Arguments for the Existence of God

Flashcards based on lecture notes about arguments for the existence of God.

Faith

The ability to trust and believe in something, especially in the absence of concrete proof.

Reason

The capacity for rational thought, inference, or discrimination.

Apologetics

A reasoned defense of religious beliefs.

Premise

A statement or proposition that is assumed to be true for the purpose of an argument.

Conclusion

The end result or the main point to be derived from an argument.

Design

Having the quality of being well-ordered.

Occam's Razor

If we have two hypotheses equally explaining the data, the hypothesis that was required to make fewer assumptions is most likely to be the correct one.

Desire

An innate yearning or longing for something beyond the physical world.

Moral Obligation

A sense of duty or obligation to do good and avoid evil.

Atheistic View

The view that we are chance products of the blind/purposeless motion of matter.

Religious View

The view that we are created in the image of God.

Conscience

An inner feeling or voice acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior or thoughts.

Sub-creation

Creating art, literature, stories, characters, arguments, and ideas

Independent Creation

Ideas created entirely out of our minds.

Inspirational Creation

Ideas created out of inspiration from the world around us.

Cosmological Argument

Everything with a beginning has a cause for it coming into being.

Common Consent

Belief in God is common to almost every group of people of every era.

Pascal's Wager

A philosophical argument that posits one should wager as to whether God exists.

Agnostic

One who holds that the existence of God is unknown and unknowable.

Order

The idea that order is either due to chance or intention/design.