God Exists. Some Rational Reasons

Does God Exist? How can I know

Many people these days only believe in what they can see, touch, hear, taste, and smell. This belief system is called “Materialism.” Materialism: a tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values.

More and more young people are not going to church and no longer identify as believers in God. If someone asked you why you believe, would you have an answer?

Practicing Religion in the World Church Attendance Catholic Attendance

What is the fastest growing religion in America today? “The Nones”

Nones. Not Nuns Nones: “None of the above.”

But it takes much more faith not to believe than it does to believe that: God Exists.

Despite this increase in the number of atheists, a new study from Oxford University says that human beings regardless of religion, education, culture or epoch, share a widespread belief in some kind of afterlife and an instinctive tendency to suggest that natural phenomena happens for a purpose.

Anthropologists (people who study mankind) say that there are four things that are unique to both modern and ancient humans. These defining characteristics aren’t because of “culture” or learned behavior. Creation of Complex Tools Use of stones and bones for cutting, hunting, fishing Use of needles to make warm clothing Use of skins and pottery to store food Harnessing of Fire Cooked food provides more calories than raw food Fire provides warmth and protection which led to Establishment of permanent settlements Use of Symbolic Communication Use of color on walls or on skin to identify themselves or their tribe/group Use of sounds (eventually language) to communicate Use of symbolic pictures which eventually becomes written language Belief in an afterlife All ancient people believed that there was something beyond this life Ancient people worshipped their ancestors and buried their dead with rituals

The God Question Through the Ages

The God Question Through the Ages A Priori: Before the senses A Posteriori: After the senses Ontological: The study of being Teleological: Comes from the Greek “teleos” meaning “end” or purpose. The study of the purpose of things. Cosmological: relating to the origin and development of the universe.

Aristotle and the Cosmological

Anselm and the Ontological “I have in my mind a being than whom none greater can be conceived.” -- Saint Anselm

Anselm and the Cosmological I have in my mind a being than whom none greater can be conceived But a thing that exists only as an idea in not as great as both idea and reality God as only an idea is not greater than a being who exists in reality God must be the greatest in idea and in reality

“I have in my mind a being than whom none greater can be conceived.” Anselm and A’Priori “I have in my mind a being than whom none greater can be conceived.” We have this idea BEFORE we experience information through our senses, therefore it is called an a’priori statement.

Saint Thomas Aquinas and A Posteriori

Aquinas’ Five Proofs (Two arguments)

The Argument From Change

--We said earlier that many people are materialists --We said earlier that many people are materialists. They believe only what they can see, hear, smell or touch. Snow melts. But even a materialist would agree that everything in the material world is subject to change. Life begins anew.

The Argument from Change: Just as every tree begins as an acorn and every forest begins with a single tree. Everything that comes to be in existence or matures in size, can not do so on its own.

An acorn is not yet what it will become—AND it can not produce what it needs to become what it might be. . .

Argument from Change In order for the acorn to change. . . . Other materials must help to aid in its growth to a giant oak tree

Argument from Change Acorn Oak Tree Soil Sun Water Nothing can give itself what it does not have but needs to have to be its potential true self.

The acorn cannot have now what it will need later to reach its maximum potential. The acorn begins with only the potential to change, but it needs to be acted on by other things (sun, soil, water, and weather forces) outside of itself if the potential oak tree is to become actually an oak tree. Otherwise the acorn will remain an acorn.

Time Changes Everything. Self changing things, like people can change by desire or will. But some changes happen that people can not control like cell degradation to cause aging. When a person dies, the molecules stay, but the changes that occur require other things to act upon it. The things that cause decomposition or change also eventually decompose, also change. The universe is a sum total of changing things. The whole universe is in the process of change.  But we have already seen that change in any thing requires an outside force to make it happen. 

If there is nothing outside the material universe, then there is nothing that can cause the universe to change.  But it does change. Therefore there must be something in addition to the material universe. But the universe is the sum total of all matter, space and time. These three things depend on each other. Therefore something outside the universe is outside matter, space and time. It is not a changing thing. It is the unchanging Source of change.