It’s unsurprising that Aquinas drew from Aristotle to synthesize natural theology with Christianity (Aquinas frequently labeled Aristotle “The Philosopher”). Looking at Aquinas’ Five Ways, you see signs of Aristotle through and through. Many are familiar with Aristotle’s First Mover Argument from his classic Metaphysics, but looking a little deeper reveals not only the foundation of the Five Ways, but poetic insight as to the nature of this First Mover: “That a final cause may exist among unchangeable entities is shown by... Read more

One of my favorites from Whitman, I remember coming across it vividly by way of Robin Williams in the film Dead Poets Society. I continue to come across this poem, more and and more moved each time I read/hear it, a renewal and prayer that I may, in the example of Christ, “contribute a verse”: Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring, Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish, Of myself forever... Read more

A gem from Etienne Gilson, an amazing historian of philosophy with an existential Thomistic flair. For Gilson, knowledge of God is not an a priori conception such as the ontological argument, but revealed a posteriori in existence (concealed, yet revealed). In his words, “a most deeply hidden God, ‘He who is’ is also a most obvious God. By revealing to metaphysicians that they cannot account for their own existence, all things point to the fact that there is such a... Read more

Another great one from one of my favorite philosophers, Karl Popper, a self-proclaimed “critical rationalist”: “It is important to realize that science does not make assertions about ultimate questions – about the riddles of existence, or about man’s task in the world. This has often been well understood. But some great scientists, and many lesser ones, have misunderstood the situation. The fact that science cannot make any pronouncement about ethical principles has been misinterpreted as indicating that there are no... Read more

To Aristotle and classical theists (a club which I am a proud member), God is the ultimate cause and necessity of which all contingent things depend. In the Aristotelian view, Wisdom relies on understanding causation which include material, efficient, formal, and final causes. God is pure Act, the final cause toward which all things move. The final cause, which Aristotle also labels the first cause, is often confused for the efficient cause, positing god as “a being” who simply set the world... Read more

A gem from author and philosopher David Bentley Hart on the concept of God and the shallowness of today’s typical discussions: “While there has been a great deal of public debate about belief in God in recent years (much of it a little petulant, much of it positively ferocious), the concept of God around which the arguments have run their seemingly interminable courses has remained strangely obscure the whole time. The more scrutiny one accords these debates, moreover, the more... Read more

Descartes, one of the most celebrated mathematicians and philosophers of all time. A believer (Catholic), on the necessity of doubt (also the opening quote of my book Proof of Divine): “That in order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things. As we were at one time children, and as we formed various judgments regarding the objects presented to our senses, when as yet we had... Read more

One of my favorite philosophers, Karl Popper, on his belief in a “Third World”. “I do think that all men, including myself, are religious. We do all believe in something more–and it is difficult to find the right words–than ourselves. While I do not want to set up a new kind of faith, what we really believe in is what we call a Third World, something which is beyond us and with which we do interact, in the literal sense... Read more

One of my favorite quotes from the “Father of Existentialism”; not an argument against objective moral truth, but on the emptiness of such knowledge without a passionate embrace. “What I really need to get clear about what I am to do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I should do; the crucial thing is to find a... Read more