| monotheism | the claim that one God created the world and sustains it while transcending it
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| evidentialism | the claim that belief in God must be supported by objective evidence
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| natural theology | the project of attempting to provide proofs for the existence of God based on reason and experience alone
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| atheism | the claim that God does not exist
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| agnosticism | the claim that there is not enough evidence for us to know whether God does or does not exist; sometimes called religious skepticism
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| nonevidentialism | the claim that it is not rationally required to have objective, rational evidence for our basic beliefs and stance toward life
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| fideism | the claim that religious belief must be based on faith alone and cannot be justified by appeal to either objective or subjective reasons
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| principle of sufficient reason | the principle that everything that exists must have a reason that explains why it exists and why it has the properties that it does
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| contingent being | a being whose existence depends on something outside itself, such that neither its existence nor its nonexistence is logically necessary
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| necessary being | a being who contains the reason for its existence within its own nature
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| teleological argument | the argument for God's existence based on the evidence of design in the world
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| problem of evil | the difficulty of reconciling the existence of suffering and other evils in the world with the existence of God
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| moral evil | bad actions and their unfortunate results for which humans (or other moral agents) are morally responsible
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| natural evil | the suffering to humans and animals resulting from natural causes such as genetic defects, diseases, earthquakes, and tornadoes
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| theodicy | the attempt to justify God's permitting evil to occur in the world
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| greater goods defense | the claim that God allows some evil to exist because it is necessary to the achievement of a greater good
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| free will defense | the claim that God could not create creatures (such as us) who have freedom of the will but who are incapable of doing evil
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| karma | in Hinduism, the moral law of cause and effect that governs our actions in the world
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| reincarnation | the doctrine that your soul came from a previous form of existence and that when you die you will be reborn into another life
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| nirvana | In Buddhism, an unchanging, peaceful state of mind that allows us freedom from the illusion of individuality and the limitations of the self
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