Philosophy of

Religion: The
Existence of God
by Kamal

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

The study of God

God
Religion/
Theology

Philosophy/
Metaphysic

Reveled theology

Natural Theology/
Philosophy of religion

Gods knowledge/
Revelation/
saving or Salvation

Human speculative knowledge/

Knowing God/
Argument on God

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

The Idea of God

God
Personal Being (Theism)

Non-personal being

Monotheism
(Islam)

Pantheism
(Buddhism)

Panentheism
(Advaita Vedanta)

Polytheism
(Hinduism)
Henotheism

Trinity
(Christianity)

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

The relation between God &

Universe
God & Universe

Dualism
(creator & creation)

Omnipresent

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Deism
(transcendent)

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

Monism
(emanation)

Pantheism

The idea of God

Theism: God is an infinite, unitary, self-existent, allpowerful, all-knowing, perfectly good and personal
being who created the universe out of nothing and
directs it according to teleological laws

Monotheism (Abrahamic religion) believes that there is just one

God.
Polytheism (Hindus), believes in many different deities while
maintaining that all are manifestations of one God
Henotheism

Deism: God started the universe and established natural

laws (the law of physics). The universe is now runs its
own without Gods interference or help.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

The idea of God

Pantheism (Buddhism) assert that God is

himself (or itself) the natural universe or "God is
the world and the world is God. God means a
non-personal being that is unitary, selfexistence, infinite cause of all existences.
Panentheism

(Advaita Vedanta) can be summed up

as "The world is God, but God is more than the world

Henotheism (Greek heis theos "one

god") is a term coined by Max Mller, to mean
devotion to a single god while accepting the
existence or possible existence of other deities.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

Trinity

Trinity [Lat.,=threefoldness], fundamental doctrine in

Christianity, by which God is considered as existing in
three persons. While the doctrine is not explicitly taught
in the New Testament, early Christian communities
testified to a perception that Jesus was God in the flesh;
the idea of the Trinity has been inferred from the Gospel
of St. John.
The developed doctrine of the Trinity purports that God
exists in three coequal and coeternal elementsGod the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

Argument for/against Gods Existence

Gods Existence

Atheism

Theism

Inconsistency
of revelation

A Priori/
reason

Human free will

Ontological/
Gods Definition

A Posteriori/
Sense experience

self-contradictory

Uncertainty/
Not proven

Cosmological/
First Cause

Mover-moved

know vs. power

Necessarycontingency

power vs. evil

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Agnosticism

Teleological/
Design

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

The existence of God

Theism - the arguments indicate there are

sufficient reasons to believe in the existence of
God or gods.
Atheism - the arguments indicate there are not
sufficient reasons to believe in a God or gods
either because they don't exist or other reasons
such as the words don't refer to anything, or the
concept makes no sense or it is unknowable .
Agnosticism - the existence of God or any deity
is irrelevant, uncertain or unknown.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

Terms
Cosmology: the philosophical study and
explanation for the universe
Contingency: something that occurs or
exists only as a result of something else or
that depends on something else
Ontology: the nature of being
Teleology: the study of ultimate causes in
nature or final purpose of thing

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

10

Theism (A Posteriori): Cosmological or

First-Cause argument (moved-mover)

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274): analogy of a train:

moved and mover (based on an empirical proof)
The first-cause argument begins with:
The fact that there is change in the world, and a
change is always the effect of some cause or
causes.
Each cause is itself the effect of a further cause
or set of causes; this chain moves in a series that
either never ends or is completed by a first cause,
which must be of a radically different nature in
that it is not itself caused.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

11

Theism (A Posteriori): Cosmological

argument (Contingency-Necessary)

In nature there are things whose existence is contingent,

that is, possible for it to be and not to be.
Since it is possible for such things not to exist, there
must be some time at which such things did not in fact
exist. Thus, on probabilistic grounds, there must
have been a time when nothing existed. If that is so,
there would exist nothing that could bring anything
into existence, but in reality there is an existence
Thus contingent beings are insufficient to account for the
existence of contingent beings, meaning there must
exist a Necessary Being for which it is impossible
not to exist, and from which the existence of all
contingent beings is derived.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

12

Theism (A Posteriori): Teleological or

Design Argument

The Teleological argument, which argues that the universe's

order and complexity shows signs of purpose (telos), and that
it must have been designed by an intelligent designer with
properties that only a God could have.
World is too (complex, orderly, adaptive, apparently
purposeful, and/or beautiful) to have occurred randomly or
accidentally.
Therefore, world must have been created by a (sentient,
intelligent, wise, and/or purposeful) being.
God is that (sentient, intelligent, wise, and/or purposeful)
being.
Therefore, God exists.
William Paley (1743-1805); argument by analogy between a
watch-watchmaker and world-world creator.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

