On the Existence of God

Introduction: The Theoretical and Practical Interest of the Question of God’s Existence.- One: Preliminary Inquiries.- First Preliminary Inquiry: Is the Inquiry Superfluous?.- I. Superficial Arguments.- II. The Ontological Argument.- Second Preliminary Inquiry: Is it Evident a Priori That the Existence of God is Impossible to Prove?.- I. Reasons Which Are Supposed to Make it Evident a priori that God Does Not Exist.- II. Arguments the Purpose of Which is to Show a priori that a Certain Proof of the Existence of God Cannot Be Produced.- A. Skeptical Reservations of a General Nature.- 1. Universal Skepticism.- 2. The Mitigated Skepticism of the New Academy.- 3. The Limited Skepticism of David Hume.- 4. Kant’s Transcendental Idealism.- Critique of Kant’s Doctrine.- Critique of Hume’s Doctrine.- The True Nature of Inferences From One Matter of Fact to Another.- A priori Proof of the Causal Law.- 5. Further Arguments of a General Sort.- B. Skeptical Arugments Which Are Specially Adapted to Our Subject.- Two: The Proofs of the Existence of God.- A Survey of the Proofs Attempted throughout the History of Philosophy.- The Teleological Proof First Part: The Appearance of Teleology.- I. The Foundation In Experience.- The Appearance of Teleology in the Realm of Living Things.- The Appearance of Teleology in the Realm of Inorganic Nature.- II. Objections Against the Appearance of Teleology in Nature.- A. Against the Appearance of Teleology Generally.- B. Objections Against the Appearance of a Superhuman Teleology.- III. Reply to the Arguments Against the Appearance of Teleology.- A. The Objections to Teleology in General.- B. Reply to the Objections Against the Appearance of a Superhuman Teleology.- Second Part: The Reality of Teleology.- I. The Hypothesis of Blind Necessity.- A. Older and More Recent Forms of This Hypothesis.- The Darwinian Theory of Natural Selection.- B. Critique of the Hypothesis of Blind Necessity.- Darwin’s Explanation is Not a Safe Assumption.- The Darwinian Hypothesis is Highly Improbable.- The Impossibility of the Darwinian Hypothesis.- New Theories for Explaining Evolution.- II. Comparison of the Hypothesis of An Ordering Intelligence With the Hypothesis of Chance.- Third Part of the Teleological Proof: From an Ordering Intelligence to a Creator.- The Proof from Motion.- 1. Proof of the Prime Mover, Based on the Law of the Conservation of Energy and the Law of Entropy.- 2. Proof of the Prime Mover on the Basis of a Contradiction in the Concept of Motion Without a Beginning.- The Proof from Contingency.- The Psychological Proof.- Completion of the Proof of the Existence of God.- The Train of Thought in the Proof of God’s Existence (1915).- One: On the Necessity of All Existing Things.- Two: On the First, Directly Necessary Cause.- Three: Concerning Theodicy.- Editor’s Foreword to the German Edition, by Alfred Kastil.- Editorial Notes by Alfred Kastil.