Education
Document Type
Sermon
Files
Date
2-9-1903
Summary
This is from a collection of manuscripts — mostly class papers — written while Davis was a student at Harvard Divinity School, 1902-1904. This manuscript is clearly for the Theology I class he took during the 1902-03 academic year.
In this paper, Davis first dismisses "materialistic philosophy" because it cannot account for ideals. He develops in some detail what he calls "the method of postulates." Here he sets out several postulates about God (colloquially, truth, goodness and beauty) and argues that they account for the evidence. He considers and dismisses the various arguments for God in the historical literature -- Anselm's ontological argument, Descartes' cosmological argument, and Kant's teleological argument. While none prove the existence of God, all support his postulate.
The primary downloadable document contains the original document followed by the transcription. The bottom of each item page also features the primary document as an embedded pdf for browsing.
Transcription by Davis Baird. Item description based off writing and context provided by Davis Baird.
Keywords
Earl Clement Davis, Unitarianism, religion, theology
Recommended Citation
Davis, Earl Clement, "Theology I: Being of God" (1903). Education. 11.
https://commons.clarku.edu/education/11
Rights Statement
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/