Metaphysics of God Key Terms

Abductive arguments

An abductive argument (which is often described as inference to the best explanation), is one that proceeds from an effect to argue for the most likely cause.

Analytic

A proposition is analytic if it is true by definition. This means you can work out that it is true just by analysing the meanings of the words involved. For example, 'All sisters are female. Analytic propositions are contrasted with synthetic ones for which understanding the meanings of the words involved is not sufficient to determine whether they are true. Knowledge of such propositions therefore requires some knowledge of the way the world is as well. For example, 'All sisters are jealous of their siblings.

Anti-realism

If you are a realist about something, then you believe it exists independently of our minds. If you are an anti-realist about something you think it is mind-dependent. This is closely connected to non-cognitivism. For example, in epistemology, anti-realists about perception think that material objects exist only for minds and that a mind-independent world is non-existent. (Berkeley summed up this idealist position by saying that to be is to be perceived.) An example of anti-realism in religious language is Wittgenstein's theory that religious terms need to be understood within a religious language game.

A posteriori

A Latin term that describes a belief that can only be known via experience of the world: for example, that 'snow is white or that 'the Atlantic is smaller than the Pacific. A posteriori beliefs are contrasted with a priori beliefs.

A priori

A Latin term that usually describes a belief (or knowledge) that is known prior to or independently from experience. A priori beliefs are contrasted with a posteriori beliefs, which are ones derived from experience.

Atemporal

Outside of time. It is generally agreed that God is eternal, but some theologians maintain that this means that God exists outside of time: he has no past, present or future.

Atheism

In the tradition of western philosophy, atheism generally refers to the belief that there is no God in a Christian (or Jewish, or Islamic) sense.

Blik

R.M. Hare's term for a foundational belief or interpretation of the world.

Cognitivism and non-cognitivism

Cognitivism is the view that judgements are propositions which can be known - they refer to the world and they have a truth-value (they are capable of being true or false). Non-cognitivism is the view that judgements cannot be known, because they do not say anything true or false about the world (they do not have a truth-value). There are many different forms of non-cognitivism such as that of Hare and Wittgenstein.

Compatibilism

Compatibilism is the view that free will is compatible with determinism. In other words, there is no contradiction in the idea of an action which is completely causally determined and yet still free.

Conclusion

A belief or statement that an argument tries to prove. If an argument is valid and all of the premises are true, then the conclusion will also be true.

Contingent

A state of affairs is contingent if it happens to be the case, but could have been otherwise. A contingent proposition is one that could be either true or false.

Cosmological argument

Cosmology is the study of the universe as a whole. Cosmological arguments for the existence of God operate by claiming that there must be some ultimate cause or reason for the existence of the universe. This explanation cannot be found within the universe and so must be found in some supernatural being, namely God.

Deductive argument

An argument where the truth of the conclusion is guaranteed by the truth of the premises. In other words, it is an argument in which the premises entail the conclusion. So if one accepts the truth of the premises, one must, as a matter of logical necessity, accept the conclusion. For example: either you will become a fireman or a doctor. But you can only become a doctor with a medical degree which you will never get. So you will become a fireman. A deductive argument is in contrast to an inductive argument.

Deism

A belief within natural theology that a supernatural Creator, or God, created the universe but no longer interacts with its creation.

Determinism

The belief that all events in the universe are the necessary consequence of physical laws, and that these laws apply to human actions as well. A determinist might claim that humans are like complex pieces of biological machinery with no free will. Some philosophers (see compatibilism) believe that free will is compatible with determinism.

Dualism

Dualism about mind and body is the claim that humans are made of two distinct kinds of stuff: a material body and a spiritual mind.

Empiricism/empiricist

An epistemological position which holds that our beliefs and knowledge must be based on experience. David Hume was one philosopher who rigorously applied his empiricist approach to questions in the philosophy of religion.

