Claim: The Existence of God has been argued through a philosophical argument.

Existence is commonly held to be that which objectively persists independent of one 's presence .   Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being , existence or reality in general , as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations . Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics , ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist , -LRB- for instance : `` Does the stellar structure UDFj-39546284 exist ? '' -RRB- , and how such entities can be grouped , related within a hierarchy , and subdivided according to similarities and differences .   Materialism holds that the only things that exist are matter and energy , that all things are composed of material , that all actions require energy , and that all phenomena -LRB- including consciousness -RRB- are the result of material interactions .   Life is a characteristic which distinguishes objects that have self-sustaining biological processes from those that do not -- either because such functions have ceased -LRB- death -RRB- , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as `` inanimate '' .   In mathematics , existence is asserted by a quantifier , the existential quantifier , one of two quantifiers -LRB- the other being the universal quantifier -RRB- . The properties of the existential quantifier are established by axioms .