Can We in Some Way Verify That God Exists?
It seems necessary to have clarity about the existence of God and man’s knowledge of it, for today many ideas arise that obscure, and even deny, this fact. From the certainties afforded by natural knowledge, testimonies, or personal experiences, to metaphysical reflections such as the Thomistic ways, these are the extremes that meet in this article.
The Knowledge of God
“God our Lord desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4).
To attain this salvation it is necessary that men know God: to believe in the existence of God, who rewards the good and punishes the wicked, for
“without faith it is impossible to please God; therefore, whoever draws near to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Heb 11:6).
The history of salvation is the very history of the way in which the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men and reconciles and unites them to himself, restoring the division brought about by sin.
Throughout human history, God has been understood in very different ways; there have even been those who deny his existence. Nevertheless, the knowledge of the divine existence is a living conviction of universal value throughout all ages; it is, moreover, a driving idea that has profoundly shaped both the life of the individual and man’s attitude toward the world around him.
Man can come to the knowledge of God in many ways. All of them correspond either to the natural capacity of the human intellect to know the existence of God, or to the divine Revelation that offers us a supernatural knowledge of him.
Natural Knowledge of God
The real existence of God, as the Supreme Being, Principle and End of man and of the created universe and essentially distinct from creatures, can be known with certainty by natural reason, for man’s intellect possesses a natural capacity to rise to the knowledge of his Creator.
The Lord willed that all creatures should bear, as it were, the imprint of his traces and give testimony to his existence. Hence it is possible to come to the knowledge of God through the knowledge of created things
The Witness of Sacred Scripture
a) Knowledge of God through creation
Sacred Scripture bears witness to this natural capacity of man; through the reflection of his intellect he has sought God and shown his existence. Let us see this.
Sacred Scripture attests this principle: human reason can know God through creation, for created things are a permanent testimony to their Author and lead to the knowledge of him with universal scope.
In the Book of Wisdom we find two grounds by which man can attain the knowledge of God. One is the beauty found in creatures: through the contemplation of the various created beauties, man can attain the knowledge of him who is the source of all beauty, God, supreme Beauty. The other ground is the power and force existing in created nature: the forces of nature are a reflection of the omnipotence of him to whom all powers are subject.
“For all men who were ignorant of God were foolish by nature; and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know him who exists, nor did they recognize the craftsman while paying heed to his works; but they supposed that either fire or wind or swift air, or the circle of the stars, or turbulent water, or the luminaries of heaven were the gods that rule the world. If through delight in the beauty of these things men assumed them to be gods, let them know how much better than these is their Lord, for the author of beauty created them. And if men were amazed at their power and working, let them perceive from them how much more powerful is he who formed them. For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator. Yet these men are little to be blamed, for perhaps they go astray while seeking God and desiring to find him. For as they live among his works they keep searching, and they trust in what they see, because the things that are seen are beautiful. Yet again, not even they are to be excused; for if they had the power to know so much that they could investigate the world, how did they fail to find sooner the Lord of these things?” (Wisdom 13:1-9).
b) Knowledge of God through the degrees of perfection
Harsher still are the words of Saint Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. In it he makes clear that unbelief produces the degradation of man, an evident thing, inasmuch as he who refuses to acknowledge God falls into an immoral life. This reproach would be unjust if man were not capable of knowing God by his intellect. But such is not the case, because the divine perfections are made visible to the human intellect through the knowledge of them that created things afford us. The degrees of perfection that man knows in nature reflect the absolute perfection of a one and personal God, whom all men are called to adore and to follow.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen” (Rom 1:18-25; cf. Acts 14:14-18; 17:22-30).
According to this text, he who does not acknowledge God does so through his own fault, for it is not merely a matter of failing to perceive the invisible things of God in visible things, but of a rebellion of the heart that does not acknowledge God as Lord and denies him dominion over man and over things. With such an attitude, man degrades himself, is unable to recognize his place in a world that has become disordered and chaotic, and fails to discover the divine dimension that surfaces in all things.
c) The witness of conscience
In Sacred Scripture we also find another means by which man can know God: namely, his conscience, which attests both the existence of God and the natural law that God wrote in the heart of every man.
