Exploring Philosophical Arguments on God’s Existence
Arguments About the Existence of God
Kant studied the arguments and concluded that they all contained fallacies. There were three main types of arguments used to explain the existence of God:
Ontological Argument
Developed by St. Anselm in the Middle Ages and defended by Descartes, this argument uses the definition of God to conclude its existence. St. Anselm argued that everyone has an idea of God as a perfect being, an idea shared by believers and non-believers alike. Believers claim that this idea proves God’s existence. According to Kant, this argument proves nothing.
Argument from Design
This argument considers the complexity of living organisms and their adaptation to life as proof that God exists. It is based on reasoning by analogy. For Kant, this reasoning is invalid because the notion of cause applies only to the world of phenomena and the sensitivity.
Cosmological Argument
This argument states that for a contingent being to exist, a necessary being must exist. According to Kant, this argument relies on the principle of causality.
Pascal’s Wager
This reasoning supports the need to believe in God. You have two choices: believe or not believe. If there is nothing to lose by believing, but if God exists and you have not had faith, you will not attain eternal life. Therefore, it is preferable to believe in God.
Contemporary Atheism
Feuerbach
Feuerbach argued that God was a human creation and that the idea of infinity arises from finite things, and that religion has a psychological origin.
Marx
For Marx, religion was the opiate of the masses, a practice that serves the interests of the ruling class.
Nietzsche
Nietzsche proclaimed that “God is dead.”
Freud
Freud said that religion is the result of frustration.
Platonic Dualism
This is the belief that a human being is composed of two independent realities, soul and body, and that neither can be reduced to the other. Plato is its most prominent representative. He thought that the soul and body are different in origin and nature, since the body is a material fact necessary to the world of sense and is mortal, while the soul is a spiritual reality, belongs to the world of ideas, and is immortal.
Platonic Anthropology
Life is the union of soul and body. The soul has had a previous existence but joins a body that becomes its jail. The body is the principle of sensitivity and error, and the rational soul is the beginning of true knowledge.
Platonic Psychology
Life is a temporary transit while the soul is imprisoned by the body. The soul is immortal, and with death, it returns to the world of the dead where it is rewarded or punished and then reincarnated, carrying the information of the essences from birth to life.
Nietzsche is anti-dualist because all dualism involves the devaluation of this world.
Politics
Politics is the activity in which groups or organizations make decisions collectively, or the activity of those who aspire to govern public affairs.
Philosophical Traditions
Politics and Cooperation
For Aristotle, man lives in society by nature. Rational human nature allows people to communicate with one another to organize. Cooperation is the use of dialogue to achieve the greatest good for all.
Politics as Conflict
Moral politics is separate from morality and aims at power. The first objective is the preservation of the ruling power through calculation and ambition.
State
The state is a set of government organs within a sovereign country.
Characteristics
- It is a bounded territory.
- It is administrative and legal.
- It has a monopoly on violence.
- A totalitarian state is sovereign.
Dictatorial regimes are legal-party states, single-divided societies inside, and the rest of the population is under absolute social control.
Models of Democracy
Direct (Ancient)
Citizens did not have representatives; they themselves participated with voice and vote in the public life of society.
Representative (Modern)
Citizens are not all directly involved, but some choose representatives through an electoral system.
Vocabulary
Deism
Deism affirms philosophical currents that God created the universe but denies that it can interact with it.
Pantheism
Pantheism is the antithesis to the belief in a personal God.
Religious Fanaticism
Religious Fanaticism is an excessive attitude to defend religious beliefs.
Theism
Theism is the belief in a personal God who is providential, a creator, and curator of the world.
Transcendence
Transcendence is that which is beyond natural boundaries and detached from them.
Democracy
Democracy is the regime in which the people are sovereign, that is, no one can govern without their approval.