in public. But prolonged hiding of one’s inner thoughts is difficult, above all in the
intellectual world, where rituals of communication are the taps controlling its
energy flow. When the philosopher publicly states a position—such as the double
truth, or the compatibility of conceptual innovations with religious orthodoxy—
the ritualistic process of repeating it before an audience generates further emotional
energy, which makes these ideas still more dominant in the internal conversation.
Successful thinkers cannot be Machiavellian about their creativity for very long;
as their ideas become publicly known, the result is self-indoctrination.- There are seven often-used types of proofs of God, together with proofs of another
six auxiliary questions (Davidson, 1987; EP, 1967: 2:147–155, 232–237, 324–326,
3:345–348, 6:538–541, 7:84–87; Sextus Empiricus, 1949: 1:13–194). Their distri-
bution throughout world history confirms the importance of the monotheist con-
text. There are two lay-oriented proofs. Common consent of mankind: Cicero,
Seneca, Clement of Alexandria; widely used in the 1600s by Cherbury, Gassendi,
Grotius, Hooker, and the Cambridge Platonists. In India it appears in the Nyaya-
Vaisheshika commentary of Udayana (1000 c.e.). This is a popularistic argument
for the laity; it has been applied to defending both polytheism and monotheism,
and was attacked as early as the Greek Sophists, Stoics, and Skeptics. Teleology
or design (the harmonious order of the world implies a maker): Socrates (as
recorded by Xenophon), Plato, the Christian Fathers; included by Saadia, Mai-
monides, and Aquinas in their compendia; especially emphasized in Europe of the
1700s with Butler and Paley. It has been most prominent in the context of
reconciling science and religion. This type of argument does not arise in Asia, as
it implies an anthropomorphic God and is senseless in connection with mysticism,
which declares the lower world an illusion, or in connection with an immanent
world order as in the Chinese cosmologies. Both of these proofs are metaphysically
limited, implying nothing about God’s perfection and unity, or about creation of
the world ex nihilo.
There are three metaphysical proofs. Cosmological, whose subtypes include
from motion: Aristotle’s proof of the existence of an unmoved Mover, Stoics; and
from causality: allied with auxiliary arguments, used as proofs of God by medieval
Muslims and Jews, Aquinas, Descartes, Locke. From relative perfection (compara-
tive degrees of perfection implies a superlative): early Stoics, Augustine, Anselm,
Aquinas, Descartes; Shankara gives an epistemological version. Ontological: Ibn
Sina (arguing from contingency); Anselm’s version was widely used, discussed, and
rejected in medieval Christian philosophy, revived by Descartes, Spinoza, and
Leibniz, and critically discussed down through Frege and Russell. Technical phi-
losophers have found this the most metaphysically stimulating proof because it
acutely raises the issue of reflexivity. The ontological proof does not appear in
India, owing to the anti-conceptual stance toward the highest reality dominant
since the rise of Advaita.
There are two post-metaphysical proofs. Moral: Kant (the ideal of the highest
good implies a source outside the human individual). From religious experience:
Schleiermacher, James. These arguments result from Kant’s critique cutting off
metaphysical arguments, especially the cosmological and ontological proofs.
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