Can We Know God Is Real? Part I

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We can know God is real, and we can do so without Faith. We can know, from Reason alone, that God exists. Recall that Faith is the acceptance of God’s Revelation and that Reason is the use of non-supernatural evidence and logic. If there is no way to show that God is not a myth or just a psychological crutch, why should anyone get interested or stay interested in Him?

The greatest thinker in the history of the world, in my opinion, shows us the way. He is St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 AD). In his “Five Proofs for the Existence of God,” or “Five Proofs” for short, in his Summa Theologica, St. Thomas shows that we, by using only Reason, can know God is real.

In this column, I will present three of the Five Proofs. They are not exact translations of St. Thomas’ Latin words but are paraphrases that are intended to simplify and clarify without distorting St. Thomas’s thought. You can try reading St. Thomas’ Proofs on your own.

The Proof from Effect to Cause

There are a longer version and a shorter version of this Proof. Here is the longer version, which has three arguments:

Because things exist; and

because nothing that exists can cause itself to exist;

therefore each thing (which we will call “Z”) that did not cause itself to exist must be the effect of some other thing (which we will call “Y”) which caused it.

(We can diagram this argument as Y → Z.)

Because that other thing (“Y”) cannot have caused itself; and

because that other thing (“Y”) did exist, otherwise the currently existing thing that did not cause itself to exist (“Z”) would not exist;

therefore that other thing (“Y”) must have been the effect of yet another thing (which we will call “X”) which caused it, and so on.

(We can diagram this argument as X → Y → Z.)

Because this process of cause and effect cannot go back infinitely, otherwise it would have never started in the first place; and

because this process of cause and effect did start, otherwise nothing would exist;

therefore there must be an Uncaused Cause (which we will call “A”), which is something that had no cause and that began the process of cause and effect, to which everyone gives the name “God.”

(We can diagram the above as A → X → Y → Z.)

Here is the shorter version:

Because only if there is an Uncaused Cause, then there are other causes; and

because there are other causes;

therefore there is an Uncaused Cause, to which everyone gives the name “God.”

Everyone naturally gives the name “God” to the Uncaused Cause since “God” is the name of the Supreme Being and since that being which is the only Uncaused Cause is supreme or superior to every other being which is caused.

Where are the non-supernatural evidence and logic in this Proof? St. Thomas’s evidence is common and undeniable: (1) things exist and (2) nothing causes itself to exist.

(The closest thing there is to something that SEEMS to cause itself to exist are virtual particles that SEEM to pop in and out of existence in a vacuum state. However, according to physicist David Albert, “Vacuum states—no less than giraffes or refrigerators or solar systems—are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff . . . [N]one of these poppings [of virtual particles]—if you look at them aright—amount to anything even remotely in the neighborhood of a creation from nothing [and thus from no cause],” as quoted by Trent Horn in Why We’re Catholic.)

St. Thomas’ logic is found in “Because . . ., because . . ., therefore.” Logic, at its simplest, is having reasons (“because”) for one’s conclusion (“therefore”).

(This Proof refers to the efficient cause, which is the cause by which something results—the agent or thing which brings about the result. There are other kinds of cause: formal cause according to which something results, material cause out of which something results, and final cause for the purpose of which something results.)

This Proof also provides an answer to the classic question, Why is there something rather than nothing? This question cannot be answered by atheism (the belief that there is no God) and agnosticism (the belief that we cannot know whether God exists). If an atheist asks a theist (a believer in God), “Why does God exist?” and the theist answers “Just because He does,” then the atheist is right to object that the theist has not really given a reason for God’s existence. BUT if a theist asks an atheist, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” and the atheist answers “Just because there is,” then the theist is right to object that the atheist has not really given a reason for the existence of something rather than nothing. Both theists and atheists should “play by the same rules.” If a theist should have reasons for believing in God (and he should), then an atheist should have reasons for why there is something rather than nothing.

The Proof from Change

This Proof is much like the previous. There are a longer version and a shorter version, too. Here is the longer version with its three arguments:

Because things change by going from having the potential to actualizing that potential, as that which is cold has the potential to become hot; and

because nothing can change itself;

therefore whatever changes must be changed by something else—a “changer” or catalyst—like fire, which is actually hot, makes cold wood, which is potentially hot, become actually hot.

Because a changer cannot change itself; and

because changers themselves are changed;

therefore there must be changers of changers.

Because this process of change cannot go back infinitely or no change would have ever happened;

therefore there must be an Unchanged Changer to start the process of change, and this everyone understands to be God.

The shorter version is:

Because only if there is an Unchanged Changer, then there can be other (changed) changers; and

because there are other changers;

therefore there is an Unchanged Changer.

(St. Thomas’ Latin for “change” and its variations usually gets translated as “move” and its variations; and so “Prime Mover,” not “Unchanged Changer,” is the usual translation of his primum movens, quod a nullo movetur. I have used “Unchanged Changer” even though it is awkward because it better expresses St. Thomas’s meaning of change from potentiality to actuality and not just physical movement from one place to another, as “move” in English tends to be taken. To completely understand how things change, we also learn how they change chemically, historically, etc. This Proof deals with the change—potential to actual—which is the kind of change that is the basis of all other change, such as chemical change, historical change, etc.)

Everyone fittingly understands the Unchanged Changer to be God since God is the Supreme Being and since that being which is the only Unchanged Being is supreme to all other beings that do change.

The common, undeniable evidence St. Thomas uses in this Proof are: (1) things change and (2) nothing changes itself.

