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| The view that religious faith is independent of reason (a matter of the heart) in such a way that no reasons can or need to be given for it. |
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| Belief in the existence of a God who created the universe through an act of his will, and who is omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful) and omnibenevolent (all-good). Such belief has been traditionally affirmed by Judaism, Christianity and Islam). |
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| Belief in the existence of a God that is indistinguishable from Nature (does not exist independently from Nature). |
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| Belief that God (as conceived in classical theism) either certainly or probably does not exist. |
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| Belief that it is impossible for human beings to know on the basis of the available evidence whether or not God exists (which is not the same as belief that God does not exist). |
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| arguments from religious experience |
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| A group of a posteriori arguments for the existence of God that appeal to various kinds of religious experience (including purported miracles and mystical experiences) as evidence that God exists. |
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| A type of argument for the existence of God that typically appeals to the principle of sufficient reason, and involves the claim that the existence of the universe (or “cosmos”) is best explained by the existence of a necessary being (i.e. God) who created it. |
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| principle of sufficient reason |
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| A general principle which says that it must be possible to give some reason for the existence or occurrence of everything that exists or occurs. |
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| A being the existence of which depends on, or is caused by, the existence of some other being. |
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| A being the existence of which does not depend on anything other than itself. |
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| A fact that is true but that cannot be explained. Bertrand Russell, in rejecting the cosmological argument, claimed that the existence of the universe is a brute fact. |
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| A type of a posteriori argument for the existence of God that appeals to the similarity between the arrangement of nature and complex mechanisms designed by human beings to establish the conclusion that nature was probably designed by a divine intelligence (i.e. God). |
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| The view espoused by those who favor a literal interpretation of the account of creation contained in the Book of Genesis, according to which God created the world and all the creatures in it within a six-day period. |
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| A scientific theory that appeals to the principle of natural selection (rather than an intelligent designer) to account for the complexity and apparent purposefulness of organic systems in nature. |
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| intelligent design creationism |
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| A theory which affirms that living organisms have undergone a process of evolution over billions of years, but that the course of evolution has been directed by God toward pre-established ends. |
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| An entirely a priori argument for the existence of God first formulated by Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), who suggested that the non-existence of God is inconceivable, since the idea of a perfect being that doesn’t exist is self-contradictory. |
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| An argument developed by the French mathematician, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), to show that, even if the existence of God cannot be proven, there are better reasons to “bet” on God’s existence than on God’s non-existence. |
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| An objection to Pascal’s wager according to which the multiplicity of different types of belief in God reduces the “expected utility” (i.e. the practical benefit) of “betting” on the truth of any particular one. |
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| A problem cited by atheists who argue that the existence of evil (including the suffering of the innocent) is logically incompatible with belief in the existence of the God of classical theism (who is by definition all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful). |
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| evidential problem of evil |
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| A problem cited by atheists who concede that the existence of some evil might be logically compatible with belief in the existence of the God of classical theism, but argue that the widespread occurrence of pointless suffering is not. |
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| An attempt to solve the problem of evil by explaining why a God who is all-good, all-knowing and all-powerful might allow innocent beings to suffer. |
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