Faith Seeking Understanding
As yesterday’s post indicated, a measure of faith is needed as one begins and proceeds in the Christian life. However, no such faith is needed to know that there is a God—the Christian God, yes... A God at all, no... There are many wonderful Christian apologists and philosophers (and even non-Christian philosophers) who have made this obvious case. Many are quoted in this blog (Aquinas, Chesterton, Lewis, Kreeft, etc.). Here is a good quote from another:
“If anyone does not know, either because he has not heard or because he does not believe, that there is one nature, supreme among all existing things, who alone is self-sufficient in his eternal happiness, who through his omnipotent goodness grants and brings it about that all other things exist or have any sort of well-being, and a great many other things that we must believe about God or his creation, I think he could at least convince himself of most of these things by reason alone, if he is even moderately intelligent.”
~St. Anselm
In the Proslogion Anselm sets out to show a rationale for the Christian faith and also shows the broader picture which should convince “the fool,” that is, the person who “has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1; 53:1).
“If anyone does not know, either because he has not heard or because he does not believe, that there is one nature, supreme among all existing things, who alone is self-sufficient in his eternal happiness, who through his omnipotent goodness grants and brings it about that all other things exist or have any sort of well-being, and a great many other things that we must believe about God or his creation, I think he could at least convince himself of most of these things by reason alone, if he is even moderately intelligent.”
~St. Anselm
In the Proslogion Anselm sets out to show a rationale for the Christian faith and also shows the broader picture which should convince “the fool,” that is, the person who “has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1; 53:1).
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