20. Pascal's Wager (My favorite and the last one!)

Here we are at the last proof.  Technically, the last "proof" of God's existence was number nineteen.  Today's argument notes that there are good arguments for God's existence on both sides.  This argument presents the question, "Where are you going to place your bet?" 

If you place your bet with God and he does exist, you win everything! You win perfect happiness and eternal life! If you place it with God, and he doesn't exist, you "lose" nothing, because God does not exist.  If you place your bet against God and he does exist, you lose everything: perfect happiness and eternal life.  If you place your bet against God and he does not exist, you neither lose nor gain anything.  To simplify it further- if you believe in God and "win", you win everything.  If you lose, you lose nothing.  But if you don't believe in God and he exists, you lose everything.  If he doesn't exist, you gain nothing.  So there is everything to gain and nothing to lose!  Examine the chart below:

The rows indicate the "wagers" and the columns indicate the two possible realities.   Consider the blue cells.  If God does not exist, but I believe in him, then after death heaven does not await me.  Instead it is nonexistence.  But what if I do not believe in God and he exists?  "He offers me his love and his life, and I reject it.  There are answers to my greatest questions, there is fulfillment of my deepest desires; but I decide to spurn it all.  In that case, I lose (or at least seriously risk losing) everything."  (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith, pg. 92). 

The Wager cannot- or should not- coerce belief.  But it can be an incentive for us to search for God, to study and restudy the arguments that seek to show that there is Something- or Someone- who is the ultimate explanation of the universe and of my life.  It could at least motivate "the prayer of the skeptic":  "God, I don't know whether you exist or not, but if you do, please show me who you are."" (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith, pg. 92, emphasis mine). 

Pascal says that there are three kinds of people: those who have sought God and found him, those who are seeking and have not yet found, and those who neither seek nor find.  The first are reasonable and happy, the second are reasonable and unhappy, the third are both unreasonable and unhappy.  If the Wager stimulates us to at least seek, then it will at least stimulate us to be reasonable.  And if the promise Jesus makes is true, all who seek will find (Mt 7:7-8) and thus will be happy.  (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith, pg. 92, emphasis mine)

For more on this argument, check out Handbook of Catholic Apologetics or this free article on-line by Peter Kreeft. 

I'll leave you with a quote from the previously mentioned article:

"Atheism is a terrible bet. 
It gives you no chances of winning the prize."

One last little note: it took some work to figure out how to incorporate a chart into a blog post.  Just mentioning in case you want to be impressed.  :)

Check out the book club link below! 

19. The Common Consent Argument

To completely over-simply and sum-up:
People have believed in God since the beginning and all around the world, so it's more likely than not that God exists. 

Now- to do it more justice!

1. "Belief in God- that Being to whom reverence and worship are properly due- is common to almost all people of every era.
2. Either the vast majority of people have been wrong about this most profound element of their lives or they have not.
3. It is more plausible to believe that they have not.
4. Therefore it is more plausible to believe that God exists" (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 89)

It's true that in every culture and throughout human history, religious belief has been widespread.  But does this prove anything?   The vast majority of humans have and do believe that there is something to be worshipped and adored, but if God does not exist than what is the vast majority worshipping and adoring? 

We naturally have the capacity to worship, "and it is hard to believe that this natural capacity can never, in the nature of things, be fulfilled, especially when so many testify that it has been" (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 89).  It is not impossible to imagine this, but is it likely?

It seems far more likely that those who refuse to believe are the ones suffering from deprivation and delusion- like the tone-deaf person who denies the existence of music, or the frightened tenant who tells herself she doesn't hear cries of terror and distress coming from the street below and, when her children awaken to the sounds and ask her, "Why is that lady screaming, Mommy?" tells them, "Nobody's screaming; it's just the wind, that's all. Go back to sleep."  (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pgs. 89-90)

This is number 19.  That means ONE MORE!!!

