This article discusses the main points in the Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston’s debate about the existence of God. Copleston defended the cosmological argument based on a sufficient reason and argued against radical contingency in explaining the origin of the world. During the debate, the understanding of necessity was discussed, whether the word ‘God’ is a proper name or a description, whether the universe as a whole can have a cause, and the arguments about the origin of the world formulated in modern physics. The whole debate is an excellent example of the difference between a theist and an atheist with regard to Leibnizian type of the cosmological argument.i
Some principles of general theory of being have their equivalents in laws of classical logic. For a long time this was not distinctly noticed, as logic was treated rather as technology of discussion, and not as a system of propositions stated in the objective language and concerning connections between facts. It may be generally said that some primary principles of being and some laws of logic state the same most fundamental connections between facts, between states of things. There are also principles of philosophy that do not have such equivalents in laws of logic. These include the principle of sufficient reason. The concept of intuitive truth of propositions that reappeared in modern logic first of all in connection with K. Gödel’s theorem of 1931 formed an intellectual climate that made it possible for classical logicians to accept also those principles of general theory of being that do not have equivalents in laws of standard logic. It may be said that these philosophical principles may be included in the outward basis of modern logic.
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