REASONING ABOUT GOD
A priori is a term first used by Immanuel Kant and it means "from the beginning" or "at first". It is a type of argument based on the meaning of terms. It describes things we can know independently of the facts. To know something a priori is to know it from pure logic, without having to gather any evidence. For example, you can know that triangles have three sides without having to examine any actual triangles and count their sides..
Kant refers to the knowledge gained from this sort of argument as analytical knowledge - it isan improved understanding of what the premises in the argument mean, rather than knowledge based on experience. |
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YES
God is not a "thing" that exists "in" the physical world. For many believers, God is a transcendent being that exists outside of time and space (aseity). This makes proving God's existence a bit more like a mathematical proof (like Pythagorus or pi) instead of weighing up physical evidence.
A priori arguments are immune to being disproved by science. There's no danger of a new scientific discovery or theory coming along to weaken the argument, the way Darwin's Theory of Evolution weakened the Design Argument.
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NO
A posteriori arguments are rooted in the real world of experience and prove that things exist in that real world. A priori arguments don't add to our synthetic knowledge of the world; they just describe that world in a different way.
A posteriori arguments don't gain support from evidence. Scientific investigation reveals more and more puzzling features about the universe: its size, its physical laws, its oddness, but it doesn't lend any support to the Ontological Argument.
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