Religious experiences can involve a variety of events including miracles, religious sightings, dreams, feelings of immense power and awe and near death experiences. These experiences are believed to be the work of God for the main reason that they are like nothing we have ever seen, heard or felt before. As a result of this they are very hard to explain and therefore they are experiences of God, something we have never experienced before. The next argument and the only deductive argument is the ontological argument.
The Ontological argument is based not on observing the world but by reason alone. The very basic understanding derives from both St. Anselm’s and Descartes’ first ideas of the ontological argument. St. Anselm said that the concept of God is ‘a being than which no greater can be conceived.’ This leads to the conclusion that: God is a supremely perfect being; therefore existence is perfection and therefore God exists. God cannot not exist because we hold the idea of God in our heads, and therefore He must exist because we are not free to have an idea of something in our heads that does not exist in reality. The last argument is the moral argument.
The fourth purported proof of the existence of God is the and although a weak and scarcely upheld argument it is still regarded as one by some philosophers.. The moral argument seeks to prove the existence of God from the fact that there are moral laws. Moral laws have the form of commands; they tell us what to do. Commands can’t exist without a commander though, so who is it that commands us to behave morally? To answer this, we only need to look at the authoritative nature of morality. Commands are only as authoritative as is the one that commands them; a command of a ruler carries more authority than a command of a citizen. Moral commands, though, have ultimate authority; they are to be obeyed under all circumstances. Their authority transcends all human authority, and they must therefore have been commanded by a being whose authority transcends all human authority.
In conclusion, there are many ways in which the existence of God can be argued of which a few I have covered. However they all seem to stem from the same roots.
Section B: Explain some of the difficulties which might be found in trying to describe God.
The main problem of describing God arises from the combination of two enquiries towards describing Him. The word ‘describing’ itself means, by definition that the issue is a logical one and that by trying to describe that issue we are trying to gain a full understanding of the metaphysical idea. Hume developed his Copy Principle in order that he try to describe the problems that arrive in describing God.
Hume believed that all of our ideas and thoughts are actually consisted of several other things that we have experienced before. For example, he talks of us thinking of a golden mountain, and that we can only imagine this because we have seen both gold and mountains before and that we can combine the two simple things to create a seemingly more complicated single idea. He also says ‘...all our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of our impressions or more lively ones.’ He also says that ‘The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise, and good Being, arises from reflecting on the operations of our own mind, and augmenting, without limit, those qualities of goodness and wisdom’. This shows that we cannot or that it is difficult to describe God as a thing among other objects because he is simply the collaboration of several qualities of ourselves such as the words ‘intelligent’, ‘powerful’ and ‘forgiving’ which are all words that are used to describe both people and God. Hume also names the contents of our minds perceptions and further divides them into two types: impressions and ideas. Impressions are the experiences of taste, touch, smell, sound and feelings whereas ideas are the thought of taste, touch, smell, sound and feelings. Hume then claims that all thought are copies of impressions and it is impossible to think of something that you have not yet experienced. For instance, a blind man cannot have the thought of the colour ‘red’ because he has never experienced ‘red’. This can be applied to God in that no one has experienced God so we are therefore all like the blind man who has never experienced ‘red’. By definition we can have no idea about the term God and the term is meaningless. However, Hume also claims that we do create a meaning to the word God by giving it attributes of features of the world that we have experienced such as father. Another problem with describing God is that some parts of Christianity and in fact Judaism refuse to describe Him.
The Jewish Bible is an example of this and although Judaism is not directly Christianity it is the stem of all Christian thinking. In Exodus 3:3 God refuses to reveal his name to Moses and once again in Exodus 19:14 when Moses is blinded by fog when he goes to meet God. This is the basis of the Christian thinking that God is different from anything we can ever experience and he is not part of the world but He is the inestimable creator of the world. This is also the stem for iconoclastic traditions that occurs in some churches such as the Quaker church. They believe that you must not draw or use pictures of God because they believe that He cannot be represented by art. God is not a physical object and therefore all physical interpretations made of him e.g. pictures will be distortions of the true divinity. Another problem that arises in describing God is the language used when doing so.
