SECTION III: How do I Know?

St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica was enormously influential on doctrine, and remains so in especially the Roman Catholic Church. We have from Aquinas what we call cosmological arguments for God's existence.

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"Since nature works out its determinate end under the direction of a higher agent, whatever is done by nature must needs be traced back to God, as to its first cause.  So also whatever is done designedly must also be traced back to some higher cause other than human reason or will, for these can suffer change and are defective; whereas things capable of motion and of defect must be traced back to an immovable and self-necessary first principle."

Saint Thomas Aquinas, Carlo Crivelli, 1476

What do the objects in the image of St. Thomas represent? (Church building, book, sun amulet)

Bored with Aquinas? Read this for some relief: Whether St. Thomas is Boring

Go on to The Problem of Evil.

Go back to Anselm.