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kvj888
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Why do Catholics believe that the universe and all life in it was created by, and is governed by, an all-powerful Spirit Being called God? What actual proof is there of God’s existence and omnipotence?
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NewsTheMan
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theistgal
Guest
Just out of curiosity - you describe yourself as a Catholic. Don’t you believe this as well, then?
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Anathama_Sit
Guest
Greetings Kvj888,
I am saying this with all due respect, but most of the questions that you have asked that I have seen since perusing Today’s Posts in Catholic Answers Forum are to be found in teh Catechism of the Catholic Church. Also a simple search of Catholic Answers Forum might help as well as these questions have been asked over and over again ad naseum.
God Bless.
Anathama Sit
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ConstantineTG
Guest
The more you seek proof, the more you won’t see God. God is right in front of you, yet you ask for proof. Pride blinds a person.
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Khalid
Guest
(Edited)
I’ll give you a point: if the post-Cartesian mechanistic philosophy is true, then Christianity is false, and the Christian God can not exist. But, the mechanistic philosophy itself is false, and God is true. I will attempt to give you resources to prove this to you on a philosophical level, since it’s an immense subject, and you don’t seem like an actual questioner or seeker, but like a troll: if you seemed sincere, I’d walk you through it, starting with the absurdity of life without God, the meaninglessness and purposelessness of the universe, the lack of any rational basis for any morality (if God doesn’t exist, there is no logical reason why we shouldn’t rape children and commit genocide, or do any other most heinous act), through the philosophical absurdity of materialism and the true philosophy of real essentialism to replace it, through using that to prove the existence of God and the natural moral law, and then, eventually, to argue from the Bible and prophecy and miracle that Christianity is true. I can prove to you, with one-hundred-percent-it-necessarily-follows-from-the-premises metaphysical certainty and necessity that an all-powerful, all-knowing Unchanging Changer and First Cause exists, and that this is what we would call a Creator God; I can not prove using philosophy and metaphysics the Incarnation or the Resurrection. For the latter truths, the truths of Christianity, I can only offer evidence, not airtight metaphysical proof.
I recommend, for a crash course in realist/essentialist philosophy, in order to counteract all of that mechanistic philosophy that the New Atheists have been feeding you and that our culture is swimming (and drowning) in, that “philosophy” which denies teleology, and as such, sweeps all of the patently teleological and immaterial under the one-size-fits-all rug called “mind”, with the label: “Here lay all of the stuff that empirical science will eventually figure out” (even though, by definition, such things can never be explained, nor even researched, by empirical methods, such as the phenomena of self and consciousness), the books:
Real Essentialism: Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy
The Last Superstition: a Refutation of the New Atheism by Edward Feser
The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology edited by William Lane Craig
The first three books of the Summa contra Gentiles by St Thomas Aquinas
Followed by, for the truth of Christianity itself,
The fourth book of the Summa contra Gentiles by St Thomas Aquinas
God and Philosophy by Etienne Gilson
Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig (this also does a good job arguing for God, but never rebuts and repudiates the mechanistic philosophy in favor or Aristotelian realism, and thus, in the proving-God section, is much weaker than it needs to be, as most people bring imbibed-by-osmosis mechanistic, empiricist presuppositions to the table, but the refutation of the mechanistic philosophy in favor of philosophical realism is a book-size topic unto itself, contained in the first two books mentioned)
God is Great, God is Good, a collection of essays edited by William Lane Craig and JP Moreland
Aquinas: a Beginner’s Guide by Edward Feser
The Christian Philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas by Etienne Gilson
Mere Christianity by CS Lewis (an extended defense of the argument from morality)
Miracles by CS Lewis
The Abolition of Man by CS Lewis
The Summa Theologiae by St Thomas Aquinas
God and Other Minds by Alvin Plantinga
The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell (it’s anti-Catholic and tries to defend some untenable, too-conservative positions, and some completely incorrect positions such as the sufficiency of Scripture, sola fide, penal substitutionary atonement [generally written from a conservative evangelical Calvinist Protestant perspective] but it’s a great repository of much of the evidentiary/empirical/archaeological/scientific evidence that we have for the Bible’s reliability, the Resurrection, the origins of Christianity, and other Christian truths)
For a very unique, but philosophically rigorous and scholarly, quasi-presuppositional, quasi-fideistic argument, read
Warrant: the Current Debate
Warrant and Proper Function
Warranted Christian Belief, all by Alvin Plantinga. The first two have nothing to do with Christianity and God, but introduce the concept of warrant; the latter applies it to Christianity without drawing conclusions.
And to convince you of the ultimate despair and pointlessness and logical inconsistency of life without God, read anything by Peter Singer. Or even Nietzsche or Bertrand Russel, or Sarte. And to illustrate the logical inconsistency of a non-Aristotelian philosophy, read the “modern classics” of philosophy, which are self-defeating and incoherent, like Descartes, Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, and Berkeley, from which derive the most famous “problems” that aren’t actually problems and don’t even exist, like the “Mind-body problem” (from Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy and Discourse on Method) and the “deriving an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ problem” (from Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding).
