This week we reach a quite significant and, for some, very personal topic: God. Whether you belong to a religion or have only briefly considered religion, this week’s ideas can be very enlightening to you. One of the greatest problems facing the believer is a reconciliation of faith and reason. How can we reconcile faith, which implies a blind acceptance, with reason, which implies a belief in something only because good evidence or argument supports it? Now, don’t think I’m trying to sway you in either direction. As I’ve said from the beginning, and as philosophy recommends, I only want you to examine your beliefs as best you can. If you have faith, why? And if you’re an atheist, why? Why do you believe what you do about the existence, or lack of existence, of a supreme being of some kind?

St. Augustine (354-430 c.e.)

If the disparities between faith and reason get to you, you’re not alone. The first person we’re studying this week takes us out of the ancient world to after the time of Jesus Christ. St. Augustine was a passionate, involved person. Before becoming a Christian he argued strongly against Christianity, then after becoming a Christian he argued strongly for it. Augustine himself struggled to reconcile faith and reason, and this struggle is evident in his famous work, Confessions.

In the end, Augustine rejected reason and the teachings of the likes of Plato and Marcus Aurelius. While most Greeks thought that reason could lead man to a just and righteous life, Augustine thought otherwise. He thought that faith is necessary first. Reason without faith is blind, he thought. While Aristotle and Epicurus thought that the soul is an essential component of life and the body (that is, physical), Augustine thought that the soul is immortal and immaterial. There’s no question that Augustine took some ideas from the Stoics, such as relinquishing oneself to the logos. But he was also one of the first to shift from a human-centered, human-empowered view of the world to a God-centered view.

Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas was the first to attempt to combine reason and belief in God in a complex and brilliant way. He takes us closer to the present by several hundred years; he was born in the thirteenth century. Drawing from the expertise of his teacher, Albert Magnus, Aquinas formulated five proofs for the existence of God. His most famous written work is Summa Theologica. (Here is a link to an online version, if anyone is interested: http://www.sacredtexts.com/chr/aquinas/summa/index.htm.)

Ironically, Thomas Aquinas and other philosophers of his time were the first to apply academic rigor to their writings, including citing numerous sources and writing detailed arguments. This marked the beginning of a philosopher who is more disconnected from the world—one who observes it from a distance—as opposed to earlier philosophers like Socrates and Confucius. To what degree do you think Aquinas has influenced your current professors (myself included)?

The Five Ways

In his efforts to wed Aristotle to his Christian beliefs, Aquinas attempted to use reason and truths about experience to prove the existence of God.

1st Way: If one thing is moving, it must have been caused to move by something else, and that thing must have been caused to move by something else, and so on. Since things are in motion, there must have been some first thing that started the motion—this first thing is God.

2nd Way: Nothing can cause itself to exist, ergo God must have caused the first things to exist. This rests on the claim that there can be no cause that is uncaused by something else.

3rd Way: If there was ever a time which there was nothing, where no-thing existed, then there would not be nothing now. The simple fact that there is something shows that there was not a time when there was nothing. Thus, God’s existence is necessary. Since there is something, a thing (God) both possible and necessary must have caused that something.

4th Way: Drawing from Aristotle, this proof for God makes use of a hierarchy of souls. At the bottom are worms and the like and at the top is God. This argument takes its empirical evidence from the idea that there are gradations around us in nature. We see less developed men and more fully developed men. It seems logical that this gradation will continue beyond man until it reaches the perfection of God. When we try to be good, there must be some source of goodness which we seek to emulate, and that source is God.

5th Way: This is an incredibly popular proof for the existence of God, one many of you undoubtedly have come across in some form. It is the idea that the intelligence and order we see in the universe implies some director of that intelligence. Order implies purpose. What could be responsible for the beautiful waterfall to the left? Does it have to be God? Could it be explained by Natural Selection? As we'll see, David Hume offers an interesting critique of the argument from design.

In the end, as brilliant as his attempt is, Aquinas has only demonstrated that God’s existence is probable. It is debatable whether or not a series of causes can or cannot be infinite, and this is the claim that his first three proofs depend on. Also, it’s possible to argue that the world contains as much disorder as it does order. The biggest mistake you can make with this sort of material is thinking that there is a simple answer. If you are already a believer, you might find comfort in the fact that Aquinas has given rational proofs for your belief. If you are already a non-believer, you might find comfort in your ability to disprove Aquinas. I urge you to go deeper if you are really interested.

The Problem of Evil

One of the biggest problems that face philosophers like Aquinas, and anyone attempting to reconcile reason with the existence of a God, is the problem of evil. The problem of evil makes a couple of assumptions. The first is that evil exists, whether it’s an innocent dog getting put to sleep or an innocent child getting run over by a car. The second is that the God we are talking about is all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing; this is the typical Judeo-Christian God. Do you see the problem? If God is all-knowing, he knows every time a child will get run over, if God is all-powerful, he has the power to prevent it, if God is all-loving, he should prevent it since a child getting run over is an act of evil. But he doesn’t. Ergo, God is not all-knowing, not all-powerful, or not all-good.

This isn’t a debate that has been settled. Philosophers are still arguing about it on both sides. For a contemporary illustration of the problem of evil, see the South Park episode “Cartmanland” at this link: http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/103935. In the episode, Kyle doubts his faith in God because Cartman gets his own themepark (something Kyle sees as an evil). One of the possible essays for your readings summaries addresses South Park and the problem of evil specifically. Remember, South Park is not suitable for everyone so this is your warning!