value for faith

• faith as reasonable
• easy to understand evidence
• Aquinas held that knowledge of God comes from natural theology (what we can know by reason and observation)
• H.H. Price makes a distinction between ‘belief in’ and ‘belief that’. Belief that God exists is supported by Aquinas’ argument. But belief in God is a matter of faith.
• 'faith seeking understanding'
• Some claim that there is more to religious belief than just agreeing to a set of statements: it goes beyond the bounds of reason.
• religious belief, like being in love, is much more than just an intellectual acceptance of certain assertions
• religious defence against atheism.
• religious defence against atheism

  Atheists claim that religion is unreasonable because religious faith is nothing more than idle speculation.

  · But atheists have no more evidence that God does not exist than theists have for believing that he does, so the atheistic view that religious faith is nothing more than idle speculation is itself nothing more than idle speculation.

  · So, if atheists can speculate that God does not exist is reasonable, then it must be reasonable for theists to speculate that God does exist.
• the simplicity of Paley’s argument could provide a basis for belief
• Swinburne uses various arguments and other evidence as a cumulative argument for the existence of God. He claims that individually they are insufficient, but that together they could be persuasive. Leaky bucket counterargument
• Some would argue that Paley’s Design Argument has no value for faith, because faith does not depend on any kind of proof or on probability.
• it could be argued that faith (belief in God) is a separate issue from reasoned arguments such as that offered by Paley (which supports faith that God exists).
•  Anthony Flew made the analogy that "If one leaky bucket will not hold water there is no reason to think that ten can."
• The problem with this analogy is that the buckets do not need to be completely full; they only need to contain enough water to make them worthwhile carrying. Similarly, individual arguments may not prove conclusively that God exists, but taken together they might add up to an amount which makes belief in God worthwhile.
• Several poor or invalid arguments of this kind cannot be automatically combined to form a strong valid argument.