Bob Hunt

Evidence for the Existence of God from Experience, Part 5: Lives Transformed

The greatest testimony to the presence and power of God and His Holy Spirit is the transformation of lives from wantonness and misdirection to virtue and meaning. The encounter with God that many have experienced may prove nothing more than an interesting passing moment unless it impacts one’s life.

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Evidence for the Existence of God from Experience, Part 4: Encountering God, Continued

Here are more accounts of those who have experienced God in their lives, followed by a discussion of the impact of experiencing God on the brain. Can experiences of God be measured?

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Evidence for the Existence of God from Experience, Part 3: Encountering God

The experience of encountering God takes the experience of human faith to the next level. Beyond the fact that humans have universally held to the existence of a Supreme Being in every age, culture, and civilization, there are innumerable claims from a great number of people to have experienced God in a deeper way than merely an acceptance of His existence. People have encountered God.

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Evidence for the Existence of God from Experience, Part 2: Universal Human Faith

It’s an empirical fact that most people over the course of the millennia of human experience have held that God, a Supreme Being that is worthy of our reverence and worship, exists. When primitive humans looked to the heavens, they concluded that there must be some Being that is greater than human beings, greater than everything else. Humankind has always thought so.

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Evidence for the Existence of God from Experience, Part 1: Introduction

the human experience is filled to overflowing with the experience of God. In every age, in every culture, from the earliest cave drawings to the loftiest cathedrals, people have testified to their experience of the divine. Indeed, one could argue reasonably that the experience of God is part and parcel with the experience of being human.

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An Introduction to the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas, Part 12

After the death of Thomas Aquinas in 1274, opponents of his teaching emerged almost immediately, especially among the Franciscans. His confreres among the Dominicans came to Thomas’ defense, joined later by the Jesuits, and for a great while these two camps defined the place of Thomas in Catholic philosophical and theological discussion.

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An Introduction to the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas, Part 11

We all recognize that there are things in nature that lack intelligence that, even still, act always or almost always toward the same result, or final end. Planets follow orbits. Cells convert sugar into energy. Flowers produce nectar that hummingbirds then eat.

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An Introduction to the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas, Part 10

All things that are good, noble or true participate in the perfections of goodness, nobility or truth. The degree to which they participate in these perfections is what determines whether they are more or less good, more or less noble, more or less true. This is how the greatest degree of perfection is the cause of all perfections.

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An Introduction to the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas, Part 9

We know from experience that there are things that come into existence and go out of existence. These are called contingent beings. This simply means that they didn’t have to be. Their existence is dependent on something else that already exists.

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An Introduction to the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas, Part 8

Like the Argument from Motion, the Argument from Efficient Causes has inspired a number of objections. Again, I’ll consider the more common objections.

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An Introduction to the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas, Part 7

St. Thomas Aquinas, from Aristotle, identified four causes of things: material, formal, efficient and final. Think of a clay pitcher. The material cause of the pitcher is simply what the pitcher is made of, that is, the clay. The formal cause of the pitcher is the form it takes, a cylindrical-shaped container with a spout.

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An Introduction to the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas, Part 6

As one might expect, philosophers both atheist and otherwise have raised objections to Thomas’ Argument from Motion for the existence of God. I discussed some objections in the article introducing Thomas’ Argument from Motion. Here, I’ll discuss some other common objections.

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An Introduction to the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas, Part 5

I’ll spend more time with the First Way, the Argument from Motion, because it sets the stage for the Second and Third Ways. Thomas regarded the First Way as the most obvious of the ways that demonstrate the existence of God, and included it in several of his writings.

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An Introduction to the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas, Part 4

In the last article, I presented St. Thomas Aquinas’ reply to the argument from evil atheists present against the existence of God. Here, I’ll present Thomas’ reply to the second objection: that everything in the created order can be explained by natural or human causes, so there’s no need to posit the existence of God.

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An Introduction to the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas, Part 3

In the last article, I discussed St. Thomas Aquinas’ answers to objections to the claim that the existence of God can be demonstrated. Thomas shows that the existence of God canbe demonstrated by observing the effects of God and moving back to the cause: God Himself.

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