SPEAKER_01 0:00

So today we begin chapter two. So for the today may if you don't have a book, I'm sorry, we have books in the the lobby of the gym. So I want to make sure if you it'd be good to have one, I'll say that. I think I'll be referring to it during the class here. So um if you go to the lobby and the back left from from where we're we're looking here, the back left corner, there's a box, you just pull a book out there and it's returned after class. You're not going to keep it. So the back left corner, there are uh copies of the big red textbook. Sorry, I forgot to make that, I should have brought it in here to be more easily available. So as you'll see, this uh chapter two is entitled The Existence of God and Revelation. Um where I want to start is actually with the handout. You saw everyone got the sheet, right? The handout. This handout takes content from the introduction in the catechism. And I think it's really, really beautiful. I mean, the book does a great job of presenting these topics, but you know, this is what our textbook is based on is the catechism, right? The catechism is the authoritative source of the teachings of the church. And so um, I want to read a little bit of this and just comment because it kind of provides the context for what chapter two is all about, the existence of God and divine revelation. So if you look on the handout, the print is a little small. I want to make sure it fit on one sheet there. So this section of the catechism, as you can see, paragraph 27. So this is really, really the earliest um section of the catechism, the the introduction to all that follows, right? So paragraph 27. The desire for God is written in the human heart because man is created by God and for God, and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for. Then paragraph 28. In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God, like that word quest, in their religious beliefs and behavior, in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being. What do you think they're really trying to say without is it just one sentence? Tell me what you think that paragraph 28 is really trying to say, especially about those who are not members of the Catholic Church or not even Christian. Let me read that again. Think about all of humanity right now. In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God and their religious beliefs and behavior, in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being. What is that saying about all of humanity, not just Catholic humanity? Tell me your thoughts about that. What is that really saying? Yes.

unknown 3:19

Everybody's searching for the meaning of life.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Everyone is searching for the meaning of life. That's a good one. No matter where they come from, and this is not even just the present moment, like all of human history, the search for the meaning of life. Yeah, Fawn? Something else? The fingerprint of God. Tell me more. Yeah. That's a great lie. I like that. Even smaller than our DNA is this the way we're created by God. What else yeah, Lucy? Yeah. Yeah, so Lucy says that even before Abraham, we know the a sacrifice of Isaac, that whole thing, um, people have wanted, people have made sacrifices to God, like sacrifice to God as they understand God, right? There's there's just this instinct to sacrifice to something greater, probably like to get blessings and favors back, right? There's just this instinct, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

For me, it's uh no one teaches you how to be hungry for a nourishment.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

That's a great lie. No one teaches you how to be hungry, yeah.