Eschatology

Eschatology is the study of the 'end of things' or 'the last things' as described from a religious perspective: this includes death, what happens after we die, the end of time, the Last Judgement, and so on. Eschatological verification is a term used by John Hick to describe the process by which religious statements can (in theory) be shown to be meaningful: if they are true then they can be shown to be true (verified) after we die.

Eternality

Existing forever. The claim that God is eternal was traditionally understood to mean that God is timeless or temporal. Many theologians now argue that God is everlasting (rather than atemporal), i.e. existing in space and time but without beginning or end.

Euthyphro dilemma

In the philosophy of religion this dilemma raises the question 'In what way are God's commands good? and offers two problematic options. The first option is that whatever God commands is good, in which case his commands to commit genocide (Deuteronomy 3:2) or infanticide (Genesis 2:2), for example, are good. The second option is that God's commands are good because they conform to some external moral law, in which case we should pay attention to this moral law, rather than God.

Existentialism

The name for a group of related philosophies which focus on describing and explaining what it feels like to exist as a human. Some of the key concerns revolve around the individual, the range of human experience and the significance of choice or free will.

Factual significance

A statement has factual significance if it tells us something about the real world. Some theories of meaning (such as verificationism) maintain that a sentence is only meaningful if it is factually significant.

Fallacy

This refers to an argument which has gone wrong, either because a mistake has been made, rendering the argument invalid; or because the argument has a form, or structure, which is always invalid.

Fallacy of composition

The logical error of arguing that, because every member of a group has a property in common, the group taken as a whole also possesses that same property.

Falsificationism

A philosophical theory about the nature of meaning. Closely related to verificationism, falsificationism claims that for a proposition to be meaningful we must be able to understand what would count as proving the proposition false (i.e. what would falsify it).

Hypothetical statements

An if... then..proposition, for example 'If you were offered a cup of tea, then you would accept. In Ryle's analytical behaviourism, certain mental states are regarded as dispositions to act in various ways and dispositions can be translated into hypotheticals of this kind which detail what a person would do if certain circumstances were realised

Immutable

Something that can never change. God is said to be immutable, and this is bound up with the idea that God is simple (he is one thing, and his attributes such as benevolence and omnipotence cannot be separated from one another).

Incorporeal

Not made of matter, non-material. God is said to be this.

Inductive arguments

An argument where the truth of the conclusion is not fully guaranteed by the truth of the premises. For example, moving us (which leads, for example, to the teleological argument), or through an analysis of concepts (which leads, for example, to ontological argument). This is in contrast to revealed theology.

Naturalism

The view that we can explain the world, or a particular concept, in terms of the natural sciences.

Necessary

"Necessary' and 'contingent' are opposing terms. In the most restricted sense, a necessary truth is one which has to be true and could not be otherwise. Another way of thinking about a necessary truth is as a truth where the opposite is logically impossible; for example, that a triangle has three sides (a two-sided triangle is logically impossible and cannot be imagined). A contingent truth is one which just happens to be true, and is a truth where the opposite is logically possible, for example, it is true that Theresa May was once the prime minister of the United Kingdom (but it is entirely possible that this may never have happened).

Omnibenevolent

All-loving or supremely good. Along with omnipotence and omniscience this is one of the main attributes of God.

Omnipotent

All-powerful. Along with omnibenevolence and omniscience this is one of the main attributes of God.

Omniscient

All-knowing. As with omnibenevolence and omnipotence, this is one of the attributes of God. However, some theologians have argued that these attributes cannot be separated from one another in God, because God is simple and immutable.

Ontological arguments

Ontology is the study of existence. If you were to write down everything you thought existed (cats, dogs, electrons, aliens, and so on), then this list would form your own personal ontology. If aliens were present on the list then you could be said to be making an ontological commitment to the existence of aliens (in other words you claim they exist). All believers (except anti-realists) include God in their ontology. The ontological argument is a particular proof of God's existence, and tries to show that the very meaning of the concept 'God' implies that he must exist. Physico-theological argument term used by the philosopher Immanuel Kant to describe an argument for God's existence based on particular features of the world (for example, order, regularity, design). The phrase did not catch on, and we now refer to these arguments as teleological or arguments from design.

