Filed under: God Delusion | Tags: Dawkins, God, God Delusion, philosophy, Proof of God, religion
Well I am again agreeing with Dawkins. He and I both find it very difficult to accept that there could be a proof of anything about the universe that is not based on experience of it. The ontological argument is supposed to prove God’s existence from pure reason and not by looking at the world at all. So we both approach this very sceptically.
When I look at the argument itself I have to agree again that it is very weak, if not totally incomprehensible. I’ll need to give it some more thought and see if it makes sense later, but at the moment I tend to agree with Dawkins that it proves nothing.
Having thought about the whole concept of a priori argument it seems to me that there is some small hope of finding a proof in it. Though it does not take experience into account it is however built in a consistent rational world. This itself might lead to a proof. However no such proof has been demonstrated here, so I will just leave this discussion agreeing with Dawkins on this one.
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“The concept of God remains the same whether God exists or not; thus, it cannot be used to prove that God exists.”
Kant showed the same problem with the other “arguments” – they all assume we can extrapolate from concept to existence – and concluded that God’s existence can only be postulated, not demonstrated.
Which is perhaps why in “Reasons to Believe” Scott Hann writes:
“St. Thomas emphasized that his demonstrations were merely invitations to belief and not formal reasons for assenting to faith.” p38
Comment by Isaac Gouy March 31, 2008 @ 10:10 pm