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Religions, Reasons and Gods1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

John Clayton
John Clayton
Affiliation:
Department of Religious Studies, The University of Lancaster
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Extract

Philosophers have tended to discuss theistic proofs (and theistic disproofs) largely in abstraction from their specific roles within the religious traditions in which those proofs were cultivated and in which, until modern times, they flourished. As a result, the traditional theistic proofs of the West are generally presented in the philosophical literature as no more than (failed) attempts to demonstrate or within tolerable limits to establish the probability of the existence of at least one god. Whatever the history of philosophy may suggest, the history of religions shows that theistic proofs have been developed from a variety of motives and have been employed to a variety of ends, only one of which is to persuade someone not already so inclined to believe that god/s exist. Indeed, this latter purpose is fairly subsidiary in the history of religions. A survey of the place and roles of theistic proofs and disproofs within a range of religious traditions, Eastern as well as Western, suggests that in the main they were used to serve intra-traditional ends. Their principal function seems to have been more nearly explanatory than justificatory. Even when they aimed them outside the tradition and used them to apologetic ends, purveyors of the proofs tended to assume prior belief in god/s on the part of their intended audience.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 1987 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

page 1 note 2 Cf. Dummett's, Michael use of this distinction in ‘The Justification of Deduction’ (1973), Truth and Other Enigmas (London, 1978), pp. 290 ff.Google Scholar

page 3 note 1 Cf. esp. Owens, Joseph, St Thomas Aquinas on the Existence of God, ed. by Catan, J. R. (New York, 1980);Google ScholarBaisnée, J. A., «St Thomas Aquinas' Proofs for the Existence of God Presented in their Chronological Order’, in Philosophical Studies in Honor of the Very Revd. Ignatius Smith, OP, ed. by Ryan, J. K. (Westminster, MD, 1952), esp. pp. 63–4;Google Scholar and also Patterson, R. L., The Conception of God in the Philosophy of Aquinas (London, 1933), pp. 21–39.Google Scholar

page 3 note 2 For additional details about the history of this (and other) theistic proofs, see my article on ‘Gottesbeweise’ in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, vol. XIII (Berlin and New York, 1984), pp. 724–76, and the extensive bibliography of standard and recent literature which is published on pp. 776–84.

page 4 note 1 In section II below, I suggest that this observation holds equally for the theistic disproofs attributed to the Buddha, but here I confine my remarks to theistic proofs common in the West.

page 5 note 1 Cf. Book Three of Nyāyakusmāñjali. I am grateful to Professor B. K. Matilal for having suggested this interpretation to me.

page 6 note 1 This point is rightly emphasized by Smart, Ninian in his book Doctrine and Argument in Indian Philosphy (London and New York, 1964).Google Scholar Despite being in some respects now dated, Surendranath Dasgupta's five-volume History of Indian Philosophy (Cambridge, 1922–1954) remains the standard English-language survey of Indian approaches to the philosophy of religion, including theistic proofs and disproofs. The various volumes which have appeared so far of The Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, ed. by Potter, Karl H.Google Scholar, are also indispensable guides to the arguments of the texts of the main schools.

page 8 note 1 For an elaboration of these two disproofs, see Jayatilleke, K. N., Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge (London, 1963)Google Scholar, and, more popularly, his posthumously published The Message of the Buddha (London, 1975). See also Glasenapp, Helmuth von, Buddhismus und Gottesidee (Mainz, 1954).Google Scholar

page 9 note 1 Cf. Al-Kashf'an Manāhij al-Adillah. For helpful surveys of Islamic philosophy, including approaches to theistic proofs, see Leaman, Oliver, An Introduction to Medieval Islamic Philosophy (Cambridge, 1985)Google Scholar, and Fakhry, Majid, A History of Islamic Philosophy (New York, 1970)Google Scholar, as well as the latter's ‘The Classical Islamic Arguments for the Existence of God’, Muslim World, XLVII (1957), 133–45. See also chapter 3 of Craig, William Lane, The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz (London, 1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 12 note 1 Editions of de Nobili's relevant works include the following: Ajñāna Nirvāranam (Trichinopoly, 1891); Ātuma Nirunayam (Madras, 1889); Jñānopadeśam, vols I–II (1775; Madras, 1891), vol. III (Trichinopoly, 1907); and Première Apologie (1610), ed. with French transl. by Dahmen, Pierre (Paris, 1931).Google Scholar The only book-length study of de Nobili in English known to me is Cronin's, VincentA Pearl to India (London, 1959)Google Scholar

page 13 note 1 The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, trans. and ed. by Rosenblatt, Samuel (New Haven, 1948), p. 7.Google Scholar

page 14 note 1 Ibid. pp. 38 ff.

page 15 note 1 However much they may have differed from one another about details of interpretation and basic approaches to the text, this century's leading commentators on the Psalms – including Briggs, Kraus, Mowinckel and Weiser – have agreed that vs. 7–14 are a later addition to 19. 1–6.

page 16 note 1 Transl. by Beck, Lewis White (Indianapolis and New York, 1956), p. 166.Google Scholar

page 16 note 2 Hymns Ancient and Modern, §662.

page 17 note 1 Conversations with Luther, ed. Preserved Smith, and Gallinger, H. P. (Boston, 1915), p. 119.Google Scholar