatest thinker of early Western Christianity developed "proofs for the existence of God as commentaries upon Scripture.

· He based his arguments upon the Biblical account of creation out of nothing, and the soul's search for God.

· Citing Romans (1:18-25) Augustine said that only with the exception of an excessively depraved few, the whole human race confesses God to be the author of the world". He points out that even a man accepting many gods, conceives a supreme God- 'the one God of gods' as 'something than which nothing more excellent or sublime exists."'

· St. Augustine believed that the very nature of the universe and the creatures living in it prove the supreme goodness of God and that there is ONE God..

· He wrote that ”the order and unity of Nature proves the unity of its Creator-So God is ONE. ,

· In the same way, there is goodness in creatures This positive reality, reveals the goodness of God

· There is order and stability in this universe, and that manifest the wisdom of God , who created the universe

· God is self-existent-He does not need anything else to help Him exist. Nobody created Him, and if certain other conditions are not in place to support Him, He does not stop existing.

· God is eternal –He has always been there. And He will always be there

· There is no change in God’s nature, because God is perfect and will not become better. So God is unchangeable or immutable Being,

· God exists everywhere at all times. One cannot draw a limit around God like other Finite beings. So God is INFINITE.

· We as finite creatures, understand only finite beings. The infinite nature of God is beyond our comprehension. So God is incomprehensible to us.

· God is His own Perfection-He is not Perfect according to our human scale.

· Yet God’s nature is not complicated or complex-He is one and 'simple',

· Thus Augustine relied upon the universe-the creation of God to prove that God is One, Good, and Wise Supreme Creator

· At the same time, he calls God incomprehensible to our understanding. He asserts that God’s existence needs no evidence or proof and says that God stands above Time and Space.

· He is simply Self evident-

· Thus St. Augustine established the transcendence of God as Creator.

· Yet Augustine’s God is a Personal God, rather than a philosophical concept

· He uses personal terms when talking about God, because in those early days of Christianity, faith was supreme and very few challenged God’s existence.

· He was not so much concerned to prove to the atheist that God exists as to show how the soul can experience within itself the God of all creation . It was the dynamic attitude of the soul towards God which interested him, not the construction of dialectical arguments with a purely theoretical conclusion.

CHALLENGES IN THE MIDDLE AGE

· By the 11th Century, the Christian faith once again confronted and absorbed " the inquisitive, questing spirit of Muslim scholarship."

· This in its turn, encouraged rationalistic university scholars such as Peter Abelard (1079-1142) to formulate more and more rationalistic philosophical arguments.

· Now, the starting point of the discussion centered not on the God of Genesis Himself which had been developed up till now among defenders of the faith.

· The philosophical aspect of God has to be explained now.

The famous ontological argument of St. Anselm (1033- 1109)

· An Ontological Argument does not try to prove the existence of God based on evidence from the outside world.

· It simply ANALYZES the concept of God and shows that the way, we think of God, means that God HAS TO EXIST.

· IN other words, the concept of God itself proves His existence.

· God’s existence is then A PRIORI(that which does not depend on/ come after sensory evidence)

· It is simply proven by analyzing the way that we think/conceive of God.

· St. Anselm formulated this proof as an address to God. He introduced it with a cry from the heart: "I long to understand the truth, which my heart believes and loves.”

· Anslem in fact does not have a problem with faith. He believes in God’s existence, but he does not understand intellectually What God Is. He says,” I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe-that unless I believed, I should not understand." Faith therefore is the pre requisite of understanding for Anslem.

· In order to clarify the idea of God to himself, Anslem formulates the Ontological argument.

· The Fool or the atheist asserts that God does not exist.

· What is called "God" is understood as a PERFECT BEING-- "a being than which no greater can be conceived." Any ignorant person can understand God in these terms.

· The Fool or the ignorant person has no problem in understanding the words, "a being than which no greater can be conceived" .The idea of a Perfect/Greatest Being therefore exists even in the atheist’s mind, since he understands the meaning of the words.

· Now if we say that God does not exist, it would amount to a claim that "a being than which no greater can be conceived" is an idea, which does not exist either in mind (imagination/thoughts) or in reality.

· If we say that such a being exists in the mind alone, then it is somewhat real.

· But it would not of course be a “being than which no greater can be conceived."

· Because that which exists in both mind and reality will be MORE REAL than it.

· So, when the ignorant person (the Theologian’s term was “the Fool”, by which they meant the Atheist) denies the existence of God, he is saying that "a being than which no greater can be conceived" exists only in mind . Anything that exists in reality is greater than that,

· And so in effect the atheist is contradicting himself.

· He is claiming that, “a being than which no greater can be conceived" is also "a being than which a greater can be conceived"

· That is absurd and is impossible.

· Therefore, since "a being than which no greater can be conceived" cannot exist in the mind alone (because that is self-contradictory) such a being must exist in both mind and reality.

· Therefore, God exists.

· So the essential steps of the ontological argument can then be put like these:

· Anselm defines God as a perfect being

· A perfect being must have all perfections

· Such perfections are understood by all of us as omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence ...

· Existence too is a perfection, as explained by Anselm

· Without existence God cannot be perfect.

· Therefore, God must have existence – God must exist

· To deny this existence to God is self-contradictory

· It would be as absurd as arguing in the following way-

Triangles have three sides.

Here is a triangle

It has only two sides.

In fact, Anslem had added another argument to the above

· God is the creator.

· As such, all other beings are created by Him.

· They are His creatures.

