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What Evidence is there for the Existence of God? Just Looking … A cautionary note … Could you prove that you love someone? Probably not … but you know that you do! Just Looking … Just Looking … An argument from logic Arguments from looking at the world around us The argument from experience The argument from revelation Just Looking … The Ontological Argument from Greek for “to be”, so “concerned with being” God’s definition entails his existence What is the better gift: “virtual” roses .. or the real thing? Just Looking … The Ontological Argument God is “that than which nothing greater can be thought” the concept of God exists in the Anselm (1033-1109) understanding God is a possible being if God exists only in the mind and is only a possible being, then if he existed in reality he would have been greater if so, God is a being than which a greater can be thought … which is impossible! Just Looking … Just Looking … Thomas Aquinas’s “Five Ways” 1. Everything is changing – but something must have caused it. 2. Every effect must have a cause 3. Things come into existence, and cease to exist. There must be a cause. 4. Excellence must come from perfection 5. The harmony of things suggests design. This all must be God! Just Looking … The Cosmological Argument cosmos - the world or universe based on what can be seen concept of contingency dependent on something that may or may not happen Just Looking … Just Looking … The Teleological Argument The Argument from Design William Paley (1743-1805) “In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone … I might possibly answer that … it had lain there for ever … But suppose I found a watch upon the ground … I should hardly think of the answer which I had given before …when we come to inspect the watch we perceive … that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose …” Natural Theology Just Looking … Just Looking … Just Looking … The Argument from Beauty Just Looking … The Argument from Experience Just Looking … The Argument from Revelation Just Looking … Does Philosophy offer Proof of the Existence of God? No - but some more recent philosophers have argued that there is a demonstrable weight of probability that makes belief in God an intellectually defensible claim Just Looking … Pascal’s “wager” You believe there is no god, and you find you’re right Nothing lost You believe there is no god, Lose, big-time and you find you’re wrong You believe there is a god, and you find you’re wrong Nothing lost You believe there is a god, and you find you’re right Win, big-time Just Looking …