1. Pages 420 to 433 IDEAS ON THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

2. PHILOSOPHIC REASONING ABOUT GOD There is value in discussing God’s existence Three basic positions: Teleological Argument: God is a Master Designer Cosmological Argument: a Primary Cause must exist Ontological Argument: God is Perfect by Definintion

3. TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT The complexity of the universe  predictability, design, purpose?  couldn’t be spontaneous: master creator! ANALOGY: clock, suggests clockmaker (Paley) David Hume, rejected the analogy / proof Universe the result of blind chance

4. COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT: PRIMARY CAUSE! Everything that exists must have a cause If there is no first cause: No beginning, time recedes infinitely into past No subsequent events Rejected by David Hume No proof of 1 st Cause! & why is it necessary? Also rejected by Immanuel Kant Just because our human experience needs causes, doesn’t require universe in same way

5. ONTOLOGICAL PROOF: GOD IS PERFECT BY DEFINITION Ontologicial / definitional proof depends on reason & definition St. Anselm (1033-1109 CE) God is defined as perfect God is greater than any other imaginable being God is without equal “God a being than which nothing greater can be conceived.” In addition to your text, check out: http://www.princeton.edu/~grosen/puc/phi203/ontological.html http://www.princeton.edu/~grosen/puc/phi203/ontological.html Similar to Descartes’ proof

6. CONCERNS RE: ONTOLOGICAL PROOF Aquinas: God’s existence needs to be established first, before discussion of God’s characteristics Immanuel Kant: Existence not the type of thing that can be part of the definition of a concept “one cannot define a thing into existence.” Review: pages 422 - 425

7. TIMELINE: PAGE 422 Anselm (1033-1109): Ontological Argument Aquinas (1224-1274): 5 proofs for God’s existence Hume (1711-1776): rejects teleological & cosmological proofs Kant (1724-1804): rejects cosmological & ontological proofs Marx (1818-1883): political elite use Religion to control masses Freud (1856-1939): belief in God fulfills human needs, but not proof of God Jung (1875-1961): belief in God causes no harm.

8. THOMAS AQUINAS: 5 PROOFS FOR GOD’S EXISTENCE Cosmological / causal proofs 1.God the first mover, prime mover, unmoved mover 2.God is first efficient cause, uncaused cause 3.God is the source of existence of all things that come into existence (from impermance) 1.“possibility and necessity” the necessary source of the existence of all things. 4.From “gradation” degrees of perfection: God the perfect being 5.From Governance of the world (teleological)