Sárospataki Füzetek 2. (1998)
1998 / 1. szám - Dr. Frank Sawyer: Is there a place for God int he inn of Philosophy?
Us there a place foj• 9oc/.J The four proofs for God’s existence which Kant systematically tries to explain as inadequate, are: 1. The COSMOLOGICAL proof: there must be a first cause which sets everything (the world: cosmos) in motion. Some philosophers maintain that this is the only hopeful argument for a theistic proof. Plato argued that there must be a World Soul, or prime selfmover who sets things in motion. Kant says, however, that there is a logical contradiction in this matter: it seems logical that there is a first cause. It also seems logical that there can be no first cause (for what is the cause of this ’first’ cause?) 2. The TELEOLOGICAL proof: there is purposefulness, design (telos) and order - and this must come from somewhere, namely from the Designer Creator. For example (mine, not Kant’s), it is argued: if you found a watch in a field, you would conclude that it has a designer. The world is even more complex than a watch, so it must have a designer. Or: if a hundred monkeys could type on computer keyboards every day for a year, is there any chance they would (accidentally) type out the first two lines of a Shakespearean sonnet or Imre Madach’s The Tragedy of Man? Kant did not totally try to discredit the teleological argument, but he said that it was insufficient. For example: if God is the source of design, how do we know that there is not a higher source than God? Kant was impressed by the design he found in nature and the world, but he said that while indicating a designer, the teleological argument does not prove that the designer is God.i 3. The ONTOLOGICAL proof, which says that God is the most perfect and necessary being (ontos) - the idea of such a being includes its existence, since existence is part of God’s necessity and perfection. Kant objects to the ontological proof because we cannot jump from the sphere of thought to that of real existence (from eidos to ontos). What seems logically necessary (an idea) is not ontically 1 Rövid összefoglalást ad Hans Küng: Does God Exist? (Crossroad, New York, 1978),sec.F.III. Norman Geisler és Winfried Corduan: Philosophy of Religion (Grand Rapids:Baker Bookhouse, 1993) chapter 5. 23
