‘God is not real?’

St Thomas Aquinas an Italian philosopher, and William Paley an English Christian philosopher and theologian have both raised arguments for the existence of God.

According to Aquinas, he argues that all living things are caused by something else. Aquinas refers this to be the efficient cause. He concluded that something can not cause itself and hence all cause can be tracked down to a single principal cause that does not rely on efficient causes for its effects. This cause is God, one who is unchanging, non-dependent and uncaused being.

Paley had a design argument. He quoted:

“Suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly answer that for anything I knew, the watch might always have been there. The watch must have had a maker, who comprehended its construction and designed its use. Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design which existed in the watch, exists in nature, with the difference on the side of nature of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.”

Here Paley is mentioning that the marks of design are too strong to be got over. Design must have a designer. That designer must have been a person. Thus, Paley believes this person is God.

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The ontological argument states that God is the perfect being. As He is perfect, He must have all perfections. If God lacked existence He would not be perfect, as He is perfect he must exist.

Reality vs. Illusion

Furthermore, Sigmund Freud, a psychologist, French philosopher and Mathematician Pascal Blaise and German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach all put forward an argument that would appeal to agnostics.

Sigmund Freud claimed that all religious experiences are due to a mild form of mental illness and are a combination of delusion, hallucination and wishful thinking. Some people admire the concept of a powerful parent ...

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