ABSTRACT
The course of philosophical development has been full of attempted proofs of the existence of God. For it is possible to say that there are nearly as many 'Gods' as there are speakers and worshippers, and while existence may be confidently asserted or denied of some of them, we should feel more hesitant in the case of others. We might describe religious frames of mind as ones in which we felt ready to abase ourselves before some object, to bend the knee before it, and so forth. The atheistic religious attitude we have mentioned has also undergone reflective elaboration by philosophers such as Fichte and Erigena and Alexander. The religious spirit is one of reverence before things greater than ourselves, we should be gravely impoverished and arrested if this spirit ceased to be operative in our personal and social life. We shall choose an indirect approach, and pin God down for our purposes as the 'adequate object of religious attitudes'.
