New Proofs for the Existence of God responds to these glaring omissions. / From universal space-time asymmetry to cosmic coincidences to the intelligibility of ...

Hegel believes that the immanent ascent of finite spirit and its immersion in its uncreated foundation-in absolute spirit-is a true transition and he cannot use the so-called proofs of the existence of God. Besides, he sees an advantage here in that this transition results in the ascent of the human spirit to the most concrete and true, to God in His absolute truth-to Absolute Spirit. In connection with this, Hegel emphasizes in the manuscript of his lectures on the philosophy (...) of religion that the speculative meaning of the religious idea of the immortality of the soul lies in attaining the absoluteness and infinity of self-consciousness, the fact that "the self-consciousness of the spiritual is itself an eternal, absolute factor.". (shrink)

The proofs offered by St. Thomas of the existence of God suggest a problem. The day is past when the scholasticism of the Middle Ages was scornfully—often ignorantly—dismissed. The intellectual strength of a thinker such as St. Thomas is amply recognized.

Maimonides looks for the true axiom for a demonstration of the existence of God, and he finds it in the universal fact of movement. His logical argumentation is as follows: given the hypothesis of the eternity of the Universe, of its eternal movement, if we can think of a First Mover, that Mover has all the characteristics of the First Principle according to Aristotle; the characteristics of eternity and to be essentially moving. Maimonides' contribution to the Aristotelian theory of (...) the First Principle is precisely the crossing of the invisible barrier between the physical proof of the First Mover and the metaphysical proof of the First Principle. By transforming Aristotle's corollary into the postulate that supports the whole proof, Maimonides avoids the aporia of the First Principle being confused with the First Mover. But setting a postulate, that is, a proposition whose opposite is equally possible, at the foundations of the theory, transforms what was meant to be "a true and indubitable proof" into a scientific theory in the modern sense of the term: a theory that can be accepted as true only regarding certain parameters or system of propositions. If there was creation of the world in time, then no doubt there is a Creator. If the world is eternally moving, then it has a Mover that is essentially moving, incorporeal, one and eternal itself, namely the divinity. (shrink)

This book provides a detailed, updated exposition and defense of five of the historically most important (but in recent years largely neglected) philosophical proofs of God’s existence: the Aristotelian, the Neo-Platonic, the Augustinian, the Thomistic, and the Rationalist. It also offers a thorough treatment of each of the key divine attributes—unity, simplicity, eternity, omnipotence, omniscience, perfect goodness, and so forth—showing that they must be possessed by the God whose existence is demonstrated by the proofs. Finally, it answers at (...) length all of the objections that have been leveled against these proofs. This work provides as ambitious and complete a defense of traditional natural theology as is currently in print. Its aim is to vindicate the view of the greatest philosophers of the past— thinkers like Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Leibniz, and many others— that the existence of God can be established with certainty by way of purely rational arguments. It thereby serves as a refutation both of atheism and of the fideism that gives aid and comfort to atheism. (shrink)

Kaye and Prisco draw our attention to one of the more obvious difficulties with all versions of the argument from design.

Nyāya, which is one of the orthodox Brahmanical schools in India, accepts the authority of both the Vedic scriptures and God as its composer. Nyāya has specialized in logic and argumentation from ancient times while at the same time gradually strengthening its theistic tendency. Nyāya polemicist, Udayana, is famous for his contribution to the rational proof of the existence of God. In this paper, I will consider a tiny part of his proof of the existence of (...) God given in his theistic monograph, the Nyāyakusumāñjali, and in particular a topic called prāmāṇyavāda, or the Theory of Validity, from the viewpoint of the historical development of this argument. In this topic, it is argued how we justify our cognition and undertake actions. Nyāya polemicists preceding Udayana argued this topic in order to justify the Vedic scriptures and to encourage people to perform the Vedic rituals. And this topic has had little relationship with theological context. However, Udayana seems to link this argument to his theory of theology in an implicit way. I will suppose in his argument the implicit linkage between the prāmāṇyavāda and the assumption of an omniscient being. (shrink)

