God: Fact or Fiction?: Exploring the Relationship Between Science Religion and the Origin of Life

by Brendan Roberts

  God showed us through His Son what it’s like to suffer. The power of the Cross transcends time and this power is as powerful today – it is so powerful that it can free you from any wilful missing of the mark (for example, mistrust or disobedience) against God if you are repentant.

  We have thrown His love back in His face. But He waits for us, longing for us to return. Jesus is the solution to the problem of evil. He offers us grace (presence and action of God) through turning back to Him (especially through the Sacraments) to overcome moral evil in our lives. He is the way, the truth and the life. He calls us to live fully through a right relationship of God, self and others; He calls us to love ourselves, Himself and our neighbour. In other words we are called to be merciful and forgiving towards them. As we miss the mark often and ask for God’s merciful touch we too can reach out and touch others with God’s mercy by forgiving them for their failings.

  In relation to evil, our life on earth, and hence our suffering is like a drop of water in a vast ocean. Missing the mark is both personal and social as it affects one’s relationship with God, self and others. It can even lead one to distance themselves from God and His saving grace offered through the sacraments. When we contemplate that we are being offered eternal life in heaven and that Sacred Scripture reveals there will be no more pain or suffering in heaven and thus no more evil, then the choice is easy.

  The following quote from Kreeft signifies the attitude that we should have in trusting our Creator. It really is a beautiful analogy: A child on the tenth story of a burning building cannot see the firefighters with their safety net on the street. They call up, ‘Jump! We’ll catch you. Trust us.’ The child objects, ‘But I can’t see you.’ The firefighter replies, ‘That’s all right. I can see you.’ We are like that child, evil is like the fire, our ignorance is like the smoke, God is like the firefighter, and Christ is the safety net. If there are situations like this where we must trust even fallible human beings with our lives, where we must trust what we hear, not what we see, then it is reasonable that we must trust the infallible, all-seeing God when we hear from his word but do not see from our reason or experience.32

  It is us that are looking down, afraid to make a leap of faith, afraid to surrender (trust) to the loving Creator. God is calling us to make the step, which seems like an eternity of distance. God is calling out to us, ‘I will catch you. I love you!’ But our response is often, ‘I don’t believe you. You don’t exist.’ If only we make that step, then God will catch us, and not only catch us but support us. The biggest prize is on offer, eternal life. But we must repent, be baptised (if we have not already done so) and follow God, which includes worshipping Him as part of a community (Church); it is through the Church that we are challenged, grow in our faith, and can help others.

  Notes

  1. St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, 5,1. 2. John Paul II, Salvific Doloris (Salvific Suffering), n.7. 3 . Collins Pocket English Dictionary, London, 1986, p. 295.

  4. John Paul II. Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, n.14.

  5. Ibid., n.16.

  6. St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Ia, 48,1.

  7. Ibid., Ia, 48,3.

  8. John Paul II, Salvific Doloris (Salvific Suffering), n.11.

  9. Ibid., n.12.

  10. Ibid., n.7.

  11. Ibid., n.27.

  12. See Ibid., n.12.

  13. Ibid., n.13.

  14. See St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Ia, 65, 2 & 3.

  15. John Paul II, Salvific Doloris (Salvific Suffering), n.14.

  16. Ibid., n.17.

  17. Ibid., n.18.

  18. Pope John Paul II, Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1721.

  19. John Paul II, Salvific Doloris (Salvific Suffering), n.16.

  20. Ibid., n.23.

  21. Ibid., n.20.

  22. Ibid., n.19.

  23. John Paul II, Salvific Doloris (Salvific Suffering), n.24.

  24. Ibid.

  25. Ibid.

  26. Pope John Paul II, Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1814.

  27. Ibid., n. 1817.

  28. Ibid., n. 1822.

  29. See John Paul II, Salvific Doloris (Salvific Suffering), n.23.

  30. Ibid., n.24.

  31. See Ibid., n.26.

  32. Peter Kreeft. Fundamentals of the Faith (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), p. 55.

  CHAPTER 17

  THE PHILOSOPHY OF GOD’S EXISTENCE Let us imagine a good judicial system where the goal is to prove a case beyond reasonable doubt. This doesn’t mean that any particular evidence can be used on its own to convict someone, but that all the evidence must be taken as a whole. In this chapter I am seeking to do the same. Philosophy, also known as the love of wisdom, can be used to prove the existence of a Creator, but it should be used in conjunction with the other evidence throughout this book. I believe that a Creator has left clues for us to find that He exists, and has done so in the case of the science of philosophy.

  There are several examples of attempts to demonstrate the existence of a Creator:1 II. Cosmological

  E. Design: Design can be caused only by an Intelligent Designer. Mindless nature cannot design itself or come about by chance.

  F. The Kalam (Time) Argument: Time must have a beginning, a first moment (creation) to give rise to all other moments. (The ‘Big Bang’ seems to confirm this: time had an absolute beginning fifteen to twenty billion years ago.) And the act of creation presupposes a Creator.

