more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
There are three proofs of the existence of God: the physico-theological, the cosmological, and the ontological. There are no more of them, and there also cannot be any more.
Gist of Idea
Only three proofs of God: the physico-theological (evidence), the cosmological (existence), the ontological (a priori)
Source
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B619/A591)
Book Ref
Kant,Immanuel: 'Critique of Pure Reason', ed/tr. Guyer,P /Wood,A W [CUO 1998], p.563
A Reaction
It is hard to deny this, though the 'physico-theological' group may be a sizeable family. The immediate difficulty may be that physical evidence supports something less than God, the cosmological is just speculation, and a priori proofs won't work.
| 16165 | For Aristotle God is defined in an axiom, for which there is no proof [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| 22734 | God is defended by agreement, order, absurdity of denying God, and refutations [Sext.Empiricus] |
| 12565 | God has given us no innate idea of himself [Locke] |
| 19328 | Without the principle of sufficient reason, God's existence could not be demonstrated [Leibniz] |
| 3950 | There must be a God, because all sensible things must be perceived by him [Berkeley] |
| 3951 | There must be a God, because I and my ideas are not independent [Berkeley] |
| 6957 | The objects of theological reasoning are too big for our minds [Hume] |
| 5607 | Only three proofs of God: the physico-theological (evidence), the cosmological (existence), the ontological (a priori) [Kant] |
| 21775 | The God of revealed religion can only be understood through pure speculative knowledge [Hegel] |
| 18991 | If the God hypothesis works well, then it is true [James] |
| 20694 | 'Natural theology' aims to prove God to anyone (not just believers) by reason or argument [Davies,B] |