Proofs for the Existence of God

The author explores the differences in the ways of knowing God, with a particular focus on the rational proofs of God’s existence as perceived by noteworthy authors from Christian and Hindu traditions. He deepens the study with insights put forth by Raimundo Panikkar in his seminal work on the encounter between both religions. A possible blend of the two traditions is proposed.

The cosmological argument – the argument from contingency to the existence of a necessary First Cause – forms the core of a long-standing research program in philosophical theology. Even if such theistic arguments are, as Plantinga has demonstrated, unnecessary for the reasonableness of theistic belief, a successful proof would by all accounts have considerable significance. The cosmological argument has in recent years garnered considerable respect, both from theists and agnostics. However, the central assumption of that argument, a principle of sufficient reason or general causation, has failed to win universal acceptance. A recent book by Alexander Pruss, The Principle of Sufficient Reason,[18] has addressed this question with a number of ingenious appeals to our metaphysical intuitions. In this paper, I will attempt to complement Pruss’s efforts through an appeal to epistemology.

This book has two parts. In the first part I explain Aquinas' First Way in its historical context, as a proof from the philosophy of nature rather than metaphysics. I interpret and defend the principle that everything in motion is moved by another, as well as Aquinas' argument against the possibility of infinite regress. I connect the First Way to other versions of the unmoved mover argument in Summa Contra Gentiles I.13 and Aquinas' commentary on books VII & VIII of Aristotle's Physics. I give careful consideration to Aquinas' physical theory throughout. I also give accounts of the Fifth Way and Third Way and their relationship to the First Way.

In the second part I turn to the history of science to show that Aquinas' proof is still valid today. I consider inertia, conservation of momentum, conservation of energy, the entropy principle, statistical mechanics, and contemporary cosmology, showing in each case how Aquinas' proof is actually corroborated, rather than contradicted, by these scientific developments. I finish by considering information theory, biology, and contemporary fine-tuning arguments, indicating how they dovetail with Aquinas' claims that God is one, living, and intelligent.

This Paper, as the title indicates, is meant to look at the topic of ‘Design/non-design’ as well as the question of, “If a Designer designed the Universe, is there a point to science?” To treat this topic with due diligence we introduce to the reader Islamic Epistemology, different terms and methods of logical argumentation, the definition of science and its four major ‘types’ as well as the definitions used throughout. It is the objective of this paper to communicate to the reader, based on the research and findings of several great scientific minds, that we can safely and confidently infer through inductive reasoning that the world and everything in it is by Design rather than non-design. What is more, it is only through the inference of Design that man is capable of doing science; that is, without such constants, patterns and relationships, without organization, structure, function and natural laws, man would be unable to do science at all. In conclusion, rather than inferring Design over non-design hindering scientific progress, it serves as a motivation that drives science forward.

The paper offers some insights on the pertinence of the notion of īśvara to the conceptual frame of Pātañjala Yoga, arguing for its unsystematic origin in the mystical experience of the yogin, against the backdrop of puranic bhakti theism  casting the paremeśvara in the role of the supreme yogin emanating and reabsorbing the universe in a yogic alternation of enstasis and alienation. Within the compass of the rudimentary attempt towards a theoretical integration of the experiential notion of īśvara in the seven relevant sūtras of the I book of the Yoga Sūtras, the paper highlights what amounts to a “proof of God’s existence” in YS I,25, discussing its interpretation by the chief commentators, and the resemblance in theoretical structure of a variant of the proof as expounded by Vijñānabhikṣu to the classical proof “ex gradibus entium” of scholastic theology.

This paper examines critically Kretzmann's reconstruction of the project of natural theology as exemplified by Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles. It is argued that the notion of natural theology, as understood and advocated by Kretzmann, is particularly indebted to the epistemologically biased natural theology of modernity with its focus on rational justification of theistic belief. As a consequence, Kretzmann's view of the arguments for the existence of God and their place within Aquinas's theological project is insufficiently sensitive to the ontological conception of truth and intelligibility which underlies the argumentation. From his epistemological point of view Kretzmann differs from Aquinas in two aspects. First, he contends that it is not necessary to establish the existence of God with absolute certainty at the outset; one may begin with the hypothesis that there is a God. Second, the arguments do not yet conclude to the existence of God in the specific theistic sense; they show at most the existence of a primary explanatory entity, which may be identified with God later on. Both claims are criticized in the light of a discussion of Aquinas's theological method.

In this paper, I attempt to explore the idea that Kant ‘killed’ god – and I will do so chiefly by applying Kant’s refutations of the ontological proof to some of its most prominent instantiations through history, those of Anselm, Descartes and Spinoza.

L'opera "Essere finito e essere eterno" offre un brano riassuntivo della risonanza che ha in Edith Stein l'argomento anselmiano dell'esistenza di Dio. Questo lavoro riflette l'impostazione non tomista dell'autrice nei suoi confronti, l'influsso di Alexandre Koyré e le conseguenze sul senso delle cosidette prove dell'esistenza di Dio.