“When the Gentiles, who have not the Law, do by nature what the Law requires, guided by natural reason, without having the Law they are a law to themselves —that is, they act according to their conscience—. And by this they show that what the Law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, with the judgments that alternately either accuse or else defend them” (Rom 2:14-15).
Those who have not received the Revelation of God know by their natural reason the essential principles that inform the natural law. In the intimacy of his heart, every man has engraved upon him a natural moral law, which shares in the eternal law of God.
Proofs of the Existence of God
That one can demonstrate the existence of God by means of the principle of causality is a doctrine proximate to the faith (cf. Pius X, “Oath Against Modernism,” DS 3538 [2145]).
Already from the patristic age itself, theologians have developed a variety of arguments demonstrating the existence of God. This is so because the proposition “God exists,” from the standpoint of human knowledge, is a mediate proposition that needs rational demonstration, even though such a proposition is in itself immediate, since it refers to the absolute and uncaused Being.
As can be seen, the demonstrative arguments for the existence of God, from the dimension of its rational or natural knowledge, fall within the philosophical domain, and, more concretely, within that part of metaphysics called theological metaphysics or natural theology; this has as its object the knowledge of the absolute Being, of the Uncaused Cause of all existing or possible beings.
Personal Experience of God
But not all men, in particular, need to resort to intellectual reflection in order to arrive at the conviction that God exists as the Supreme Being, distinct from the world, to whom submission and adoration are due.
Since it is a presupposition that illuminates the whole of man’s life and the meaning of the world, it is logical that the vast majority do not reflectively ask themselves how the existence of that God in whom they already believe can be demonstrated. For man, the conviction of the existence of God is as natural as the light of day or the stars of night, for not in vain has man come forth from the divine hands. As the image of God, man preserves this divine conviction not as something foreign and added under the pressure of culture, but as something proper to himself, as the radical foundation of his being, as the light that explains the dynamism of his life, and as the love in which he finds his fullness. It is something lived as if by instinct; it is, moreover, something so sublime and so intimate that it is difficult to explain it properly.
To this must be added the personal experience of God that many men have had throughout history. They themselves have described their experiences with such precision that they cannot be attributed to mere fiction or poetic invention, but to a true personal encounter with God.
Thus, for example, in his eagerness to deepen his interior life, Newman was converted to Catholicism through prayer and study. Claudel was moved in his spirit upon hearing the singing of the Magnificat on a Christmas afternoon; and he confesses:
“How happy are those who believe! But… if it were true… It is true! God exists, he is there! He is someone, a being as personal as I am! He loves me. He calls me” (Lessort, P.: “Claudel Seen by Himself,” p. 54).
There are also other personal experiences of God, which manifest themselves as a proper and supernatural action of God within man. In Sacred Scripture we find, for example, this kind of divine intervention in the conversion of Saint Paul:
“He heard a voice saying to him: ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ He answered: ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he: ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do’” (Acts 9:4-6; cf. 22:5-8; 26:10-18; Gal 1:12-17).
In the lives of many saints, too, these divine interventions are found, which attest not only the existence of God, but also his love for men, whom he calls to himself. Let the experience of Saint Augustine serve as an example:
“And behold, I hear from the neighboring house a voice, I know not whether of a boy or of a girl, saying in a chant and repeating over and over: ‘Take up and read; take up and read!’ And at once, with a changed countenance, I set myself most attentively to consider whether there were any kind of game in which children were wont to sing something of the sort; and I could not recall having ever heard it anywhere. And, restraining the rush of my tears, I rose, interpreting it as nothing other than a command from God that I should open the book and read the first chapter I should find. For I had heard concerning Anthony that, by the Gospel reading upon which he chanced to come, he had been admonished, as though what was being read were spoken to him: ‘Go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me’ (Mt 19:21); and by this oracle he was straightway converted to you. So I hurried back to the place where Alypius was sitting, for there I had set down the volume of the Apostle when I rose from there; I seized it, opened it, and read in silence the first chapter that met my eyes: ‘not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires’ (Rom 13:13-14). I would read no further, nor was there need; for scarcely had I read this sentence than, as though a light of assurance had been poured into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away” (Saint Augustine, “Confessions,” VIII, 12 [29]).
