Anselm Ontological Argument Essay Research Paper Anselm — страница 2

man, not God. In his eyes God created a beautiful place and wishedfor it to stay that way, it was man who corrupted everything. He believed that life was just toexquisite and angelic for the world just to exist. The way he speaks of earth makes you see theway he sees. Just to sit back and think of everything here that exists, it all fits perfectly together. Listening to this passage is what satisfies me the most. The movements of the heavenly bodies,so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces; the structure ofour earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere; animals and vegetablesbodies, examined in all their minutest particles; insects, mere atoms of life, yet as perfectlyorganized as man or mammoth; the mineral

substances, their generation and uses; it is impossible,I say, for the human mind not to believe, that the is in all this, design, cause and effect, up to anultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their preserver and regulatorwhile permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regenerator into new and otherforms. (31-32) I think that I can somewhat believe Jefferson s opinion. Earth had to be createdsomehow, and since there must be a beginning to everything why not come to conclusion thatGod was the beginning. In Kurtz criticism of the design argument it seems to me that he is more focusedon the title that God is given. The main point he stressed was how is God all good and allpowerful? If God is all good, then why all the suffering and pain, and

if he is all powerful thenwhy doesn t he stop all the evil? Kurtz starts by evaluating the deists point of view. They believethat since the earth is full of design and order then it must have been a plan or design by someoneor something. The argument that was made to this thought is that its not possible to discoveruniversal order in nature, order doesn t indicate plan or existence of a creator. Nature is often ascene of conflict, chaos, and disorder. (40) And since there is disorder, then isn t it God s fault? It is then that Kurtz goes into this whole argument about evil and how does it exist if God is sogreat and powerful. The deists then say that Evil is only human. (40) Aquinas argument from design differs from the eighteenth century deistic version becauseAquinas brings

more ideas to the argument of god than does the deists. Aquinas believed thatthere were five ways to go about proving God must exist. The first way is that there must be afirst mover, moved by no other, that can only be believe to be God. The second way is that thereis cause and effect, there has to be a first cause, that is believed to be God. The third way is thatthere is possibility and necessity. Earth was somehow created, it hasn t always existed, somethinghad to create it. There has to be something that set off a chain reaction causing earth to exist. It snot possible for everything to come from nothing. If nothing existed then nothing could havebeen created. The fourth way is taken from gradation to be found in things. (29) This isbasically stating that there has to be a

reason for existing, for being the way we are, and it must beGod. And finally there s the fifth way, Governance of the world, all natural things are directedto their end. (29) You then look at the deists eighteenth century argument, it seems to use asimilar argument used by Aquinas, The second way from the nature of efficient cause. (28) Ireally don t think that Aquinas argument succeeds because its states that it was rejected bymodern physics. To me, none of their arguments can prove the existence of God they onlyproduce more ideas. I really don t think that God can be proved to be real. The only proof Icould say would be worthy proof of God existing is visual proof, and not just anyone seeing himand saying they saw him, but myself see God with my own eyes.