18. The Argument from Religious Experience

1. Many people of different eras and of widely different cultures claim to have had an experience with the 'divine'.
2. It is inconceivable that so many people could have been so utterly wrong about the nature and content of their own experience.
3. Therefore, there exists a 'divine' reality that many people of different eras and of widely different cultures have experienced (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 88).

Does such experience prove that an intelligent Creator God exists?  On the face of it, this seems unlikely.  For such a God does not seem to be the object of all experiences called "religious".  But still, he is the object of many.  That is, many people understand their experience that way; they are "united with" or "taken up into" a bounless and overwhelming Knowledge and Love, a Love that fills them with itself but infinitely exceeds their capacity to receive.  (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 88)

17. The Argument from Aesthetic Expereince (DON'T MISS THIS!!!!)

There is the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Therefore there must be a God.

You either see this one or you don't. 
(Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, Pg. 87)

And for a special treat, I give you "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desire"!  (Just stay on long enough for it to load!)

16. The Argument from Desire

Back to a more serious discussion here!

DOES GOD EXIST???


Is it reasonable to put all your faith in something you cannot prove and to live completely differently because of that belief?


This series on the twenty proofs of God, while not trying to actually prove God's existence, show how reasonable faith in God is.


As Pope John Paul II said in Fides et Ratio, "Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth- in a word, to know himself- so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves."

The following is the argument from desire, borrowed heavily from Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli's Handbook of Catholic Apologetics.

1. "Every natural, innate desire in us corresponds to some real object that can satisfy that desire.
2. But there exists in us a desire that nothing in time, nothing on earth, no creature can satisfy.
3. Therefore there must exist something more than time, earth and creatures, which can satisfy this desire.
4. This something is what people call "God" and "life with God forever"." (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pgs. 83-84)

Number one implies that some desires are natural and innate, while others are artificial.   "We naturally desire things like food, drink, sex, sleep, knowledge, friendship, and beauty; and we naturally shun things like starvation, loneliness, ignorance, and ugliness."  (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 84)  Other things such as sports or flying through the air, yet the natural desires come from within us and are shared by all of humanity.  The artificial come from without (such as society or fiction) and vary from person to person. 
 
If a person denies number two, we can only appeal to the person's honesty by asking, "Are you really completely and totally happy and satisfied?  Really?"  A person may deny number two by claiming, "I'm not happy now, but I will be if only ______."  However for thousands of years, billions of people have tried that formula and all have failed.  When you try to find satisfaction in the world, you will fail.  A second form of denial is in stating, "I am perfectly happy now."  But who can believe such a person who claims not to desire more? 
 
In conclusion, we know that we desire "more: more beauty, more desirability, more awesomeness, more joy...But the "more" is infinitely more, for we are not satisfied with the finite and partial" (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 84).
 
C.S. Lewis discusses this topic in The Weight of Glory and in Mere Christianity states,

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exist.  A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food.  A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water.  Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex.  If I find in myself a desire which no experience of this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.  (Mere Christianity, pgs. 136-137).

**Look for tomorrow's post on this topic.**

**It's short, and a real treat!**

15. The Argument from Conscience

In an age of relativism, many people declare there are no universal moral obligations and that we should simply each follow our own conscience. Yet that statement alone goes a great distance to prove the existence of God. 

Again, if you are new to this series, click here to discover its purpose. 

Peter Kreeft and Ronald Taccelli in the Handbook of Catholic Apologetics write
From something less than me (nature)

Isn't it remarkable that no one, even the most consistent subjectivist, believes that it is ever good for anyone to deliberately and knowingly disobey his own conscience?  Even if different people's consciences tell them to do or avoid totally different things, there remains one moral absolute for everyone: never disobey your own conscience.  

 Now where did conscience get such an absolute authority- an authority admitted even by the moral subjectivist and relativist?  There are only four possibilities.

1. From something less than me (nature)
2. From me (individual)
3. From others equal to me (society)
4. From something above me (God)

Let's consider each of these possibilities in order. 