Christians tend to use certain attributes to attempt to describe God, and these attributes normally come from our surroundings and from the world such as rock or shield. However, because God transcends all human description, this causes a problem and leaves us with no words to use to describe God. However, Christians have said in response to this that we can use words that we usually give to objects because God can possess them but only in an infinite degree. Christians also justify this in two ways. Firstly is the incarnation. This means that, if Jesus is the image of the unseen God then we can know what God is like by looking at the image of Jesus, as said in Colossians 1:15 ‘He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.’ There is a problem with this however because we do not have a definitive image of Jesus and can therefore we cannot base our judgement of God on this. The second justification is causation. Causation means that we judge someone by something that it makes or leaves behind for instance we describe a murderer based on the dead body that he has left behind. The same can be applied to mankind in the sense that we, mankind, are the corpse and the murderer is God. [I would like to point out that I am in no way attributing murderous qualities to God]. This means that we can base our views of God on what he has left behind or created, us. This is backed up by the Trademark Argument which is similar to the ontological argument but goes as follows. ‘I have an idea of God. Everything which exists has a cause. Therefore, there is a cause of my idea of God. There is a cause of my idea of God. The cause of an effect must contain at least as much reality as the effect. Therefore, the cause of my idea of God must contain at least as much reality as my idea of God. The cause of my idea of God must contain at least as much reality as my idea of God. The idea of God contains perfection.
Therefore, the cause of my idea of God must contain perfection. The cause of my idea of God must contain perfection. No being which is not God contains perfection. Therefore, no being which is not God could be the cause of my idea of God. No being which is not God could be the cause of my idea of God. There is a cause for my idea of God. Therefore, the cause of my idea of God must not be a being which is not God. The cause of my idea of God must not be a being which is not God. A being is either God, or it is not God. Therefore, the cause of my idea of God is God. The cause of my idea of God is God. If something is the cause of something else, that something exists. Therefore, God exists.’ There are also several solutions to this problem however including metaphors and analogies.
Religious language explains the tension between speaking and not speaking about God in several ways, the first being the use of metaphors. Metaphors are used to describe one thing in the terms of another, and in this case the ‘thing’ we are describing is God. For example, God is frequently referred to in the Old Testament as a King as in 1 Kings: 19-22 where it says ‘…"Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left”…’. Another solution to the problem is that Christians use negation in their talk of God. When we use names in our everyday lives, we use them to reveal something about the owner’s nature, however the name ‘God’ reveals nothing about God except for the fact that He exists for example YHYH means only ‘I am who I am’. The third solution to the problem is that analogies are often used in describing God too. Søren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher, also pointed out that there was a paradox when describing God and that this was also a solution. ‘A paradox is an apparently true statement or group of statements that seems to lead to a contradiction or to a situation that defies intuition’ and is resolved when it is shown that the contradiction is only apparent. Kierkegaard uses the story of Abraham in fear and trembling as an example of this and says that Abraham couldn’t prove that he had heard God but he still believes in it up to the point that he risks his son’s life for it. The paradox is that Abraham is acting on incomplete knowledge about God and not solid proof which is similar to our belief in God.
Section C: ‘If God Existed We Would Be Able To Prove It’ Do You Agree? Give Reasons To Support Your Answer and Show that You Have thought About Different Points of View. You Must Refer To Christianity in Your Answer.
For this section of the essay I will first cover the several different points of views that are widely upheld by others, and then cover my own belief. The three beliefs given by others are that philosophers have tried to prove or disprove the existence of God either by existence of the world, experience of the world or reason. Within this some claim these arguments are successful and that God exists. Secondly some claim that they are not successful. The reasoning behind this is that there are many things in the world that seem to count against the existence of good for example crime and the existence of evil and suffering. The thinking behind the third claim is that reason cannot prove the existence of God. It is this reasoning that could go several ways, and I am going to explore those routes now. The first way in which the third reasoning could go is that the God that we ‘know’ is a God of philosophers and not the God of Abraham and Isaac. This means that human reason creates a God in its own image, a God who is a cause amongst other causes, a designer amongst other designers and a perfect being amongst beings that Isaac perfection whereas the Bible describes God as hidden by a name that simply proves His existence. Blaise Pascal wrote ‘Pascal’s Wager’ to describe this and he said that ‘One does not know whether God exists. Not believing in God is bad for one's eternal soul if God does exist. Believing in God is of no consequence if God does not exist. Therefore it is in one's interest to believe in God.’ Pascal also said ‘If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing -- but if you don't believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you will go to hell. Therefore it is foolish to be an atheist.’ The second way that the reasoning could go is that described by Luther. Luther believed that mankind was tainted by crime and sin, and could not therefore rise to consider God as he transcends all human reason. The final way that the reasoning could go is that of Wittgenstein’s philosophical investigations and language games. Wittgenstein believed that language’s purpose is determined by the purpose that it is used for, and that we learn our language only by using it. For example we learn the meaning of the word pain because we hear the word being used in context when someone is experiencing pain and we can tell whether someone knows what a word means if they use the word correctly. Wittgenstein also noticed that certain words only make sense in a specific context such as a sport or profession, and hence developed his language games. Wittgenstein gave a particular example of two builders calling to each other. He said ‘....Let us imagine a language ...The language is meant to serve for communication between a builder A and an assistant B. A is building with building-stones; there are blocks, pillars, slabs and beams. B has to pass the stones, and that in the order in which A needs them. For this purpose they use a language consisting of the words 'block', 'pillar', 'slab', 'beam'. A calls them out; --B brings the stone which he has learnt to bring at such-and-such a call. -- Conceive of this as a complete primitive language.’ These words are used in construction and that is their purpose. Wittgenstein then moves on to determine how the word ‘God’ is used in Christian language, and insists that the word is not a name. Christians use the word ‘God’ as if it refers to a person e.g. ‘God freed the Israelites from Egypt’ and ‘Our Father who art in heaven’. Wittgenstein said that ‘God’ does not refer to a person whose existence can be proved or disproved, and that we need to look at the depth grammar of religious language to recognize this. This can be illustrated in the following observation: We can overhear other peoples’ conversations and it makes sense to say “I overheard Tom’s conservation to Brian” but religious people would never say “I overhead God saying that he will forgive Brian”. We use sentences such as the first sentence as part of our ‘language game’ when talking about other people but the fact that we do not use sentences such as the second example shows that we are not talking about a person when we talk about ‘God’. The word ‘believe’ is used similarly in our language because we use it very differently in religion compared to the way that we use it when discussing science for instance. To believe that the world is flat is to hold a statement about the world as true, as referring to the world and how it is. It is possible to show whether such a belief is true of false but it is not possible to show that beliefs about God are true or false for the simple reason that they are not telling us anything about the world. Two good examples of proving whether a statement is true or false are John Wisdom’s ‘Gardener’ and the parable of ‘The Celestial City’.
The story of ‘the Gardener’ goes as follows, ‘Two people return to their long neglected garden and find, among the weeds, that a few of the old plants are surprisingly vigorous. One says to the other, 'It must be that a gardener has been coming and doing something about these weeds.' The other disagrees and an argument ensues. They pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. The believer wonders if there is an invisible gardener, so they patrol with bloodhounds but the bloodhounds never give a cry. Yet the believer remains unconvinced, and insists that the gardener is invisible, has no scent and gives no sound. The skeptic doesn't agree, and asks how a so-called invisible, intangible, elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener, or even no gardener at all.’ This is a good example of logical positivism, the absolutist way of looking at statements and labeling them true, false or meaningless. This also means that for any propositional statements to be true they must be verifiable, for example ‘the cat is on the mat’ is meaningful because we can verify it. When applied to the story we have to deduce that the gardener is meaningless because it is unverifiable. This can also be applied to God and the propositional statement of His existence, and from this we must deduce that the proposition of God’ existence is meaningless because we cannot verify it. The second story is that of the Celestial City.
The Celestial City goes as follows, ‘Two men are traveling together along a road. One of them believes that the road will lead them to the Celestial City, whereas the other believes that the road leads nowhere. However, since this is the only road, the two men have no option but to travel along it. Neither of them has been that way before, so each twist and turn is new. They share the experiences of the journey, only differing on what they believe is at the end of their travels. On the journey there are both times of enjoyment and times of hardship and danger. Each interprets them differently to the other. All of the time, traveler A who believes that the Celestial City is at the end of the journey thinks of the journey as like a pilgrimage. He sees the pleasant parts as encouragements, and the difficult parts as trials he must endure to show that he is indeed worthy of entering the Celestial City. The other, however, believes none of this. Traveler B sees the journey as unavoidable and pointless, he has no choice. So he enjoys the good and endures the bad times. There is no wonderful end to the journey, no Celestial City, just the luck of the road. When they turn the last corner it will be apparent that one of them has been right all the time and the other wrong. Only then will the truth be known.’ This story shows that you can verify all truth claims and therefore they must be meaningful, however Wittgenstein believes that language is not meaningful. This leads me onto my own opinion.
My basic opinion is that no, I do not believe that we would be able to prove God’s existence if He were to exist. I believe that it is not intended for us to prove His existence, and that he is an omnipresent, supremely perfect being that transcends humanity and its reason.
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