The Encyclopedia of World Religions

180 S God, the existence of

nition of a word. We can only demonstrate that something exists by arguing from what we per ceive with our senses. People who object to the cosmological and teleological arguments generally use one of two counterarguments. One counterar gument claims that there are other, better ways to explain the characteristics of the universe, such as the theory of biological evolution. These people may view intelligent design the way they view a chemist who attributes the result of an experiment she or he cannot explain to an act of God; it is better simply to say that we do not yet know the cause. The other counterargument says that the cosmological and teleological arguments do not go far enough. They prove that the foundations of the universe exist, or perhaps that what Hindus call BRAHMAN exists, but they beg the question about whether we should call those foundations God. One problem with the moral argument is that it requires a view of morality that was not popular with North American thinkers in the last half of the 20th century. People may also object to the other approaches mentioned above. For some, the probability of God’s existence may be so small that they see little real benefit in believing in God. Some may equate Otto’s hunch with hunches about spirits and spooks, making it much less compelling. For some, the God of process theology may not be what they mean by God at all; others may object that process theologians should stop talking about God and just talk about the world instead. Some people who accept the notion that knowledge has foundations take a narrower view of those foun dations. Their view denies that God’s existence is really a foundational proposition. Other peo ple, known as “antifoundationalists,” reject the notion that there are foundational propositions altogether. SUMMARY Philosophers and theologians have not come to any agreement about whether it is possible to prove that God exists. Many reject the attempt as misguided. Others continue to develop and revise arguments for the existence of God.

Possible Worlds and Modal Logic In the 20th century philosophers began to use a kind of logic known as “modal logic.” This kind of logic talks not about what is but about what might be. For example, talking about possible worlds helps clarify some philosophical issues. These worlds may not be the world we live in, but they are worlds that we can imagine consistently, worlds that make sense. The American Protestant philosopher Alvin Plantinga (b. 1932) has used this kind of logic to develop a version of the ontological argument. Like many arguments in philosophy, his argu ment is subtle, and it requires more knowledge of modal logic than most readers will possess, but roughly it goes like this. It is possible for a world to exist in which there is a being who is maxi mally great. But what does it mean to be maxi mally great? A maximally great being would be one that existed in all possible worlds, including our own. For such a being to exist in a possible world, it must exist in all possible worlds, includ ing our own. Many philosophers doubt that this argument actually demonstrates that God exists, and Plant inga himself is willing to grant that. But what he does claim is that the argument shows that it is rational to hold that God exists. Many philoso phers also disagree that this conclusion follows from Plantinga’s argument. OBJECTIONS TO THE ARGUMENTS European Christians have not been the only people to use these arguments that God exists. For exam ple, a school of Indian philosophy that specializes in logic, known as the Nyaya school, developed all of the classical arguments except the ontological one. But not everyone has found these arguments satisfactory. Some have argued against one argu ment in making a case for another. For example, the Catholic thinker Thomas A QUINAS (1224–74) argued against the ontological argument in propos ing the cosmological one. Most people make the same objection to the ontological argument. They say that we cannot deduce that something exists simply from the defi