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Awareness of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

A. C. Ewing
Affiliation:
Jesus College, Cambridge.

Extract

‘PROOFS of God’ are under a cloud today, and whether the cloud can be dissipated or not, I am not going to try to dissipate it in this article. Modern thinkers have created a mental climate very unfavourable to metaphysics, but they have certainly not succeeded in disproving on principle the possibility of valid and fruitful metaphysical arguments even in the old transcendent sense of ‘metaphysics’. However, I must admit that in my opinion the best that can be said of arguments for the existence of God is that they give some intellectual support to the belief, not that they are really decisive. If this is so, it becomes of very special importance to consider whether those may be right who maintain that we can come to knowledge of or at least justified belief in God otherwise than by inference. I am not considering the views of those who base the belief solely on authority: argument would be required to decide whether we ought to accept an authority, and if so which. What I am referring to is the claim that there are certain 'mystical' and other religious experiences which can without argument adequately and rationally assure one of God's existence. Obviously from the nature of the case a man who makes this claim for himself cannot prove to others that he is right, but can any good reason be given to support the view that he is wrong? If not, the possibility remains that those who dispute with him are in a similar position to that of a tonedeaf man disagreeing with Beethoven about the value of music.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1965

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References

page 3 note 1 v. Smart, Philosophy and Scientific Realism, Ch. V.Google Scholar

page 4 note 1 I do not mean by taking this example to suggest that ‘God is omniscient’ is a proposition we directly know to be true.Google Scholar

page 7 note 1 This argument of course assumes that it is possible to deal with the problem of evil in such a way as at least to mitigate the prima facie objection which it constitutes to belief in God, a topic I have no space to discuss here. If not, cadit quaestio.Google Scholar

page 7 note 2 v. Klausner & Kuntz, Philosophy: Alternative Beliefs, p. 262.Google Scholar

page 9 note 1 Mac, Taggart, Some Dogmas of Religion, pp. 38-40.Google Scholar

page 12 note 1 A Venture of Faith, p. 155.Google Scholar

page 12 note 2 Hocking, W. E., The Coming World Civilization, p.Google Scholar

page 14 note 1 In so far as it is not a mere system of moral training without any sort of metaphysical outlook, as I suppose it is for some Buddhists.