ASK FR BITAJU | KAIROS GLOBAL | SEPTEMBER 2021

Author: Fr Bitaju

Q42. Why couldn't God put forward enough proof so generations could easily believe in his existence?

Your question seems to presuppose that there are not enough proofs for God’s existence. Yet, for those who are open to faith and reason, there is enough proof that God has provided for his existence. The most significant among those would be the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Blessed Trinity (John 3:16).  As the author of the letter to the Hebrews (1: 1-2) puts it, in the fullness of time God revealed himself through His Son, Jesus Christ.

St. Paul in his letter to the Romans (1:20) says that God is ‘invisible’ by nature, his existence can be known ‘through the things that are made.’ According to Christian tradition ‘things that are made’ include ourselves and the physical universe, and both of these realities indicate God as their ultimate cause. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that, ‘these ways of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and the human person’ (CCC 31). As per Christian tradition the physical universe points to God in two ways, namely, by the fact that it exists and by the fact that it is orderly. 

Questions on the existence of God is a perennial human quest and many men and women of different times have responded to it reasonably. The teaching of the Catholic Church affirms that God’s existence can be known with certainty by the ‘natural light of reason’ (Dei Filius, Chapter 2, #1). The most relied and celebrated proof for God’s existence in the Church was developed by St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) in the first part of his Summa Theologica.  I would like to summarise his five proofs for God’s existence, for us and for the generations to come. 

1. St. Thomas Aquinas observed that from our experience of motion (i.e., transition from potentiality to actuality) in the universe, there must have been an initial mover. Aquinas argued that whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another thing, so there must be an unmoved mover which he calls God.

2. The first cause argument of Aquinas started with the premise that it is impossible for a being to cause itself, because it would have to exist before it caused itself. Moreover, it is impossible for there to be an infinite chain of causes, which would result in infinite regress. So, there must be a first cause, itself uncaused, which he called God. 

3. Nothing and no one exists forever and at any point in time; it is possible that all unnecessary things could go out of existence, yet that has not happened. Therefore, there must be a necessary being on which the existence of things is dependent or contingent. Aquinas called this necessary being God.

4. Aquinas argued from degree or gradation, considering incidence of degrees of goodness. He thought that things called good, must be called good in relation to a standard of good – a maximum. There must be a perfect goodness, which causes all goodness, and he called it God.

5. The teleological argument affirms that things without intelligence are ordered towards a purpose. Aquinas argued that without an intelligent being doing it, unintelligent objects can’t be ordered. Therefore, there must be an intelligent being that moves objects to their ends: God.

You Cat 4

Can we know the existence of God by our reason? 

Yes. Human reason can know God with certainty. [31-36, 44-47] 

The world cannot have its origin and its destination within itself. In everything that exists, there is more than we see. The order, the beauty, and the development of the world point beyond themselves toward God. Every man is receptive to what is true, good, and beautiful. He hears within himself the voice of conscience, which urges him to what is good and warns him against what is evil. Anyone who follows this path reasonably finds God.