· Now, if there were to be a being greater than God, no one but God, the Creator Himself.

could have created him

· If a mind could conceive of a being greater than God, then the creature would rise above the Creator: and this is most absurd.

Gaunilo’s objection -

· The monk Gaunilo, a contemporary of St. Anselm, opposed the ontological argument.

· Gaunilo pointed out that simply by having an idea of a thing in our minds, does not guarantee that the thing actually exists outside our minds.

· Gaunilo, a monk himself was not opposed to God’s existence.

· He was a believer, so he did not reject Anslem’s conclusion that God exists.

· But he objected to the form of Anslem’s reasoning.

· He showed that if we follow the same line of reasoning with a different set of premises, we will reach a false conclusion., even if our premises were true.

Gaunilo’s Objection

• Gaunilo argued: if Anselm's argument were

correct, a similar argument would prove the

existence of a perfect island, filled with all kind of jewels, because one can think and understand the concept.

• Since there is no such island, there must be a

flaw in Anselm's reasoning

.

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St.Thomas Aquinas-Proofs for the Existence of God.

· Aquinas asserted that the world, known by our senses is the Natural World.

· That world is known and understood by sensory perception and Reason.

· However, the true World of God, (Aquinas calls it the Supernatural World) can only be known by Faith.

· That does not mean that knowledge of the Supernatural is irrational/opposed to Reason.

· Actually that knowledge stands beyond the reach of Reason.

· And so Reason is incapable of TOTALLY grasping the supernatural.

· Only part of it can be grasped by Reason

· Actual understanding comes after having faith.

· Faith helps us understand it.

· So the supernatural TRANSCENDS or STANDS BEYOND Reason.

· Aquinas clarifies that he does not mean that there are two types of TRUTH -Natural and Supernatural

· TRUTH IS ONE, BUT LIKE A MOUNTAIN, IT HAS DIFFERENT LEVELS OR ELEVATIONS ..

· God is the HIGHEST PINNACLE OF THAT MOUNTAIN OR TRUTH

· REASON CANNOT REACH THAT HIGHEST PINNACLE-GOD

· So God or Truth has two aspects-Higher and Lower.

· Reason helps us to understand the Lower aspect and Faith the Highest Aspect-God

· All search for knowledge is aimed at God as the final answer or the Final Destination.

· Reason cannot take us that high to reach that Final destination.

· Yet in one way Reason is helpful to understand God’s nature.

· We learn of God from the Bible and literal meaning of the words of the Bible cannot be understood by an irrational man-one who cannot use his Reason properly..

· Reason fails us when we come to the fundamental concepts of CREATION, TRINITY, INCARNATION and the DAY OF LAST JUDGMENT..

· It is Faith alone that make us understand these concepts.

· So Faith and Reason both are useul tools as far as total Knowledge is concerned.

· Philosophy deals with Reason and Theology deals with Faith

· Aquinas declares that PHILOSOPHY SERVES AS THE HANDMAIDEN OF THEOLOGY

RATIONAL PROOFS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.-

Drawing his inspiration from Aristotle, Aquinas begins his argument by pointing out why the world has to have a cause.

· The world exists.

· Anything existing is always an effect.

· It comes into existence, due to a Cause

· A Cause therefore has to Exist before the thing comes into existence

· So, a thing cannot be its own cause, because that would mean that it existed before its own existence.

· That is an absurd statement.

· So everything that exists has been brought into existence by some cause, which existed before it

· Thus, there has always been a series of cause and effects

· God is the very apex of that series-He is the UNCAUSED CAUSE OF EXISTENCE

The philosophical arguments based on this reasoning has been presented by Aristotle in the form of FIVE ARGUMENTS.

1. The Argument of the Unmoved Mover

· The argument of the unmoved mover, or ex motu, tries to explain that God must be the cause of motion in the universe. It is therefore a form of the cosmological argument. It goes thus:

· Some things are moved.

· Everything that is moving is moved by a mover.

· An infinite regress of movers is impossible.

· Therefore, there is an unmoved mover from whom all motion proceeds.

· This mover is what we call God.

2. The Argument of the First Cause

· The argument of the first cause (ex causa), tries, unlike the argument of the Unmoved Mover, to prove that God must have been the cause, or the creator of the universe. It is therefore a form of the cosmological argument. It goes thus :

· Some things are caused.

· Everything that is caused is caused by something else.

· An infinite regress of causation is impossible.

· Therefore, there must be an uncaused cause of all that is caused.

· This causer is what we call God.

3. The Argument from Contingency

· The argument from contingency (ex contingentia):

· Many things in the universe may either exist or not exist. Such things are called contingent beings.

· It is impossible for everything in the universe to be contingent, for then there would be a time when nothing existed, and so nothing would exist now, since there would be nothing to bring anything into existence, which is clearly false.

· Therefore, there must be a necessary being whose existence is not contingent on any other being or beings.

· This being is whom we call God.

4. The Argument from Degree

· The argument from degree or gradation (ex gradu). It is heavily based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. It goes thus :

· Varying perfections of varying degrees may be found throughout the universe. These degrees assume the existence of an ultimate standard of perfection.

· Therefore perfection must have a pinnacle

5. The Teleological Argument

· The teleological argument or argument of "design" (ex fine), which claims that everything in the Universe has a purpose, which must have been caused by God :

· All natural bodies in the world act towards ends.

· These objects are in themselves unintelligent.

· Acting towards an end is characteristic of intelligence.

· Therefore, there exists an intelligent being that guides all natural bodies towards their ends.

· This being is whom we call God.