Man’s natural desire to know follows from his possession of an intellectual soul. The intellect was made for knowledge and seeks it. Indeed, man’s final end is knowledge.
The unreality of philosophy for modern man is a consequence of the ideas of Kant, and the schools of philosophy that followed, which incorrectly hold that the human intellect cannot attain to certain knowledge of reality beyond sensory phenomena.
In this next set of articles in our wider series vindicating the claims of the Catholic Church, we will trace the rise of scholastic philosophy, its devastating decline, its revival under the direction of the Holy See, and, finally, its status in the Church today.
In this article, we take a temporary pause from discussing proofs for the existence of God and consider how the Catholic Church has responded to claims that the human intellect lacks the capacity to reach certain knowledge of God’s existence.
In his third way, St. Thomas Aquinas argues that because a contingent being is not a sufficient reason for its own existence, it cannot ultimately be a sufficient reason for the existence of other things.
In this article we will explore a second path by which we can attain certainty about the existence of God: St. Thomas Aquinas's argument from 'efficient causality.'
The 'five ways' of St. Thomas Aquinas are not the only ways to demonstrate God’s existence. But they are sufficient to show that God certainly exists, and that man’s reason, unaided by the light of divine revelation, can arrive at the certain knowledge of this fact.
Just because the existence of God is not self-evident, in the sense of being immediately and intuitively known by human beings, does that mean His existence isn't provable at all?
Some philosophers have considered that the existence of God is so 'clearly seen' that it is, in fact, self-evident. If the existence of God is self-evident, there is no purpose in attempting to demonstrate it by argument. Therefore, we must begin by asking whether the existence of God is in fact self-evident.
Even today, when the Church seems to be eclipsed by the actions of evil men, we can identify where she is, and where she is not; and by submitting to her magisterium, and receiving her sacraments, we can be transformed and made ready for eternal life.