five proofs of the existence of god by edward feser

The variety of historical and cultural contexts from which these figures come itself proves the point: reason, not simply Christian revelation, can know that God does exist.Ī little more than halfway through the book, Feser offers a brief recap of the five arguments:

Augustine, one of the greatest Fathers of the Church, and the Common Doctor, Aquinas. It is significant that of the five thinkers Feser uses for the arguments of the book, two are pagan, Aristotle and Plotinus, and another Protestant, Leibniz.

Nonetheless, knowing that God exists does help the mind a great deal, recognizing its natural dependence on the Creator and removing a major obstacle in coming to faith.Įdward Feser has become one of the most distinguished Catholic philosophers in the United States and his new book, Five Proofs of the Existence of God(Ignatius, 2017), can help Catholics to be prepared to answer objections to God’s existence and will strengthen our own understanding of the truth. The universe may bear the footprint of its Creator, but God is not a being or object within the universe, but BEING itself - he IS the One who IS. Thomas Aquinas makes an important distinction about proving God’s existence through reason: we can know naturally that God exists, that there is an infinite and perfect Being who created the universe, but we cannot know who God is by reason alone. This leaves us the option of philosophy - making arguments of reason based upon the nature of things and the dynamics of causality. Science cannot prove God’s existence, because God is not an object of empirical study that can be measured with earthly means. If someone asked you if you could prove that God exists, what would you say? What would you have to draw upon to answer this question - revelation, science, or philosophy? Revelation gives us knowledge of God as a free gift and does not require us to prove its contents, but to understand them with the help of the Church.

Five proofs of the existence of god by edward feser