Does God Exist? Two Important Prequel Questions

For the next several posts, I will roughly be following the lead of a rather clever fellow who's covered this ground before. He was Italian, of considerable physical stature, and had absolute chicken scratch for handwriting, but we'll let that pass. It's often a good idea to walk in the footsteps of St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest minds of the history of thinking things, and this case is no exception.

First a brief explanation of St. Thomas' style. Academic texts from his time took the shape of the public debates, the disputatio, that the students and teachers would have on various topics. A question would be posed, objections to the position would be raised, and the master (teacher) would give his own view of the question and answer the objections. The questions were arranged within the texts in a logical, systematic scheme of organization, with general questions and sub-articles within each question. Now, you might expect the first question addressed in St. Thomas' Summa Theologica (Summary of Theology) to be "Does God exist?" But you'd be, as the French say, le wrong. The first question St. Thomas asks is on the nature of sacred doctrine--whether it's knowable, rational, etc. Only after establishing that theology is truly a science, an object of human knowing, does St. Thomas come to the most fundamental issue for theology: the existence of God.

And yet, the question "Does God exist?" is not even the first question asked here! It is preceded by two other questions, and once you've read through Question 1, articles 1 and 2 of Question 2 shouldn't surprise you: "Is the proposition 'God exists' self-evident?" and "Is it demonstrable?"

So, first, is it self-evident that God exists? Is it so obviously true that it is impossible to deny? This is a relevant question; if the answer is "yes," then we need not ask "Does God exist?" for the question would be as trivial as "Are circles round?" "A circle is round" is a self-evident proposition, because the predicate is contained in the subject; that is, it's part of the definition of a circle to be round, and if you know what a circle is, then you know it has to be round, and anyone who would say a circle isn't round clearly doesn't know either what a circle or roundness is (or maybe both).

If "God exists" were a self-evident proposition--that is, if it were obviously true--then the predicate would have to be contained in the subject--in this case, existence would have to be part of the definition of God, and anyone who would deny it either wouldn't know what existence is or wouldn't know what God is, that is, God's essence.

Now, we would say that in fact it is God's essence to exist, that existence is part of what it means to be God, just as roundness is part of what it means to be a circle. But it wouldn't be obvious to you that a circle is round if you don't know what a circle is. Likewise, it wouldn't be obvious to you that God exists if you don't know who or what God is. It's possible to deny that God exists if you don't know God's essence; and, as St. Thomas says, we do not know God's essence directly, as we do the essences of circles and trees and squirrels and such, and thus we must come to know God by things that are more known to us. (We'll cover such ways of knowing in later posts.)

The second question St. Thomas asks is: "Is God's existence demonstrable?" That is, can we know through reason that God exists? If we can't, then there's not much point in continuing the intellectual exercise, is there? In answer to this, St. Thomas reminds us that there are two ways of demonstrating: you can either reason from the cause of something to its effect, or from the effect to its cause. If I see a fire, and I know that fires produce heat, I can reason from the presence of a fire that heat will result. Likewise, if I see a handprint in cement, and I know that handprints in cement are caused by hands, I can reason from the presence of the handprint that a hand was the cause of it. So, St. Thomas says, if God's existence is not self-evident to us, we can still reason to God's existence if we see effects for which only God could be the cause. That is, if we can observe effects that could only be caused by God, then we can know that God exists. More on this next time.

Does God Exist? A Prelude

The question "Does God exist?" is answered simply enough. There are three choices: "yes," "no," or "I don't know." Thus, no matter what your answers is, it immediately prompts the question "How could we know that God exists?" If your answer to the first question was "Yes," then of course the questioner will want some sort of proof or reasoning or sign. If your answer was "No," then the questioner may well respond, "What makes you sure?" If your answer was "I don't know," the questioner will ask, "How come?" The first question is never the last on this subject.

My answer, as you might guess, is yes. God does exist. Naturally, you will ask, "How do you know? What makes you say that? Can you prove it?"

