In our quest to show that God exists and He has shown Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, we are on step 3, which is: it is true that the theistic God exists. We have discussed both the kalam cosmological argument which argues for a creator from the beginning of the universe and the argument from contingency which argues for a necessary being sustaining the contingent universe. Now we will turn our attention to Thomas Aquinas' argument from metaphysical realism. In order to be clear and concise due to the difficulty of this argument, I'm going to quote directly from Frank Turek and Norman Geisler's booklet entitled; What if Christianity is really true? (1) This is a condensed version of their book; I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist where they lay out the 12 step argument that we are in the midst of. So, none of the following are my own words.
"By observing physical reality we can reason from effect to cause and see that even the most mundane object we encounter can lead us to the existence of God. "There is nowhere the unbeliever can hide in all reality where he is not standing on some ground that can be shown to point to its Creator." (2)
From the cosmological argument, to the design argument, to the argument from objective morality, there are many popular lines of thinking, both scientific and philosophical, showing that theism is true; that is, that there exists a God who is separate from yet active in His creation. We will look at one argument, by 13th century thinker Thomas Aquinas, built upon metaphysical realism.
The argument begins, some thing, a tree for example, undeniably exists. Essence is what a thing is, and whatever is true of a tree is because of its essence or not. For instance, to be a tree is to grow roots, sprout leaves, etc., not to be in a particular location such as a backyard. We must ask, is existence part of what it means to be a tree? The answer is no. Even if all trees ceased to exist we would still know what a tree is because its' essence and existence are distinct. For example, you can know what a unicorn is even though it does not actually exist. From where, then, does existence come? The tree either causes itself to exist, exists necessarily, or is being caused to exist by something else. Self-causation is a contradiction and thus false. Trees go from potentially existing to actually existing and thus do not exist necessarily. Therefore, the tree is being caused to exist.
Whatever is causing the tree to exist is either receiving its existence from another or it necessarily exists by virtue of its essence. Like an infinite chain of train cars with no engine, a chain of existence-receiving causes cannot account for its own existence. Hence, there must exist an uncaused cause, who's essence simply is existence, causing all other things. As Being itself, its essence and existence are identical such that it is unlimited Being while everything else only has being. Aquinas says, this everyone knows to be God. (3)"
And now I'm back. God bless.
Update: Since I started teaching the 12 steps at my church, I posted the rest of this series from those lessons. You can start here. There are 8 total lessons that cover all the steps.
Notes
1. follow the link, step 3
2. Richard Howe, "It's worse than I thought", Quodlibetal Blog: Musings from Anywhere by Dr. Richard G. Howe. http://quodlibetalblog.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/its-worse-than-i-thought/.
3. Edward Feser, Aquinas (Beginner's Guides) (Kindle locations 573-577). Oneworld publications (academic). Kindle edition.
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