1. How can I be absolutely obligated by something less than me- for example, by animal instinct or practical need for material survival?
2. How can I obligate myself absolutely?  Am I absolute?  Do I have the right to demand absolute obedience from anyone, even myself?  And if I am the one who locked myself in this prison of obligation, I can also let myself out, thus destroying the absoluteness of the obligation that we admitted as our premise.
3. How can society obligate me?  What right do my equals have to impose their values on me?  Does quantity make quality?  Do a million human beings make a relative into an absolute?  Is "society" God?
4. The only source of absolute moral obligation left is something superior to me.  This binds my will, morally, with rightful demands for complete obedience

Thus, God, or something like God, is the only adequate source and ground for the absolute moral obligation we all feel to obey our conscience  (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 80).

Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli are masters at reasoning and thorough explanations of these difficult subjects.  Check out their Handbook of Catholic Apologetics- Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith for a more complete explanation and clarifications on the implications this argument has (and doesn't have) on religion as well as the possible relations between religion and morality, God and goodness.

14. The Moral Argument

We are more than half-way through our twenty proofs of God's existence.  If you are new to this series, or forgotten the purpose, I HIGHLY recommend you click here.  It is not based on Scripture, which a non-believer would not accept, but on logic and reason and goes far to show that belief in God is quite reasonable. 

1. Real moral obligation is a fact.  We are really, truly, objectively obligated to do good and avoid evil.
2. Either the atheistic view of reality is correct or the "religious" one.
3. But the atheistic one is incompatible with there being moral obligation.
4. Therefore the "religious" view of reality is correct (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 77).

To clarify, the first statement means that humans are truly obligated to act a certain way and that we truly have certain duties.  This does not imply that these duties stem from simple feelings or belief in certain values, but true objective facts.  We are, in fact, morally obligated to do good and avoid evil.

But atheism does not support this.  Atheism teaches that we are products of blind chance- purposeless pieces of matter.  "Moral obligation can hardly be rooted in a material motion blind to purpose" (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 78). 

If the obligation is simply rooted in human desire than there is no standard against which desires can be judged.  When two desires conflict, say a Jew in Nazi Germany and Hitler, than how can one desire be judged right and the other wrong, since every desire simply springs from the purposeless pieces of matter.  How can there be an obligation to feed the hungry if this is rooted in feelings?  I would be saying, "I desire the hungry to be fed."  But this simply indicates that I desire this to be so and that neither I nor anyone else is truly obligated to feed the hungry at all. 

The only compatible view with moral objectivism is the "one that sees real moral obligation as grounded in its Creator, that sees moral obligation as rooted int he fact that we have been created with a purpose and for an end" (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 78).  In very general terms, this is what is referred to as the "religious view".

Note: This argument is based upon moral objectivism.  The next proof from human conscience, will prove objectivism.  "This argument assumes there are objective values; it aims to show that believing in them is incompatible with one picture of the world and quite compatible with another" (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics,  pgs. 78-79), mainly atheistic and religious pictures.  If objectivism is not true, this argument fails, yet rarely does one meet a consistent subjectivist.  If one does consciously believe in at least some moral absolutes (i.e. murder is wrong), this proof will help move them from the inconsistent atheistic point of view towards the religious one. 

13. The Ontological Argument

**If you're new to this series, click here first. 

Some notes:  This argument was created by Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) who tried to create a single argument to show people that and what God is.  It is highly controversial and is often dismissed, yet many serious thinkers throughout the last thousand years have defended it.  While far from conclusive or refutable, it is worth including in this series.  Thank you to Peter Kreeft and Father Ronald Tacelli who break down this proof in The Handbook of Catholic Apologetics.