Well, yes and no.

The question "Can you prove it?" always has an additional two words implied at the end: "Can you prove it to me?" This is a bit of a different task. Believing or not, assenting to an argument or not, is ultimately not an act of the intellect, but an act of the will: you can have all the evidence before you, you can have the proof laid out systematically in front of you, and you can still choose not to believe. As evidence of this phenomenon, I give you Holocaust deniers, moon landing hoaxers, and people who think Elvis is still alive. If we have some vested interest in maintaining a certain position, we can go to great mental lengths to hold our ground, even if that means keeping ourselves blind to the bleedin' obvious.

You may respond, "You're saying others might not believe in God because, for some reason, they don't want to. Well, couldn't we say the same of you? Maybe you believe in God because it suits you in some way."

Maybe. Maybe not. Let's see. Next time, we'll look at some of the evidence, arguments, and proofs for the existence of God.

Back to Basics

Please excuse my absence from this space over the last several weeks. My new job and my thesis research have taken up the bulk of my time. With my having so little free time, I thought I might have to give up blogging here for the foreseeable future. But I want to at least make an attempt to make the occasional appearance here with a word or two. I enjoy it, you enjoy it, and if I can post irregularly and briefly without enraging the masses, why put a stop to it?

Now, given those constraints and conditions, what should my subject matter be? When your time to speak is short, you get to the point. So, in future posts, expect less content on fine philosophical points or commentary on episcopal appointments, and more on the most basic--and most important--aspects of the Catholic faith: who is God? How do we know about God? What does God want of us? Who is Jesus? Why should we believe in Him? Hardly topics that lend themselves to cursory conversation, true, but if we break them up into small bites, I think we can chew through them without getting theological indigestion.

Of course, I am always happy to field questions from the readership, too. It's always best to write about what your readers want to read about. So please, feel free!

By Him We See Everything Else

I had a birthday recently (the epochal, defining, occasionally dreaded 30th), and in response to my telling my parents I could use some more decoration for my study/office/man-cave, they sent me a framed quotation from C.S. Lewis:

I believe in Christ like I believe in the sun... not because I can see it, but because by it I can see everything else.

As is typical of a product of Lewis' poetic and profound mind, this line is rich with meaning. It's worth digging into a bit.

Light has always been a symbol for God. God's first line in Scripture is, "Let there be light." Opposed to this light is the darkness of chaos and evil and ignorance; light is associated with order and goodness and rationality. With light you can see what you're doing and put things in their place. With light the good is given strength, for the wicked avoid the light to hide their evil deeds (John 3:20).

And with light we see and know the world better, and thus light has long been fittingly used as a symbol for understanding. You can see this in many an ancient writer; you can see it in modern terms like "the Enlightenment." You can see it in the jazz standard "I'm Beginning to See the Light." You can see it in every cartoon where a character has an idea and has a light bulb appear over his head. Since God is the source of this order and goodness and rationality, God is associated with light.

And as God, so Christ. The Gospel of John says that Christ is "the light that gives light to every man coming into the world." Christ is the Logos. He is reason and intelligibility. He is the reason for everything that is. He is the source and the means and the goal of all understanding. All true knowledge leads us eventually to the knowledge and love of God. It is by Him that we understand anything. He is the light by which we see everything else.

Man, that Lewis was economical in his words. It took me three paragraphs to say what he said in one line. He's good. Definitely worth reading.

Let's Not Fight, Let's Argue

Anyone who knows me knows that I love a good debate, a healthy discussion, a friendly intellectual exchange. I thoroughly enjoy exchanging views with others, especially when we disagree. During my time in seminary, I was told by my rector, "You can be very direct with people, almost challenging; but eventually people learn that you aren't attacking them--it's just the way you interact" (or something to that effect). No sense in beating around the bush, right, as long as you're respectful?

