The so-called proofs for the existence of God are basically issues that belong to the realm of philosophy, which is the realm contemplated by
Romans 1:20 and
Dei Filius # 2, which would make resorting to the Bible and the teachings of the Church irrelevant. Hence, we could come to know about the existence of God through
divine revelation (theology) and through
human reason (philosophy). In the realm of philosophy, there are two general or popular ways by which we could demonstrate the existence of God. The first one is the
a priori method, such as Saint Anselm’s ontological proof and, to some extent, Saint Aquinas’ concept of the
esse (to be). The second one is the
a posteriori method, such as Aquinas’ Five Ways.
My favorite philosophical method is the argument from contingency, which is the thread that goes through or permeates the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas. In a debate I had with Objectivists in
forum.objectivismonline.net/index.php?showtopic=8546, I tried to show that the existence of contingent reality points to the existence of a necessary entity. This debate led to the issue on the reality of contingency and since Objectivism is a materialistic philosophy, which its proponents have been trying very well to deny, my opponents debunked me by stating that there “is no physical evidence for that which is not physical.” Of course, they can say this because they believe that anything that has no physical proof of its existence does not exist. Anyway, this debate led to the question of the origin of the universe and they were having difficulty proving that the universe is eternal and not contingent. The physical sciences, such as astronomy and physics, would come in handy in this respect. Even scientists are divided on the issue. Stephen Hawking is more of a deist, unlike Carl Sagan who was an agnostic and Dawkins who is an atheist.
The concept of
esse in the essay
Being and Essence by Thomas Aquinas is not the same as his concept of essence and existence. For Saint Thomas, the
esse is the Act of Being that gives a manner of being (essence) its fact of being (existence). Every existent has essence and existence, but it must also have esse for it to exist in reality. To get to the reality of the
esse, you have to undertake laborious metaphysical abstraction. This Act of Being is God, and all created existents have being or are “to be” or exist in reality because of their participation in the being of God. They received their
esse from God. This is why I said that to some extent this argument is from pure reason or is ontological. However, Saint Thomas always starts his metaphysical speculation from physical reality thus, generally, he is an
a priori kind of metaphysician. He did not favor the ontological argument, which he regarded as a quantum leap from the mental to the real.
Contingency is the key in fully demonstrating the existence of God from the viewpoint of philosophy. This is as far as the
existence of God is concerned. The
nature of God is a different matter altogether and fully understanding the nature of God would require to resort to some sort of negative theology or understanding His nature by what He is not. This is where we have to resort to the aid of divine revelation.
. Trust him to hit the nail on the head.