1. "It is greater for a thing to exist in the mind and in reality than in the mind alone.
2. God means 'that than which a greater cannot be thought'.
3. Suppose that God exists in the mind but not in reality.
4. Then a greater than God could be thought (namely,a being that has all the qualities our thought of God has plus real existence).
5. But this is impossible, for God is 'that than which a greater cannot be thought'.
6. Therefore God exists in the mind and in reality." (pg. 75)

Some questions:
Suppose I deny that God exists in the mind?
Than the proof falls apart.  Yet for it to fall apart you have to deny the existence of any sort of god, which very few are willing to do.

Is it really greater for something to exist in the mind and in reality than in the mind alone?
Yes- imaginary things lack real being.  They lack independence and the ability to do good or harm.  Imaginary things are "wholly dependent on your thought" (Handbook, pg. 75).

12. The Argument from the Origin of the Idea of God

This argument, made famous by Descartes, starts from the idea of God and seeks to show that only God himself could have caused us to have an idea of God in our minds.  Dr. Peter Kreeft and Father Ronald Tacelli have outlined this beautifully in the Handbook of Catholic Apologetics. 

1. "We have ideas of many things.
2. These ideas must arise either from ourselves or from things outside us. 
3. One of the ideas we have is the idea of God- an infinite, all-perfect being.
4. This idea could not have been caused by ourselves, because we know ourselves to be limited and imperfect, and no effect can be greater than its cause.
5. Therefore the ideas must have been caused by something outside us that has nothing less than the qualities contained in the idea of God.
6. But only God himself has those qualities.
7. Therefore God himself must be the cause of the idea we have of him.
8. Therefore God exists" (Handbook, pgs. 73-74).

11. The Argument From Truth

This proof, from Augustine, is closely related to the argument from consciousness.

1. "Our limited minds can discover eternal truths about being.
2. Truth properly resides in a mind.
3. But the human mind is not eternal.
4. Therefore there must exist an eternal mind in which these truths reside" (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 73)

If you believe, like Plato, "that there are Eternal Intelligible Forms that are present to the mind in every act of knowledge" (Handbook, pg. 73), than it is a short step to see these existing in an Eternal Mind. However, "there is too much about the theory of knowledge that needs to be said before this could work as a persuasive demonstration" (Handbook, pg. 73).

10. The Argument from Consciousness

When we consider the universe, we are left in awe of its order and intelligibility.  We experience something only intelligence can grasp.  And yet, the universe itself is not intellectually aware.  These facts lead us to a variation on the argument for design. 

1. "We experience the universe as intelligible.  This intelligibility means that the universe is graspable by intelligence.
2. Either this intelligible universe and the finite mind so well suited to grasp it are the products of intelligence or both intelligibility and intelligence are the products of blind chance.
3. Not blind chance.
4. Therefore this intelligible universe and the finite mind so well suited to grasp it are the products of intelligence"  (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 71).

Let's focus on number 3.  How do we know it isn't blind chance? 

"Blind chance" is the way nature operates without any rational plan or guiding purpose- in other words, naturalism. 

"For by Naturalism we mean the doctrine that only Nature- the whole interlocked system-exists.  And if that were true, every thing and event would, if we knew enough, be explicable without remainder as a necessary product of the system" (Miracles, C.S. Lewis, pg. 18). 

So if Lewis' argument is true, than step 3 remains.  Blind chance cannot be the source of our intelligence. 

9. The Argument from Miracles

In summary:

1. "A miracle is an event whose only adequate explanation is the extraordinary and direct intervention of God.
2. There are numerous well-attested miracles.
3. Therefore there are numerous events whose only adequate explanation is the extraordinary and direct intervention of God.
4. Therefore God exists" Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 69).

So if miracles exist, so does God- but do miracles exist?

Certainly many strange happenings occur, but for it to be a miracle it must be religious in context.  Stones falling out of the sky in Texas- not a miracle- just strange.  Stones falling out of the sky in Texas after a preacher berates a population for their sinful ways and warns that God will send stones from the heavens?  Now we're more in the miracle category!

