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• Christianity = Apocalyptic religion
• LOGOS

  Understanding language is key
• Schools of Philosophy in Roman Culture


  • Stoicism
  • Epicureanism
• Saint Anselm was a monk and later Archbishop of Canterbury
• Saint Anselm was noted for the ontological argument for the existence of God
• Justice: What Each Person Seeks
• The Great Chain of Being: God created the world ex nihilo, out of nothing
• Christianity: Justice Incomplete Without Mercy
• St. Thomas Aquinas' Five Proofs of God’s Existence


  • Argument from Motion
  • Argument from Efficient Causes
  • Argument from Possibility and Necessity
  • Argument from Gradation of Beings
  • Argument from Design
• LOGOCENTRIC

  Centered in language
• Arguments for the Existence of God

  • Ontological – Based entirely on reason; no external evidence or experience (Anselm of Canterbury)
  • Cosmological – an argument for a unique being as causative of universe (Aquinas)
  • Teleological – all things have purpose, therefore, there is a design with purpose from a designer
• The First Way: Argument from Motion
• There is a direct correlation between being and goodness
• The Big Bang: Fr. Georges LeMaitre
• In the beginning was the Word...: 'Synoptic Gospels + Gospel of John'
• The Torah


  • Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy
• St. Augustine


  Historical background and context: the collapse of the western Roman Empire
• Saint Anselm of Canterbury lived from 1033-1109
• St. Anselm's concept of God: God is 'something than which nothing greater can be conceived'
• Creation: EX NIHILO (Out of Nothing?)
• Anselm's argument: 1. Assume God exists in the understanding alone. 2. God is something than which nothing greater can be conceived. 3. Something than which nothing greater can be conceived can be conceived to exist in reality. 4. It is greater to exist in reality than in the understanding alone. 5. God is a being than which a greater can be conceived. Thus, 6. God exists
• The Second Way: Argument from Efficient Causes

  1. Nothing exists prior to itself

  2. Nothing can be the cause of itself

  3. If a previous cause does not exist, nothing results

  4. There is a first efficient cause, named God
• The Fifth Way: Argument from Design

  Natural bodies work toward a goal and are directed by an intelligent being, referred to as God
• Nature prefers simplicity, and the simplest answer is often the best
• The Fourth Way: Argument From Gradation of Being

  1. There is a gradation found in all things

  2. There must be something most perfect, referred to as God
• William of Ockham's Razor: "What can be accounted for by fewer assumptions is explained in vain by more."
• William of Ockham (Occam), 1285 - 1347, introduced Nominalism
• The Third Way: Argument from Possibility and Necessity


  1. There are contingent things in nature

  2. Assuming every being is contingent

  3. Not every being is contingent, some exist of their own necessity and cause others to exist, referred to as God
• The First Way: Argument from Motion

  1. Our senses prove that some things are in motion

  2. Things move when potential motion becomes actual motion (potentiality vs. actuality)

  3. Only an actual motion can convert a potential motion into actual motion

  4. Nothing can be simultaneously in potentiality and actuality

  5. Therefore, nothing can move itself

  6. Each thing in motion is moved by something else

  7. There is a first mover, put in motion by nothing else, understood to be God
• St. Thomas Aquinas: 'Five Proofs of God’s Existence: Argument from Motion, Argument from Efficient Causes, Argument from Possibility and Necessity, Argument from Gradation of Beings, Argument from Design'