  III. Psychological

  A. from mind and truth

  1. Augustine: Our minds are in contact with eternal,

  objective, and absolute truth superior to our minds (e.g. 2 + 2 = 4), and the eternal is divine, not human. 2. Descartes: Our idea of a perfect being (God) could not have come from any imperfect source (cause), for the effect cannot be greater than the cause. Thus it must have come from God.

  B. from will and good

  2. Newman: Conscience speaks with absolute authority, which could come only from God. C. from emotions and desire

  1. C. S. Lewis: Innate desires correspond to real objects, and we have an innate desire (at least unconsciously) for God and heaven [for immortality].

  2. Von Balthasar: Beauty reveals God. There is Mozart, therefore there must be God.

  D. from experience

  1. Existential Argument: If there is no God (and no immortality) life is ultimately meaningless.

  3. Ordinary religious experience (prayer) meets God. (Prayer of the Skeptic: ‘God, if you exist, show me’ – a real experiment.)

  4. Love argument: If there is no God of Love, no Absolute that is love, then love is not absolute. Or, the eyes of love reveal the infinite value of the human person as the image of God.

  Therefore the evidence to consider includes that design obviously comes from an Intelligent Designer. The Anthropic Principle shows how fine-tuned and ordered our universe is. We know that with the origin of our universe time began. We also know that because time began to exist then it must have a cause. Even if we traced its origin back to the Big Bang we have to distinguish what caused the Big Bang as it too began to exist. We do not have to reason what caused something outside of time as it would not be bound by time. In other words there would be no before or after for that Being. Empirical science can’t tell us what caused that Big Bang, but the science of philosophy shows that it is logical that a Being outside of time could have done so.

  Because the effect can’t be greater than the cause, then such a Being who created our universe is greater. We have a desire for the good, and also the ultimate good, God and the immortality which he offers us. We receive meaning in life when it comes to love, loving God, others, ourselves and being loved. Our fullest meaning is revealed through the persons of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In other words through the love of the Holy Trinity, the Triune God. Therefore the great sign of God is the human person fully alive, love-filled, faith-filled and hope-filled.

  St Thomas of Aquinas’
Five Ways St Thomas taught as a professor at the University of Paris. His lectures began at 6am and were remarkably well attended. In his writings he unwound the intricacies of the Cosmological Argument which resulted in his acclaimed five key ways for illustrating the existence of God. In the 13th there was only one Catholic Church comprised of Eastern and Western expressions and so He viewed these Five Ways as paths that led to a recognition of God:

  1. From Motion or Change The first and most obvious way is based on change. Some things in the world are certainly in process of change: this we plainly see. Now anything in process of change is being changed by something else. This is so because it is characteristic of things in process of change that they do not yet have the perfection towards which they move, though able to have it; whereas it is characteristic of something causing change to have that perfection already. For to cause change is to bring into being what was previously only able to be, and this can only be done by something that already is: thus fire, which is actually hot, causes wood, which is able to be hot, to become actually hot, and in this way causes change in the wood. Now the same thing cannot at the same time be both actually x and potentially x, though it can be actually x and potentially y: the actually hot cannot at the same time be potentially hot, though it can be potentially cold. Consequently, a thing in process of change cannot itself cause that same change; it cannot change itself. Of necessity therefore anything in process of change is being changed by something else. Moreover, this something else, if in process of change, is itself being changed by yet another thing; and this last by another. Now we must stop somewhere, otherwise there will be no first cause of the change, and, as a result, no subsequent causes. For it is only when acted upon by the first cause that the intermediate causes will produce the change: if the hand does not move the stick, the stick will not move anything else. Hence one is bound to arrive at some first cause of change not itself being changed by anything, and this is what everybody understands by God.2

  We observe change in the world. But according to St Thomas we do not observe anything changing itself when it is seeking a perfection that it doesn’t already have. Only something which already has the perfection can cause the change in something else. How could a divine Being create goodness and beauty if that Being did not already possess it?

  220 Evil: Does it Exist? The causer of the change can be traced back to a first cause which already held the perfection which all the subjects sought. In other words all the subjects had a limitation. Because they were limited in their operation they were limited in their nature and thus limited in existence. Therefore their existence came to them from a source other than their nature. St Thomas calls the first cause, God, because this Being does not have any limitations; and this Being’s nature is all perfection and thus God’s existence is identical with His nature as He exists by His own power (all other things participate in existence rather than possessing it by nature). St Thomas states that everyone understands this Being to be God. He was writing for a Catholic and thus Christian culture; the Eastern and Western churches were one. There was only one Christian Church with different expressions of liturgy, the Holy Catholic Church.

  But if we look at the First Way using both science and religion we can reason that the origin of our universe needed a first cause. Science can’t explain what the first cause was, nor can it rule out a divine Being as the cause. We know through revelation and thus religion, that the first cause is the perfect Being we call, God.