From this we realize that the setting is extremely important for something to be a miracle.  We must consider the physical setting, the timing, the character and the message. 

This argument is not a proof of God's existence, for to believe it is a miracle you have to see God's hand in it.  But this is a very powerful clue or sign. 

...Miraculous events exist.  Indeed there is massive, reliable testimony to them across many times, places, and cultures.  Therefore their cause exists.  And their only adequate cause is God.  Therefore God exists (Handbook, pg. 71).

8. The Argument from the World as an Interacting Whole

This argument is from The One and the Many by Norris Clarke who taught metaphysics and philosophy of religion at Fordham.  It is an intriguing version of the design argument. 

Starting Point.  This world is given to us as a dynamic, ordered system of many active component elements. Their natures (natural properties) are ordered to interact with each other in stable, reciprocal relationships that we call physical laws.  For example, every hydrogen atom in our universe is ordered to combine with every oxygen atom in the proportion of 2:1 (which implies that every oxygen atom is reciprocally ordered to combine with every hydrogen atom in the proportion of 1:2).  So it is with the chemical valences of all the basic elements.  So to all particles with mass are ordered to move toward every other according to the fixed proportions of the law of gravity.  (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pps. 67-68)

The world is complex and interdependent.  Many parts which seem independent are found to have relationships with seeming unrelated other parts.  These many separate but related parts make up a whole so that the parts cannot be understood apart from the whole.

In such a system as described, no one part is self-sufficient or self-explanatory.  Each part presupposes the other parts and needs them to act and interact reciprocally with it.  There could only be such a self-sufficient part if it were the cause of the whole system, and this is impossible.  "Nor can the system as a whole explain its own existence, since it is made up of the component parts and is not a separate being,on its own, independent of them."  (Handbook, pg. 68)

Three Conclusions

1. "Since the parts make sense only within the whole, and neither the whole nor the parts can explain their own existence, than such a system as our world requires a unifying efficient cause to posit it in existence as a unified whole."  (Handbook, pg. 68)
2. This cause must be intelligent and cause this system to be by a unifying idea.  Why an idea?  The various parts are unified through reciprocal relationships and organized.  Yet that organizing factor, though working within, cannot be a part of the whole.  This wholeness and unity can only be a part of an organizing unifying idea.  "For only an idea can hold together many different elements at once without destroying or fusing their distinctness" (Handbook, pg. 69).  An idea must exist and work within a mind who has the power to create.  Therefore our universe must have an Orderer which can only be a Mind.
3. This Mind must be independent of the system itself- or transcendent.  If it were dependent on the system it would have to presuppose the system in order to exist. 

"Thus our material universe necessarily requires, as the sufficient reason for its actual existence as an operating whole, a Transcendent Creative Mind"  (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 69).

7. The Argument from Contingency

"The basic form of this argument is simple.

1. If something exists, there must exist what it takes for that thing to exist. 
2. The universe- the collection of beings in space and time- exists.
3. Therefore there must exist what it takes for the universe to exist. 
4. What it takes for the universe to exist cannot exist within the universe or be bounded by space and time.
5. Therefore what it takes for the universe to exist must transcend both space and time."  (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pgs. 65-66)

For example- you are a being limited by space and time. You are limited and changing and you are dependent on things outside yourself for existence.  Not your parents and grandparents- they may not be alive now but you are.  You are dependent upon things to exist right now such as air.  You exist because other things you depend on exist.  This is to be contingent. 

"But not everything can be like this.  For then everything would need to be given being,but there would be nothing capable of giving it."  (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics,pg. 66)  There must be something that does not exist conditionally, something that is existence by its very nature.  This being would then be unchanging- for to change requires something outside of yourself.  Therefore the universe cannot be existence itself; there must be a Giver of existence outside of time and space. 

6. The Kalam Argument

Kalam (the line belongs above the second "a", I don't know how to do that!) is an Arabic word that denotes a philosophical theology maintaining that the universe is not infinitely old and therefore must have been created by God. 