Do not disagree with the last evidence that nothing changes itself because one part of something can change a different part of that same thing. For example, if someone says, “There is something that can change itself—I can change myself,” “I” and “myself” mean two different things. “I” is one part of me, such as my hand, and “myself” is another part of me, such as my hair. So my hand changes my hair by applying dye, combing, etc. One strand of hair does not change itself, even just by growing—it needs nutrition, etc. “I” do not change “myself”—one part of me changes a different part of me. Nothing changes itself.

The Proof from Degrees

Our last Proof is short.

Because some things are more and some are less beautiful, some are more and some are less good, etc.—there are degrees/grades/scales/ranges of quality; and

because something is “more” or “less” only as it resembles something else which is the maximum/the “most,” as a thing is said to be hotter as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest;

therefore there is something which is the most beautiful, the most good, etc.—a Perfect Being in which all perfection exists, and this we call “God.”

The All-Perfect Being deserves to be called “God,” since that being which is all-perfect is supreme to every imperfect being and since, as we have seen, “God’ is the right name for the Supreme Being.

The common, undeniable evidence St. Thomas uses in this Proof is that there are degrees among things—everything is not equally beautiful, good, etc.

What We Know from These Proofs

We know from St. Thomas’ Proofs what was also taught by the First Vatican Council (1869-1870) and repeated by the Catechism of the Catholic Church (36), “God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason.”

We gain other knowledge from these Proofs.

We know some things about God’s essence or identity. As the Uncaused Cause, God is the only thing that always existed. God is the only thing that did not have a beginning. As the Unchanged Changer and the All-Perfect Being, God is the only being that never has changed, is not now changing, and never will change because He always was, is, and always will be the fullness of being. There was, is, and will be nothing more for Him to become.

We know that there must be only one God or Supreme Being. The Uncaused Cause (supreme to all caused beings), the Unchanged Changer (supreme to all changed beings), and the All-Perfect Being (supreme to all imperfect beings) must be the same Being because the All-Perfect Being must be supreme in all ways in order to be perfect. The “All-Perfect Being” would not be perfect neither if it were caused by an uncaused being nor if another being had the fullness of being and so were unchanging.

Since monotheism (the belief that there is only one God) is objectively true, we know that atheism is objectively false, agnosticism is objectively false, and polytheism (the belief in more than one god) is objectively false. (This is NOT to judge the souls or disparage the human dignity of atheists, agnostics, and polytheists—but this is to judge their thinking.)

These Proofs do NOT settle all issues about who the Supreme Being is and which religion is the truest. St. Thomas never claimed that they do. They do help us know that God really exists. They do help us know something, not everything, about God’s essence or identity.

These Proofs are not a substitute for Faith in Divine Revelation. Needed to confirm God’s reality is an encounter with Him in the Catholic Church’s doctrine, worship, prayer, and morality, as well as in her saints. But these Proofs are examples of how Reason supports Faith. St. Thomas shows that thinking that God is real can be highly intelligent and can rise above the level of childish wonder at fairy tales, a psychological crutch, or pre-scientific belief in myths. A good Catholic should never turn off his or her brain in order to be religious. In fact, the Catholic intellectual tradition is the most profound intellectual tradition there is.

God is real!

Sources

  • Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q. 2, art. 3., trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Christian Classics, 1981).
  • Stefan Swiezawski, Thomas Revisited, trans. Theresa Sandok, OSM (Peter Lang Publishing, 1995).
  • Peter Kreeft, A Shorter Summa (Ignatius Press, 1993).
  • Jacques Maritain, Approaches to God, trans. Peter O’Reilly (Harper & Brothers, 1954).
  • John F. Wippel, “Metaphysics,” The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump, eds. (Cambridge University Press, 1993).
  • http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/5ways.html

 

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4 thoughts on “Can We Know God Is Real? Part I”

  1. Pingback: Can We Know God Is Real? Part II - Catholic Stand

  2. It is common practice to present St. Thomas’ arguments for the existence of God with reference to causal series. In July of 2013 at Catholic Stand, I proposed that we take a different perspective of St. Thomas’ five ways. It was that we take Aquinas serieslessly. In April of 2013, I had posted a rather long essay on my blog in which I took that perspective. The links to these essays did not translate into this comment. The essays can be found by entering “taking Aquinas serieslessly” and “St. Thomas’ one proof” in an internet search engine.

  3. Pingback: SATVRDAY EDITION – Big Pulpit

  4. As St. Thomas Aquinas has written as have many others, God has done all that needs to be done to prove to all people that He is Love, and that He exists. And to those who have been so damaged so as to not receive Him loving them, He waits, and step by step shows them that He is, in just the ways they need, to receive His “proofs”.

    God has an army of pray-ers who pray daily for these unbelievers who are known and unknown to the pray-ers. These pray-ers are full of the Love of Jesus Christ for Christ’s lost sheep.

    Many of the lost sheep will respond to these prayers and will receive God’s loving them, and some will persist in refusing Him. Jesus Christ will judge at the Last Judgment, all of us, each of us. Those who are His will go on to Heaven, and those who are not His, will be banished forever from Heaven.

    So, spend time thinking about Who believers say that God is. Tell to God, even if it seems that one is talking just to the air, that one does not believe but is willing to believe if He will only do something to prove Himself.

    There is the crux. Is the unbeliever, at present, actually using his own free will to choose to believe, or is he “playing games with this”?? Only the one caught in this cycle of unbelief, and God, know the truth there.

    What God will do for the unbeliever who in truth uses his free will to believe God, God will give a knowing into the heart of the unbeliever, that He is and that He loves him. And that knowing that God is, will remain with him forever.

    This is the choice that every one must and will make. If unbelief is purposely kept, a time might well come when the will, to will to know God, might pass, as the will becomes hardened againt God due to the will fully embracing the world instead of Him.

    God bless, C-Marie

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