Can We Prove That God Exists? (feat. Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.)

let's kick this pig excuse me i'm not for pig kicking only in the idiomatic sense of let's begin where is that a saying i have no idea all right everybody father gregory's here to kick a pig hey i'm father mark marion and i'm father gregory pond i'm a franciscan friar of renault and i am a dominican friar of the province of saint joseph and this is sench presents saint thomas aquinas yep he's got some proofs for the existence of god he does indeed and yet not everybody believes yeah it's totally cool so is that like is that on st thomas is that all the proofs is that on our understanding of proofs if you've read anything of st thomas aquinas you've probably come across these five ways in like an introductory philosophy course at state university of wherever those would be the ones that your atheist philosopher professor would propose to you and then ridicule and then move straight on to you know descartes or whomever are we you know as catholics responsible for knowing these things for explaining these things for converting the world by putting these things forward okay no but i do think that they occupy a place of importance in the life of the church not of highest importance like the trinity or the incarnation or things like that right but a place of importance is that because like all of us need to be philosophers in order to be saved not a chance in the world but it is because there's something that we can stand to learn from them and there's something that we can um yes stand to impart by interiorizing them okay proofs for the existence of god i think you go you gotta you gotta start with people's impression of these things if you've tried to read them you may think on the one hand that they're a little bit complicated and a little bit jargony and also that they don't you know convince you so it's not like you are an atheist before you read them and then after you read them you know you levitate you by locate right you receive holy communion twice a day etc but i think what we have in our mind is like geometric proof that we learned in 10th grade where you're looking at a triangle and you're like all these things are 180 and then you draw this angle and then you say that this and thus and such and blah blah right so it's it's not a proof like that it's more like a way of seeing reality regardless of whether you're looking at st thomas's five ways or other proofs for the existence of god usually the disposition is what what you start with is an observation of reality of the world why well because god is invisible and because we come to knowledge of higher things through lower things okay so we come to knowledge of you know spiritual realities through our senses you know depending on which spiritual authors you read maybe there's some discussion of a kind of intuition or spiritual sense for supernatural realities but in the kind of ordinary course we just we see a thing and then we touch it and then we maybe taste it and as a result of which we form an idea or an opinion about it and then we go from there all right so the proofs for the existence of god are very very humble they're very modest in that they they adopt the same kind of mentality towards towards reality rather than seeing things in terms of like all right what's the history of this series of processes or like what's the math of this series of processes it goes about it and says like what what what is right or like what is what is the being at stake here and you're like all right that's like a little bit philosophical and that's like a little bit high brow you mean to tell me that this is like i don't know some like elite meditation for people who have you know profound metaphysical insights no i am not saying that but i am saying that it gives you a way of looking at reality that makes reality kind of transparent to the activity of god all right so you look around you see like all right there's there's these things over here and these things act on these things all right and when they act on these things they tend to behave in a similar you know kind of pattern or way and if you approach it from a mathematical perspective you're just like x equals you know two y plus c yada yada that's and such like clearly you know no problem doesn't bother me at all but you're like okay but but why does that work right how is it that these beings interact in this way so stably so permanently so consistently and and can i describe that at a deeper level a more fundamental level all right so you might observe yeah like this thing acts on this thing or you might observe okay this thing right here right so you know father mark mary or like this window unit not that there's a window unit in this recording studio it's very professional we would never have window units this window unit right uh it could have been otherwise or it could not have been and when you look around at material reality that's basically the case for everything like this could have been otherwise or it could not have been so i'm like 6 3 and 1 8 inch but i could have been 6'4 right i could have been 5'3 i could have been any number of heights but i am this way and not another way and you start to think you know why why is that you know why is that these things aren't necessarily so how do they come to be such and when you start digging digging digging digging digging you realize that this thing didn't have to be at all and it is so how do you account for the fact that there is something rather than nothing right and once you head down this path you realize that reality does not have a sufficient