Questions tagged [theology]
Theology is the field of study and analysis that treats of God and of God's attributes and relations to the universe; the study of divine things or religious truth; divinity.
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Is the "omniscient-omnipotent-omnipresent" definition of God consistent?
God is commonly defined as an omniscient (infinite knowledge), omnipotent (unlimited power), omnipresent (present everywhere) entity.
Is there any logical inconsistency in this definition?
I have ...
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Is God either amoral or not omnipotent?
The usual (Christian) justification for suffering/evil in the world created by a benevolent God is freedom of the will. However, the more interesting question is not about the source of evil (which ...
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Does a negative claimant have a burden of proof?
I have often heard it said that the burden of proof is on the positive claimant but not on the one making a negative claim. A person claiming, "God exists" has a burden of proof but not a person ...
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What should a rational person accept as a miracle?
I was reading through this collection of short essays from theologians, scientists and thinkers each responding to the question "Does the Universe have a purpose?" which was suggested to me in a ...
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Asserting that Atheism and Theism are both faith based positions
I am recently testing an assertion that I have concluded namely that atheism is a faith based position just like theism is a faith based position.
The reason I arrived at this conclusion is that ...
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Evil thoughts without actions?
Can a thought without a corresponding action be morally wrong?
More fully, under which approaches to morality do thoughts, in and of themselves,
carry moral significance?
In particular I'm looking ...
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What is the point of creating for an omniscient being?
I read a book about determinism and free will that argued an all knowing / all powerful God and free will are incompatible, because if God knows our future then our actions are determined, hence no ...
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How do theologians and apologists justify the exclusiveness of their specific belief system w/r to similar but distinct belief systems?
There are several arguments for the existence of God. Whether you agree with them or not, all of these arguments argue only for the existence of a supreme being/first cause. None of them provide ...
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Is there a suppressed premise in Anselm's Ontological Argument?
Source: 5 minutes 20 seconds juncture; Lecture 1, Video 4 (transcription);
MITx: 24.00x Introduction to Philosophy; by MIT Associate Prof Caspar Hare PhD (Princeton)
[...]
Suppose God existed in ...
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How can one not believe in god as the root cause of the universe?
How can you lack belief in the existence of god?
I define god here as prime cause. As the world is a sum of collections of events, causally linked to the past through time, then there must be a ...
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What is the difference between Philosophy and Theology?
In attempting to wrap my mind around the basic vocabulary, concepts, and methods of philosophy, I find myself wondering what the difference is between a philosopher and a theologian.
Theology (link ...
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What do necessity and possibility mean in Aquinas' Third Way argument for the existence of God?
In his famous Summa Theologica, the Scholastic theologian Thomas Aquinas presents Five Ways to demonstrate the existence of God. Here is Aquinas' Third Way, the argument from contigency:
The third ...
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Does existence precede quiddity? [closed]
Is there an undisputed argument for the existence of God as, for instance, Avicenna's and Mulla Sadra's metaphysical argument, which state that "existence is ontologically prior to essence"?
Some of ...
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Does Pascal's Wager contain any logical flaws or fallacies?
Blaise Pascal's famous wager was that even if the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a rational person should wager as though God exists, because living life accordingly has ...
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Is God subject to logic?
If someone claims that God is beyond logic then how do we know he is beyond logic ? (as we lose all the methods to know whether the claim is true or not?)
Logic is the use and study of valid reasoning,...
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How can a belief in God be reconciled with modern science?
My question is this: How can someone living in such a world and age possibly believe in God?
To elaborate, I think I understand where religion and the belief in supernatural stems from. It was our ...
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How would you know if nonobservable entities exist?
Nonphysical entities cannot be observed. Therefore such entities cannot be verified by observation. How could statements like "God exists" be even considered true? Why would anyone appeal to the ...
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Is Sam Harris's view of morality innovating? What philosophers innovated specifics on morality?
Sam Harris in his book, The moral landscape (2010), has certainly ignited discussions on morality, but did Sam Harris create his view or popularize someone else's?
side== I am also curious if anyone ...
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What would it take in a book to convince a rational person that it had been written by or directly inspired by a god?
Many of the world's religions are based on a book or text that adherents claim to have been written by or directly inspired by a god, perhaps omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent.
My question is ...
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Where is the weakness in the ontological proof for God's existence?
I read the ontological proof for God's existence. As much as I understood, it says that if you consider that existence is part of essence, then the most complete essence should also exist.
Now, I see ...
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Is watching an amputated limb regrow proof of the supernatural?
A typical challenge skeptics present when confronted with claims of alleged miracles is "why won't God Heal amputees?". But, would that do the job? Consider the following thought experiment: ...
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Does God have the power to make identical universes through different means?
The easiest way to explain this question is with a thought experiment:
Consider God, the ultimate of everything, who is wholly omnipotent (all-powerful) and omniscient (all-knowing). Let's just say, ...
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Why are there so many religions and gods? [closed]
Why are there so many religions and gods all over the world? Come to think of it, when the idea spread, why did people develop different gods and beliefs rather than follow the same one?
If the idea ...
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Problems with the Omnipotence paradox
From Wikipedia:
The omnipotence paradox is a family of semantic paradoxes that explores what is meant by 'omnipotence'. If an omnipotent being is able to perform any action, then it should be able ...
