Other Proofs of God’s Existence

ARGUMENTS and OBJECTIONS

Ontological Argument (prt 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsNdL_ANjAA&ab_channel=MrMcMillanREvis
Ontological Argument (prt. 2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIkVU0AcSMw&ab_channel=MrMcMillanREvis
The Ontological Argument

God is the most perfect being we can think of;

But the most perfect being we can think of must
be thought of as existing.
Therefore, God must be thought of as existing.
I have an idea of a most beautiful and perfect island;
But it is not the idea of a most beautiful and perfect
island unless the island actually exists;
Therefore, the island of which I have an idea actually
exists.

(On behalf of the Fool, Gaunilo of Marmoutiers)

Objections of Kant

 Kant thought that because the ontological

argument rests on the judgement that a God
that exists is greater than a God that does not,
it rests on a confusion.

 Kant argued that the ontological argument

illicitly treats existence as a property that things
can either possess or lack.
• If Kant is correct in his view that existence is
not a property of objects, then it is impossible to
compare a God that exists to a God that does
not. On Kant’s view a God that exists and a
God that does not are qualitatively identical. If
this is right, then Anselm’s claim that an
existent God is greater than a non-existent God
is false—neither is greater than the other—in
which case the ontological argument fails.
The Moral Proof
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxiAikEk2vU&t=1s&ab_channel=drcraigvideos
The Moral Proof

• Man is naturally aware of an absolute law

which requires free-will to do good and to
avoid evil.
• This presuppose that there exist a law
and a law-giver that could be ultimately
identified with God.
• The moral proof for the existence of God
is a proof drawn from the fact of man’s
responsibility, of his subjection to moral
law, of his realization of the rule of
conscience.
LAW, objectively existent
And subjectively realized and applied
by conscience
ULTIMATE
GOAL

MEANS
• Morality is the relationship between
human conduct and the norm or standard
of what his conduct ought to be.
• This standard is law applied by
conscience .
• The moral argument takes the existence
or nature of morality to imply the
existence of God.
• The formal moral argument specifically
takes the form of morality—its normativity
and authority—as grounds for holding
that it has a divine origin.
Kant’s Moral Argument

Moral behaviour is rational.

Morality behaviour is only rational if justice will be
done.
Justice will only be done if God exists.
Therefore God exists.
• Most people believe in God because they
have been taught from early infancy to do
it, and that is the main reason.
• I think, that the next most powerful reason
is the wish for safety, a sort of feeling that
there is a big brother who will look after
you. That plays a very profound part in
influencing people’s desire for a belief in
God.
Argument from Desire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=X71Gq9a1qxE&t=130s&ab_channel=BishopRobertBarron
Argument from Religious Experience

• The argument from religious experience

is the argument from experiences of God
to the existence of God.
It is only possible to experience
something that exist

People experience God;

Therefore, God exists.

• The argument rest on the principle of
credulity which states that if it seems to a
subject that X is present, probably X is
present.
• The argument from religious experience assume that
religious experiences are a type of perceptual experience,
i.e. a type of experience in which the person having the
experience perceives something external to them.
• Some, though, argue that religious experiences involve
imagination rather than perception, that the object of the
experience is not something that exists objectively in the
world but rather is something that exists subjectively in the
mind of the person having the experience.
Inherent difficulties

• Artificial religious experience

• Conflicting religious experiences
• Subjectivity of experience
Argument from Miracles

• Miracles have traditionally been taken as

validations of religious claims. If the Bible
is to be believed, then Jesus’ ministry was
accompanied by miraculous signs and
wonders that testified that it was God
working through him.
Criticisms

• According to Hume, no matter how strong

the evidence for a specific miracle may
be, it will always be more rational to reject
the miracle than to believe in it.
• Two factors to assess in deciding whether
to believe any given piece of testimony:
the reliability of the witness and the
probability of that to which they testify.
Pascal’s Wager
It is possible that the Christian God exists and it is possible that the Christian
God does not exist. If one believes in the Christian God then if he exists
then one receives an infinitely great reward and if he does not exist then
one loses little or nothing. If one does not believe in the Christian God
then if he exists then one receives an infinitely great punishment and if he
does not exist then one gains little or nothing. It is better to either receive
an infinitely great reward or lose little or nothing than it is to either receive
an infinitely great punishment or gain little or nothing.
Therefore:
It is better to believe in the Christian God than it is not to believe in the
Christian God. If one course of action is better than another then it is
rational to follow that course of action and irrational to follow the other.
It is rational to believe in the Christian God and irrational not to believe in
the Christian God.
• The Existence of God is Unlikely
• The objection to Pascal’s Wager targets the fourth premise of the
argument as it is stated above. It is the objection that the
probability that God exists, and so the probability of either
receiving an infinite reward in heaven or of receiving an infinite
punishment in hell, is so small that these possible outcomes of
belief or disbelief can be discounted.
• The choice between belief and disbelief is thus taken to be a
choice between losing little or nothing and gaining little or nothing.
As it is better to gain little or nothing than it is to lose little or
nothing, this objection concludes that it is wagering on atheism
rather than wagering on theism, that is the rational course of
action. It is better, the objection suggests, to take the certain
benefits of disbelief (the joys of indulging in sin and of being free
from religious commitments) by wagering that God doesn’t exist
than it is to gamble on the vastly improbable hope of a heavenly
reward and almost certainly gain nothing at all.
• We Cannot Choose Our Beliefs
• The third objection targets the inference from the fifth and sixth
premises to the conclusion. It is the objection that
we cannot choose our beliefs. We form our beliefs on the basis of
evidence, not on the basis of desire. No matter how much one may
want to believe that a given proposition is true, one cannot bring
oneself to do so simply through an act of will. Rather, in order for
one to come to believe that a proposition is true one requires
evidence for its truth. Pascal’s Wager, though, merely prescribes
belief in God; it does not provide any evidence that such a belief
would be true. As such, it asks us to do the impossible: to believe
without reason.
Proof from Universal Human Consent

• History assures that men of past times

have been convinced of the existence of
a deity.
Criticism

• Unwarranted generalization
• Rests on religious experience of people