Vivat Agnus Dei

  Among St. Thomas Aquinas’s Five Ways for demonstrating the existence of God, the Fifth Way—often called the argument from governance or finality—has frequently been conflated with what is popularly known as the “argument from design,” William Paley’s “watchmaker argument,” or modern forms of “intelligent design.” While these arguments share a family resemblance, Aquinas’s Fifth Way differs from them in method, metaphysical depth, and philosophical ambition. At its core, the Fifth Way is not an inference from complexity alone, but an argument from the intelligibility, regularity, and ordered directedness of nature toward an intellect that grounds and sustains that order. A careful comparison clarifies both the strengths of Aquinas’s approach and the limited, though pedagogically useful, role of the watchmaker analogy. The Fifth Way and the Governance of the World Aquinas’s Fifth Way begins with an observation about the natural world: non-rational beings consistently act for ends....

Read Readings Do you ever notice the feeling of anticipation that accompanies Advent? To me, Advent is a season symbolic of the journey of this life: we wait in eager hope for the life to come—the fullness of health, happiness, and holiness in Christ—and we conform ourselves so as to receive that fullness with eagerness and readiness, that is, to long in the proper way. In this sense, it is a livelier Lent, because it holds the anticipation of Christ in one hand and the strong conviction that all promises are about to be fulfilled in the other. As I read—and even before I read—I could not help but feel overcome by the sense that the biggest thing is about to happen: the one thing God has been laboring toward with us, namely the fulfillment of every covenant, God among us; what was destroyed in our sins and the sins of others beginning to be undone; people who once sneered now rejoicing in communion. It is much like last Sunday’s reading from Isaiah 11, which highlights how those natura...

Before we search out the answers to scientific questions with a critical and intentional inquisition, those realities can seem deeply mysterious, unintelligible, and/or complex. We begin with an educated guess, and as we experiment, our understanding can become very complex, not knowing exactly how newfound variables are involved. By the time we completely understand the causality of a phenomenon such that we can apply it to technology, it becomes simple, singular, and familiar to us. From mystification to a well-formed perspective, our perception becomes tuned to reality. As the mind approaches God, man has shown this same pattern, imagining Him to be not one but many, not loving but oppressive, etc. However, as one grows familiar with His ways, we also become familiar with His nature. Similar to the manner in which Thomas Aquinas discussed whether God’s existence is demonstrable, God is not so much known through the same method as a physical being but rather by getting to know Him li...

This question is the foremost question of ethics because it is what joins or separates—depending on our answer—what is objectively good from what we subjectively feel compelled to pursue. Every person desires to be happy, and rightfully so (cf. Ps 4:7; Jn 16:24, Ps 16:11 ). However, real happiness does not lie on the other side of evil (cf. Rom 6:23) . This is where the Catholic Church becomes unpopular, for it reveals the depth of humanity’s fall. If we pursue happiness through what in fact engenders suffering, we seek our destruction and rejoice in it (cf. Prov 14:12 ).[1] This destruction disposes us to greater comfort with evil, creating conditions in which undesirable realities arise—both internal and external—and relationships at every level (with God, others, and ourselves) are degraded (cf. Jas 1:14–15 ).[2] This raises the question of what constitutes real happiness—happiness that does not produce these absurdities yet makes one truly joyful and unburdened. I would argue, and...

The word hour appears twenty times throughout the Gospel of John. More often than not, Jesus uses it to symbolize the climactic event of His glorification through suffering (cf. John 12:23, 27, NRSVCE). “Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father” (John 13:1). This verse begins the Last Supper discourse, and the language signals that the decisive moment has truly “come.” In chapter 16, the word is used to foretell the suffering of the Apostles (John 16:2–4). Later in the same chapter, Jesus foretells their sorrow at His departure: “When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (John 16:21–22). Here, suffering is revealed as necessary for th...

The argument from miracles is often presented as a proof for the existence of God. However, its strength and persuasiveness are largely dependent upon the interpretive framework of its audience. This essay will argue that while miracles can serve as powerful confirmations of belief, their value as arguments against atheism is significantly limited by the epistemological commitments of non-theists. The epistemological restraint of atheists already disallows them to consider abstract or not immediately present evidence, which is the reason they are not theists. The effectiveness of miracle-based arguments is therefore derivative of the effectiveness of arguments from experience. Even if they were presented with a miracle before them, it is likely they would assert it is just a phenomenon that science does not yet have the capability to describe, predict, or affect—or that the laws of nature do not perfectly obtain at every moment and place. Sometimes even the greatest of miracles cannot...