I have some questions about God and why people believe, as follows:
What is the main reason you believe?
Would you say your beliefs are reasonable, i.e. your faith is grounded in reason and you have good reason to believe?
What is your standard by which you judge things to be true or false?
Thanks in advance for any responses.
Note to mods: wasn't sure where the best place to post this was, so I chose the closes topic I could find.
What is the main reason you believe?
Would you say your beliefs are reasonable, i.e. your faith is grounded in reason and you have good reason to believe?
What is your standard by which you judge things to be true or false?
Thanks in advance for any responses.
Note to mods: wasn't sure where the best place to post this was, so I chose the closes topic I could find.
1. I read the first book of Summa Contra Gentiles, and I found the arguments for the existence of a perfectly good, immutable, and eternal God to be persuasive. I think certain elements of ancient and medieval metaphysics (essence/existence, Act/Potency, being & goodness, teleology etc.) offer a compelling and systematic approach to everyday relationships, from which the existence of God is then deduced.
2. Yes.
3. If something implies a logical contradiction then I think it (or one or more components, such as in the case of multiple contradictory statements) must be false. If a conclusion is reached by ordering certain true statements in a logically valid pattern such that it necessitates that conclusion, then I think it must be true. That is to say, I will have to accept the truth of the conclusion of any valid deductive argument if I think that its premises are true.
Inductive arguments and any abductive reasoning in the scientific process is inherently invalid, and I regard it as neither here nor there, so to speak.