Vincent J. Curtis
27 Dec 2017
The Hamilton Spectator is having fun with its readers by publishing letters concerning the proof of God's existence, and the relation between religion and science. None of the published letters indicated any familiarity at all with the various proofs of God's existence, and the exercise was one of an amusing game of the blind misleading the blind.
Aristotle, Plotinus, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Gottfried Leibniz all offered sophisticated metaphysical proofs of God's existence, and these were recently summarized in an excellent book by the philosophy professor Edward Feser. Below is a highly abbreviated summary, in critical form.
RE: Science Misunderstood.
What a hash has been made of the discussion of the proofs of
the existence of God!
It is not that everything, including the universe, requires
a cause - so what caused God? It is that no potential can be actualized
unless something already actual actualizes it, (i.e. the principle of
causality). So, there exists a purely actual cause of the existence of
things. This proof of the existence of God was first offered in Aristotle’s Metaphysics,
and Aristotle declined to say that the universe had a beginning.
There must be at least one necessary being to explain why
any contingent thing exists at all, and why any particular contingent thing
persists in existence at any moment. In principle, there can only be one
necessary being. And for there to be such a thing is for God to exist.
A thing that is composed of parts requires a concurrent
cause keeping those parts together. So, there must exist a simple or
non-composite cause that is the uncaused cause of everything other than itself.
The existence of abstract universals, that exist in
human-mind-external reality, the existence of propositions that are capable of
existence outside of any human mind, the existence of numbers – other objects
of thought, exist in a realm distinct from both the material world and from the
human mind. A realistic view of the world would hold that some
propositions would be true whether or not the material world even exists – such
as propositions of logic and mathematics that are true of necessity. For
these abstract objects to exist, they cannot depend upon the existence of a
human intellect. The necessity that there must be an infinite, divine
intellect presents itself.
The essence of a thing is really distinct from the existence
of that thing. Nothing can be the cause of existence of itself, and the
existence of that thing must be imparted to it by some cause distinct from
itself, and at every moment that it does exist. Unless the essence of the
thing is identical with its existence – something that just is subsistent
existence itself. And subsistent existence itself exists in a necessary
way and is uncaused. Subsistent existence itself has no potential for
existence requiring actualization, but exists in a purely actual way.
Subsistence existence when more fully explored is found to have other
attributes which are what it is for God to exist.
These arguments, when fully fleshed out, have withstood the
objections of the greatest minds set against them.
The argument is not whether or not God exists – for that has
been established in Natural Theology; the argument is which of the revealed
religions is the true one.
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