unknown 5:03

So no one teaches you how to be hungry for the soul is hungry.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Yeah. Yeah. There's a hunger in the soul, and no one had to teach you that. Yeah, there's just an instinctive searching, again, I love that word, quest for divine, something beyond uh the human. So what it means, of course, I'm gonna make it even more specific, is that what other religions are practicing and believing is is is coming from that. Every human being has this desire to connect with the transcendent, to make sense of life, see purpose in life, right? So and I always say this when people convert to the Catholic faith, most of the time it's often from another Christian denomination, right? But even if it's not, I always say this that what this is gonna do, it's gonna complete the belief that you already have. This is gonna add to the religious faith that you already have, right? Because everyone has this quest in their heart already. We happen to humbly propose that the Catholic religion has more of the answer to that desire, to say it that way, right? So um every spiritual practice has you know some desire, God, desire for God written into it. Now, that's not to say that every um religious ritual and practice is drawing you close, because there can also be the element of confusion, even the element of demonic, right? I don't think we would we would call like a Satanist really like on the right path. You know what I'm saying? Like there that we need to recognize that there is, and that's a very small number of people, right? There's a very small number of people where things are really like off track in an unholy way to say it that way, but largely, but I would say I would even say this that but I've had this comment sometimes. I'll you know be with some person or group of people and we'll see someone sort of dressed in a rather provocative, even sort of you know, sort of countercultural way. I say, could be a future, could be a future priest over there, could be a future nun. If that person's got some curd, they're certain they're searching for something. They might be searching in a kind of way that might be a little bit um provocative today, but I forget who said that the person who walks into a bravel is look is searching for God. Like even our sinfulness is searching for God too, right? It's just so deep. Even when we're searching in the wrong way, we're still ultimately searching. Um I'll leave there. Then uh with this chapter, as you know, somebody had a chance to read ahead, right? I told you we would cover mostly, we think, 28 to 33 today. One of the um God-given ways to do this searching is with our reason, right? Like we take very seriously as Catholics, and sometimes more seriously than other traditions, the capacity of the mind, the capacity of the intellect to really discover the things of God. To give you perspective on that, um typically uh a Protestant minister is going to study scripture and theology for maybe two, three years, or more perhaps, right? But a Catholic priest has to get a degree in philosophy first. Like, you don't do theology until you know how to think. So, and there's kind of a, you can understand that, because if you don't reason well, you could start to do theology in sort of contradictory ways, and and as we've noticed, right, that different denominations can come to very different beliefs based on the same passages, right? So, whereas Catholicism has a certain sort of consistency with a lot of diversity as well. There's diversity permitted in certain you know areas of scripture interpretation. But just to make the point that our Catholic faith, our Christian faith takes very seriously the capacity of your mind to do the searching, right? So we're gonna start with that today. So before I go into some things in the book, I want to look again at the catechism. So paragraph 31 is gonna speak about our capacity, right? So I'm gonna read this here. Paragraph 31 on that handout. Creating, created in God's image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of converging and convincing arguments, which allow us to attain certainty about the truth. These ways of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of departure, the physical world and the human person. I'm not gonna read more of that section here, but for those of you who read these five pages of the book that we're gonna cover today, the five proofs, again, the way he does the way that the um catechist block, not proofs in like a an equation, but proofs in terms of like credible ways of thinking that lead you to believe that God exists, right? That these proofs, as they're called, are based on the created world, what we observe of it, and the way the human person works and how we know the human person is composed. So just using reason, we can look at the world and look at human beings and come to some pretty convincing um points of reasoning, simply that a God exists, just to say that way. Just that that's important to take clear to take seriously our reasoning faculty. The last thing I want to say before we go into the concept of these few pages, John Paul II was a philosophy professor. Did you know that? That's what he was before, uh, as a priest, I should say. As a priest, his calling, he got extra training in philosophy. He was a philosophy professor, and he was a popular one. They loved him. Um, I think it was a, I forget which university it was, but um, he was the philosophy professor who would who would do the dialogue with you, like kind of Socratic method, let you ask questions. It was, it was, he took seriously your capacity to reason about these things as well, right? So think about that. That the saintly man, holy man we think about as a man of theology, was firstly actually a man of philosophy. That's actually he wrote his doctoral thesis on you know um a philosophical matter, right? Obviously, he also knows theology and scripture and spirituality as well. But one more example of just how seriously we we respect the capacity of the human mind, right? So he offered, he started to he started to observe as Pope, Pope of the world, right? He started to observe a declining understanding of the capacity of the mind to reason and to come to truth. You know, we sort of truth is relative and your truth, my truth, that kind of thing. He he saw this just in just in the world at large, that a declining understanding, recognition of the great capacity of the human mind to reason, to discover universal truths, right? That truth exists and how to really um declare that and articulate that. And what faith does is it goes beyond what reason can do, right? But they're not contradictory, right? So he has a beautiful analogy which I put on your sheet here, and it's in a document he wrote in 1998 called Fides at Ratio, Faith and Reason. He felt the need. You know, when a Pope writes an encyclical, they're writing an encyclical because they see a need to speak of something. So he saw the need to speak of the ability of people to reason and how how important that is, and how it relates to matters of faith. So here's his very simple analogy, which I find very uh illuminative. Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth. And God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth, in a word, to know himself, so that by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of the truth about themselves. So just take that with you today. Truth and I'm sorry, faith and reason as two wings, right? No bird flies with one. Which is to say, kind of dramatic, kind of striking, right? If you just got one wing of faith, the Pope would say, not gonna fly. Right? That's why priests study philosophy first. So you get one wing and then get your other. So, but that's not just for priests, that's for all of us. We take seriously the capacity to reason, and I think that analogy is a beautiful one. Um I mean, the last Pope was a chemist, right? He studied chemistry. The current Pope studied math. I mean, look at these popes, right? A philosopher. I guess I think I think Pope Bennett, ironically, I think he was the only one that was more of a his study, I think, was always in theology. But in any case, you know, Pope John Paul II, philosophy is his actual personal area of expertise. Pope Bennett, I think it was always theology. Pope Francis, as a Jesuit, his area was chemistry. And then Pope uh Leo, his area was is math. So it's really interesting, right? I think that just in that we see the interaction and inner relationship of faith and reason. So let's move now to what's in our book today. And believe it or not, I was having a conversation. We're gonna look just briefly the five proofs, as they're called, for the existence of God. It's not because I think you don't believe in the existence of God, right? That's not why we're doing this. This is to see that role of reason and how you use it constantly, right? You use it constantly in your life of faith. We don't turn reason off and start believing. It's that actually reason can add strength to what we believe, and that's the relationship there. Um so it was just about two weeks ago, but you might be in this room, I don't remember who it was, I'll be honest. But um, someone was telling me that um they were having a discussion. I think it was with a relative, might have been a friend, but I think it was a relative, nephew, cousin, someone like that. And if I'm not mistaken, I think this relative is an engineer. Engineers like proofs, right? Engineers like, give me all the reasons, engineers like, give me all the logic of this, right? Um, we're all made differently, and some the logical element of our faith has even more appeal, to say it that way. And I don't remember which proof it was. I want to say it was um the first one, the for the unmoved mover, the the argument from motion made a lot of sense to this person that God must exist. So let's go in. So this can actually be fitting for conversations you have with people who are searching for God, but you know, there's a there's a lot of reasons why people won't believe in God, right? Just look at all the suffering and the mess of the world. Like, okay, is this is this the world is this the world God made with all that, you know? Um so sometimes these um five proofs actually offer material for your own conversations with people. So can anyone explain the first one? What's the argument? Argument just means explanation, right? God exists on the basis of, as this says, motion or the unmoved mover, or the first mover. Can anyone want to offer uh, in your own words, how you would explain that first one? If not, I'll do it. Yeah, sure, go ahead. Okay, movement is over space and time, rate and time. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Nothingness has an inertia to do it.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Nothingness has an inertia. Inertia is a state of moving or not moving, is that right? How do we just have a state of resistance to change? Okay, inertia is a state of resistance to change. Either emotional or outside.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