During my novitiate year, my classmates and I served once a week as volunteer chaplains at a local hospital, and at the end of the day we would have discussion sessions with our supervisor to talk about general issues related to being a chaplain. One day we were talking about conflict and dealing with difficult patients, and I said, "I think I'd be most uncomfortable being in a room with two people who are fighting with each other." One of my classmates said, "I find that surprising; you love a good argument."

Here I find a perfect example of a distinction which seems to be getting lost in our present-day discourse of tweets and posts and status updates, not to mention the more traditional modes of editorials and essays: there is a difference between an argument and a fight.

I like argument. To argue is to set out a connected series of propositions leading to a conclusion, and to engage the propositions and conclusion set out by another on the same topic, with each party analyzing the soundness of the other's argumentation: the definition of terms, the relation between the premises, and the relation between the premises and the conclusion. Each person implicitly agrees that these are the standards to be used, like two men in a duel who have agreed fight for first blood and not attempt any serious wounds, low blows, or dirty tricks.

If we were going to have an argument about, say, whether the death penalty should be abolished in this country, then we would discuss the relevant factors: the purpose of such a punishment, the nature of justice, whether the act is intrinsically evil or potentially moral depending on the circumstances, the question of necessity, and so on. That could be an enlightening and fruitful discussion.

I don't like fights. To fight is to leave the field of rational discourse where the weapons and the rules are agreed upon and honored, and descend to the level of a no-holds-barred broo-ha-ha. In a fight we have dropped our reason as a hockey player drops his gloves: at this point, we have exited the game with its rules and restrictions, and stepped into a moment where the only objective is to impose your will upon the other party, by whatever means necessary. You might knee him in the gut, or pull his jersey over his head, or grab his hair--whatever you need to do to get him down and get him out of your way.

So, if we were going to have a fight about whether the death penalty should be abolished, we wouldn't discuss the purpose of punishments or the nature of justice; instead, we'd call each other names like "bleeding heart" or "blood-lusting savage," and we'd accuse of each other of bad motives with terrible outcomes, like endangering our children or perpetuating the cycle of violence. We would seethe and boil and doubt each other's humanity, and in the end we would consider ourselves victorious if we had shouted the loudest or made the most scathing remark.

Just go to any message board or discussion forum or comments page on the Internet. It doesn't matter if we're talking about abortion or redefining marriage or whether Jack White is actually a good guitar player: within five posts, people are calling each other vile names, and comparing each other to dead dictators, and using language that would embarrass a longshoreman.

This is stupid. This is counter-productive. This doesn't get us anywhere. No, it does get us somewhere: it gets us farther apart than when we started. When we fight, we ignore what's really relevant to the situation. We put ourselves and our feelings first, and not the truth. Let's not do this anymore. Let's not fight. Can't we just argue?

"No One Can Baptize Himself": Pope Benedict on Faith and the Sacraments

I have been slowly making my way through the catecheses of Pope Benedict XVI on St. Paul, published in book form by Ignatius Press. As you might expect from such a formidable mind and holy soul, these texts are filled with many powerful and beautiful and enlightening passages. Here I've chosen a few to share with you on the connection between faith and the sacraments. First, on faith itself.

"Faith is not a product of our thought or our reflection; it is something new that we cannot invent but only receive as a gift, as a new thing produced by God."

You don't sit down and squint your eyes and furrow your brow and attempt to arrange your neurons in the correct pattern to produce faith. Faith, as in the theological virtue of faith by which we believe in God and trust what He has revealed to us, and in His Church and Her teachings, is something placed before you for your acceptance or rejection, for your cooperation or denial. It is not a product of inner effort, but a present given by God.

"Moreover, faith does not come from reading but from listening. It is not only something interior but also a relationship with Someone. It implies an encounter with the proclamation; it implies the existence of the Other, whom it proclaims, and creates communion."

Again Pope Benedict emphasizes that faith is not something we stir up in ourselves through our own activity or reflection, but comes to us from the outside from someone, or as he puts it, Someone, other than ourselves. We are confronted with it, with the opportunity for a relationship with the Other, the one who is wholly Other, God; and through God, with the community of those who have likewise encountered God and have acceptance his invitation to relationship.

