Explain and evaluate the cosmological, teleological and ontological arguments for the existence of God

What this dot point is asking

You need to reconstruct each argument, classify its reasoning, and evaluate it against the major criticisms from Hume, Kant and others.

Cosmological arguments

Cosmological arguments are a posteriori: they start from a general fact about the world. Thomas Aquinas offered several. The argument from motion holds that everything in motion is moved by another, and since this cannot regress infinitely there must be a first unmoved mover. The argument from causation runs parallel for efficient causes, ending in a first uncaused cause. The Kalam cosmological argument, revived by William Lane Craig, states that whatever begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, so the universe has a cause.

The standard objections target the leap to a first cause. David Hume asked why the causal principle should apply to the universe as a whole rather than only to its parts, and questioned whether an infinite regress is really impossible. A further worry is that even if a first cause exists, the argument does not show it is the personal, perfect God of religion rather than some impersonal origin.

Teleological arguments

Teleological or design arguments are also a posteriori but start from order and apparent purpose. William Paley compared finding a watch on a heath, whose intricate parts plainly serve an end, to finding the eye or the natural world: such fine adaptation of means to ends implies a designer. Modern versions appeal to the fine-tuning of physical constants.

Hume, in his Dialogues, raised several objections in advance of Paley. The universe is unlike a machine, so the analogy is weak; order might arise from many designers, or an imperfect one, or chance over vast time; and the argument tells us nothing about the designer's moral character. Darwin's theory of natural selection later supplied a powerful undesigned mechanism for the biological order Paley cited, weakening the inference considerably.

The ontological argument

The ontological argument is unique in being a priori: it tries to prove God's existence from the concept of God alone. Anselm defined God as that than which nothing greater can be conceived. If God existed only in the understanding, we could conceive of a greater being, one that also existed in reality. Therefore, to avoid contradiction, God must exist in reality.

The most famous objection is Kant's: existence is not a predicate, not a property that adds to the concept of a thing. Saying a hundred real coins differ from a hundred imagined coins is true, but the concept is the same; existence does not make the concept greater. Gaunilo, replying to Anselm directly, parodied the argument by deducing a perfect island into existence, suggesting the form proves too much.

Evaluation

None of the arguments commands universal assent, but they fail in different ways and to different degrees. The cosmological arguments raise a genuine question about why anything exists at all, even if they over-reach in identifying the cause with God. The design argument is strongest as an inference to the best explanation but is undercut by evolution and by Hume's analogical worries. The ontological argument is the boldest and the most suspect, since it appears to define a being into existence. A measured answer notes that even a successful argument would establish only a thin conclusion, leaving the gap between a first cause and the God of religious tradition unbridged.