So nothingness which everything created.

unknown 18:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Have a resistance to the change becoming something.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

A constant state. Yeah, so everything has a beginning in the created world, for example. So therefore, it had a moment of being nothing. And nothing can't move itself.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

And nothing can overcome its own resistance.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

It's not exactly that was I love that last slide. Say that one again. That was good. Uh nothing can't overcome its own resistance to non-existing. So some the non-existence of something can't overcome its inertia of not existing or resistance to not existing.

unknown 19:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

It can't start itself.

unknown 19:18

It can't start itself.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Yeah. There's a there's a lot. And dominoes are just that easiest version of what we're talking about, right? Um so, which then, just by way of lot, again, this is just reason. You don't need a Bible to do this, right? You don't need a prophet, you don't need a priest. You're just like thinking. Just thinking, right? Okay. Something had, there has to be a finger that taps the first domino, which then, of course, sets all these things in motion, right? So it's it's converging on the truth of an existence of a, or in other words, we can't fathom some other explanation to say it that way, right? It's sort of a proof by way of logic. We can't think of another explanation for that. Um, okay, great. And then the second one, the argument from causes, it's somewhat similar for sure. Anyone want to try to explain how the how causality leads you to, well, there must be a God. Yes. That's great. Yeah. This is basically the toddler argument. Yeah. Yeah. Why? But why? But why? Yeah, and well, this cause this. Well, and then why? And then causes. So this is using a different con or a different um element. The mover almost implies, you know, a physical cause goes a little broader than that, right? So um we experience that even in our thoughts. I say a word, it causes something in your mind, right? It's causality. Okay. Third argument. I was gonna read this one because it's I think I find this one a little less um obvious to say it that way. Everything in nature is possible. It can either be or not be, right? So, for example, um the basketball court behind the school doesn't have to exist for the school to exist. It's it's a possible existence that's not required for the school to be a school, for example.