The Five Ways
Metaphysical reflection on the knowledge of God, as the foundation or first cause of finite beings, proceeds from the known to the unknown, from the sensible to the spiritual, from effects to the supreme cause. For this reason it is called derived or a posteriori knowledge. This mode of knowing coincides with the testimony of Sacred Scripture, which we have seen above.
Derived or a posteriori knowledge corresponds to the structure of the human intellect. Man readily knows sensible and concrete things, which he perceives immediately: this stone, that tree; likewise, the wind that drives this stone and the growth of that tree. From this immediate knowledge, man’s intellect is able to abstract mentally the essences of those sensible things: the concepts of stone, tree, motion, life, etc., and to acquire a new knowledge of universal value.
On the basis of this derived knowledge, Saint Thomas Aquinas systematized the classic “five ways” for demonstrating the existence of God. These proofs constitute the simplest and at the same time the most profound demonstration of the divine existence, and they have attained great prestige. We shall not make reference to the other philosophical proofs.
The structure of each of the five ways is as follows (cf. Summa Theol., I, q. 2, a. 3):
1) Point of departure: it consists in recording a certain fact of experience: the existence of motion, the subordination of efficient causes, the contingency of sensible beings, the various degrees of perfection found in beings, and their ordering toward an end.
2) First stage of the way: it consists in demonstrating that the facts recorded are necessarily effects; that is, something caused. Once the character of effect is secured, reason rises to demonstrate the existence of a cause by virtue of the principle of causality.
3) Second stage of the way: it consists in the affirmation that in a subordination of causes of being there cannot be a process to infinity, but rather it is absolutely necessary to arrive at a first cause, on which all the others depend. To think of an infinite series of causes does nothing but postpone the problem indefinitely, without seeking its solution; it amounts to prolonging the course of the river without ever reaching its source. If the source does not exist, there is no water of the river.
4) Final term of the way: that first cause is what we call God. Therefore God exists.
a) First way: It is founded on motion
1) It is undeniable, and evident to our senses, that there are things that move, that is, that change. This is not only motion in the physical sense (locomotion), but in the metaphysical sense, that is, as the passage from potency to act (changes from one condition to another, from one being to another, and so on).
2) Now then, everything that moves, changes, alters, or is transformed is moved by another, since nothing moves except insofar as it is in potency with respect to that toward which it moves. To move, on the other hand, requires being in act, for to move is nothing other than to bring something from potency to act, and this can be done only by that which is in act. For example, fire causes a log —which is hot only in potency— to become hot in act. But it is not possible for one and the same thing to be at once in potency and in act with respect to the same thing, but only with respect to diverse things. It is impossible for one and the same thing to be, in the same respect and in the same manner, mover and moved, just as it is impossible for it to move itself. Consequently, everything that moves is moved by another.
3) But if that which moves another is itself, in turn, moved, it is necessary that a third move it, and yet another move this one. But one cannot go on indefinitely, because in that case there would be no first mover, and consequently no mover at all, since the intermediate movers move only by virtue of the motion they receive from the first, just as a staff moves nothing unless the hand impels it.
Consequently, it is necessary to arrive at a first mover that is not moved by anyone.
4) This first mover, which is not moved by anyone, is what all understand to be God. Therefore God exists.
b) Second way: It is based on efficient causality
1) It is evident to us by experience that in the sensible world there is a determined order among efficient causes, for they are essentially subordinated to one another for the production of a common effect.
2) But it neither occurs, nor is it even possible, that a thing be the cause of itself, neither in the order of being nor in that of operation, for in such a case it would have to be prior to itself, and this is impossible.
3) Now then, this series of efficient causes, essentially subordinated to one another, cannot be prolonged indefinitely, because whenever there are subordinated efficient causes, the first is the cause of the intermediate, and this the cause of the last. Each of these causes acts through the influence of the causes that precede it. And thus we have that, when a cause is removed, its effect is removed. Consequently, if a first cause did not exist, neither would the intermediate exist, nor the last. If, then, the series of efficient causes were prolonged indefinitely, there would be no first efficient cause and, therefore, no last effect, nor any intermediate efficient cause, which is plainly false.
