Topics Religion

Question It seems all philosophical arguments for the existence of God all result in having nothing to say about the conception of God, God's attributes or religion. If someone accepts that God exists, how does that belief entail in accepting a particular religion over another, if at all? And if that entailment is accepted does that mean all of the articles of faith of that religion (i.e. ethics, rituals, afterlife) MUST be accepted given that God exists, by coherentism?

Accepted:
April 25, 2013

Comments

Actually, all the classical and most contemporary arguments for the existence of God are each based on (or involve) a conception of God and divine attributes. So, every version of the cosmological argument I know of as used to support theism relies on the idea that, if there is a God, God exists necessarily or is not causally dependent on other beings, God is without beginning or self-explaing, and so on. Most versions of the ontological argument begin with the idea that God is maximally excellent (or God is such that no greater reality can be conceived) and that thesis is used to argue that a maximally excellent being would be necessarily existing, essentially good, omnipotent, omniscient, and so on. For a fuller picture of how arguments rely on divine attributes see the Philosophy of Religion entry in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy or see the book published by Continuum: Philosophy of Religion; A Beginner's Guide. In terms of the philosophical concept and conviction that there is a God, it may be that the concept of God is so general that it does not favor a single religion. Though, if one has reason to believe there is some creative, good, essentially existing Creator, this will make some contribution to the reasonability of some religions. After all, classical Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and theistic traditions of Hinduism believe is a creative, good, essentially existing Creator. Additional arguments, though, would then be needed as to why one might adopt Islam rather than Christianity, for example. Some philosophers, though, such as the late Richard Taylor thought that there were two good arguments for believing there is a God (you may find these in his wonderful book Metaphysics), but Taylor had a very low view of religions and, as far as I know, never practiced a religious faith.