The Existence of God Flashcards
What are theist’s?
A person who believes in only one God.
Name three reasons why theist’s believe in God.
- They are certain that they have been in contact with God directly.
- They accept the accounts of other people who have had direct contact with God.
- they believe that having a God is the only logical explanation for the origin of the universe and everything within it.
What are atheists?
People who reject any belief in God as the evidence given by theists is insufficient to prove the existence of a God.
What are agnostics?
People who believe that there is no way of knowing either way whether God exists or not.
What is the First Cause/ Cosmological argument?
Everything has to come from something; you cannot make something out of nothing. Therefore there must be a ‘First Cause’ and this ‘First Cause’ is God. God is the creator.
What would be a theists viewpoint on the Cosmological argument?
That the universe is perfect because it was created by God, the universe had a beginning and that was God, the start of a chain of events which lead to the present time,
Describe the Design/ Teleological argument.
The universe is too ordered and complicated to have just come about on its own therefore it must have a designer and that designer is God.
Who was St Thomas Aquinas and what did he say about the Design/ Teleological argument?
He was a philosopher who said that things could only be kept in order by an intelligent being. The sun, moon and stars rotate in the universe in a pattern because God put them there.
What did William Paley say about the Design/ Teleological argument?
If you saw a watch on the ground you would assume that its parts had not come together by chance because it is too ordered and complicated. Therefore someone must have designed it or it would not work. The universe is also ordered and complicated therefore it must have been designed by someone, that someone is God.
Why did Isaac Newton agree with the Design/ Teleological argument?
The fact that humans have opposable thumbs with individual patterns convinced Newton that there was evidence that humans had been individually designed by God.
