Metaphysics

3.) In the Third Meditation and Proslogion, both Descartes and Anselm are trying to prove the existence of God. Descartes’ argument was based on two ideas: a hierarchy of realities (objective reality) and clear and distinct perceptions. Anselm on the other hand correlates his argument with the belief that God is something which no greater can be imagined, thus God exists in both reality and in understanding. In this essay, I will be talking about the contrasting views that of Descartes’ and…

In his first meditation, Descartes decides to get rid of any false beliefs. All of his past beliefs were built on his senses, which have deceived him in the past. Despite this deception, Descartes expresses how there could be things learned through his senses that he cannot doubt, such as himself. He recalls how even his dreams have deceived him before, making him believe that he is sitting near a fire, when in reality he is asleep in bed. An obscured line between waking life and sleep forms,…

Ministry and Theology Over time, Augustine formulated his conceptual understanding of the rationality of evil, original sin, grace, human freedom, predestination and the sacraments. Initially intrigued by the dualistic themes of dark and light, and flesh and spirit, Augustine’s theological journey saw him trying to set his life in order by testing a variety of belief structures. Much of the focus of Augustine’s writing was in response to the Manicheans regarding the origin of evil, to…

Although each history has a different opinion regarding the image of God, I figured out that Saint Irenaeus’s view on the image of God was quite unique. It attracts me to dig deeper into it and learn more about his perspective towards this controversial theological topic. Saint Irenaeus was a Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul. Additionally, his title as a Bishop, he was an early Church Father and apologist. Among his variety perspectives, I found one theological perspective that differed from my…

Helen O/Bannon Going Back Over: Akasha AKASHA The goal of this essay is to discuss the word Akasha. There may be some misconceptions of what Akasha is and I will help to straighten that out. Colleen Criswell cites in The Magical Circle School Resource Library that Akasha is “quite simply the fancy term for “Element of Spirit”” Criswell goes on to state that Akasha is not human or a personal spirit. The White Goddess webpage cites how the Akasha word comes from Persia and East India and means…

For all that I am still something (Descartes, 5) To say that I am ‘something’ is to imply that we should think “What something am I?” A soul, a body, a mind or nothing? The soul theory is the theory where we believe that we ‘occupy’ our bodies but that isn’t what defines out personal identity. We are a non-physical, immaterial soul. But, we know hardly anything about the soul, for example- Do we only have one soul? When we die will our soul die? Do we switch souls? How can we state that our…

Rationalist philosopher Descartes implies that we can never really know for certain if we are actually living the life we believe we are. We could be sleeping at this very moment and dreaming about all this? We could be living in a phony computer simulation and we wouldn’t know it. I believe that Descartes and modern scientists are actually onto something here and aren’t as crazy as they seem to be. In this essay, I will summarize rationalism and Descartes’ First Meditation. I will also be…

Has the thought of the universes existence ever crossed your mind? How about how did it get here, or whom could have created such a complex environment? This is a thought that many philosophers have debated about. A famous philosopher in the seventeenth through eighteenth century named, Gottfriend Wilhem Leibniz, best explained the principle of sufficient reason (PSR) as “an adequate reason to account for the existence and nature of everything that could conceivably not exist.” (“Principle of…

We commonly hear the phrase: ‘mind, body, and soul’, as if they are three independent parts of an overall puzzle that makes us exactly who we are. Dualist theories presented by Descartes and others present the ideas that two things makes us who we are; the soul and the mind/body. Physicalist theories presented by Smart and others present the idea that we are our brains; everything we are is a result of our brain processes and functionality. In this paper, I will be critiquing the soul account…

From the year 500 A.D. until the 1650s, the Catholic Church reigned supreme in most of the world. As the dominant religion during medieval times, it was considered one of the only authorities for truth. However, although the Church seemed almost as powerful as God Himself, it had its weaknesses. The Church could not explain how reality works through the Bible alone; it relied on Ancient Greek philosophy for those answers. The Church often used Aristotle, a famous Ancient Greek philosopher, as a…