  2. From an Ordered Series of Efficient Causes The second way is based on the nature of causation. In the observable world causes are found to be ordered in series: we never observe, nor ever could, something causing itself, for this would mean it preceded itself, and this is not possible. Such a series of causes must however stop somewhere; for in it an earlier member causes an intermediate and the intermediate a last (whether the intermediate be one or many). Now if you eliminate a cause you also eliminate its effects, so that you can’t have a last cause, nor an intermediate one, unless you have a first. Given therefore no stop in the series of causes, and hence no first cause, there would be no intermediate causes either, and no last effect, and this would be an open mistake. One is therefore forced to suppose some first cause, to which everyone gives the name, ‘God.’

  Compared with the First Way which emphasised the change of a subject, in the Second Way St Thomas focuses on the way agents operate on things. Because there is a series of causes subjects depend for existence upon something else. For example plants depend for existence upon the rain in order to grow and survive. Going back a step in the series, in order for it to rain certain conditions must be met; rain depends upon these conditions to exist. This series of dependent subjects goes back to the origin of the laws of nature, and the very origin of our universe. If there was no efficient cause there would be no intermediate cause or last cause or any effects and so we would not exist. So there has to be a first cause; no one caused that Being. The first cause does not depend on anything. In fact God is the source and origin of everything; God is thus allpowerful to be just that, the first cause.

  3. From Possibility and Necessity The third way is based on what need not be [possibility] and on what must be [necessity], and runs as follows. Some of the things we come across can be but need not be, for we find them springing up and dying away, thus sometimes in being and sometimes not. Now everything cannot be like this, for a thing that need not be, once was not; and if everything need not be, once upon a time there was nothing. But if that were true there would be nothing even now, because something that does not exist can only be brought into being by something already existing. So that if nothing was in being nothing could be brought into being, and nothing would be in being now, which contradicts observation. Not everything therefore is the sort of thing that need not be; there has got to be something that must be. Now a thing that must be, may or may not owe this necessity to something else. But just as we must stop somewhere in a series of causes, so also in a series of things which must be and owe this to other things. One is forced therefore to suppose something which must be, and owes this to no other thing than itself; indeed it itself is the cause that other things must be.

  ‘Possible to be and not to be’ is also known as the contingent being concept; something that depends on something else for its existence. These include such things as your computer, car, cell phone, and the universe too. Their non-existence is possible as they can cease to exist in the future. For example, if you got so upset with your computer that you threw it off a cliff and it smashed into thousands of pieces, with all the guts of the computer strewn all over the rocks, you would have one big mess left and no computer. Alternatively you might set fire to it and thus you would not have a computer any more. Hence the computer is dependent: on a creator; and upon an intelligent being in order to keep it functioning. It is not the cause of its own existence; once it did not exist and in the future could cease to exist. Therefore it is possible for it not to be.

  Through both reason and revelation we have discovered that the human being is dependent upon God to exist. God holds us and the whole universe in existence by His will, His desire that we exist. We are also contingent beings because we have the power to not exist, that is we will die. Our current bodies will become no more and we will pass onto either eternal life or eternal death. The person exists forever because of the immortality of the soul.

  But as St Thomas says because we have contingent beings then we must have necessary beings. Unlike the contingent being these beings are not liable to go out of existence. For example, angels, heavenly bodies, and rational or immaterial souls are like this. But there can’t be an infinite series of necessary beings whose existence is caused. So there must be one that caused the rest, the Necessary Being. At the beginning of this book I illustrated that this in principle is indeed logical as the Creator of our universe does not have to be bound by our space, time, matter and energy.

  Some claim that matter is a
lso a necessary being. But matter clearly does not have to exist in the first place; it does not contain the reason of its existence within itself. In comparison the human soul’s nature was given by the Creator who ordained each human soul to live eternally.

  Furthermore the Necessary Being is not dependent on anything for its existence as it is self-caused and thus eternal. Therefore it exists by its own nature; it does not have a beginning and will not have an end. Our universe depends on this Necessary Being for its existence.

  St Anselm speaks of a being that which nothing greater can be conceived: And so, Lord, do though, who dost give understanding to faith, give me, so far as thou knowest it to be profitable, to understand that thou art as we believe [revelation, faith and reason]; and that thou art that which we believe. And, indeed, we believe that thou art a being than which nothing greater can be conceived.3

  Therefore the first cause is also the Necessary Being, all-powerful and almighty and thus eternal. Because this Being is the source of all goodness He is revealed as love, truth, wisdom, etc.

  4. From Diverse Grades of Existing The fourth way is based on the gradation observed in things. Some things are found to be more good, more true, more noble, and so on, and other things less. But such comparative terms describe varying degrees of approximation to a superlative; for example things are hotter and hotter the nearer they approach what is hottest. Something therefore is the truest and the best and most noble of things, and hence the most fully in being; for Aristotle says that the truest things are the things most fully in being. Now when many things possess some property in common, the one most fully possessing it causes it in the others: fire, to use Aristotle’s example, the hottest of all things, causes all other things to be hot. There is something therefore which causes in all other things their being, their goodness, and whatever other perfection they have. And this we call ‘God.’