CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Chapter II
WAYS OF COMING TO KNOW GOD
Catechism of the Catholic Church CCC
31
Created in God's image and called to
know and love Him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to
know Him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the
sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of
"converging and convincing arguments", which allow us to attain
certainty about the truth. These "ways" of approaching God from
creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and the human
person.
Catechism of the Catholic Church CCC
32
The world: starting from movement,
becoming, contingency, and the world's order and beauty, one can come to a
knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.
As St. Paul says of the Gentiles: For
what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal
power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.
(Romans 1:19-20; Acts 14:15,17; 17:27-28; Wisdom 13:1-9.)
And St. Augustine issues this challenge:
Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the
beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the
sky. . . question all these realities. All respond: "See, we are
beautiful." Their beauty is a profession. These beauties are subject to
change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One who is not subject to change? (
St. Augustine, Sermo 241, 2:PL 38,1134)
Catechism of the Catholic Church CCC
33
The human person: with his openness
to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of
his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man
questions himself about God's existence. In all this he discerns signs of his
spiritual soul. The soul, the "seed of eternity we bear in ourselves,
irreducible to the merely material",9 can have its origin only in God.
Catechism of the Catholic Church CCC
34
The world, and man, attest that they
contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their final end,
but rather that they participate in Being itself, which alone is without origin
or end. Thus, in different ways, man can come to know that there exists a
reality which is the first cause and final end of all things, a reality
"that everyone calls God". ( St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I,2,3.)
Catechism of the Catholic Church CCC
35
Man's faculties make him capable of
coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But for man to be
able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal himself to
man and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in
faith. The proofs of God's existence, however, can predispose one to faith and
help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason.
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