Predicate

Many propositions can be divided into a subject and a predicate, where the subject is the thing that the sentence is about and the predicate gives us information about the subject. For example, in the sentence, "The balloon is red', the expression 'is red' is the predicate, the term balloon', the subject. Some philosophers argued that in the sentence 'God exists, 'exists' is a predicate applying to 'God'. However, philosophers from Kant onwards have doubted whether existence is a genuine predicate.

Premise

Any reason given (usually in the form of a statement or claim) to build or support an argument.

Problem of evil

A problem recognised by both believers and atheists: how can an all-powerful, all-loving and all-knowing creator have created a world which seems to contain so much unnecessary pain and suffering?

Proposition

A sentence that makes a claim about the way the world actually is. Non-cognitivists claim that judgements are not propositions; in other words, they are not making claims about the world and are neither true nor false.

Rationalism/rationalist

The tendency in philosophy to regard reason, as opposed to sense experience, as the primary source of the important knowledge of which we are capable. Rationalists are typically impressed by the systematic nature of mathematical knowledge and the possibility of certainty that it affords. Using mathematics as the ideal of how knowledge should be, rationalists typically attempt to extend this type of knowledge into other areas of human inquiry, such as to knowledge of the physical world, or to ethics. Rationalism is traditionally contrasted with empiricism: the view that most of what we know is acquired through experience.

Reductio ad absurdum

A method of argument by which you prove that a claim is false by first supposing it to be true and then drawing out the logical consequences. If these consequences can be shown to be false or absurd then the original claim cannot be true. Aquinas uses a reductio ad absurdum in his cosmological arguments.

Revealed theology

Gaining an understanding of God through the revelations of sacred texts and prophets. This is in contrast to natural theology, although to Aquinas the two approaches are compatible with each other.

Revelation

Information that is revealed, or disclosed, to humans by a supernatural source, such as God or angels. The Bible is regarded as a work of revelation, and it forms the basis of revealed theology.

Subject

In grammar, the part of a proposition that picks out the main object which is being described or discussed: for example, in 'The red balloon popped', the subject is 'the balloon" In the sentence, 'God is the greatest conceivable being 'God' is the subject.

Syllogism

A classic form of deductive logical argument in which a conclusion follows from (usually two) true premises (often a general claim and a more specific claim).

Teleological

Purpose, goal or end, deriving from the Greek word telos. A teleological explanation gives an account of events by reference to their purpose or ultimate goal.

Teleological arguments

Also known as arguments from design, these conclude that God exists on the basis of certain features of the universe: for example, observations concerning its ordered nature, or concerning the apparent design and purpose of the parts of living organisms.

Theodicy (From the Greek theos - 'god' - and dike -'justice)

The attempt to justify God's actions, and to show why, for example, a perfect God has created an imperfect world. The most common forms of theodicy are responses to the problem of evil that explain why God allows pain and suffering to exist.

Theology

The study of God from a religious perspective. This is in contrast to the philosophy of religion, which starts from a philosophical perspective.

Transcendence

To move outside, beyond or removed from something. So to say that God is transcendent is to say that he exists outside of his creation, outside of space and time.

Verification principle

The rule put forward by verificationists that a proposition is only meaningful if it can be shown to be true or false by experience or by analysis of the meanings of the terms involved.

Verificationism

A philosophical belief about the nature of meaning. Logical positivism claims that for a proposition to be meaningful it must be (hypothetically) verifiable or true by definition. Other than truths by definition most propositions make a specific claim about the universe - that it is this way or that - for example, that 'there is a cat on my mat' or that the leaves on my tree are green'. In such cases it is easy for us to imagine how such claims could be verified or not. 'God loves the world'. How could we verify this claim? What could we look for in the world to see whether that claim is true or not? If it is not clear how the universe would look if the claim were true or not, then it is not clear what it is asserting and thus logical positivists might claim that the proposition is not meaningful.