Both in the East and in the West, there is, apart from the religious approach to God, also a purely rational one. Although in India philosophical speculation on God was mostly inextricably bound to religion, there have also been purely rational developments in Indian theodicy. This is the case above all in the Nyayavaisesika system, where we find a purely rational and logical approach to the question of the existence and nature of God. It is the specific contribution of (...) the Nyayavaisesika system to have developed a purely logical and rational argument for the existence of God. My purpose here is to take this proof in its developed form, as it is found in Gasgesa, and investigate its philosophical and logical implications. (shrink)

The core idea of the ontological proof is to show that the concept of existence is somehow contained in the concept of God, and that therefore God’s existence can be logically derived—without any further assumptions about the external world—from the very idea, or definition, of God. Now, G.W. Leibniz has argued repeatedly that the traditional versions of the ontological proof are not fully conclusive, because they rest on the tacit assumption that the concept of God is (...) possible, i.e. free from contradiction. A complete proof will rather have to consist of two parts. First, a proof of premiseGod is possible. Second, a demonstration of the “remarkable proposition”If God is possible, then God exists. The present contribution investigates an interesting paper in which Leibniz tries to prove proposition. It will be argued that the underlying idea of God as a necessary being has to be interpreted with the help of a distinguished predicate letter ‘E’ as follows:\\). Proposition which Leibniz considered as “the best fruit of the entire logic” can then be formalized as follows:\) \rightarrow \, E)\). At first sight, Leibniz’s proof appears to be formally correct; but a closer examination reveals an ambiguity in his use of the modal notions. According to, the possibility of the necessary being has to be understood in the sense of something which possibly exists. However, in other places of his proof, Leibniz interprets the assumption that the necessary being is impossible in the diverging sense of something which involves a contradiction. Furthermore, Leibniz believes that an »impossible thing«, y, is such that contradictory propositions like \\) and \\) might both be true of y. It will be argued that the latter assumption is incompatible with Leibniz’s general views about logic and that the crucial proof is better reinterpreted as dealing with the necessity, possibility, and impossibility of concepts rather than of objects. In this case, the counterpart of turns out to be a theorem of Leibniz’s second order logic of concepts; but in order to obtain a full demonstration of the existence of God, the counterpart of, i.e. the self-consistency of the concept of a necessary being, remains to be proven. (shrink)

We argue that Descartes’s theistic proofs in the ’Meditations’ are much simpler and straightforward than they are traditionally taken to be. In particular, we show how the causal argument of the "Third Meditation" depends on the intuitively innocent principle that nothing comes from nothing, and not on the more controversial principle that the objective reality of an idea must have a cause with at least as much formal reality. We also demonstrate that the so-called ontological "argument" of the "Fifth Meditation" (...) is best understood not as a formal proof but as an axiom, revealed as self-evident by analytic meditation. (shrink)

The Hegel Lectures Series Series Editor: Peter C. Hodgson Hegel's lectures have had as great a historical impact as the works he himself published. Important elements of his system are elaborated only in the lectures, especially those given in Berlin during the last decade of his life. The original editors conflated materials from different sources and dates, obscuring the development and logic of Hegel's thought. The Hegel Lectures series is based on a selection of extant and recently discovered transcripts and (...) manuscripts. Lectures from specific years are reconstructed so that the structure of Hegel's argument can be followed. Each volume presents an accurate new translation accompanied by an editorial introduction and annotations on the text, which make possible the identification of Hegel's many allusions and sources. Lectures on the Proofs of the Existence of God Hegel lectured on the proofs of the existence of God as a separate topic in 1829. He also discussed the proofs in the context of his lectures on the philosophy of religion (1821-31), where the different types of proofs were considered mostly in relation to specific religions. The text that he prepared for his lectures in 1829 was a fully formulated manuscript and appears to have been the first draft of a work that he intended to publish and for which he signed a contract shortly before his death in 1831. The 16 lectures include an introduction to the problem of the proofs and a detailed discussion of the cosmological proof. Philipp Marheineke published these lectures in 1832 as an appendix to the lectures on the philosophy of religion, together with an earlier manuscript fragment on the cosmological proof and the treatment of the teleological and ontological proofs as found in the 1831 philosophy of religion lectures. Hegel's 1829 lectures on the proofs are of particular importance because they represent what he actually wrote as distinct from auditors' transcriptions of oral lectures. Moreover, they come late in his career and offer his final and most seasoned thinking on a topic of obvious significance to him, that of the reality status of God and ways of knowing God. These materials show how Hegel conceived the connection between the cosmological, teleological, and ontological proofs. All of this material has been newly translated by Peter C. Hodgson from the German critical editions by Walter Jaeschke. This edition includes an editorial introduction, annotations on the text, and a glossary and bibliography. (shrink)

