This document discusses several philosophical arguments regarding the existence and nature of God. It addresses questions like what God is, why people believe in God, and God's attributes such as being personal, omnipresent, the creator, and perfectly good. It also summarizes several common arguments for God's existence, such as the cosmological, teleological, and ontological arguments. It discusses objections to these arguments and notes that while some claim to prove God's existence, others argue it is impossible to prove whether God does or does not exist.

1. Philosophy of Religion

2. • What is God?
• Why do people believe in God?
• What are the characteristics of God?
• How do you prove that God exist?

3. • God’s attributes or properties:
• Personal
• Omnipresent
• Creator and sustainer of the universe
• Transcendent
• Omniscient
• Omnipotent
• Perfectly good

4. Personal
Person
An individual
substance: exists
separately from
others
A collection of
desires, beliefs,
and sensations
Rational
Act by free choice
Aware and able to
communicate
Worthy of dignity
and respect
Personal
(Brian Devies)
Have knowledge
and will
Active
Bodiless
Immortal
eternal

5. Omnipresent
• God is present at all places and all times.
• According to Thomas Aquinas, he can be like is
because of his power, knowledge and essence
extend to all places and all times.

6. Creator and Sustainer of the
universe
• In the bible, God is just the creator but not
responsible for its continued existence.
• However, according to the traditional western
theology, God both created and sustains the
universe.
• God sometime comes to the earth to save or help some
people.

7. Transcendent
• Transcendent God is greater, better, or above all.
• God is not like all of us who are confined to time_Past,
Present, Future.
• He is not under the natural law.

8. Omniscient
• God is all-knowing.
• Can God know what we will choose to do or what
will happen to us?
• Can we blame God if someone rape us?
• Boethius explained that God’s knowledge does not
determine what action we should do. Therefore, we are
the one who is responsible for the action.

9. Omnipotent
• God is all-powerful.
• Is God only able to bring about anything that is logically
possible?
• A square circle
Can God create something that can kill himself?

10. Perfectly Good
• Does God decide what is morally good or God is
good because he conforms to a standard of
goodness?

11. Arguments for The Existence of God
• Cosmological argument (God explains the existence
of the world)
• Aquinas:
• First Way: there mush be a first cause of all change, since
nothing changes itself, and there can not be a series of things
each of which is changed by another …without end
• Second Way: There must be a first cause of everything that
exists, which is not itself caused to exist by anything else.
• Third Way: There must be a necessary cause of all contingent
things.
Objection. 1
Why could there not be an infinite series of causes of change, existence,
and contingent things? Why do we have to say that each series of causes
began at some point?
Answer
According to Davies, even if we say that each causal series goes back to
infinity, we still need to find a cause of the whole series.

12. Objection 2
According to David Hume, although things in the world have causes, why do we
need to say that there must be a cause of the universe as a whole?
Simplifying it, Bertrand Russell wrote, “although every person has a mother, this
does not mean that the human race as a whole has a mother.”
Objection 3
Why do we need to believe that only one God creates everything? Why not many
Gods?

13. • The Teleological Argument
• The world appears to have been designed so that should
be God’s work.
• Design in the sense of purpose
Paley explanation:
Suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the
watch happened to be in that place: I should hardly think of the answer which I had
before given, that…the watch might have always have been there.
Bird’s wings are made in such a way that it is able to fly
The fins of a fish enable it to swim.

14. • Design in the sense of regularity
• Why the law of gravity ensures that stone will fall?
Hume’s Objections
1: if it is designed, then should be the design-producing being, not God.
2. With only some examples, one can not claim that the universe as a whole is
designed.
3. If the world was designed, who designed the designer?
4. The argument makes God too anthropomorphic, i.e. too much like a human
being.
5. Why should there be only one designer? Many people work together to build
a house or a ship, etc.
6. Why can we not regard the universe as a living organism, which grows and
reproduces in a regular manner, rather than as something like a machine or
artefact?
7. The universe could be the result of chance_Chaos and order.
8.The world contains evils so God is not totally good or omnipoten.

15. • Further Objection:
• Charles Darwin: Natural Selection (no need God to explain)
• But still no one can explain why it is still working in accordance
with natural law.

16. • The Argument From Religious Experience
• God’s action is identified in a public object or scene.
• Buddha’s foot print.
• Night Sky scene…
• God’s action occur as a result of unusual public events.
• The risen Jesus to his disciples. Buddha went to Tosit Realm
• Action that individual can describe using normal language.
• Joseph’s dream that an angel appeared and spoke to him
• Sensation that can not be described in normal language
• Mystical experience ( Samathi, Nivarna, Atman, Soul…)
• Those in which the individual has no sensations, but is
directly aware of God.
• Present God as he is.

17. • Can you prove that there is no God?
• Those who claim that God exists are not drug addicted
or ill.
• Noone provides satisfied evidence that there is no God.
• God is free. He can decide to let you see or not.
• People who claim that there is God act like God exists so
they do not tell a lie.
• We learn thing through what other people tell us is
reasonable. So if what they tell about God reasonable
we will believe.

18. • The Ontological Argument
• According to Anselm, the existence is part of the
definition of God and that God must therefore exists.
• If you understand what God is, then why you can not accept
that God exist?
• According to Decartes, because God is a supremely
perfect being then his existence is that perfection. It is
like triangle, it is the three angles so if three angles exist,
then the triangle also exists.
• According to Kant, saying triangle does not have three
angles is already self-contradictory. Additionally, even
God with all the attributes can not exist.