For a believer, the existence of the Most High is self-evident and does not need theoretical confirmation. However, in the history of religious and philosophical thought there have been many examples of how speculative reasoning can deduce the necessity of the existence of God.
Instructions
Step 1
The very first proofs of the existence of God as the Absolute, that is, the bearer of all qualities in a superlative degree, go back to the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras. He believed that the complex and diverse cosmos (the universe, as they will say later) is ordered due to the fact that it was created and controlled by the supreme mind ("Nus"). Later, the development of the theory of the Absolute will appear in Aristotle, who believed that every material thing has its own cause, that - its cause, and so on - until God, which has a root cause in itself.
Step 2
In the eleventh century, Anselm of Canterbury offered his ontological argument for the existence of God. He argued that God is the Absolute, possessing all attributes (qualities) in a superlative degree. Since existence is the first attribute of any substance (which was proposed by Aristotle in his categorical structure), then God necessarily possesses being. However, Anselm was criticized for the fact that not every thing that a person can think exists in reality.
Step 3
Aristotle's ideas, as well as his logical structure, were close in spirit to the medieval scholastics. The "Divine Doctor" Thomas Aquinas formulated five classic proofs of the existence of God in the "Sum of Theology". First: every thing has a cause of movement outside of itself, the prime mover, which itself does not move, is God. Second: every thing has an essential cause outside itself, except for God, who is the first essence, and therefore the cause of everything in the world. Third: all existing things originate from a higher essence, which has absolute being - it is God. Fourth: earthly things are characterized by varying degrees of perfection and they all go back to an absolutely perfect God. Fifth: all entities in the world are linked by goal-setting, this chain starts from God, who sets a goal for everything. This is the so-called a posteriori evidence, that is, going from the given to the intelligible.
Step 4
Immanuel Kant, credited with creating the famous sixth proof of the existence of God, raises this topic in his Critique of Practical Reason. The idea of God according to Kant is inherent in every person. The presence in the soul of a categorical imperative (the idea of a higher moral law), which sometimes prompts to act contrary to practical benefits, testifies in favor of the existence of the Almighty.
Step 5
Later, Pascal considered the question of the expediency of belief in God from the point of view of game theory. You can disbelieve and behave immorally, or you can be well-behaved, even if you experience some of the hardships of a righteous life. In the end, a person who has chosen the side of God will either lose nothing or gain heaven. The unbeliever will either lose nothing or go to hell. Obviously, faith will do more good anyway. However, religious philosophers (in particular, Frank) have questioned the "quality" of such faith and its value to God.