explanation for itself and i think a lot of people in the 21st century whether of a scientific mindset or a psychological mindset or a sociological mindset or whatever okay they're content to just say like observe you know and describe but we can say wait a second what's at the root of this right and this is like a kind of natural contemplative spirit that we bring to bear on reality and when we go about trying to trace back the different causes we arrive at some ultimate ground some ultimate foundation we arrive at a first principle so you may have heard god described as the first mover or the uncaused cause and this is something that philosophers would have reasoned to 300 400 years before the coming of christ because they applied their minds to the riddle of reality and they came to discover that it doesn't explain itself and that as a result of which we ourselves have to do some legwork to discover what is at its foundation or what is at its base it's actually been defined by the church that we can have this type of knowledge right that we can come to discover certain fundamental things about god that he is right that he is simple which is to say undivided that he is perfect that he is good that he is provident all of these things we can discover by our inquiry into reality now mind you okay are these easy things to discover and here we go back to our atheist who is unconvinced by our proof no they are not easy things to discover one because they're just hard to see through but also because you know we're fallen and as a result of which there's you know kind of ignorance that obscures our minds insights and there's malice that kind of twists our wills and pushes back against things that people try to force on us and our passions are all stirred up and we're like weak and concupiscent and we find it really difficult to follow arguments that are complex and demand much of us because we would prefer to like do anything else that tastes better and is shinier okay so it's hard right and it takes a lot of time and we're gonna make errors and you know maybe it's only something that really wise people can come to but it's still worth it it's still worth it for us not because you know to be a good catholic you have to be smart and you have to have proven the existence of god that's not it decidedly not it but because we're made to the image and likeness of god and principally by virtue of our intellects and our wills these spiritual powers which are the highest expression of our human dignity and we can train our minds on god right we can come to discover we can come to discover god through our reasoning right that's that's an incredible gift and so if even if only in small snatches if we can get knowledge of highest things by exercising our minds it affords greatest delight and it affords greatest meaning to our lives now at this point you might be thinking well again this sounds like something that's only available to a few people like if if i've given it a go and i've found it too hard should i despair of it two responses one keep at it right because it's the type of thing that pays even to fail at right because you form habits of mind and heart that draw you in to the life of god and so like practically what would i suggest well it's good to like read things about the faith that challenge you a little bit the goal is not 100 comprehension of everything that you read all right the goal is to be stretched the goal is to be grown and we need to be willing to be a little bit uncomfortable and you know to to engage things which may not be you know 100 comprehensible at the moment all right so that's the first the second is don't worry right because god has condescended god has revealed himself right god has spoken in history so that by faith we can know him with even more certain knowledge than those who have proved his existence right so a little old lady who is baptized who goes to church can know more about god than even the wisest philosophers who came before christ because faith is a kind of knowing right faith is a kind of knowing whereby we we believe the testimony of god himself who speaks to us of his divine life and of all things in light of that divine life so by faith our minds are brought to perfection right but that doesn't mean that we just leave our minds behind we want to advance towards god by all of the resources that he has given us by both the light of reason and the light of faith hopefully that's helpful did saint bonaventure have any proofs for the existence of god i assume that he did but part of being a dominican is to studiously avoid everything franciscan for fear that it might corrupt you i bet he wrote more popular proofs everybody would believe but if you're not into that you can do a father gregory said cheers for more father gregory pine and his brothers check out god's planning and for more from myself and the friars you can pick up habits for holiness or listen to the poco poke podcast and we'll see you again next week we are pilgrims on the third pocopoco see you guys we're gonna make it bye everybody

Channel: Ascension Presents

Views: 18,560

Rating: 4.942122 out of 5

Keywords: does god exist, is god real, existence of god, christian apologetics, richard dawkins, proof of god, is god really dead, ascension, ascension presents, ascension press, cfrs, Franciscan friars of the renewal, fr. mark-mary, fr. gregory pine, fr. gregory pine o.p., Dominican friars, st. Thomas aquinas, saint thomas aquinas, doctor of the church, theology, catholic theology, thomas aquinas

Id: zWSDkN9_jj8

Length: 9min 59sec (599 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 25 2021