I’ll give you a point: if the post-Cartesian mechanistic philosophy is true, then Christianity is false, and the Christian God can not exist. But, the mechanistic philosophy itself is false, and God is true. I will attempt to give you resources to prove this to you on a philosophical level, since it’s an immense subject, and you don’t seem like an actual questioner or seeker, but like a troll: if you seemed sincere, I’d walk you through it, starting with the absurdity of life without God, the meaninglessness and purposelessness of the universe, the lack of any rational basis for any morality (if God doesn’t exist, there is no logical reason why we shouldn’t rape children and commit genocide, or do any other most heinous act), through the philosophical absurdity of materialism and the true philosophy of real essentialism to replace it, through using that to prove the existence of God and the natural moral law, and then, eventually, to argue from the Bible and prophecy and miracle that Christianity is true. I can prove to you, with one-hundred-percent-it-necessarily-follows-from-the-premises metaphysical certainty and necessity that an all-powerful, all-knowing Unchanging Changer and First Cause exists, and that this is what we would call a Creator God; I can not prove using philosophy and metaphysics the Incarnation or the Resurrection. For the latter truths, the truths of Christianity, I can only offer evidence, not airtight metaphysical proof.
I recommend, for a crash course in realist/essentialist philosophy, in order to counteract all of that mechanistic philosophy that the New Atheists have been feeding you and that our culture is swimming (and drowning) in, that “philosophy” which denies teleology, and as such, sweeps all of the patently teleological and immaterial under the one-size-fits-all rug called “mind”, with the label: “Here lay all of the stuff that empirical science will eventually figure out” (even though, by definition, such things can never be explained, nor even researched, by empirical methods, such as the phenomena of self and consciousness), the books:
Real Essentialism: Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy
The Last Superstition: a Refutation of the New Atheism by Edward Feser
The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology edited by William Lane Craig
The first three books of the Summa contra Gentiles by St Thomas Aquinas
Followed by, for the truth of Christianity itself,
The fourth book of the Summa contra Gentiles by St Thomas Aquinas
God and Philosophy by Etienne Gilson
Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig (this also does a good job arguing for God, but never rebuts and repudiates the mechanistic philosophy in favor or Aristotelian realism, and thus, in the proving-God section, is much weaker than it needs to be, as most people bring imbibed-by-osmosis mechanistic, empiricist presuppositions to the table, but the refutation of the mechanistic philosophy in favor of philosophical realism is a book-size topic unto itself, contained in the first two books mentioned)
God is Great, God is Good, a collection of essays edited by William Lane Craig and JP Moreland
Aquinas: a Beginner’s Guide by Edward Feser
The Christian Philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas by Etienne Gilson
Mere Christianity by CS Lewis (an extended defense of the argument from morality)
Miracles by CS Lewis
The Abolition of Man by CS Lewis
The Summa Theologiae by St Thomas Aquinas
God and Other Minds by Alvin Plantinga
The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell (it’s anti-Catholic and tries to defend some untenable, too-conservative positions, and some completely incorrect positions such as the sufficiency of Scripture, sola fide, penal substitutionary atonement [generally written from a conservative evangelical Calvinist Protestant perspective] but it’s a great repository of much of the evidentiary/empirical/archaeological/scientific evidence that we have for the Bible’s reliability, the Resurrection, the origins of Christianity, and other Christian truths)
For a very unique, but philosophically rigorous and scholarly, quasi-presuppositional, quasi-fideistic argument, read
Warrant: the Current Debate
Warrant and Proper Function
Warranted Christian Belief, all by Alvin Plantinga. The first two have nothing to do with Christianity and God, but introduce the concept of warrant; the latter applies it to Christianity without drawing conclusions.
And to convince you of the ultimate despair and pointlessness and logical inconsistency of life without God, read anything by Peter Singer. Or even Nietzsche or Bertrand Russel, or Sarte. And to illustrate the logical inconsistency of a non-Aristotelian philosophy, read the “modern classics” of philosophy, which are self-defeating and incoherent, like Descartes, Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, and Berkeley, from which derive the most famous “problems” that aren’t actually problems and don’t even exist, like the “Mind-body problem” (from Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy and Discourse on Method) and the “deriving an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ problem” (from Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding).
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Khalid
Guest
This kind of fideism is dangerous and is what is killing Christianity. Faith is illuminated by reason and reason by faith. The apostles didn’t ask people to believe based on nothing; when evangelizing Pagans, they first attempted to prove the existence of God, albeit with much less sophistication than philosophers both before them and after. When evangelizing Jews, who already believed in the one true God YHWH, they relied on eyewitness testimony and empirical evidence, not, “it’s a matter of faith”, “it will change you life”, “look at how Jesus has changed my life”, or in the context of “sharing dialectics” with someone in a post-modern context.
We should demand proof that belief in God is reasonable, or proof that God exists, before we should even consider believing in something claiming to be a divine revelation. Otherwise, relativism kicks in: what’s to say Mohammedanism isn’t true, just because people believe it enough, or that all religions are equally good, as long as you have enough faith?