"No one can baptize himself, he needs the other.... Only by another can we be made Christians, and this 'other' who makes us Christians, who gives us the gift of faith, is in the first instance the community of believers, the Church." 

Here Pope Benedict brings out the role of the community of bringing people to faith, to that relationship with God. The Church preaches God's word of redemption, and those who hear it and believe are brought into the Church to join in that communion with God and His People. We are made Christians by other Christians--not by reading the Bible in a room by ourselves and saying a private prayer, but by publicly entering into the gathering of believers and being given the Baptism of Christ by those who have themselves died and risen with Him in that sacrament. Yet, lest we fall into ecclesiolatry (worship of the Church) and put too much emphasis on the Church and its part in salvation, Pope Benedict reminds us of the Church's own source.

"Christ alone can constitute the Church. Christ is the true giver of the sacraments."

The Church brings us the sacraments, but it is Christ's Church, and Christ's sacraments. He, both the Spotless Lamb and the Eternal High Priest, consecrates His people in His Precious Blood and bestows upon them the gift of life in His sacraments. May God increase our faith and grant that we gain his sacramental grace frequently.

There's Believing, And There's Believing

"I'm not really religious, but I do believe in God."

I've heard this sort of thing from many people, but I'm not entirely sure what it means; or rather, I'm not sure what it means for them.

When someone says, "I'm not religious," they are saying that they do not hold themselves bound by any particular set of dogmas, ritual obligations, or ethical principles that are rooted in any kind of divine revelation. (I think that's a fair way to put it.) They wouldn't consider themselves Catholic or Methodist or Non-Denominational* or Buddhist or Muslim or Sikh or Hindu or anything else one could capitalize.

*(Yes, I know, "non-denominational" Christians are not exactly an organized group, but they have so multiplied and seem to share so many traits, they really have become an identifiable subset of Christianity.)

So, these folks do not believe in any set of religious beliefs or specific divine revelation. Yet they will then profess that they "believe in God." What does this mean? If this belief in God does not include any belief in anything God may have revealed about Himself, what is left for this "belief in God"? Only the barest minimum.

When people say "I believe in God" in this way, what they mean is: "I assent to the intellectual proposition that 'God exists.'"

This, to my mind, prompts all sorts of questions: who or what is this God whose existence you affirm? How did you come to know God? What do you know about God? Have you met God in some way? Or is God not a "meet-able" thing? That is: when you say "God," what are you referring to? I don't know how far simply affirming God's existence can get you in addressing these questions.

When Christians say "I believe in God" (as Catholics do every Sunday when they pray the Creed), they mean much more than "I assent to the proposition that God exists." They mean something more akin to what is meant when a wife says to her husband: "I believe in you." She isn't just saying, "I affirm that you exist." She is saying: "I trust you. I have confidence in you. I know you and I know what you're about and I know what you can do, and I know that you will do what needs to be done." There's believing, and there's believing.

I sometimes get the impression that some people have the impression that God sits upon his heavenly throne with a huge ledger in his hand, ticking off boxes for each one of us to see if we meet the bare minimum requirements to not merit being cast into the fiery pit of eternal despair, and that the barest of minimums is "Acknowledge my existence," as if God were the geeky kid at school who would let you come swim in his pool if you only would say hi to him. But God wants more from us than a passing greeting in the hallway, and God wants to give more to us than an afternoon pool party, and we need more for our fulfillment than sunshine and chlorinated water.

We were made for communion with God, loving friendship, a participation in God's own life through his gift of grace--to be "partakers in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). This participation is brought about through our union with Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, through whom we become adopted sons of God. In Baptism we die and rise with Him; through Confirmation we are sealed with His Spirit; through the Eucharist we are fed with his Body and Blood and filled with his grace as the sap of the vine fills the branches. That's what we aim for. Not just nod of the head to an acquaintance, but the embrace of a lover.