An analytical Study of the Cumulative Argument for the Existence of God

From the point of view of some Western philosophers, such as Basil Mitchell, Richard Swinburne, and Caroline Franks Davis, in order to justify the belief in the existence of God, the probability of the proposition “God exists" must be more than 50% of its corresponding evidence-based propositions. From their point of view, the evidence for the existence of God cannot independently increase the probability of gaining correct results to more than 50%, but can only confirm them. Therefore, the existence of God cannot be justified based on each of those arguments. To solve this problem, the mentioned philosophers have proposed the theory of cumulative argument. The logic behind this argument is inductivism and its purpose is to reach a valid belief. Using the analytical-rational method, this paper evaluates and compares the works of some Western philosophers with the principles of Muslim philosophers and finally concludes that from the point of view of most Islamic philosophers, the cumulative argument is not a valid argument for proving the existence of God, but from the point of view of some other Muslim theologians, philosophers, and writers, this argument has a speculative epistemological value in many aspects and, in some cases, is the only way to prove the claim about the existence of God.