agnosticism
The view that some proposition is not known, and perhaps cannot be known to be true or false. The term is particularly applied to theological doctrines.
Athenagoras
(2nd cent.), Apologist. His ‘Apology’ or ‘Supplication’, addressed c.177 to Marcus Aurelius and his son, sought to rebut the current calumnies against the Christians, namely atheism, Thyestian ...
Charles Bradlaugh
(1833–91)British social reformer. A republican and keen supporter of reform movements, he was tried, with Annie Besant, in 1877–78 for printing a pamphlet on birth control. The charge failed and ...
Daniel Waterland
(1683–1740), Anglican theologian. He took part in the theological controversies of his time, especially those on the Divinity of Christ and the Trinity, on Deism, and on the Eucharist. The Eucharist ...
death of God
The assertion that God is dead, but that we have to vanquish his shadow, first occurs in Nietzsche's The Gay Science, iii. 108. At 125 Nietzsche tells of the madman who hails it as the greatest ...
deism
Belief in a god who created the universe but does not govern worldly events, does not answer prayers, and has no direct involvement in human affairs. deist n. One who espouses deism. Compare ...
Friedrich Engels
(1820–95)German socialist and political philosopher, resident chiefly in England from 1842. The founder of modern communism with Karl Marx, he collaborated with him in the writing of the Communist ...
God
Buddhism is atheistic and does not believe in the existence of a Supreme Being or Creator God. However, it acknowledges the existence of a wide range of supernatural beings known as devas.many of ...
humanism
[De]A philosophy or ethical system that centres on the concept of the dignity, freedom, and value of human beings. The belief that there is an essential human condition that emerges regardless of ...
natural theology
A philosophy which tries to link the study of natural phenomena with the notion of divine providence, stressing that harmony and order in nature are evidence of God's design. It became important in ...
pantheism
The view that God is in everything, or that God and the universe are one. The most celebrated pantheistic system of modern philosophy is that of Spinoza, although pantheistic rhetoric flourished in ...
secularism
The term was coined c.1850 to denote a system which sought to order and interpret life on principles taken solely from this world, without recourse to belief in God and a future life. It is now used ...
St Justin Martyr
(c.100–c.165), Apologist. Born of pagan parents, he was converted to Christianity c.130. He continued as a philosopher, now teaching Christianity, first at Ephesus and later in Rome. His ‘First ...
theism
Belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures. The word is recorded from the ...
William Paley
(1743–1805)English theologian and moral philosopher. Paley is remembered for two contributions to natural theology. The first is the sustained defence of the argument to design for the existence of ...
Wolfhart Pannenberg
(1928– ), German Protestant theologian. From 1968 to 1993 he was Professor of Systematic Theology in the Protestant Faculty of Theology at Munich. In 1961 he edited Offenbarung als Geschichte (Eng. ...
