can u can me...i need to prove God exists using Aquias' proofs?

Question

i need to respond the Feuerbach's claim that god doen't exist using Aquinas' 5 proofs to say the God does exist can you help

Answer 1

Here's a good resource to follow:

http://faculty.fullerton.edu/bstarr/AQUINAS.PROOFS.EPIST.htm

For Aquinas, this natural wonder drives us ultimately to the 5 big questions, which yield the 5 proofs for the existence of God. The Five Big questions/proofs are:

A. Why do things move from potentiality to actuality? (argument from motion to the Unmoved Mover)
B. Why is there cause and effect? (argument from efficient cause to the Uncaused Cause)
C. Why does anything exist at all? (argument from conditional being to the Necessary Being)
D. Why are some things more perfect than others? (argument from degrees of perfection to the Perfect Being)
E. Why is nature an orderly system? (argument from order to the Divine Architect).

Can you use each of these questions to respond to Feuerbach?
Since he believed that God was nothing more than the "consciousness of man" can you reply by showing how each of these 5 phenomena *cannot* be explained as coming from his model of God as a construct of human consciousness? And thus, there must exist a greater force in life responsible for this, beyond human consciousness, which Aquinas attributes to God.

P.S. Reading through the other comments, my comment is that the most we could "prove" is for all humanity to agree on God's existence, the same way we agree on the true nature of gravity or medical research or anything else about life in the world. That process of establishing universal truth requires the same amount of faith in forgiveness to communicate, to overcome differences, and to reconcile among all people with diverse views. So what it would take to "demonstrate" such reconciliation in truth is possible is the same as "proving" the existence of God.

I believe humanity will reach that agreement, as more people come to realize that all people believe or experience some aspect of God and collectively just call it or understand the same God in different ways. It is a mainly a matter of interpreting or translating between different language and perceptions to achieve a common understanding instead of focusing on division and conflict.

Atheists/agnostics believe in seeking "truth" which is one aspect of God, similar to how Buddhists seek "wisdom" as a cultural equivalent of seeking the Kingdom of God; Christians emphasize God as "love" and the author of "life," as even pagans and natural spiritualists equate the creation with the source of life; Muslims submit to God as "Almighty" creator and merciful benefactor of all.

The only thing missing is applying faith in Christ to reconcile all people of tribes in one understanding that respects all these views -- whether churched people under sacred laws, beliefs or morals or gentiles under a secular system of laws, philosophies or ethics -- so that we all agree on common truth. I believe that is the purpose of Christ as "universal Messiah" to bring a unifying "Message" that fulfills all laws and teachings.

Such global unity between all people in all institutions, would take the same faith as believing in one God, so this issue that would be resolved in the process of establishing universal truth.

Answer 2

Aquinis' proofs are imperfect, but here you go-

1) First Mover: there is cause and effect- all things have a cause. At some point, there had to be a FIRST cause. This first cause is what we call God. a THING cannot come from NOTHING.
- the argument against this is "well, then, what CAUSED God."
--The rebuttal to that is easy "nothing- if something caused god, THAT thing would be God instead".

2)First Cause- same as first Mover, the difference is that for 1) I should have focused on all things being set in motion. Still cause/effect.

3) NECESSARY BEING- Every being that is contingent on something at some time don't exist. If every being were contingent (created/caused/etc) at some point there wouldn't have BEEN ANY being. That is impossible because without a being to start with, what would beings be contingent upon? Therefore not everything is contingent, nor are all beings contingent beings. Logically there must have been a first being. This is the necessary being. This is God. Therefore God must be necissary for reality to exist
- Interesting argument, really harkens back to the first two. The importance here is the NECESSITY of God.

4)Greatest being- some things are greater than others. There must be a greatest in order to create scale. So greatness comes from the scale set by PERFECTION. There must have been a perfect entity to judge relative greatness from. This is God
- pretty weak argument. I don't need the furthest distance to measure relative distance between two close points.