Consequently, it is necessary that a first efficient cause exist.
4) This first efficient cause, which is caused by no other, to which all the other causes are subordinated; that is, this Uncaused efficient cause is called by all God. Therefore God exists.
c) Third way: It is grounded on the contingency of beings
1) It is evident that we find in nature beings that can exist or not exist, for we see beings that come into existence through generation and beings that are destroyed through corruption; that is, beings that do not have in themselves the reason for their existence, but are conditioned by other beings, and therefore there is the possibility that they exist and that they do not exist. These beings are called contingent beings.
2) Now then, it is impossible that contingent beings have always existed, since that which has the possibility of not being, there was a time when it was not. That is, contingent beings, which have the possibility of existing and of not existing, receive existence not from themselves, but from another being that already exists. Thus, contingent beings are, by essence, effect: beings that call for a cause, beings that at some time began to exist, caused by another.
But, as was already demonstrated before (second way), it is impossible and absurd that there be an infinite series of contingent beings, that is, of subordinated causes, since it is impossible that only effects exist.
Consequently, contingent beings require the existence of a being that has not begun to exist; an uncaused being, that exists of itself; a being that has always existed. This being is called the necessary being.
3) But the necessary being either has existence of itself, or has received it from another, superior necessary being. On this second hypothesis, if the necessary being has received its existence from another, superior necessary being, it is impossible to accept an indefinite series of necessary beings. It is therefore imperative to admit the existence of a necessary being that exists of itself and that does not have outside itself the cause of its necessity, but is rather the cause of the other beings.
4) This necessary being, which does not have its existence received from another, but exists of itself, by virtue of its own nature, is the one whom all call God. Therefore God exists.
d) Fourth way: It considers the degrees of perfection found in beings
1) We see among beings that some are more or less good, more or less true and noble than others; and the same occurs with the various qualities. Thus, for example, no one doubts that man is more perfect than the animal; the animal, more perfect than the plant; and this, more perfect than the mineral. The same must be said of goodness, of truth, of nobility, and of other similar perfections, which are realized in all beings according to a diversity of degrees, by virtue of which some beings are more perfect than others.
2) But the diversity of degrees found in those perfections, that is, things more or less good, more or less true, more or less beautiful, etc., presupposes the existence of the maximum; they call for a being that is most excellent, most true, most beautiful, etc. In other words, these degrees of perfection are something caused by another, which, if it possesses those perfections in a limited degree, will in turn have them caused by another.
3) But since it is impossible to admit an infinite series of limited, caused causes, in this process of ascent we arrive at a first cause in which all those perfections are found in the highest degree and in all their fullness. Therefore, there must exist something that is most true, most noble, most beautiful, and most excellent, and thus the supreme entity or being, for that which is the maximum truth is the maximum entity.
Now then, that which has a pure perfection in the highest degree, or by essence, is the cause of this perfection in all those that possess it in a lower degree, or by participation. Moreover, it can be but a single being, a single perfection subsisting in itself, a single perfection in all its fullness and totality.
4) Consequently, there exists something that is for all things the cause of their being, of their goodness, of their beauty, and of all their perfections, because it is the supreme Being, the supreme Truth, the supreme Goodness; and this being we all call God. Therefore God exists.
e) Fifth way: It is taken from the government of the world
1) We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, as is verified by observing that always, or almost always, they act in the same manner to attain what is most fitting for them, that is, their full evolution and development, or the preservation of their species, or the dynamic order of the cosmos, etc.; whence it is understood that they do not proceed to their end by acting at random, without course or orientation, but intentionally.
2) Now then, beings that lack knowledge cannot tend toward their respective ends unless directed by an intelligent being that knows that end, in the manner in which the archer directs the arrow.
3) This ordering intelligence cannot be ordered by an indefinite series of intelligences, but it is necessary to arrive at a supreme intelligent being, which consists in its very act of understanding, an infinite, subsistent, and unique understanding; that is, which is the origin and foundation of all the other intelligences that know and direct the things lacking knowledge to their proper ends.
4) Therefore there exists a supreme intelligent Being that directs all natural things to their respective ends, and this Being we call God. Therefore God exists.
Source: Arbil Magazine