13

Theism (A Priori): Ontological Argument

The Ontological argument, based on arguments about

the definition of GOD: a being or an existence which
nothing greater than can be conceived
God should be defined as a substance which no
greater entity can be conceived.
The concept of God exists in human understanding
(great). But, the concept of God existing in reality
exists in human understanding (greater; more perfect).
If an entity exists in reality and in human
understanding is greater than it would have been
existed only in human understanding, therefore God
must have been existing in reality (not only in
understanding)
St. Anselm (1033-1109) & Rene Descarte (1596-1950), a
priori argument (non-empirical argument)

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

14

Atheism: Inconsistency of
revelation (human not divine)

The argument from inconsistent revelations

contests the existence of the Middle Eastern,
Biblical deity called God as described in holy
scriptures, such as the Jewish Torah, the
Christian Bible (Injil), or the Muslim Qur'an,
by identifying contradictions between different
scriptures, contradictions within a single
scripture, or contradictions between scripture
and known facts (Science)

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

15

Atheism: human free will

The argument from free will contest the

existence of an omniscient (all-knowing)
god who has free will by arguing that the
two properties are contradictory. If god has
already planned the future, then humanity
is destined to follow that plan and we do
not have true free will to deviate from it.
Therefore our free will contradicts an
omniscient god.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

16

Atheism: self-contradictory
attribution (knowing-doing) of God

One simple argument that the existence of a god is selfcontradictory goes as follows: If God is defined as
omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipotent (all-power),
then God has absolute knowledge of all events that will
occur in the future, including all of his future actions, due
to his omniscience.
However, his omnipotence implies he has the power to
act in a different manner than he predicted, thus implying
that God's predictions about the future are fallible. This
implies that God is not really omniscient, at least when it
comes to knowledge about future events. So a God
defined as omniscient and omnipotent cannot exist.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

17

Atheism: the problem of evil

The problem of evil can be used to prove that no gods

exist by the method of reductio ad absurdum (proof by
contradiction). This method does not prove the nonexistence of all gods, rather it is an argument that if such
a god exists then he is not both omnipotent and
benevolent (good God)
Already Epicure pointed out the contradiction, stating
that if an omnipotent God existed, the evil in the world
should be impossible. As there is evil in the world, the
god must either not be omnipotent or he must not be
omni-benevolent. If he is not omnipotent, he is not God;
if he is not omni-benevolent, he is not God the All
merciful, but only an evil creature.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

18

Argument for uncertainty of the

existence of God (Agnostics)

Possible reasons for holding this view are a belief that

the existence of any deity has not yet been sufficiently
proven, that the existence of a deity cannot be proven,
or, quite simply, that claims about the existence or nonexistence of any deity make no sense. Agnostics may
claim that it isn't possible to have absolute or certain
knowledge of supernatural beings or, alternatively, that
while certainty may be possible, they personally have no
such knowledge.
Agnostics may or may not still believe in gods based on
Fideilistic convictions (fideism)

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

19

Belief = rational (reason) or knowledge?

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

20

God?

In Islam, can we know/cognize what is God (its being)?

(42:11)

(6:103)
Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

21

The Problem of the arguments

about the existence of God

Should knowledge only be defined as a justified

true belief ? a knowledge of belief that or
intellectual knowledge the logic of
speculation (scientific); primarily
propositional statement!
Could knowledge be just a belief without proof?
a knowledge of belief in or experiential
knowledge the logic of relationship (a faith:
spiritual boundary); a great trust, confidence,
acceptance; an event of disclosure!

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

22

Reason vs. Faith

Faith: Do you believe in ME? Faith is a
personal commitment (soul; a feeling)
Reason: Do you believe that I exist?
Rational Belief is a clever employment of
reason (intellect).

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

23

Reference

Warburton, Nigel. 1992. Philosophy: The Basic. London:

Routledge (p. 11-36)
Pojman, Louis P. Introduction to Philosophy: Classical
and Contemporary Readings. California: Wadsworth
Publishing Company
Kessler, Gary E. Voices of Wisdom: A Multicultural
Philosophy Reader. California: Wadsworth Publishing
Company (p. 301-345).
Stewart, David & Blocker, H Gene. 1996. Fundamentals
of Philosophy. 4th Edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar

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