unknown 21:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

So everything in nature is possible, it can either be or not be, depending upon other causes. For example, at one time your chair did not exist, and at some point in the future your chair will cease to exist. If at one time nothing existed, then nothing could ever have come to exist unless there's one being who is necessary, who must exist, who by necessity. Has always existed that necessary being is God. So his being doesn't depend on, right? Okay. Any comment on that one? Again, I find that one. Maybe you could explain it better to me, but that one seems less graspable than the first two. The first two seem really, but maybe you could help me. Any thoughts? Okay. So number four, the argument from degrees of perfection. Again, this is, I find this more of almost poetic, right? That we see in nature in the world, like degrees of perfection. And it's sort of like, well, then there must be at some point the perfect against which we're always comparing degrees of perfection. Sort of like there's a phrase from St. Anselm. Let me think if I get this right. That which nothing greater could be conceived. So if you think of this is greater than that, and this is greater than that, this is greater than that, like God is that which nothing greater than could be conceived or imagined. It's kind of along the lines of degrees of perfection. Then the last one, I think I'm just gonna say this, the last one. To me, the last one, the terminology here is um governance, but uh, I think the word intelligence is in there. Intelligent design, right? I think that's a very familiar term to all of us. That some of your knowledge will in the sciences, right? And when you do study of the created world, the physical world, the material world, especially, for example, the human body, right? If you're in the biological areas, there is such a design evident that you discover through your study and your knowledge, it becomes harder and harder to consider that this didn't have a designer behind this intelligent design, right? So I think that is a familiar argument for a lot of us, and I think that's probably the one that makes a lot of sense to people in the modern age, especially, right? Or in other words, it would take, I'll use this word, it would take more faith, I think, to propose that there's no designer with all this design around, right? It would almost be kind of more of a leap to believe there's no designer but lots of design. It's actually easier to say, well, there must be a designer, a divine designer, and that's why there is so much design, right? That seems like that's actually easier to reason to. Any comment on that last proof, yeah?

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Well, just looking at the natural order of things, if nobody's maintaining anything, then everything tends to be decay. So the fact that there is any the opposite of decay, which means order, means that somebody has to transcend.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Very good. That nature doesn't order itself more over time. Entropy, it goes in the other direction, so therefore it had to be designed to put it in order to start from to begin with. Yeah, yeah, very good. Okay. Yeah, Joe.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

How can that possibly follow that?

unknown 25:28

Does that fit into number four?

SPEAKER_01 25:32

What I would say is that it's a great comment, it's a great question. These are purely using reason from St. Thomas Aquinas. There's something in the in philosophy which we call the transcendentals, meaning realities that seem to point beyond themselves up to what we would call divine things. And customarily we speak of three, at least three, truth and goodness and beauty as being pathways transcendentals, like transcend, go beyond what we see in the moment there. So I think what what you're pointing to is these are just the truth, the pathway of truth, just using reason and truth. Goodness, um, experiencing the goodness of humanity draws you into a belief that there is a good God, for example, right? That created us all. Beauty is what you're talking about. Beauty engages the intellect because it has order and proportion, but it also seems to go right into your heart, too. It just sort of bypasses reason. No one has to tell you that's a beautiful sunset. No one has to convince you. You just, it's just self-evident beauty. But you're right, it is something, the effect of beauty is for many people to draw them into an awareness of God, even into a belief in God, right? And that's also something that our Catholic tradition takes very seriously, the capacity through our senses, sight, hearing, etc., the visual arts, the auditory arts, especially music and art, the capacity of created things to draw us beyond into an experience of God. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that this chapter is not dealing with the transcendentals, it's staying in the in the truth category, but you're right, beauty has that power, no question, no question about it. Yeah. Pope Benedict offered, um, he said this, that the two greatest arguments or um supports or arguments in favor of faith, the church's beauty, and the lives of the saints. He thought those are the most convincing witnesses to the to the to the Christian faith in the modern era was beauty, whether it's liturgical beauty, architectural beauty, paintings, music, sacred music, and the lives of the saints. So, as much as we can use our intellect to understand faith and come to greater faith, he thought, broadly speaking, look at the modern world as it is. Actually, if you're trying to spread the gift of faith around the world, he would encourage exposing people to beauty of all kinds, especially sacred beauty, and sort of sharing about the lives of the saints, which also is actually beauty, right? The beauty of the beautiful life of a saint is actually kind of the matter of beauty. So, all I'm trying to say is that your instinct is good, that beauty has a similar power to what reason can do. Yeah. Um, let's turn the page here. We've so we've looked not proofs in the sense of A plus B equals C, and there's no disputing it. It's more about, I might not be saying this exactly right, but it's more about inductive reasoning where it kind of leads to a conclusion and supports a certain conclusion. I I think I might be saying that right. In any case, um the purpose of this exercise is not that you didn't believe in the existence of God, but just to realize that your your intellect has great potential for grasping divine truths, and we we believe in and we recognize um the ability of the human mind. Having said all that, and I think it is yeah, so on page 32, the second paragraph there at the top. So if I can have somebody who's got a Alfie Rodriguez, you've got a good voice, yeah. So, and you're kind of in the middle of the room here. So that where it says, despite all the logic, if you can read that there, because we have to we have to we take seriously the human mind, but also have to realize our human limitations. Go ahead, Alfie.

