Knowledge, Belief, and Faith

Philosophy ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Kenny
Keyword(s):  
Existence Of God ◽  
Richard Dawkins ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Origin Of Language ◽  
The Universe

AbstractIs belief in God reasonable? Richard Dawkins is right to say that traditional arguments for the existence of God are flawed; but so is his own disproof of the existence of God, and there are gaps in neo-Darwinian explanations of the origin of language, of life, and of the universe. The rational response is neither theism nor atheism but agnosticism. Faith in a creed is no virtue, but mere belief in God may be reasonable even if false.

Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī on a Kalām Argument for Creation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Adamson ◽  
Robert Wisnovsky
Keyword(s):  
Tenth Century ◽  
Arabic Text ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Islamic Theology ◽  
The Universe

This article offers an analysis, translation, and edition of a brief, recently uncovered Arabic text by the tenth-century CE Christian Aristotelian thinker Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī. Ibn ʿAdī here takes issue with an argument for the existence of God, widely used in kalām (Islamic theology). According to this argument, bodies cannot exist without being either in motion or at rest; motion and rest must begin; therefore all bodies and hence the universe as a whole must have begun. Ibn ʿAdī diagnoses various flaws in this reasoning, including a supposed part–whole fallacy. The analysis of the text shows how it fits into Ibn ʿAdī’s intellectual profile and the project of the Baghdad Aristotelian school.

scholarly journals KOMPERASI FILSAFAT KETUHANAN NYAYA DARSANA DENGAN BARUCH SPINOZA

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 501
Author(s):  
I Gusti Ngurah Elga Ptra Sutrawan
Keyword(s):  
Value Theory ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Online Data ◽  
Baruch Spinoza ◽  
Single Substance ◽  
Five Senses ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Living Creature ◽  
Is Value

<p><em>The philosophy of the divine NyayaDarsana and Baruch Spinoza are both a concept of the divine which gives understanding that everything comes from God. As the main cause of everything that exist and seeps into its creation which are called Atman or single substance. It confirm that in the philosophy of the divine NyayaDarsana and Baruch Spinoza contains the concept of divinity, that is Phanteism.</em></p><p><em>Based on the description, then the problem discussed in this research is : (1) How is the philosophy of the divine NyayaDarsana and Baruch Spinoza ? (2) What is the differences and equations NyayaDarsana and Baruch Spinoza ?.theory on this reseach is value theory to dissect the first problem related to the values of the philosophy of the divine which contained NyayaDarsana and the thought of Baruch Spinoza. Hermeneutic theory is used to dissect the second problem to interpret differences and equations NyayaDarsana and Baruch Baruch Spinoza. This research is a type of qualitative research with data collection techniques library study, interviews, online data and descriptive qualitative data analysis techniques, with the technique of presenting the description.</em></p><p><em>The result of this research is (1) the philosophy of the divine NyayaDarsana describe that God is the main source. Final goal all living creature that is moksa and way to reach it with knowledge of truth. The philosophy of the divine Baruch Spinoza describe that all reality comes from a single substance that is God and God immanent with nature. The ultimale goal of life based on the thought of Baruch Spinoza is to achieve happiness or freedom from the emotional shackles emotion the equation of NyayaDarsana and Baruch Spinoza is reqognize the existence of God as the main source, containing the concept of panteism. The difference is viewed from the ontology according NyayaDarsanathat the universe comes from elements of caturbhuta that together with akasa (ether) space and time, while thought of Baruch Spinoza that single substance which thought of Baruch Spinoza that single substance which called Modi, God as creator of universe, epistemology on NyayaDarsana contained about knowledge of truth to avoid from false knowledge while thought of Baruch Spinoza contain three knowledge that is the knowledge of the five senses, common sense intuitive to happiness and freedom.</em></p>

Ghazâlî's Argument from Creation (II)

1971 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lenn E. Goodman
Keyword(s):  
Existence Of God ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe

If, as Ghazâlî presumes, the fact of creation can serve as evidence of the existence of God, and if, as he attempts to show, creation is the only binding, reasoned proof of God's existence, Ghazâlî must, to fulfill his program of reconstructing the intellectual basis of Islam, somehow find arguments adequate to prove that creation did in fact take place. He must disprove what was in his time the still vital claim that the Universe had not come to be but had existed forever differing in no essential way from the world we know today.