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause for its coming into being.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause for its coming into being.  (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 63)

Did the universe begin to exist or has it always? There are strong arguments for the beginning of the universe from science, such as the Big Bang Theory, but there are philosophical arguments as well. If there was no beginning of the universe than it is infinite. 

But Frank Sheed explains that to be infinite does not simply mean it stretches into the vastness of space without end. 

To say that a being is infinite does not mean only that it spreads in all directions without any limit, that whether you are considering its being or its power you never reach a point where you must say "this far and no farther".  It means the absence of all limitations, not only external but internal as well.  Theology and Sanity, pg. 62

Therefore there can be no limits, no divisions, no parts. My body has parts, therefore limitations. My arm cannot do what my liver does. To loose or break one part would limit my abilities or even end my life. The universe has parts- galaxies, solar systems, planets. Therefore the universe is finite. Something finite has a beginning by definition.

Therefore the natural conclusion is that universe has a cause for coming into being- something infinite. This cause is a Creator. 

But how do we know it is a Creator- a he and not an it?  If the cause of the universe existed eternally and is not personal than it caused the universe not by choice but by being.  But then how could the universe have a beginning if all the conditions needed for the universe had existed from all eternity?  But the kalam argument shows the universe does have a beginning.  "If the universe is the result of a free personal choice...we have some way of seeing how an eternal cause could give rise to a temporally limited effect"  (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 65). 

The kalam argument proves something central to the Christian belief in God: that the universe is not eternal and without beginning, that there is a Maker of heaven and earth.  And in doing so, it disproves the picture of the universe most atheists wish to maintain: self-sustaining matter, endlessly changing in endless time.  (pg. 65)

5. The Design Argument

This is the fifth and final argument of Saint Thomas Aquinas in his famous "five ways". 

Despite the apparently erratic occurrences taking place at a subatomic level, there is an incredible amount of order and purpose in our world.  Things exist and coexist with beautiful order and regularity.  It is normal for many different beings to work together, such as organs in our body.  This order is either the product of 1) chance or 2) intelligent design.  If chance, consider the following analogy from Scott Hahn's Reasons to Believe:

Is the human intellect capable of imagining that kind of process?  Yes, but its implausible.  In a similar way, when you study creation, you see evidence for design, and design points to a designer.  The eye is a system of irreducible complexity, composed of a retina, cornea, lens, vitreous humor and aqueous humor.  It cannot simply be the result of an arbitrary process.  The eye is made with a certain design, made for the purpose of seeing; and each of its parts assumes the functioning of all the other parts...The eye is made with an end in mind: to see.  This is true for everything else, from subatomic particles and cells to solar systems and galaxies.  The empirical sciences themselves are possible only because the universe is orderly, patterned, symmetrical, observable, and (to some degree at least) measurable and predictable. 

Furthermore, "chance" is not a credible alternative to design.  Chance only makes sense when order is assumed.  When things happen "by chance" they are unexpected.  But, as Peter Kreeft and  Ronald Tacelli point out in The Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, "expectation is impossible without order."  If you remove order and only consider chance, you have removed the only thing that allows us to speak of chance at all.  Instead of thinking of chance against a background of order, we are invited to think of complete and total order against a random and purposeless background of chance.  This is unreasonable and quite incredible.(Paraphrased from The Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 61)

We may reasonably conclude that the device on the beach had a manufacturer, and that the manufacturer had a purpose in mind when making it.  A watch requires a watchmaker.  In a similar way, an ordered universe requires the existence of an intelligent creator; and we call that creator God.  (Reasons to Believe, pg. 35)

4. The Argument from Degrees of Perfection

The following argument is another from Aquinas' famous "five ways".  The first three arguments were all from physical evidence.  The next two arguments shift gears and consider the ends and purposes.

