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Arguments for the Existence of God: The Rational Arguments (02)
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Paul Jang
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2008-03-04 21:17:08, hit : 3,333 |
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Traditional Arguments
Jügen Moltmann, in his "Theogoie de Hoffnung": Theology of Hope in English, said that the traditional proofs of God can be divided into three major groups: 1. the proofs from the world, 2, the proofs of God from human existence, and 3. the proofs of God from 'God' (Moltmann, 1993, 272, 273).
In this chapter, the writer will examine the traditional arguments, namely the ontological, cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments, and then will deal with other arguments, namely, the historical, geographical, ethnical, religious, and psychological arguments.
The Ontological Argument
This ontological argument is a priori argument having been approached to metaphysical methodology of deduction in comparison to the arguments. This has been called "a priori argument" even if Arians and Sabellians excluded a priori the possibility of God's being (Gunton, 1983. 93).
This argument has tried to discover the objective Being in the idea of God itself presupposing that the most perfect Being is necessary One.
In other words, this is to try to prove the existence of God out of the intuitional idea which all humanbeings have in their mind i.e., to infer the existence of God from the abstract and necessary ideas of the human mind.
This proof had been firstly suggested by St. Augustine, and then was set up by Anselm. This ontological argument has had a fascinating history from Anselm to the present time. Green asserts that this thought is the necessary priori of all, and he said as follows:
Reason is the source of universal and necessary principles which spring from its essence, and which are the conditions of all possible knowledge. But this, its own essential nature, reason finds reflect back from the world around it. A world does exist, constituted through these very principles which we find within ourselves, in space and time, through number and quantity, substance and quality, cause and effect, etc.,-and therefore knowable by us, and capable of becoming an object of our experience. We arrive, therefore, at this-the world is constituted through a reason similar to our own. (Orr, 1948, 104-106)
But this argument has been objected by some theologians in spite of giving us the contribute to prove the existence of God in the field of natural revelation in theology.
Henry Thiessen gave an objection to this argument by reason of this: "but the universal and necessary conditions of all truth and knowledge do not have the ground of their existence in my individual mind; they have their seat and ground in an absolute Reason" (Thiessen, 1976, 61).
Louis Berkhof had been half in doubt about this argument. He said as follows:
It is quite evidence that we cannot conclude from abstract thought to real existence. the fact that we have an idea of God does not yet prove His objective existence. Moreover, this argument tacitly assumes, as already existing in the human mind, the very knowledge of God's existence which it would derive from logical demonstration. (Berkhof, 1971, 26)
This argument has been stated in different forms by Anselm, Descartes, Samuel Clark, and Cousin. Most of its proponents have held it to be rationally inescapable once one grant the mere idea of a perfect or necessary Being.
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Introduction
Theology 