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Some Modern Proofs of the Existence of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Extract

Time was when the proofs of the existence of God formed an essential part of any self-respecting system of Philosophy. But for many years now this has ceased to be the case. It may be due to the gradual increase of the influence of Kant that the idea seems to have become accepted, tacitly, in the main, but none the less very widely, that proof or disproof of a belief such as this was hardly a fit subject for philosophical discussion at all. At any rate, it is noteworthy how rarely the question is faced directly in the philosophical discussions of the last forty years or so. What we have had, much more frequently, is discussion about how the God of religion might be thought of and what sort of place He might have in reality as conceived in this or that philosophical system. And certainly discussions on these lines have done much to clarify our conception of the Divine, even if they have sometimes seemed to explain it only by explaining it away altogether, or at any rate to present us with the idea of something which, whatever it is, is certainly not the God of any religion. But of recent years I seem to detect a growing readiness to face the question as squarely as the old theologians, who propounded the first proofs of God's existence, did.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1928

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References

1 What follows was originally written as a paper to be read to the Oxford Philosophical Society. I have not attempted to make any alterations to make it more suitable in style for publication in a journal. I have added a note and a postcript indicating points of importance raised in the discussion which took place on the paper.

1 Not unanimous, though a large majority. It was pointed out to me that the late Dean Rashdall was a distinguished exception to this statement.