can you philisophicaly prove god?

Answer 1

I personally believe that nothing can prove the existence of god- but philosophy can make us raise interesting questions about the nature of god. Some philosophers have claimed to prove to the existence of god with simple 3-5 line formulas. A popular one is that there must have been something to cause the first cause because nothing can cause itself, and we can call this first cause god's doing. That could be right- who knows? But we will never be able to verify these theories, and thus will probably never be able to prove the existence of god. Which it seems weird to quote him like those bible pushers do.

Answer 2

No, you can't.

The only thing that can rightly be considered a "proof" is in either logic or mathematics. There is one theory that asserts that God's existence can be proved in this manner, but the theory is logically fallacious- invalid. It has several formulations. Here are a few:

(1) God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived. Since existence would make something greater than non-existence, God must have this characteristic. Therefore, God exists.

The problem with this version is that existence can't function as a predicate (adjective/characteristic). Nothing can be added to the concept of a thing by noting that it exists. Also, if this theory was valid, you could apply it to anything- a philosopher called Gaunilo developed the counterexample of Gaunilo's Island. Imagine the greatest island possible, with every imaginable perfection. Existing in the real world would make it more perfect, therefore it exists. But does such an island exist? No.

(2) God cannot be contingent- it is either necessary that He exists or impossible that He exists. Since I can conceive of Him existing, there is no contradiction in the concept of him existing. This means that it is not impossible that He exists. By process of elimination, that means He necessarily exists.

Hume refuted this by pointing out that anything whatsoever can be conceived as not existing, so the argument cancels itself out. I can just as easily say that there is no logical contradiction in the idea that God doesn't exist, therefore He must not exist.

There are many other versions of this argument (called the Ontological Argument), but it would take too long to expound them all. If you want to know more, look up the Ontological Argument. The philosophers you want to be concerned with are Anselm, Descartes, Plantinga, Kant, and Hume.

Answer 3

Yes, there is.

This is the argument from contingency which draws on the distinction between things that exist necessarily and things that exist contingently.

Something is “necessary” if it could not possibly have failed to exist. The laws of mathematics are often thought to be necessary. It is plausible to say that mathematical truths such as two and two making four hold irrespective of the way that the world is. Even if the world were radically different, it seems, two and two would still make four.

Something is “contingent” if it is not necessary, i.e. if it could have failed to exist. Most things seem to exist contingently. All of the human artifacts around us might not have existed; for each one of them, whoever made it might have decided not to do so. Their existence, therefore, is contingent. You and I, too, might not have existed; our respective parents might never have met, or might have decided not to have children, or might have decided to have children at a different time. Our existence, therefore, is contingent. Even the world around us seems to be contingent; the universe might have developed in such a way that none of the observable stars and planets existed at all.

The argument from contingency rests on the claim that the universe, as a whole, is contingent. It is not only the case, the argument suggests, that each of the things around is us contingent; it is also the case that the whole, all of those things taken together, is contingent. It might have been the case that nothing existed at all. The state of affairs in which nothing existed at all is a logically possible state of affairs, even though it is not the actual state of affairs.

It is this that the argument from contingency takes to be significant. It is because it is thought that the universe exists contingently that its existence is thought to require explanation. If the universe might not have existed, then why does it exist? The existence of things that are necessary does not require explanation; their non-existence is impossible. The existence of anything contingent, however, does require explanation. They might not have existed, and so there must be some reason that they do so.

The only adequate explanation of the existence of the contingent universe, the argument from contingency suggests, is that there exists a necessary being on which its existence it rests. For the existence of the contingent universe must rest on something, and if it rested on some contingent being then that contingent being too would require some explanation of its existence. The ultimate explanation of the existence of all things, therefore, must be the existence of some necessary being. This necessary being is readily identified by proponents of the cosmological argument as God.

The argument from contingency, then, can be summarised as follows:

(1) Everything that exists contingently has a reason for its existence.

(2) The universe exists contingently.
Therefore:

(3) The universe has a reason for its existence.

(4) If the universe has a reason for its existence then that reason is "God."
Therefore:

(5) "God" exists.

HTH

Charles

Answer 4

YES. There are 5 valid and sound philosophical arguments for the existence of God. They are:

1. The "A Posteriori" Arguments
(a) The general causality argument
(b) The argument from design
(c) The argument from conscience
(d) The argument from universal consent

and

2. The "A Priori" or Ontological Argument

You can read detailed explanations of these by googling their names or looking at:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06608b.htm
(click on any argument and it will jump to that section)

God bless you.

Answer 5

Any one man can "prove" the existence of God but that is not evidence for it is based on finite knowledge of a mortal being. The existence of God can only come from God himself.

I choose in the existence of God based on the Biblical premise that God showed himself present and created the first parents of man. I believe that on faith alone.

If any one man after wards can create his own god then that God can't possibly be true. Only the God of the beginning can be the true God. And that is what the Bible claims.

In the beginning God...

Answer 6

Philosophy doesn't involve proving anything - it just sort of involves musing and coining cool phrases that end up on University Challenge.

Hope that helps,
Simon H

Answer 7

Nope.

Answer 8

yes