II: But, does this God exist?

CONSIDER:

Did your great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather exist?

Yes. Absolutely.

YOU are the definitive proof that he existed.

Your great⁷-grandfather’s existence explains your existence.

YOU are an effect of your great⁷-grandfather’s causality.

PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON:

Every effect must have a reason or a cause.

For every entity X, if X exists, then there is a sufficient explanation for X exists. (Gottfried Leibniz)

Causes explain effects.

We can infer a cause from its effects.

Does God exist?

Yes. Absolutely.

RECALL:

Creatures are beings whose essence is distinct from their existence. (read I. What is God?)

They could exist or they could not exist.

Non-existing Creature = Essence w/o Existence

Existing Creature = Essence + Existence

Creaturely existence is not necessary.

Creatures are contingent beings.

If creatures could not exist, then why do they exist now?

They exist now because they have received their existence from another who can give them their existence.

God’s existence explains the existence of everything else that is not God.

RECALL:

God is the act of existing. (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia 3.3)

God is the only being whose essence is existence.

God explains why contingent things exist.

God explains why contingent beings exist NOW not just 13.8 BYA at the Big Bang.

CONSIDER:

If God did not exist, then why do contingent creatures exist?

POSSIBLE RESPONSE:

They just do!

This is unreasonable. We have never seen an effect without a cause.

POSSIBLE RESPONSE:

Some scientific law will one day explain why they exist.

But then, why do these scientific laws exist?

God explains why scientific laws exist.

God explains why science is even possible.

God’s existence explains the existence of everything else that is not God.

He is the first cause that explains the existence of all other causes and effects.

Religion and science are compatible because God provides the intelligibility and possibility of science.

Many thanks to Rev. Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P., PhD, S.T.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY AND THEOLOGY. Back in 2017, he gave this talk to interested students. Without him, you would not be reading this today.

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