Absence of God

The existence of God is a subject of debate in theology, the philosophy of religion, and popular culture. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God can be categorized as logical, empirical, metaphysical, subjective or scientific. In philosophical terms, the question of the existence of God involves the disciplines of epistemology (the nature and scope of knowledge) and ontology (study of the nature of being or existence) and the theory of value (since some definitions of God include "perfection").

The Western tradition of philosophical discussion of the existence of God began with Plato and Aristotle, who made arguments that today would be categorized as cosmological. Other arguments for the existence of God have been proposed by St. Anselm, who formulated the first ontological argument; Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and Thomas Aquinas, who presented their own versions of the cosmological argument (the kalam argument and the first way, respectively); René Descartes, who said that the existence of a benevolent God is logically necessary for the evidence of the senses to be meaningful. John Calvin argued for a sensus divinitatis, which gives each human a knowledge of God's existence. Atheists view arguments for the existence of God as insufficient, mistaken or outweighed by arguments against it, whereas some religions, such as Jainism, reject the possibility of a creator deity. Philosophers who have provided arguments against the existence of God include David Hume and Bertrand Russell. Theism is the dominant view among philosophers of religion.