If, from the third argument from time and contingency,

...all things owe their existence totally to Him, then all that they have is from Him and therefore all the perfections that they have must in some way be in Him.  Obviously they will be in Him in a way immeasurably higher.  For He made all things from nothing, and these perfections will be in things only insofar as nothingness can receive them.  (Theology and Sanity, pg. 57)

For we know that things around us vary in certain ways.  Things can be lighter or darker than others, hotter or colder, better or worse, more true or less true, more or less good, and so on. 

Such relative measurements imply an absolute standard of measurement...There must be some perfect standard against which all qualities are measured.  That fullness of all perfection we call God (Reasons to Believe, pg. 33-34). 

Furthermore

Thus since knowledge and love are to be found in created things, knowledge and love must be in God.  God must know and love.  And this is the bare minimum that we mean when we speak of God as personal: a person is a being who can know and love (Theology and Sanity, pg. 57) 

3B. Consequences and Conclusions

Then God exists not because of any other being, but is the source of all being.  Therefore the reasons for His existence must be in Himself.  "There is in His nature something which demands existence" (Theology and Sanity, Sheed, pg. 55).  Some things may or may not exist.  God must exist. 

"He does not have to receive existence because He is existence" (Theology and Sanity, pg. 56, emphasis mine).   

Greek philosophers achieved this truth in the fifth century before Christ and it was considered the "crowning achievement".  And yet, the Jewish people had already known this for a thousand years when God revealed His name, "I AM WHO AM". 

When we see that God is existence, we know this existence is completely without limit.  "Limitation is a deficiency of existence, something lacking to fullness of existence" (Theology and Sanity, pg. 57).   Therefore God is infinite. 

The other natural consequence is that "God must contain in Himself all the perfections we find in things" (Theology and Sanity, pg. 57).  This will be further discussed in tomorrow's post, the fourth argument from degrees of perfection. 

3. The Argument from Time and Contingency

The third argument of the Five Ways by Saint Thomas Aquinas.  I can think of no better way to describe this than the step by step explanation of Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli in The Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pages 57-58.  (emphasis mine)

1.  We notice around us things that come into being and go out of being.  A tree, for example, grows from a tiny shoot, flowers brilliantly, then withers and dies. 

2. Whatever comes into being or goes out of being does not have to be; its nonbeing is a real possibility. 

3.  Suppose that nothing has to be; that nonbeing is a real possibility for everything.

4. Then right now nothing would exist.  For

5.  If the universe began to exist, then all being must trace its origin to some past moment before which there existed- literally- nothing at all.  But

6.  From nothing nothing comes.  So

7.  The universe could not have begun. 

8. But suppose the universe never began.  Then, for the infinitely long duration of cosmic history, all being had the built-in possibility not to be.  But

9.  If in an infinite time, that possibility was never realized, then it could not have been a real possibility at all.  So


10.  There must exist something that has to exist, that cannot not exist.  This sort of being is called "necessary". 

11.  Either this necessity belongs to the thing in itself or it is derived from another.  If derived from another there must ultimately exist a being whose necessity is not derived, that is, an absolutely necessary being. 

12.  This absolutely necessary being is God. 

Scott Hahn in Reasons to Believe describes it this way:

"If some beings are contingent, there must be an ultimate being that is neither transitory nor derivative, but necessary- necessary in and of itself.  And it is that being we call God."

2. The Argument from Efficient Causaltiy

The second argument of Saint Thomas Aquinas is the Argument from Efficient Causality.  See here for the purpose of these posts.

As we observe the world we notice that some things cause others to be. A man plays the piano and music exists. He stops, and the music stops.


All things exist by other things. A canyon exists because a river flowed there. I exist because of my parents' union- and their parents' union and so on.


If there is no first cause- no Uncaused Being, no God, than there can be no existence.


There must be some thing uncaused- some Giver of existence. If everyone needs to borrow a particular book, but no one has the book, then no one can borrow it.


If there is no God- no Giver of Existence who has existence by His very nature- there can be no gift of existence passed down.