Theism

Theism in the broadest sense, it is the belief that there is at least one divinity. More specifically, theism is commonly a monotheistic doctrine concerning the nature of a deity and the relationship between it and the universe. In this specific sense, theism conceives God as personal, present and active in the government and organization of the world and the universe; thus describes the classical conception of God found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism. The use of the term "theism" to refer to this classic form of monotheism began during the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century to distinguish it from the then emerging deism, which held that God, although transcendent and supreme,

The term "theism" comes from the Greek theos, meaning "god". This term was first used by Ralph Cudworth. According to Cudworth's definition, they are "strictly and properly called Theists, who affirm, that a perfectly conscious understanding being, or mind, existing of itself from eternity, was the cause of all other things".

God, for historical theists, is a divinity that is not always well defined, at times of a more personal character and at times more impersonal, but in any case characterized by a will and a providence. In this sense both Voltaire (who, however, in his philosophical dictionary of him, defines "theism" what we now mean with "deism") and Rousseau as a compromise between pantheism and monotheism. The first, of God, emphasized the provident and deterministic nature, the second the goodness and the sentimental element.

Kant himself presents a distinction between deism and theism:

“He who admits only a transcendental theology is called a deist, and theist, on the other hand, he who also admits a natural theology. The first grants that we can know, with our pure reason, the existence of an original being, but he believes that the concept we have of it is purely transcendental: that is, that it is only of a being, whose reality is total, but not further determinable. The second argues that reason is able to further determine this object on the basis of analogy with nature: that is, to determine it as a being, which by virtue of intellect and freedom contains within itself the original principle of all the others. what's this. "

In the Kantian meaning, which later became canonical, God intervenes in the world through miracles, conversions, repentances, and can be intuited through faith and for some currents also through reason. In an extended and current sense, theism also means the belief in a single, supreme, mostly personalized and providential God.

The term theism in the historical-philosophical sense was therefore defined by Immanuel Kant. Those who had used the term before him had not given a sufficiently clear definition of it and there was no clear distinction between theism and deism. The theistic thesis is opposed to atheism and agnosticism and is different from pantheism.

Arguments for the existence of God

The theistic conclusion to the problem of the existence of God is that the arguments indicate that there are sufficient reasons to believe in one God or in deities.

God exists and it can be proved

Thesis of the Catholic Church

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, following the Thomist tradition and the dogmatic definition of the first Vatican Council, affirms that it is the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church that the existence of God has been rationally demonstrated. Some other Christians of different denominations hold a similar view. Regarding this view, a distinction must be made between:

1. doctrines which belong essentially to the faith and cannot be demonstrated, such as the doctrine of the trinity or the incarnation, and
2. doctrines which can be accepted by faith but which can be known with reason; that is, truths revealed by special revelation and by general revelation.

The existence of God is said to be of the second type. As a theological defense of this view, one could cite Paul's claim that the pagans were without excuses because:

"His invisible perfections, since the creation of the world, appear clear, if well considered, from his works, both his eternal power and divinity, so that they are inexcusable"

(Paul of Tarsus)

Transcendental argument for the existence of God

Another apologetic school of thought, a kind of synthesis of various Dutch and American Reform thinkers (such as, Abraham Kuyper, Benjamin Warfield, Herman Dooyeweerd), emerged in the late 1920s. This school was founded by Cornelius Van Til, and was popularly called presuppositional apologetics (although Van Til himself thought that "Transcendental" would be a more accurate title). The main distinction between this approach and the more classical evidencing one mentioned earlier is that presuppositionalists deny any common ground between the believer and the unbeliever, except the one that unbelievers deny, namely the assumption of the truth of the theistic worldview.. In other words, presuppositionalists do not believe that the God's existence can be proved by appealing to crude, uninterpreted (or "brute") facts, which have the same (theoretical) meaning for people with fundamentally different worldviews, because they deny that this condition is even possible. They argue that the only possible proof of God's existence is that belief itself is a necessary condition for the intelligibility of all other human experiences and actions. In other words, they attempt to prove the existence of God by appealing to the supposed transcendental necessity of faith — indirectly (by appealing to the undeclared presupposition of the unbeliever's worldview) rather than directly (by appealing to some form of common factuality).

God exists but it cannot be proved

Existence of a specific god

Others have suggested that the various logical and philosophical arguments for the existence of God miss the mark. The word god has a meaning in human culture and history, which does not correspond to the beings whose necessity is demonstrated with such arguments, assuming that they are valid. The real question is not whether there is a "supremely perfect being" or an "uncaused first cause", but whether there is JHWH or Viṣṇu or Zeus, or some other deity of human religions. Evidence does not resolve this point. Blaise Pascal suggested this objection in his Penséeswhen he wrote: "The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - not the god of philosophers!" (see, Pascal's Bet). According to some, God would be external to his creation - the universe - and would control it as a gray eminence, who sees and acts but who cannot be seen (for him his decision) and on whom one cannot act. The reason for this "discretion" would be that energy is not visible and that in history when man would have had some visible evidence, then the memory of this would have been overwhelmed by subsequent skepticism about the story that God would have concluded that it is perfectly useless to be seen. Furthermore, the non-visibility of God would allow him to distinguish those who have faith from those who do not (although he would bestow the gift of faith...).

Fideism

Some Christians point out that the Christian faith teaches salvation through faith, and that faith is reliance on God's faithfulness, which has little to do with the believer's ability to understand what he believes. In other words, if Christian theology is true, then the existence of God can never be proved, either by empirical means or by philosophical arguments. The most extreme example of this position is called fideism, and argues that faith is simply the will to believe, and that if God's existence were rationally demonstrable, faith in his existence would become superfluous. In The justification of knowledge, Calvinist theologian Robert L. Reymond argues that believers should not try to prove the existence of God. Since he believes that all these proofs are fundamentally fallacious, believers should not trust them, much less resort to them in discussions. with non-believers. Rather, they must accept the content of the revelation by faith. Reymond's position is similar to that of his mentor, Gordon Clark, who argues that all worldviews are based on some indemonstrable initial premises (or axioms), and are therefore indemonstrable themselves. Therefore, the Christian theist must simply choose to start from Christianity rather than from something else, making an unreasonable "leap of faith".

Modal logic

An intermediate position is that of Alvin Plantinga, who argues that a specific form of modal logic and an appeal to globally indexed properties makes the belief in the existence of God rational and justified, even if the existence of God cannot be proved.. Plantinga compares knowledge of the existence of God with types of knowledge which are rational but which do not proceed by demonstration, such as sensory knowledge.