Introduction to Philosophy

Achieve Test Prep: Philosophy

is believed to be dangerous and only those who have undergone extensive training and preparation are thought to be able to act as intermediaries between the world and the unseen world. The spiritual specialists see themselves as human vessels for conducting spiritual communication and power. • Group observances: The final dimension of the religion is the group rituals that bind the community together in a shared participation in their spiritual life. These collective rituals include: dances, ritual dramas, ritual purifications, and pilgrimages to sacred sites. The rituals usually occur at prescribed times or at defining moments in the life cycle: birth, naming, puberty, marriage, and death. The rituals affirm the social bonds with each other as they honor the sacred, and they represent the group’s harmony with the universe. Can We Prove the Existence of God? The idea of finding proofs for the existence of God was of particular concern for medieval philosophers, who merged the Greek idea that the universe was governed by orderly and knowable through rational inquiry with the Judeo-Christian idea that universe was created and governed by an all- powerful, all-knowing God. The Ontological Argument: The Ontological Argument was the first advanced argument. The medieval thinker Saint Anselm rests his argument on the assumption that in general, existence is “contingent”, not necessary. In other words, the things that exist in the universe do not necessarily have to exist and we can conceive them as not existing. This analysis does not apply to the existence of the ultimate reality, God. The ultimate reality is the greatest possible reality that we can think of and nothing greater than it can be conceived that is why we characterize it as “ultimate.” God is an ultimate reality than which nothing greater can be conceived and His existence must be necessary, not contingent. Therefore, God must exist not just inside our mind but outside of our mind as well; otherwise, God would not be the greatest being that we can conceive. The Cosmological Argument: In this argument, the medieval philosopher Saint Thomas Aquinas in his work Summa Theologica presents a number of different formulations of the Cosmological Argument which argues that if we examine the world in which we live (the cosmos), we will find compelling proofs for believing in God’s existence. Aquinas’s theory has five arguments, as he wanted to show that faith and reason were consistent with one another, that rational arguments could be used to demonstrate, or explain, what he, as a Christian, accepted as faith. His first three arguments are variations of a general argument known as the argument from contingency and the logic states; when we examine the universe, we see everything that exists and occurs is dependent on something else. However, for the universe to exist as it does, there must be some ultimate reality that is necessary, not contingent and the ultimate reality if God. Aquinas provides three different formations of this argument involving the concepts of motion, causality, and contingency. When we examine the universe, we observe that all is change, as everything is continually moving, evolving, changing. Each state of change is the result of a prior state, which is the result of a prior state, and so on. The second argument mirrors the first, substituting the concept of causation for motion. Both of these arguments rest on the

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