Topic > The ontological, cosmological and teleological theories of the existence of God

Conclusion The existence of God has been an important topic in philosophy, and efforts to prove or disprove his existence have taken place since the dawn of time. Prominent philosophers such as René Descartes, St. Thomas Aquinas, and William Paley have all devised arguments to prove the existence of God. Although there are many other arguments that do the same, those proposed by the three thinkers mentioned above have for them the most weight. This does not mean, however, that their arguments are flawless. The teleological argument is far superior to other arguments because it has the fewest flaws to prove the existence of God. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The ontological argument has no solid justifiable argument for the existence of God and the cosmological argument defeats itself as it turns into an infinite loop demonstrated later in the essay. To begin with, the ontological argument is an argument that arises from nothing but is rational. It is an a priori with vital premises to conclude that God exists. The ontological argument was created by Saint Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th century AD. He used the concept of "being than which nothing greater can be conceived" to develop the existence of God (plato.stanford.edu). Rene Descartes had a similar position to Saint Anselm. Descartes claims to provide proof of the presence of God starting from the possibility of an extraordinarily perfect being. Descartes also argues that "there is no less contradiction in conceiving a supremely perfect being devoid of existence than there is in conceiving a triangle whose internal angles do not amount to 180 degrees" (plato.stanford.edu). Therefore, he believed that since people believe in a perfect being, they have an idea of ​​a perfect being which results in the conclusion that there is a perfect being. However, the ontological argument has its weaknesses. One critic of the argument was Gaunilo. He argued that it is possible to create an argument that has the same form as the ontological argument. Gaunilo suggests that using the same form of the ontological argument it is possible to demonstrate the existence of the perfect island “the perfect island must exist, because if it did not then it would be possible to conceive of an island larger than that island of which no nothing greater can be conceived” (existence-of-god.com). If the ontological argument prevails, then the one in favor of the perfect island also works. If the two arguments have the same form, then they succeed or fail together. Furthermore, Immanuel Kant also has an objection against the ontological argument. His position on the subject is that "existence is not a predicate, a property that a thing can possess or lack" (existence-of-god.com). When people believe that God exists they do not mean that there is a God and that he has the property of existing. If this were the case, then when people said that God does not exist, they would mean that God exists and does not have the property of existence. This means that people would confirm and reject the existence of God. Moving forward, another argument used to justify the existence of God is the cosmological argument. First introduced by Thomas Aquinas, the cosmological argument states that the existence of the universe is solid evidence in favor of the creator of the world we live in, God. The argument also holds that the existence of universe needs an explanation and the only acceptable explanation is that it was created by God. People have argued that the creation and existence of the universe is a brute fact. They defend that justifying the existence of an imperative being is not the same.4).