God gave us a mind and reason; blind faith in contradiction of all of the evidence and philosophical proofs seems to me worse than atheism. Part of the problem is the entire system of philosophy common for the past 300 years is false; if it is true, Christianity is false, but several simple observations defeat it. Secularists still hold on to it because they like the results - a prime example of utilitarianism, another self-defeating philosophical position. But, the true philosophy - real essentialism - not only allows for God’s existence, but demands it. This basic type of philosophy was held by the ancients from Plato until Hume in the 17th century - and now modern scientists are asking and trying to answer questions that the pre-Socratics did 2700 years ago, except now they’re asking them in an incoherent framework. We’ve gone from books entitled ‘Christianity Not Mysterious’ in the 18th century, to ‘Mysterious Universe’ in the 20th. See the reversal (and, additionally, the God-substitutes that are smuggled in through the back door, such as spelling “nature” with a capital N, and ascribing to Nature purpose and teleology?).
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MatthewRoberts
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The scientific approach is to disprove that God created the universe… and so far scientist have only come up with theories.
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carn
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Since when?
The only scientific approach regarding God is, that he does not screw up all ex periments and observations. Otherwies science does not care about God.
And whats wrong with theories? Why expect anything different from science?
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MatthewRoberts
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How untrue you are. Science is used through the centuries by many theologians including the greatest - St Augustine. Look here and you will see: newadvent.org/summa/1045.htm
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Khalid
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Roberts, this is why you need a crash course in Aristotelian realism and philosophy as much as the atheist. You have the scientific method and burden of truth backwards, and you consider it as if it was in a vacuum, something in itself, and not a part of a wider philosophy - the evil mechanistic worldview.
In any case, God is completely outside the bounds of science, since he is a metaphysical entity. He can never be proved by science or disproved by science; it is a non sequitur. God is just as much outside the reach of science as the subjective perception or qualia of pain is. God is in the realm of philosophy.
All methods come with a philosophy, so to speak: Aristotelianism comes with theology and philosophy, mechanism comes with empirical science as we know it today.
In any case, God is completely outside the bounds of science, since he is a metaphysical entity. He can never be proved by science or disproved by science; it is a non sequitur. God is just as much outside the reach of science as the subjective perception or qualia of pain is. God is in the realm of philosophy.
All methods come with a philosophy, so to speak: Aristotelianism comes with theology and philosophy, mechanism comes with empirical science as we know it today.
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thistle
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Hang on a second. You state that you are a Catholic so please tell us why you believe it.
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MatthewRoberts
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Well you just may be an impressive intellectual in your own zone, but you clearly disrespect me in your condescending tone. Who on earth are you trying to relate to here? The book heads or the wisdom of the minions? We are people not robots. Albert Einstein once said “If you cannot explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”. Oh, and btw my name is Matthew. Your mannerism is very cold and is quite saddening me.
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kvj888
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carn
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I am not untrue, we just understand the words differently. So i reword my statement:
The only scientific approach of empirical sciences regarding God is the assumption, that he does not screw up all experiments and observations. Otherwise empirical science does not care about God.
And to add empirical science does not care about all that non-empirical science, as they are in some way different worlds.
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Khalid
Guest
I did not intend for it to be so. It is just that once one concedes the ground to mechanistic scientism, holding on to God is a delusion (even though in reality, it’s the scientism that is). Note that I do not dismiss empirical science as such; it is great, but not as great as God, and is no basis for society. God is in the realm of metaphysics; to get to know him, one studies philosophy and theology to form a warrant for believing in him (or one is just as self-contradictory as an atheist who believes in a rational warrant for morality), and then the sacred Scriptures to learn of the higher truths. To learn how God operates in reality, one studies the empirical sciences. To know the effect is not to know the nature of the cause; a scientist who speaks on God is speaking as much nonsense as I would be if I started speculating on the quantum theory.
Etienne Gilson said, “The only person who speaks more nonsense than a philosopher on science is when a scientist speaks on philosophy”, and this is what we find with the New Atheists, and increasingly even regular believers, who, having conceded the metaphysical playing field to the modern mechanistic philosophy, have found themselves forced to retreat in to the fortress of fideism or else lose their faith, instead of confronting the playing field itself by reclaiming their own intellectual heritage from Thales of Miletus to St Thomas Aquinas. That intellectual heritage is eminently defensible and eminently self-consistent, with great correspondence to reality; much more so than the mechanistic philosophy and the sophistry propagated by David Hume down to the present day. With this inheritance - real essentialism - it is shown that belief in God isn’t blind faith, but is intellectually viable and rational, nay, is necessary as following from the premises; the Christian faith itself then becomes intellectually viable, and can sally forth from its self-imprisonment in the fortress of fideism where it is slowly dying.
I recommend reading the book, if you only ever read one book besides the Bible, read The Last Superstition by Edward Feser - you will not regret it. It is incredibly edifying and amazing to have a double warrant for your faith; to know that it isn’t blind faith, but is rational, and defensible (and also to know why the world is going to Hell before your eyes). If you read another, follow it up with God and Philosophy by Etienne Gilson (not Antony Flew); if you read more, you shall know when you reach that point.
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