Philosophical theism

Not to be confused with Classical theism, sometimes also called "philosophical theism".
Plato was by some reckonings an early proponent of philosophical theism.
O you who look on this our machine, do not be sad that with others you are fated to die, but rejoice that our Creator has endowed us with such an excellent instrument as the intellect.
Kurt Gödel, the eminent mathematical logician, composed a formal argument for God's existence.
One factor that moved Whitehead toward theism was the inability to understand how mathematical objects—being ideal, nonactual entities—could be efficacious in the world in general and in human experience in particular—in fact, how they could even exist—unless they existed in a primordial actuality.

Philosophical theism is the belief that deities exist (or must exist) independent of the teaching or revelation of any particular religion.[1] It represents belief in a personal God entirely without doctrine. Some philosophical theists are persuaded of a god's existence by philosophical arguments, while others consider themselves to have a religious faith that need not be, or could not be, supported by rational argument.

Philosophical theism has parallels with the 18th century philosophical view called Deism.

Relationship to organized religion

Philosophical theism conceives of nature as the result of purposive activity and so as an intelligible system open to human understanding, although possibly never completely understandable. It implies the belief that nature is ordered according to some sort of consistent plan and manifests a single purpose or intention, however incomprehensible or inexplicable. However, philosophical theists do not endorse or adhere to the theology or doctrines of any organized religion or church. They may accept arguments or observations about the existence of a god advanced by theologians working in some religious tradition, but reject the tradition itself. (For example, a philosophical theist might believe certain Christian arguments about God while nevertheless rejecting Christianity.)

Notable philosophical theists

References

  1. ↑ Swinburne, Richard (2001), Entry, "Philosophical Theism" in Phillips, D.Z. and T.Tessin (eds.), Philosophy of Religion in The 21st Century, Palgrave.
  2. ↑ Fielding, Henry. 1775. An essay on conversation. John Bell. p. 346
  3. ↑ Xenophon, Memorabilia I.4.6; Franklin, James (2001). The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 229. ISBN 978-0-8018-6569-5.
  4. ↑ Aristotle's Physics (VIII, 4–6) and Metaphysics (XII, 1–6)
  5. ↑ Cicero, De Natura Deorum, iii. 10. Cf. ii. 6 for the fuller version of this argument.
  6. ↑ Apostolos-Cappadona, Diane. "Leonardo: His Faith, His Art." Before 2 Nov. 2009. 26 Jan. 2010.
  7. ↑ Huygens, Christiaan, Cosmotheoros (1698)
  8. ↑ Leibniz, G. W. (1697) On the ultimate origination of the universe.
  9. ↑ Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. "The emergence of Rational Dissent." Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19.
  10. ↑ Gieser, Suzanne. The Innermost Kernel: Depth Psychology and Quantum Physics. Wolfgang Pauli's Dialogue with C.G. Jung. Springer. pp. 181–182. ISBN 9783540208563. Newton seems to have been closer to the deists in his conception of God and had no time for the doctrine of the Trinity. The deists did not recognize the divine nature of Christ. According to Fierz, Newton's conception of God permeated his entire scientific work: God's universality and eternity express themselves in the dominion of the laws of nature. Time and space are regarded as the 'organs' of God. All is contained and moves in God but without having any effect on God himself. Thus space and time become metaphysical entities, superordinate existences that are not associated with any interaction, activity or observation on man's part.
  11. ↑ Force, James E.; Popkin, Richard Henry (1990). Force, James E.; Popkin, Richard Henry, eds. Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of Isaac Newton's Theology. Springer. p. 53. ISBN 9780792305835. Newton has often been identified as a deist. ...In the 19th century, William Blake seems to have put Newton into the deistic camp. Scholars in the 20th-century have often continued to view Newton as a deist. Gerald R. Cragg views Newton as a kind of proto-deist and, as evidence, points to Newton's belief in a true, original, monotheistic religion first discovered in ancient times by natural reason. This position, in Cragg's view, leads to the elimination of the Christian revelation as neither necessary nor sufficient for human knowledge of God. This agenda is indeed the key point, as Leland describes above, of the deistic program which seeks to "set aside" revelatory religious texts. Cragg writes that, "In effect, Newton ignored the claims of revelation and pointed in a direction which many eighteenth-century thinkers would willingly follow." John Redwood has also recently linked anti-Trinitarian theology with both "Newtonianism" and "deism."
  12. ↑ Principia, Book III; cited in; Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953.
  13. ↑ Lascano, Marcy P., 2011, “Émilie du Chñtelet on the Existence and Nature of God: An Examination of Her Arguments in Light of Their Sources”, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 19(4): 741–58.
  14. ↑ To JOHN ADAMS vii 281 1823 Jefferson Cyclopedia, Foley 1900
  15. ↑ R. H. Thurston, 1890., Appendix A. pp. 215-217
  16. ↑ Guy Waldo Dunnington (2004). Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science. MAA. p. 305.
  17. ↑ Owen, On the Nature of Limbs, 38.
  18. ↑ 352. James W. Keyes (statement for Willam H. Herndon).[1865 — 66]
  19. ↑ When I was alive by Alfred Russel Wallace, THE LINNEAN 1995 VOLUME 11(2), pp. 9
  20. ↑ Peirce (1908), "A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God", published in large part, Hibbert Journal v. 7, 90–112. Reprinted with an unpublished part, CP 6.452–85, Selected Writings pp. 358–79, EP 2:434–50, Peirce on Signs 260–78.
  21. ↑ Wang 1996, pp. 104–105.
  22. ↑ According to Gardner: "I am a philosophical theist. I believe in a personal god, and I believe in an afterlife, and I believe in prayer, but I don’t believe in any established religion. This is called philosophical theism.... Philosophical theism is entirely emotional. As Kant said, he destroyed pure reason to make room for faith." Carpenter, Alexander (2008), "Martin Gardner on Philosophical Theism, Adventists and Price" Interview, 17 October 2008, Spectrum.
  23. ↑ My Pilgrimage from Atheism to Theism: an exclusive interview with former British atheist Professor Antony Flew by Gary Habermas, Philosophia Christi, Winter 2005.
  24. ↑ Willford, J.N. March 12, 1991. Sizing up the Cosmos: An Astronomers Quest. New York Times, p. B9.

See also

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