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD AND THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE

Zygon® ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-185
Author(s):  
Jack C. Carloye
Keyword(s):  
Existence Of God ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Universe

The Irreducible Importance of Religious Hope in Kant's Conception of the Highest Good

Philosophy ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Insole
Keyword(s):  
Medieval Theology ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Highest Good ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Summum Bonum ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Rational Motivation

AbstractKant is clear that the concept of the ‘highest good’ involves both a demand, that we follow the moral law, as well as a promise, that happiness will be the outcome of being moral. The latter element of the highest good has troubled commentators, who tend to find it metaphysically extravagant, involving, as it does, belief in God and an afterlife. Furthermore, it seems to threaten the moral purity that Kant demands: that we obey the moral law for its own sake, not out of interest in the consequences. Those commentators brave enough to tackle the issue look to the concept of the highest good either to add content to the moral law (Silber), or to provide rational motivation, in a way that does not violate moral purity (Beiser and Wood). I argue that such interpretations, although they may be plausible reconstructions, are unable to account for certain conceptual and textual problems. By placing Kant's thought against the background of medieval theology, I argue that the hope for the summum bonum is irreducibly important for Kant, even where its function is not that of providing the content or motivational force of the moral law. Kant is not only concerned with the shape of our duties and motivations, but the shape of the universe within which these emerge.

Scientific Method and the Appraisal of Religion

1985 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-329
Author(s):  
Keith J. Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Method ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Scientific Methodology ◽  
Epistemic Status ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Conceptual Systems ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
The Right

In looking for criteria by which to assess religious conceptual systems, many philosophers have turned for help to scientific methodology. Perhaps this is because they felt philosophers of science were themselves looking in the right epistemological direction, and had a viable way of describing what they saw. Richard Swinburne has provided a strong, sustained treatment of the application of scientific method to religious truth claims, in The Existence of God. He there makes use of what he sees as ‘the close similarities which exist between religious theories and large-scale scientific theories’ in assessing the epistemic status of belief in God. The goal of this paper will be to give enough of Swinburne's position to see what criteria might be plucked therefrom, to subject both the criteria and the underlying methodology to scrutiny, and to assess where one must go from here in appraising the truth-claims of religion.

WHO DESIGNED THE DESIGNER?: A DIALOGUE ON RICHARD DAWKINS'S THE GOD DELUSION

Think ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (21) ◽  
pp. 71-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Groothuis
Keyword(s):  
Richard Dawkins ◽  
The Universe

In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins argues that any designer capable of creating the universe and the things we find in it would have to be at least as complex as his creation. If complexity requires a designer, then the designer will require a designer, and so on to infinity. Rather than actually providing an explanation for complexity we see around us, those who invoke a cosmic designer merely postpone the problem. Here, Douglas Groothuis challenges Dawkins's argument.

Ghazâlî's Argument from Creation. (I)

1971 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leen E. Goodman
Keyword(s):  
Existence Of God ◽  
Design Argument ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Universe

One achievement of the philosophy represented by Ghazâlî is disentangling the creation argument for the existence of God from rival forms of design argument which allow or assume the eternity of the world. From its earliest expressions as an isolated insight which might easily be explained away as myth, the notion that the universe had been brought to be out of what is not was gradually tranformed under pressure of severe Aristottelian criticism into a precise concept, and the argument implicit in such a notion metamorphosed into an elegant and sophisticated demonstration. Backed up by the closely reasoned philosophy of being into which it was now integrated, the argument from creation might confidently hope to be proof against attack.

Can Belief in God be Basic?

Horizons ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-282
Author(s):  
Anthony M. Matteo
Keyword(s):  
Natural Theology ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Sufficient Evidence ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Natural Tendency ◽  
Marginal Status

AbstractAt least since the Enlightenment, religious thinkers in the West have sought to meet the “evidentialist” challenge, that is, to demonstrate that there is sufficient evidence to warrant a rational affirmation of the existence of God. Alvin Plantinga holds that this challenge is rooted in a foundationalist approach to epistemology which is now intellectually bankrupt. He argues that the current critique of foundationalism clears the way for a fruitful reappropriation of the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition's assertion of the “basic” nature of belief in God and its concomitant relegation of the arguments of natural theology to marginal status. After critically assessing Plantinga's proposal—especially its dependence on a nonfoundationalist theory of knowledge—this essay shifts to an analysis of the transcendental Thomist understanding of the rational underpinnings of the theist's affirmation of God's existence, with particular emphasis on the thought of Joseph Maréchal. It is argued that the latter position is better equipped to fend off possible nontheistic counterarguments—even in our current nonfoundationalist atmosphere—and, in fact, can serve as a necessary complement to Calvin's claim of a natural tendency in human beings to believe in God.

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