Does God exist? If so, how might we prove it? Though Saints Augustine, Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas all believe that rational proofs can be given, they each go about the task in rather different ways. Is one approach better than another? Do any of their arguments prove sufficient or is a definitive proof ultimately impossible? Further, even if we can prove God exists, what can we say about His nature? Who is God and how does He differ from ourselves?
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St. Augustine, St. Anslem and Aquinas all believe rational arguments can be given in order to prove that God exists. St. Augustine is concerned with understanding what we believe and thinks all Christians should strive to understand God. St. Anslem agrees with this notion and considers it negligence if we don’t make an attempt to understand what we believe. St. Anslem’s proof has many characteristics that are the same as St. Augustine’s, including his theory of truth.
He develops an ontological argument which takes the idea of God as God as a reality and existent. He believes no one can have an idea of what God is and then deny his existence.
Like St. Augustine, Aquinas believes God is demonstrated through his effects, which are humans in that we exist, walk, talk, work, etc. He gives five ways we can demonstrate God’s existence: motion, causes, the possible and the necessary, gradations in reality (that something needs to be at the highest degree) and the existence of a being with high intelligence.
Aquinas also believes that Gods effects, nature, imitate him as best as the can. His effects can represent him only in limited ways. God is the highest good, and it belongs to his infinite goodness to permit evil things and bring forth good things from them. God and his creatures (us) share a likeness. The things made by God are likened to him as the first and universal sources of all existing. God is a being by his essence, we are beings by participation. Although we are like God, God is not like us because there is no mutual likeness in causes and effects of different orders. Aquinas gives the example that a portrait is like a human being, but a human being is not like a portrait.
I personally believe God exists. When reading this week I was happy to know that some great minds agree. The fact that Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas all give rational proofs that God exists is very reassuring. I particularly liked Aquinas’ proofs. He went about proving God the same way Aristotle explained physics and metaphysics. Aquinas took from the old which was still looked upon as mostly true. Aquinas’ writings were very clear cut. Unlike Aristotle, Aquinas asked a question, answered it, wrote what people would argue, and finally rebutted it. Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas all went about proving God in different ways. However, all believe God is demonstrated on earth through humans. Without God humans could not actualize anything. That is truly God given. These ideas are somewhat similar to Asian philosophies that God is a part of you. God is your conscience and soul. God is in its own category. He is not like us because He is a being by through his essence. We can compare ourselves to Him, but not vice versa. We came from Him, but he was always there.
I have to say that because each of these philosophers believe so strongly in the existence of God, no matter what argument is put up against them, they will not back down. I think that helps them a little. I do have say I found it a bit amusing, the way Anslem attacked Augustine’s way of proving the existence of God, while Aquinas attacked them both, yet all three are attempting to prove the same thing! You would think that when proving a point you would accept all ways of proving it. On another note, I must say that although I was beyond sick of reading Plato and Aristotle by the time we finished with them, I don’t think I would understand a single word of these readings without that background. They all essentially take the exact arguments, the Forms and the Unmoved Mover, and simply give them a name, God. Aquinas even uses the exact same language as Aristotle, with his arguments that God is full actually and not potential at all. It seems to me that they are very uncreative in their ideas. I mean, all these men did was rewrite the arguments of Plato and Aristotle with a religious slant. I feel that these were not written so much as to convince non-believers in the existance of God as to prove to believers that they are correct in their beliefs by saying, "Hey, these old dead guys even agree with us, and that was before Christ! We must be right!"
As a little background on myself, I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic high school. As I reached high school my faith in the Catholic religion was deteriorating. I was tired of hearing about God and how the Bible tells us that God exists so we must have faith. I feel that it is necessary to show my religious history when talking about the works of Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. When I started reading about Augustine I was not really impressed by his arguments and nothing really wow’d me. There was a line in that reading where it stated that Augustine’s mission in writing his works was not to convince the atheist that God exists. I’m not an atheist, but I still didn’t believe Augustine’s argument or proof. His and Anselm’s readings were more like theories with very weak supportive arguments. I was not impressed with the way they went about “proving” God’s existence. I did like Aquinas’ writing and thought it was better formulated that Augustine or Anselm. Nothing in these works changed my beliefs about God or religion in general. Saying that, I did enjoy reading Aquinas and respect what he wrote.
Does God exist? Augustine, Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas all believe that they have answered this, and yet there remains a large amount of debate as to whether or not God exists. I suppose if one theory could prove God's existence without any room for doubt, then society would have abandoned the idea of deity a long time ago. The question we must all consider is whether or not beings in a physical realm could ever even begin to use Reason or Logic to describe a wholly metaphysical Thing, or Force such as "thought thinking itself" which doesn't seem to be bound by the laws of physics or logic. Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas use rational proofs to prove the existence of an irrational God. Keep in mind these were religious men who believed that they were called upon by God to serve His Will. Even if we accept, for example Aquinas' largely Aristotelian idea of a first mover thinking the universe into existence, we must assume then that the first mover “existed” in a state of nonexistence, without itself having been first moved by another force. The contradiction is that the action of God is assumed to be thought itself, a Divine Will, and still assumed to have existed prior to the first moment. If the purpose of God in the universe is to begin the progression of events based on the order of his will, then his will would have had to exist before created the beginning of the universe. This is impossible, for if God’s were to exist he would need to be thinking things into motion, and if he were not, he would not exist for he is assumed to be purely a thinking thing and nothing physical. Therefore it becomes quite difficult to prove that God exists based on reason or empirical evidence. On the other hand, pious believers say that they believe, and that in itself is proof of God’s existence, for to conceive that something is true makes it true to the believer, or the deceived. We are left with an Infinite Regress on one end of the spectrum, and a leap of faith on the other. Therefore I do not believe it possible to prove the existence of God.
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