Theism(s) - Theology

John Feaks

Theo

God

Logos

Word/discourse

Theism

1. beliefs about God

2. belief in the existence of a particular god or gods

Atheism

without belief in God

Soft-boiled atheist

There is no good reason to believe in God

Rebuttals for Soft-boiled Atheism

◦ What counts as a good reason? What criteria are used?

◦ What justifies the belief that evidence ties into fact?

◦ Where do rational standards come from? ◦ How are we aware of them?

◦ How to explain the moral dimension to this?

◦ Only God can account for what the atheist is doing even when he arguing for his atheism!

Hard-boiled athesim

God does not exist and I know it

Rebuttals for Hard-boiled Atheists

◦ Knowledge = justified, true belief ◦ Justification according to what standards?
◦ How are you aware of these standards?

◦ Explain the moral imperative to reason in accordance with these standards.

◦ Only God can account for these rational and moral standards and our awareness of them

◦ Universal statement; do you have universal knowledge? ◦ No; then you cannot know that God does not exist (one of the things you don’t know may be God!)

Agnosticism

without knowledge of God

1. I don’t know if God exists

2. I can’t know if God exists

Anti-Theism

hatred for God; (often a transition from theism to atheism)

Polytheism

Many gods (Vedic/Hinduism/Greco-Roman/Mormonism)

Henotheism

adherence to one god among others (Bhakti Yoga; the way of devotion)

Kathenotheism

different deities are supreme at different times

Pantheism

all is God/divine

Panenthesim

God/divinity is in all; the universe is God’s body

Monotheism

One God (by nature); interacted (and may or may not still interact) with the world (miracles and revelation)

Open Theism

God does not infallibly know the future (learns, experiences, thinks, adjusts like we do)

Deism

God knowledge through human reason; God does not interact with the world