Leaving Certificate Religious Education Proofs for the existence

Leaving Certificate Religious Education Proofs for the existence of God.

Today: Today we will be looking at how Four different men tried to prove that God existed. Those four men were: St. Anselm of Canterbury St. Thomas Aquinas St. Bonaventure Isaac Newton

St. Anselm of Canterbury.

lived 1033 -1109 Born in Aosta in Piedmont (boarder of France ans Switzerland) Became Archbishop of Canterbury 10931109 First of the medieval Philosophers to try and prove that God existed. He is sometimes referred to as the father of Scholasticism ( Teachings based on Aristotle and the Chruch Fathers)

Anselm believed in the existence of a perfect being. God was greater than anything anyone could ever think of. God is the greatest of all beings/things. He said that God must really exist because if god only existed in our minds and not in reality then he would not be the greatest thing to exist. And since God is the greatest thing - he therefore must exist. Simple! This idea was renamed the ontological argument by Immanuel Kant.

St. Thomas Aquinas

We read about him in chapter two Wrote a famous book called Summa Theologica lived from 1225 -74 He came up with what we commonly call the Five Proofs For The Existence Of God.

1. The existence of a prime mover (as in life giver). Basically what this means it that nothing can move by itelf and so therefore it must be moved - so at some point in time there must have been a first mover. Aquinas says that this first mover was God.

2. Cause of Existence. All the things that we see around us in the world are created by other things - nothing can create itself. Therefore in the beinning there must have been an uncreated creator - this Aquinas called God.

3. The Existence of a necessary being, which causes the existence of others. This necessary being is called god.

4. Degrees of Perfection. There must be something out there by which all qualities such as goodness and beauty are measured. This perfect standard is called God.

5. Intelligent Design. When we look around the universe we can see that it is ordered and structured and works together in harmony - Aquinas says that this was no accident and that it was designed like this. He says that it was designed by an intelligent designer and this designer we call God

St. Bonaventure

Lived at the same time as Aquinas. Was a Franciscan Priest and therefore followed the teachings of St Francis of Assisi. Tried to prove the existence of God in a new way. He combined the Philosophical approach with Logic and Reasoning to come up with his idea.

He talked about the Importance of Spirituality when trying to understand God. Bonaenture looked at the life of St. Francis of Assisi and talked about what an amazing man he was. How he had lived such a good life. He had an excellence in him that seemed ‘beyond what was human’

He went on to say that it was possible for human beings to ‘. . . see and understand that the ‘best’ is. . . that than which nothing better can be imagined’ The very fact that we can imagine ‘the best’ meant that it must exist in the perfection of God.

St. Bonaventure said that human beings, becuase they can imagine what the best is (and God is the best) can come to a much deeper understanding about the existence of God.

Isaac Newton

Lived during the enlightenment lived 1643 - 1727 An English Physicist Talks about the role of God being central to the functioning of the universe. Newton was convinced that when he thought about the universe he could prove that God existed.

He asked the question: Why had the gravity that was present in the universe not pulled all of the planets in on top of eachother in one big mass? He suggsted that this did not happen because everthing had been placed carefully in the correct position

If things were being placed in exactly the correct order then this means that they were plced there by a very intelligent, powerful being who understood and controlled the entire system of life. For Newton this perfect intelligent being was God.