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Knowledge of God's existence - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Aquinas’ argument for natural theology:
        
        Aquinas thought that original sin couldn’t have completely destroyed our ability to reason
        
        We have reason due to being made in the image of God, and that’s what distinguished us from the animals according to Genesis. If original sin had completely corrupted us and totally destroyed our ability to reason, then we would just be like animals. But we aren’t – we are still morally responsible and have some reasoning ability left, and that is capable of knowing God’s existence and morality
  - - - Reason is corrupted by original sin. Original sin might not have totally destroyed reason, but it does make it unreliable
        
        “The finite has no capacity for the infinite”
        
        Our finite minds have no – zero – capacity to understand God’s infinite nature
        
        So, we should not use reason to know God
        
        If we make a mistake when trying to use reason to know God, then we will gain a false view of God and could end up worshipping the wrong thing – perhaps even worshipping something earthly – which is idolatry. This is dangerous as it can lead to the worship of human things like nations, fatherlands, and that he argued contributed to Nazism
        
        Barth concluded we should solely rely on faith in the Bible
  - - - Aquinas just says there must be some unmoved mover and whatever that is ‘that thing we call God’
        
        Similarly, with natural law, reason isn’t grasping God’s infinite eternal law – just the lesser natural law within our nature
        
        Through reason we can also know that God has a quality of love/power/knowledge which is analogous to ours yet proportionally greater than our own
        
        Aquinas’ approach is successful because he takes care not to claim too much about God based on reason
        
        Reason may sometimes indeed be corrupted, but that doesn’t mean it will always be corrupted. Sometimes, with God’s grace, human reason is capable of knowing something about God
- - - - This is a variety of natural theology – because it is knowing God through the power of the human mind
        
        It’s very different to Aquinas’ style, however – since it does not involve or require reason
        
        As a protestant, Calvin, like Luther and Barth, was sceptical about the ability of reason to know God
        
        We can still sense God, nonetheless. This is knowing God through the power of the human mind, but not the specific power of reason
        
        Calvin thought that this sense of God was required, so that people would be without excuse if they didn’t believe in God. It’s necessary that everyone know God exists, to justify sending people who don’t believe in God to hell
        
        Calvin thought that natural theology through sensing God was the only way the human mind could know God by itself
        
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  - - - In Calvin’s time being an atheist was dangerous – people were forced to believe in God. It’s easy to see why he would get the impression that we are born with a sense of God, but it could just be because of how dominant the social pressure to believe in God was
  - - - However, this is a weak argument because it assumes that atheists sin more than religious people. In fact, the northern european countries are very atheistic and yet have very low crime rates
- - - - Paul here seems to suggest that God’s qualities & nature can be understood from what he has made, i.e. the natural world
        
        This is what inductive a posteriori arguments such as Aquinas’ cosmological and teleological (design) arguments do
  - - - Calvin argues this verse is not supporting knowing God through reasoning about the natural world, but through sensing God
        
        However, what about the word ‘understood’ – doesn’t that imply reasoning rather than merely sensing?
        
        Furthermore, the verse seems to suggest that the understanding is gained from creation itself, which sounds like reasoned inference from the natural world rather than a sense of God which isn’t derived from ‘what has been made’; creation
        
        Finally, the verse suggests that God’s qualities and nature can be understood – not just his existence, so it seems to go further than the sensus divinitatis in that regard also
        
        It looks like Romans 1:20 is saying we can know God’s nature through reasoning about the natural world, not just that we can sense the existence of a higher power
  - - - Barth points out that just because this verse says God can be known through creation – it doesn’t follow that we are able to do that
        
        He claims humanity has become too sinful due to original sin to know God through our own mind
    - - However, Barth’s argument is unsatisfying because the quote clearly claims that this knowledge of God is meant to leave people ‘without excuse’. It’s hard to argue that doesn’t apply to us
        
        Adam and Eve, before original sin, metaphorically ‘walked’ and talked with God in Eden, so they had no excuse for that reason
        
        We are those born with original sin, we must be those the passage refers to as having no excuse due to this knowledge of God through reasoning about the world
        
        So, Aquinas’ style of natural theology is validated by the Bible
- - - - Aquinas’ approach was to reconcile original sin and natural theology through reason
        
        Pelagius has a much more radical approach of denying original sin altogether
        
        If there is no original sin, the protestant arguments against natural theology fall apart. (They claim reason is corrupted by original sin)
  - - - Genetic diversity shows that it’s not possible for all of humanity to have come from just two people. So, there was no Adam and Eve
        
        So, it makes no sense to say that human nature became cursed because of their actions when they are just fictional characters
  - - - C K Chesterson argued you can see original sin ‘in the street’
        
        However – this defence fails because modern sociological evidence shows that humanity has improved in its rate of violence & crime, and thus sin. Stephen Pinker studied the history of violence and showed it has declined in modern society
        
        This proves that original sin cannot exist, because if we really had an irresistible temptation to sin, we could not have morally improved, yet we have
        
        Evil actions are better explained by social conditioning, or what Pelagius called being ‘educated in evil’
        
        Freud could explain Augustine’s ‘pear’ story. Socialisation forces us to feel frustrated over repressing our instincts to the point where rebelling against social control can feel good in itself
        
        Pelagius travelled from Ireland to Augustine’s part of the world, and noted that people in Rome were much more sinful than he was used to, which proves this sociological point that it is culture and upbringing which causes sinful behaviour. Believing it is nature is really just an excuse
        
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