5) Intellegent Designer- many things in this world act for an end. In order to act for an end, one must have intellegence or be directed by an intellegent being. Mountains, rocks, rivers have no intellegence, yet often act toward an end. Therefore their must be a being great enough to direct these towards their ends. THis is God.
- This is actually a cool argument when advanced further. Essentially, look at chaos (the universe created without an intellegent designer). The mathmatical chance the world turns out like this is essentially impossible if it is formed chaotically. Further, look at details in the world- all things seem to be formed for purpose (we don't have rocks floating in the sky that do nothing) and everything seems to be formed with an order- this is what allows things to function. Chaos can NOT create an orderly system. Only an intellegent creater can.
-- The argument against this is only that the universe spawned near infinite times to failure, and this infinitesimal chance of chaos creating order is current reality. However, it is still chaos so any day the orderly systems may fall apart. Of course, if you believe this, your pretty much done for anyway.
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But I prefer this argument for god-

I can't remember the name of the philosopher off the top of my head, however there was a proof that went such-

Can you imagine that there is God? Of course you can.

Is this god you imagine one that exists or one that doesn't? If you say you are imagining a god that does not exist you are lying. Because for that entity to be GOD he must exist-

why? Because GOD by definition is greater than all other things. So, would a god that does not exist be equal or greater to a god that does? Of course not. So in order to be GOD that entity must be perfect/greater than all other things- hence God exists.

So in order for you to IMAGINE God, you must imagine a God that ACTUALLY exists.

You Can imagine God.

Therefore God exists-
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Its pure sophistry, however it is an argument that is hard to defeat without going deeply into the realm of epistimology. The definition of "imagine" is what is important here.

Why? Because "imagine" a 1000 sided object. You can right? But, in your imagination, does it actually have 1000 sides? No- but you CONCEPTUALIZE what 1000sides looks like.

In the same way I can CONCEPTUALIZE God. Doesn't mean I can ACTUALLY imagine him. More, I am imagining a conception, flawed and imperfect.


SO did I waste your time? :)

Answer 3

In my point of view, its a matter of logic !

For everything that exists is a reason that brought it to existence, but from where was the starting point,,,?!

The big question is what was before the starting point of this creation ? Their should be a starting point !

Lets put this assumption, lets say that there are two things, existence on one hand and nothingness- i.e nothing - on the other hand ( just assumption), How did existence over balance nothingness,,,? How come existence is presented....???

I don't think that any one would agree that existence came from nothingness , because logically it is wrong, and we have'nt seen such thing, i.e existence deriving from nothingness

Because in nature and the world and creation that surrounds us, there is a reason for the existence of any thing !

What was the reason or starting point of the existence of such creation !!

If you disagree what was before existence ?

Answer 4

There is an unacknowledged limitation to Aquinas' method of proof. At best it can be used to demonstrate that SOME sort of Supreme Being exists. But it can in no way demonstrate that that Supreme Being is Yahweh. Nothing can do that.

Answer 5

Well, Feuerbach lived long after Aquinas, so he was probably familiar with the Five Ways. It might be necessary to use updated versions of those arguments. I will see what I can dig up.

[edit] Actually, it appears he was not literate in Aquinas' work. His book "Essense of Christianity" never makes reference to him.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/aquinas3.html
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm
http://www.faithnet.org.uk/AS%20Subjects/Philosophyofreligion/fiveways.htm
http://philosophy.tamu.edu/~gary/intro/paper.aquinas.html

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ludwig-feuerbach/

Answer 6

There is no proof that anything like god exists.
Referring to an outdated book of jewish mythology does not count as proof by the way.

Answer 7

Can you can can?

You can't prove that god exists or doesn't exist. In my experience god only exists in the minds of those who believe he exists in reality.

Answer 8

would like to help but don't know what's aquinas' proofs...

Answer 9

Good luck. You will achieve the impossible if you suceed.