There is a variety of concepts of the divine in the eastern and western theological and philosophical traditions. There is, however, not enough reflection on the logic behind concepts of God and their justification. I clarify some necessary and sufficient conditions any attempt to explicate a concept of God has to take into account. I argue that each concept of God is a cypher for a particular worldview and distinguishes three types of justification frequently used to bestow content on particular (...) concepts of God: philosophical, theological, and scientific. I turn to four fundamental models of the God–world relation and argue that the most promising concept of God is panentheistic, on which the universe is essentially divine but is not exhaustive of the divine being. (shrink)

Latest version of my SEP entry on ontological arguments, which first appeared in 1996. General discussion of ontological arguments. Includes a brief historical overview, a taxonomy of different kinds of ontological arguments, a brief survey of objections to the different kinds of ontological arguments identified in the taxonomy, and more extended discussions of Anselm's ontological argument (Proslogion 2), Godel's ontological argument, and Plantinga's ontological argument.

This paper summarizes a few recent objections to various ontological arguments. I do not weigh one argument against another, nor offer defenses of OAs. This paper only highlights some objections to OAs to synthesize the information in one place. Opponents of the OA argue that despite the many attempts to strengthen Anselm’s original argument it can be shown that OAs fail to offer a theistic proof for God. It has been argued that OAs either offer premises that atheists do not (...) accept, yield invalid results, or have conclusions that have no religious significance. (shrink)