Teacher Notes: Unit 2, God
Why this unit matters
Most students arrive with one of two pictures: God as an object of private feeling that reason can’t touch, or God as a very powerful person somewhere “up there”. This unit replaces both. Lesson 2.1 shows that the Church treats God’s existence as knowable, 2.2 gives the classic arguments, 2.3 shows that God is not one being among others, and 2.4 takes on the problem of evil.
It is the most philosophical unit in the course. Students who have done the philosophy course’s Natural Theology branch can move faster through 2.2 and 2.3. For others, spend time on the examples: the chain holding the lamp, water heating, the hilltop.
By the end of the unit, students should be able to:
- state what Vatican I defined about knowing God by reason, and what it did not;
- explain at least two of the Five Ways in their own words, including why the regress is not a regress in time;
- explain why God is “being itself” and not a being among others;
- use the idea of analogy to explain how human words apply to God;
- explain why foreknowledge does not destroy freedom, and why God is not the author of evil;
- give at least two parts of the Church’s answer to suffering.
A shape for a 50-minute lesson
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 5 min | Put the big question on the board. Take three or four answers without correcting them. |
| 15 min | Read What the Church teaches and Where it comes from together. |
| 15 min | Teacher-led explanation, using the lesson’s table or image. |
| 10 min | Discussion question, or work through What the Church does not claim. |
| 5 min | Students attempt two Check your understanding questions before opening the answers. |
Lesson 2.2 usually needs two periods: one for Ways 1 to 3, one for Ways 4 and 5 and the objections.
Lesson by lesson
2.1 Can reason know God?
Goal: students can explain the difference between saying God can be known by reason and saying everyone does know him.
Discussion questions:
- Can you know someone exists without ever having seen them? How?
- Why might the Church want to defend reason, when she could just ask for faith?
Misconceptions to watch for:
- “Believing in God is just a feeling.” Use the footprints example: knowing a cause from its effects is ordinary reasoning.
- “If it can be proved, atheists must be stupid or dishonest.” Correct this firmly. The Church says it can be known, not that it is easy; Vatican II lists believers’ own failures among the causes of unbelief.
2.2 The Five Ways
Goal: students can explain the First or Second Way and the lamp-chain point.
Activity: draw two diagrams side by side. One is a line of dominoes falling over time; the other is a lamp hanging on a chain. Ask which one Aquinas means, and why the answer matters for the Big Bang objection.
Discussion questions:
- Which Way do you find most convincing, and which least? Why?
- “If everything needs a cause, what caused God?” Does any of the Five Ways actually say everything needs a cause?
Misconceptions to watch for:
- “Aquinas proves the universe had a beginning.” He held the opposite: reason can’t prove it.
- “The Fifth Way is the design argument, so evolution refutes it.” The Fifth Way is about regular, goal-directed behaviour in nature generally.
- “The Church requires these arguments.” It requires only that God can be known by reason.
Extension: strong students can read Glenn’s summary in the Tour of the Summa, Q. 2 and compare it with the lesson.
2.3 What God is
Goal: students can explain analogy and the difference between eternity and endless time.
Discussion questions:
- When you say a dog is “loyal” and a friend is “loyal”, is it the same word in the same sense? What about calling God loyal?
- Why is it a mistake to imagine God as an old man in the sky, even though artists paint him that way?
Misconceptions to watch for:
- “God is the biggest thing in the universe.” God is not in the universe at all as one item among others; he is its cause.
- “Unchanging means God doesn’t care.” God’s love doesn’t change because it is already perfect.
- “God is male.” Address calmly with CCC 239 and 370: Father is a revealed name, not a statement about sex.
2.4 Knowledge, power and providence
Goal: students can explain why foreknowledge doesn’t destroy freedom, and give at least two parts of the answer to evil.
Discussion questions:
- Joseph says to his brothers, “you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good.” Does that excuse what the brothers did?
- Why might Scripture include the Book of Job, which doesn’t give a neat answer to suffering?
Pastoral care. Some students in the room will be living with serious suffering: illness, grief, family breakdown, or worse. Present the Church’s answer as something that helps, not as an argument that settles every case. Avoid saying or implying that any particular suffering is a punishment or “happened for a reason” you can name. If a student’s question is personal rather than academic, follow it up privately and involve the school’s pastoral staff where appropriate.
Misconceptions to watch for:
- “If God knows, I’m not free.” Use the hilltop image.
- “God causes everything, so he causes evil.” Evil is a privation; God permits sin but does not cause it.
- “Everything happens for a reason.” True in the sense that nothing escapes God’s providence; misleading if it suggests every evil is willed by God or that we can always see the reason.
Answer key
The answers to every Check your understanding question also appear on the lesson pages behind Show answer, and are left off printed handouts.
Lesson 2.1: (1) God can be known with certainty by natural reason from created things. (2) Wisdom 13:5; Romans 1:20 (also Psalm 19:1, Acts 14:17). (3) We do not see God’s essence, so we must reason to him from his effects. (4) Fideism: only by faith. Ontologism: we see God directly. (5) So that all can know it easily, firmly and without error.
Lesson 2.2: (1) Potency is the ability to be; act is actually being; cold water heated by a flame. (2) Without a first cause in a series of causes acting now, nothing in the series would cause anything. (3) The Ways concern what sustains things now, not a beginning in time; Aquinas thought reason couldn’t prove a beginning. (4) No; only that God can be known by reason. (5) From nature’s regular, goal-directed activity; it concerns nature as a whole, not the separate design of species.
Lesson 2.3: (1) Any four of: one, almighty, eternal, immense, incomprehensible, infinite, simple, unchangeable, spiritual, distinct from the world. (2) God’s essence is to exist; he is the source of all being. (3) It is said by analogy: really, but in a way that infinitely exceeds human wisdom. (4) Eternity is possessing all of life at once, outside time. (5) Human images; what changes is us.
Lesson 2.4: (1) Omniscience, omnipotence, providence; Dei Filius ch. 1. (2) God sees all of time at once, as from a hilltop; seeing does not cause. (3) No, because a contradiction is not a possible thing. (4) The absence of a good that should be there; God creates only good things. (5) Any two of: a world on its way to perfection; freedom; good from evil, above all the Cross; full understanding only in heaven.