Hitchens’s Razor Hitchens’s razor is an epistemological razor expressed by writer Christopher Hitchens. It says that the burden of proof regarding the truthfulness of a claim lies with the one who makes the claim; if this burden is not met, then the claim is unfounded, and its opponents need not argue further in order to dismiss it....
Argument From Ignorance Argument from ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance represents “a lack of contrary evidence”), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or a proposition is false because it...
God Of The Gaps “God of the gaps” is a theological perspective in which gaps in scientific knowledge are taken to be evidence or proof of God’s existence. The term “gaps” was initially used by Christian theologians not to discredit theism but rather to point out the fallacy of relying on teleological arguments for God’s existence. Origins of the term...
Transcendental Argument For The Existence of God The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (TAG) is the argument that attempts to prove the existence of God by arguing that logic, morals, and science ultimately presuppose a supreme being and that God must therefore be the source of logic and morals. A version was formulated by Immanuel Kant in his...
Occam’s Razor Occam’s razor, Ockham’s razor, Ocham’s razor, or law of parsimony is the problem-solving principle that “entities should not be multiplied without necessity”, or more simply, the simplest explanation is usually the right one. The idea is attributed to English Franciscan friar William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347), a scholastic philosopher and theologian who used a preference for simplicity to defend the idea...
Argument From Miracles The argument from miracles, also known as the historical argument. There is a long tradition in Christianity of thinking that various miracles can provide the basis for belief in the existence of God. One example of this argument is the Christological argument: the claim that historical evidence...
Argument From Consciousness The argument from consciousness is an argument for the existence of God based on consciousness. The best-known defender of the argument from consciousness is J. P. Moreland. Philosophical summary of the argument Main article: The Existence of God The argument may be stated in inductive or deductive form An alternate, closely related, version of the argument uses Platonism as its...
Argument From Religious Experience The argument from religious experience is an argument for the existence of God. It holds that the best explanation for religious experiences is that they constitute genuine experience or perception of divine reality. Various reasons have been offered for and against accepting this contention. Contemporary defenders of the...
Trademark Argument The trademark argument is an a priori argument for the existence of God developed by French philosopher and mathematician, René Descartes. In the Meditations Descartes provides two arguments for the existence of God. In Meditation V he presents a version of the ontological argument which attempts to deduce the existence of God from the nature of God; in Meditation...
Christological Argument The Christological argument for the existence of God, which exists in several forms, holds that if certain claims about Jesus are valid, one should accept that God exists. There are three main threads; the argument from the wisdom of Jesus, the argument from the claims of Jesus as the son of...
Arguments Against The Existence of God Arguments against the existence of God (atheism) range from philosophical to social and historical approaches. Rationales for not believing in deities include arguments that there is a lack of empirical evidence, the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, the rejection of concepts...
Being And Existence Being and existence in philosophy are related and somewhat overlapping with respect to their meanings. Classical Greek had no independent word of “existence.” The word “existence,” as distinguished from the word “being,” arose in the Middle Ages. Influenced by Islamic philosophy that recognized the contingency of the created world as compared with God the Creator,...
Essence Essence (Latin: essentia) is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity. Essence is contrasted with accident: a property...
What Is Being? Being means the material or immaterial existence of a thing. Anything that exists is being. Anything that partakes in being is also called a “being“, though often this usage is limited to entities that have subjectivity (as in the expression “human being“). The question of being, in philosophy, has been a central topic...
Arguments For The Existence Of God The proofs or arguments for the Existence of God have been proposed by philosophers, theologians, and other thinkers. These arguments have an epistemological dimension (how can one know that God exists?) and an ontological dimension (what is the nature of God’s being?). If God is conceived as the...
Will Of God The will of God, divine will, or God’s plan is the concept of a God having a plan for humanity. Ascribing a volition or a plan to a God generally implies a personal God (God is regarded as a person with a mind, emotions, and will). Interpretations Christianity Leslie Weatherhead says that the will of God...
Absolute In Philosophy The Absolute in philosophy is the term used for the ultimate or most supreme being, usually conceived as either encompassing “the sum of all being, actual and potential”, or otherwise transcending the concept of “being” altogether. While the general concept of a supreme being has been present since...
Ultimate Reality Ultimate reality is “something that is the supreme, final, and fundamental power in all reality.” This heavily overlaps with the concept of the Absolute in certain philosophies. Abrahamic religions Main article: God in Abrahamic religions In Abrahamic religions, a non-anthropomorphic God is the supreme power behind and beyond all things. God is described as...
Divine language Divine language, the language of the gods, or, in monotheism, the language of God (or angels) is the concept of a mystical or divine proto-language, which predates and supersedes human speech. Abrahamic traditions Further information: Adamic language In Judaism and Christianity, it is unclear whether the language used by God to address Adam was the language of Adam, who as name-giver (Genesis 2:19) used it to...
Unmoved Mover The unmoved mover (‘that which moves without being moved’) or prime mover is a concept advanced by Aristotle as a primary cause (or first uncaused cause) or “mover” of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the unmoved mover moves other things, but is not itself moved by any prior action....