The Church teaches that God’s existence can be known with certainty by human reason, before any revelation. This unit looks at how Aquinas argued it, and at what we can truly say about a God who is infinite. It ends with the hardest question the subject raises: if God knows and governs everything, why is there evil?
Lessons
| Lesson | Big question |
|---|---|
| 2.1 Can reason know God? | Is believing in God just a leap in the dark? |
| 2.2 The Five Ways | How does Aquinas argue it? |
| 2.3 What God is | What can we say about something infinite? |
| 2.4 Knowledge, power and providence | If God knows and controls everything, why is there evil? |
The lessons in this unit are being written. Until they are ready, the readings below cover the same ground in more depth.
Philosophy you will need
Act and potency, the four causes, essence and existence, and analogy, from the philosophy course’s Natural Theology branch.
Watch out for
God is not one being among others, a very large person inside the universe. Lesson 2.4 gives the problem of evil an honest answer, not a slogan.