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Did we learn the concept of God and infer his existence from some other more basic belief, or did we have the concept of God or a belief in his existence 'already in the mind'? Such is the issue of nativism: whether there is something in the mind prior to experience. Some theologians and philosophers espouse strongly nativist views. For example, Gordon Clark argues for a form of concept nativism. He argues that human beings have “innate ideas and a priori categories” the purpose of which are for “receiving a verbal revelation, of approaching God in prayer, and of conversing with other men about God and spiritual realities.” Clark makes two arguments for his view. First, he argues that it is not possible to arrive at a concept of God from sense experience: "Since man was created in the image of God, he has an innate idea of God…it is not possible for a blank mind to abstract the concept of God from sensory experience nor to lift sensory language by its bootstraps to a s...

Alexander Campbell was an influential pastor in 19th century. He came up with an interesting argument for the existence of God. I saw it nicely analyzed by Caleb Clanton . Campbell argues that human beings must have obtained the concept of God at some time in the past. But what best explains the cause of our having such a concept? There are five plausible options. First, the idea of God is innate to human minds. We never really obtained the concept; it was always within us. Second, the concept of God was acquired through direct experience of God. Third, the concept of God was arrived at by experience and reflection. Fourth, the concept of God is a product of human imagination. Finally, the concept of God was revealed to human beings by a being that has the ability to reveal concepts to human beings. Campbell argues that the best explanation for the concept of God in human minds is that God revealed it to us. He argues that all the other options have serious flaws. First, Campbe...

In this paper I will argue that the apparently commonplace activity of referring to God depends on what we take to be the relationship between a given entity and the name of that entity. It is commonly held that reference depends on some definite description of the entity in question. I will argue that Saul Kripke’s criticisms of descriptivism are sufficient to reject the view. However, if we take Kripke’s causal theory or a Millian direct theory of reference we are confronted with the problem of worship. If people from a broad variety of religions can successfully refer to God, then can they be said to worship the same God? In the latter part of the paper I will propose a way to block this inference. There are several problems related to referring to God. Here are two: first, if we have no acquaintance with an entity can we refer to it successfully? Some believe that we experience God in something like a perceptual state. Perhaps we have a sixth sense in virtue of which we can c...