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Question

Good morning Father Angelo I apologize if I am disturbing you, I need to know something. What does the Church say to those who deny that only by reason  one can know the existence of God?

Moreover, is it possible to say that God exists without disturbing the faith?

Can we say that the existence of God can be proved  rationally  apart from faith?

By rationally I mean that obviously there is a project in the creation, it is clearly seen by the movement of all things, that there is a project that makes them move that we call God, the cause of this project.

Thanks Father Angelo, excuse me for the banality but at school and also a theologian outside the school told me that you cannot  say that God exists if not by faith, at most you can guess it but I did not understand what does to guess means.

Have a good day, I greet you affectionately

The Priest’s reply

Dearest,

1. The  knowledge of the existence of God with the sole resources of reason is fundamental for those who believe.

To adhere to the Divine Revelation it is necessary to be certain of the existence of God because otherwise such Revelation would always remain up in the air, without solid foundation.

As someone said, it would be a leap into the unknown or in the dark. 

Also from a social point of view, how could a state give legitimacy to requests that have no real foundation except in the feeling of some?

2. Many non-Christian philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, have come to the rational certainty of God’s existence.

How can we not be astonished at the great affirmation of Aristotle, who defined God as an immovable Engine, that moves but does not move, without passing from the power to the act?

And that God is a pure act, without any potential because it is full of being?

3. For Christians then God himself, in his divine and supernatural Revelation, has ensured that man with the only resources of his reason can know his existence.

This already in the Old Testament when in the book of Wisdom it is said: “For all men who were ignorant of God were foolish by nature; and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know him who exists, nor did they recognize the craftsman while paying heed to his works; but they supposed that either fire or wind or swift air, or the circle of the stars, or turbulent water,or the luminaries of heaven were the gods that rule the world. If through delight in the beauty of these things men assumed them to be gods,let them know how much better than these is their Lord, for the author of beauty created them. And if men] were amazed at their power and working, let them perceive from them how much more powerful is he who formed them. For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator” (Wis 13, 1-5).

Therefore God himself said that, by analogy, from the greatness and beauty of creatures one can contemplate their author.

4. Equally another great statement is found in the New Testament when the letter to the Romans reads: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth.  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Rm 1,18-20).

5. For this reason, the First Vatican Council declared: “The same holy mother church holds and teaches that God, the source and end of all things, can be known with certainty from the consideration of created things, by the natural power of human reason :  ever since the creation of the world, his invisible nature has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made (Rm 1,20)” (DS 3004).

And then it pronounces:”If anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema” (DS 3026), and that is, excommunicated.

The energy with which the Magisterium of the Church is pronounced is due to the fact that this doctrine is explicitly contained in Divine Revelation.

6. The First Vatican Council continues: “The perpetual agreement of the catholic church has maintained and maintains this too: that there is a twofold order of knowledge, distinct

not only as regards its source, but also as regards its object. With regard to the source, we know at the one level by natural reason, at the other level by divine faith. With regard to the object, besides those things to which natural reason can attain, there are proposed mysteries  hidden in God which, unless they are divinely revealed, are incapable of being known. Wherefore, when the Apostle, who witnesses that God was known to the gentiles from created things  (Rm 1,20), comes to treat of the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ (cf. Gv 1,17), he declares: We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. None of the rulers of this age understood this. God has revealed it to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God (l Cor 2,7s.10). And the Only-begotten himself, in his confession to the Father, acknowledges that the Father has hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to the little ones (cf. Mt 11,25)” (DS 3015).

7. It must also be said that the First Vatican Council states with certainty that by reason alone one can reach the conclusion of the existence of God.

However, it refrains from saying through which ways. Here it leaves the field free to theologians.

However, it reminds us that Saint Paul says that from creatures one goes back to the Creator.

8. Finally, you ask me what that theologian means when he says that we can have the intuition of God.

Perhaps he wants to refer to the religious sentiment that exists naturally in the hearts of men according to which we do not know God, but we feel him.

Some Protestants come to this erroneous conclusion, starting from the assumption that after the original sin man has totally corrupted himself and would have lost even the ability to know the truth.

So only by faith one would know the existence of God.

Yet it must be said that man, with the original sin, has lost the supernatural gifts of grace, but he has not lost the use of reason, as widely demonstrated by technical and scientific development.

I thank you for your trust, I commend you to the Lord and I bless you.

Father Angelo