Peter C. Hodgson provides a new translation of Hegel's 1829 lectures on the proofs of the existence of God, based on the definitive German edition. Coming late in his career, these lectures give us the great philosopher's final and most seasoned thinking on a topic of obvious significance to him, that of the reality status of God and ways of knowing God.

Paley’s ‘proof’ of the existence of God, or some supposed version of it, is well known. In this paper I offer the real thing and two objections to it. One objection is my own, and the other is provided by Darwin.

First, I shall summarize a few points which have been explained and defended elsewhere. Some may find these assumptions unacceptable; but it seems otiose to repeat arguments I cannot at present improve.

중세 스콜라 학자들은 ‘신의 존재’에 대해 많은 증명과 그 증명에 대한 비판을 남겨 놓았다. 그렇지만 이런 증명들에 대한 논의가자연과학이 발달한 현대에도 과연 의미를 지닐 수 있을까? 본 연구에서는 가장 유명한 두 증명을 비교해 보았다.????신학대전????에 나오는 ‘다섯가지 길’을 통해 ‘경험론적 증명’의 대표자 토마스 아퀴나스는 가장 유명한 신존재 증명 중에 하나인 안셀무스의????프로슬로기온????에 기원을 둔 존재론적 증명을 비판했다. 본 논문에서는 이를 소개한 후, 토마스의 안셀무스 비판이 과연 정당한가를 살펴보았다. 이를 토대로 두 사상가들이 지녔던 상이한 전제들과 의도들이 무엇인가를 기술했다. 그런데 안셀무스의 증명은 그가 전제했던 (...) 플라톤적인 체계와 실재 관념을 받아들이지 않는 경험론자들에게는 아무런 설득력도 지니지 못할 것이다. 토마스 아퀴나스의 “다섯 가지 길”도 그곳에 포함되어 있는 아리스토텔레스적인 전제가의문시되는 곳에서는 그 설득력을 잃어버린다. 이처럼 신존재 증명에 대한 평가는 모두 평가자 자신의 형이상학적 입장에 따라 다르게 판단된다. 우리는 각자 자신이 가지고 있는 형이상학적이거나 신앙적인 전제에 따라 어떠한 종류의 신존재증명을 인정하거나일부 또는 일체의 신존재증명을 부정할 수도 있다. 그러나 다양한신존재증명은 다른 입장의 문제점을 드러나게 해 주고, 인간이 직접 전체적으로 포괄할 수 없는 신적인 실재에 대한 이해가능성을한 측면에서라도 높여 줄 수 있다. 신존재증명들간의 차이에 대한성찰은 우리 현대인의 사고틀도 경직되어 있지 않은가를 돌아보게해 준다. 개별적인 신존재 증명은 이를 접하는 각자가 지니고 있는전제에 기반해서 실존적인 결단을 도와줄 이성적인 성찰로서의 기능할 수 있을 것이다. (shrink)