SPEAKER_04 30:06

Despite all the logic outlined by St. Thomas and Queenus and the innate knowledge of God that is written into our heart, there are many people even today who remain indifferent to God. Some people reject the possibility of God. Or maybe trouble by conceptions arising from individual perceptions or experiences some people would explain to not want to answer the question of God. And so, out of fear or other motives, avoid the question of what God might expect of them.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

So we've just been discussing a bit of how powerful the human intellect is for reasoning to certain important truths. And so we could just say, well, we just we just need everyone to be reasonable. We know how that goes, right? Gosh, if people would just be reasonable, right? So God sees us well, he couldn't just leave us to our reason and just kind of wait for us to figure things out, right? So, for example, just a quick comment, for example, the Ten Commandments, you could reason to all of those commandments. You could use human reason to realize why you should do all ten of them. Like they all appeal. Actually, you could find a reasonable basis for each one of them, right? Figure out God exists, show him responsible parents, etc. I mean all these things can just be reasoned to, right? They don't they don't actually require revelation to tell people not to steal, right? You can use that, you can use reason to figure out we should not steal, for example, right? So, but because we have a brokenness, right, which we would call original sin now, right? Because of our brokenness, we do need more than just our reason. That's basically what we're trying to say. We never stop using it. Want to be clear about that? You don't turn off reason, turn on faith. No, you always utilize reason actually in support of truths of faith and spiritual matters as much as that you know is is is appropriate. So I'm setting up why God chooses to reveal. See what I'm saying? I'm trying to set up why he would just do that. Because there are limitations. There was a book, I forget the title, years ago, it was written to explain or it observed some of the most famous atheists. They didn't grow up with a dad. Connection? Sure, right? So, just a simple example, right? That our human brokenness, and I'm not saying kids who grow up with no dads don't believe in God. I'm just saying that they took some famous atheists and recognized, wow, look at their life histories, some significant things on the psychological level. And yes, if if your family life is rough, isn't it gonna be harder to believe in God? Of course. That's just human nature, right? It's gonna be harder. I'm using that as an example, right? If your family life is rough growing up, it's gonna be harder to believe in a good God who's providing for all of our needs and things like that, right? So just using that simple example to show the point that relying on human reason isn't reasonable.

unknown 33:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

So for God to reveal Himself is to help us in our broken condition and not I gave them I gave them reason. What's the problem down there, right? So revelation is recognizing. Um getting a lot of phone calls right now. And they all know I'm teaching, or at least two of them, one of them knows. Um I'm gonna just text them and see if this can be addressed some other way. I'll just say emergency question mark. Emergency, thank you for your kindness. Well, I only have a few minutes left anyway. Okay. So um what I would say is this is that what we're looking at here.