Transcript if - Mike Fuller

What Evidence
is there for
the Existence
of God?
Just Looking …
A cautionary
note …
Could you
prove that
you love
someone?
Probably not … but you know that you do!
Just Looking …
Just Looking …
An
argument
from logic
Arguments
from
looking at
the world
around us
The
argument
from
experience
The
argument
from
revelation
Just Looking …
The Ontological Argument
 from Greek for “to be”, so
“concerned with being”
 God’s definition entails his
existence
What is the better gift: “virtual” roses ..
or the real thing?
Just Looking …
The Ontological Argument
 God is “that than which nothing
greater can be thought”
 the concept of God exists in the
Anselm
(1033-1109)
understanding
 God is a possible being
 if God exists only in the mind and is only a
possible being, then if he existed in reality
he would have been greater
 if so, God is a being than which a greater
can be thought … which is impossible!
Just Looking …
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Thomas Aquinas’s “Five Ways”
1. Everything is changing – but
something must have caused it.
2. Every effect must have a cause
3. Things come into existence, and
cease to exist. There must be a cause.
4. Excellence must come from perfection
5. The harmony of things suggests design.
This all must be God!
Just Looking …
The Cosmological Argument
 cosmos - the world or
universe
 based on what can be
seen
 concept of contingency dependent on something
that may or may not
happen
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The Teleological Argument
The Argument from Design
William Paley
(1743-1805)
“In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot
against a stone … I might possibly answer that … it
had lain there for ever … But suppose I found a
watch upon the ground … I should hardly think of the
answer which I had given before …when we come to
inspect the watch we perceive … that its several
parts are framed and put together for a purpose …”
Natural Theology
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The Argument from Beauty
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The Argument from Experience
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The Argument from Revelation
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Does Philosophy offer Proof of the Existence of God?
No - but some more
recent philosophers have
argued that there is a
demonstrable weight of
probability that makes
belief in God an
intellectually defensible
claim
Just Looking …
Pascal’s “wager”
You believe there is no god,
and you find you’re right
Nothing lost
You believe there is no god, Lose, big-time
and you find you’re wrong
You believe there is a god,
and you find you’re wrong
Nothing lost
You believe there is a god,
and you find you’re right
Win, big-time
Just Looking …