I examine Edith Stein’s argument for the existence of God found in Finite and Eternal Being. Although largely Thomistic in its structure, the proof is unique in its details, starting with the life of the ego (Ichleben) and ascending to the being of God. The ego is shown to be contingent in its being as well as in the meaning-content through which it lives. Stein argues that this dependent being cannot be accounted for without a being that does (...) not need to receive its being, namely, God. She then turns to the felt security of being as a counter to Heideggerian Angst as a revelatory mood, arguing that security puts us into contact with divine being. She concludes by admitting that proofs rarely convince because of the infinite distance between creature and creator, but concedes to them a role, nonetheless, in shrinking the distance between belief and unbelief. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Hegel's Discussion of the Proofs On “Proof” and “Existence” The Proofs, Religious Elevation, and the Communion of Spirit The Multiplicity of Proofs and the One God The Cosmological Proof The Teleological Proof The Ontological Proof The Dialectic of the Proofs and the Speculative Reversal Hegel's Proofs Today.

Time was when the proofs of the existence of God formed an essential part of any self-respecting system of Philosophy. But for many years now this has ceased to be the case. It may be due to the gradual increase of the influence of Kant that the idea seems to have become accepted, tacitly, in the main, but none the less very widely, that proof or disproof of a belief such as this was hardly a fit subject for (...) philosophical discussion at all. At any rate, it is noteworthy how rarely the question is faced directly in the philosophical discussions of the last forty years or so. What we have had, much more frequently, is discussion about how the God of religion might be thought of and what sort of place He might have in reality as conceived in this or that philosophical system. And certainly discussions on these lines have done much to clarify our conception of the Divine, even if they have sometimes seemed to explain it only by explaining it away altogether, or at any rate to present us with the idea of something which, whatever it is, is certainly not the God of any religion. But of recent years I seem to detect a growing readiness to face the question as squarely as the old theologians, whopropounded the first proofs of God's existence, did. (shrink)

Over the last 50 years, the English philosopher Richard Swinburne (b. 1934) has been a very influential proponent of philosophical arguments for the existence of God (natural theology). His major philosophical contributions lie in the areas of philosophy of science and philosophy of religion. From a general philosophical point of view, Swinburne stimulated much discussion with his early work in the philosophy of religion. He has also played a role (a) in the recent debate over the mind-body problem, and (...) (b) in the debate on libertarian free will. Swinburne is also noted as one of the foremost current Christian apologists, arguing that faith in Christian God is rational and coherent in a rigorous philosophical sense. My discussion with Richard Swinburne revisits the analytic and non-analytic philosophy of religion. Above all, however, it aims at shedding light on Swinburne’s thought regarding some important philosophical issues, such as the Kantian arguments on the existence of God, the relationship between ratio and one’s immediate experience of God (empireia), “strong possibilities” the problem of the existence of evil in the world, but also the theological significance and value of Orthodoxy in contrast to other Christian creeds or even religions. (shrink)

Since Anselm first published his 9rosfogion in in the late fi070s, two things have generally been assumed: first, that his argument for the existence of God is a form of what later became known as an ontological argument; and, second, that this argument resided in Chapter 2 of a 26-chapter work. Campbell’s latest book challenges both of these, de- monstrating with convincing force that the latter is false and the former unlikely. Consequent to this challenging of the status quo, (...) as the book’s subtitle suggests, Campbell provides a persuasive vindication of Anselm’s arguments, to the point of declaring them a valid proof for the existence of God. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Mohism has been called the most religious of all Chinese philosophies. Living up to that name, it developed unique proofs for the existence of the spiritual realm within a distinctly Chinese context. The Mozi uses testimonies from China’s mythic history to prove the existence of spirits. But beyond these cultural proofs, the Mozi also introduces a logical argument that is very similar to Pascal’s wager. Beyond these four explicit arguments, the Mozi also contains a fifth proof (...) based on the existence of a supernatural order that exists in the structure of the world. (shrink)

This is one of Barth's most important works - far more important than may appear at first sight.... Here we have not merely one great theologian taking the measure of another. That in itself would be interesting enough. But in addition to that we are here shown one great theologian clarifying and crystallizing, in conversation with another, his own ideas as to the nature of theology and of the theologian's task. Scottish Journal of Theology.