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How does Plantinga's defense of free will align with omniscience
I've been reading about Plantinga's defense of free will and I can see how omnipotence is aligned with the existence of evil. What evades me, is how he resolves the conflict between foreknowledge and ...
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Why can there only be one necessary being, as opposed to two or thirty seven?
I was reading about apologetics the other day and read as part of the causal argument for God's existence that there cannot be more than one necessary being (cause), meaning that there is only one God,...
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Can strong omnipotence be decomposed into logically possible and logically impossible aspects?
A lot of debate in the "omnipotent being" or "omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, etc." being debate revolves around the definition of the terms. I consider the "strong form" of ...
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Would tragedy exist if there was no evil but only good?
I watched Jordan Peterson's video about tragedy vs evil. It's been some time since but I thought about it a lot and now come to some questions that confuse me tremendously. I have the idea that ...
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Is God free to make decisions?
God is omniscient, that means He knows the only one future. The only one future will become the only one past after some time. Thus we are sure that this future is really only one. It will be ...
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Do multiverse theories undermine intelligent design arguments mathematically?
It is well known that the probability of life arising in a universe of our sort is vanishingly small. Theists have used this fact to argue that life is designed by God. However, if there are an ...
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Is an omniscient entity self-refuting?
Consider a thought experiment involving 'something' and three individuals attempting to understand it: one person claims it is a red ball, another asserts it is a simulation, and the third insists it ...
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What is the purpose of the universe? [closed]
There are two extremes known as creationism vs evolutionism. Let's consider creationism for a moment, and imagine that God exists, and he/she has created us. The question that obsesses my mind after ...
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Does the impossibility of an infinite regress prove God exists?
I'm strictly discussing one aspect of God: God as the First Cause. I am excluding all other qualities of God defined by any religion or belief system -- including the notion of God as a sentient being....
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Why should I believe my own conclusions?
Consider the metaphysical question of whether God exists (just as an example). There are, and have been throughout history, billions of atheists, billions of Christians, and billions of people with ...
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How does Schopenhauer maintain idealism without God?
In Berkeley's idealism God holds the world together, enabling us to avoid chaos and experience a shared, orderly reality. But Schopenhauer is an idealist and an atheist. How can we then explain the ...
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Does punishment from god contradict the idea of free will?
In various religions it is often preached that god has given humans free will. But at the same time those religions preach that there is punishment for sinning.
Assuming a god does exist, and god ...
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Why have philosophers historically defined God as omni-benevolent?
Whenever I read philosophy throughout history regarding God, I notice something I have issue with: Philosophers in most cases define god to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-benevolent.
The first ...
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Is it possible to be truly unbiased?
I was pondering this question: Inductive Argument Against Believing Anything
I his argument, the OP suggests that, in the position of choosing a system of belief where there are multiple, large ...
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How does Descartes determine that the idea of God has more objective reality than finite substance?
Descartes's third meditation, which sets out to prove the existence of God from previous considerations, confuses me greatly. Descartes appears to be trying to make an argument that the source must ...
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How does Descartes use god in his Meditations?
How does Descartes use god to avoid answering certain questions directly?
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When people say I need evidence to believe in God, what constitutes 'evidence'?
In the debate of whether or not God exists, which is often used to ridicule those that do believe in God as simple idiots who have no brains, the premise if often thrown out the there is no 'evidence.'...
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Can a coincidence be evidence of a god?
If I experience a coincidence or a coincidence happens in the world that seems to be at extremely low odds, does this imply that God exists? If it doesn’t imply that God exists, can it at least make ...
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God's paradoxes and their implications [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Is the definition of God consistent?
As many of you, I've come across a few paradoxes of all sorts, from logic to math, linguistics and so forth. Some of such involve God or, ...
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Is theism necessarily 'faith-based'?
Reading this question recently posted, an assertion was made that theism and atheism are both "faith-based" positions.
Ignoring the argument regarding atheism, I feel the initial premise deserves a ...
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What makes Leibniz's definition of perfection unintelligible?
Leibniz defined a perfection as a simple, positive quality in the highest degree.
Norman Malcolm says
I do not find his definition of a perfection intelligible. For one thing, it assumes that ...
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Does the presence of free-will allow for the possibility of evil in a world with a benevolent God?
The Problem of Evil is to understand how God can allow evil in the world if He is omni-benevolent (all-good), as someone who is all-good would not knowingly allow evil to occur where they could ...
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Does Plantinga view God as knowing precisely what a human being will choose to do?
This question has been bothering me since I attempted an answer to Dmitry Ornatsky’s question about God’s omniscience: How does Plantinga's defense of free will align with omniscience
I think ...
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In Pandeism, was God capable of knowing the outcome of his annihilation?
Although Pandeism deals with an omnipotent and omniscient God, it still troubles me to think God would annihilate himself for no purpose. My latest conclusion was, God did have a purpose for his ...
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Can someone explain omnipotence to me?
My understanding and I assume most Christians believe that omnipotence means the ability to do anything, even the logically impossible things because we believe God transcends logic. Colossians 1:16 ...
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Is it possible for God to exist outside of time?
A common idea of God is that he exists outside of time. Does this make sense? Here are some objects. Do any of them work?
Impossibility of immutability: If God exists outside of time, then by ...
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