TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

PREFACE To THE FIFTH EDITION

PART I

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

Chapter

I What the Catholic Church Teaches About God's

Existence and His Nature, and the Knowledge Which We Can Have of Him by Means of the

Natural Light of Reason

I. The existence and nature of God as defined by the

Vatican Council             

a. The distinction between God and the world, as defined by the Council. The meaning and import of this definition 

3.          Definition of the Vatican Council on the ability of human reason to know God with certainty. Condemned errors: Positivism, Traditionalism, Fideism, Kantian Criticism 

4.          Explanation of the theological terms employed by the

Council in the antimodernist oath

5.  The condemnation of Modernist Agnosticism by the

Encyclical "Pascendi"

6.  Does the teaching of the Church permit us to maintain that the method of immanence is indispensable and that it precedes all others?
 

CHAPTER              PAGE

II The Possibility of Proving the Existence of God 61 SECTION 1

WHAT GENUS AND WHAT SPECIES OF DEMONSTRATION DOES THIS
DEMONSTRABILITY DEMAND?

7.         We are here concerned with a philosophical or, more precisely, a metaphysical demonstration. In the rigor of its proof and its power to convince, it must surpass the so-called scientific demonstrations

of the present day

8.         This will not be an a priori demonstration. Insuf-

ficiency of the ontological proof 

9.         The demonstration will have to be a posteriori. For it to be rigorously exact, it must start with a particular effect, and trace this effect back to its proper to (its necessary and immediate) cause

Io. Therefore, it is not in a series of accidentally connected past causes that we must seek for the original cause, but in one in which there is an essential connection between the causes

II. In this series of essentially connected causes, we eventually arrive at one which must be the proper cause, without any further affirmation

SECTION II

OBJECTIONS RAISED AGAINST THE DEMONSTRABILITY OF THE
EXISTENCE OP GOD. EMPIRICAL AND IDEALISTIC AGNOSTICISM

12.      The objection of the Empirics against the necessity and the ontological and transcendental validity of the principle of causality. This objection and the resulting Agnosticism are derived from Sensualistic Nominalism

13.      Kant's objection against the ontological and tran-
scendental value of the principle of causality

14.      The general principle of modern Agnosticism .              xo6 TABLE OF CONTENTS SECTION III

PROOF OF THE DEMONSTRABILITY OF GOD'S EXISTENCE

15.    

16. The intellectual apprehension of intelligble being and the intuition of its first principles

16. How shall we defend the ontological validity of our intellect and of its first ideas?

17. Indirect defence of the ontological validity of first ideas

A.                                                   Insoluble difficulties

B.                                                   Indirect defence by the method of reductio ad absurdum

18. Direct defence of the ontological validity of primary ideas

19. Objections of the Idealists: We cannot start from being; something corresponding to thought is a necessity. Reply

20. Intuition of first principles. They are perceived in the idea of being, which is the formal object of the intellect. The transcendent principle (principle of identity) is the ultimate basis of every proof for the existence of God. The affirmation of the objective validity of this transcendent principle tacitly implies the admission of the existence of the divine and transcendental being, who is absolutely identical with himself. In all forms of evolutionary Pantheism contradiction necessarily is the first principle

21. The anti-intellectualistic objection raised against the principle of non-contradiction. Solution of the same by means of the concept of potency, which enters into all the proofs for the existence of God

22. Hegel's objection (absolute intellectualism) to the principle of identity. Substance is the determining principle of identity. What place it holds in the demonstration of the existence of God

24.         The principle of sufficient reason is the immediate basis of the proofs for the existence of God. By the appeal to the impossible it resolves itself into the principle of identity. In this sense, it is an analytical principle

25.         The principle of efficient causality is the immediate basis of the proofs for the existence of God. The idea of efficient cause and its ontological validity. Efficient causality, defined in terms of actual being, transcends the order of phenomena and is an accidentally sensible, but essentially intelligible, entity

26.         All "becoming," and every composite, necessarily de-

mands a cause

27.         The principle of finality, derived from the principle of sufficient reason. The knowledge of its absolute validity, far from presupposing the knowledge of God's existence, must be the means by which it becomes known to us

ARTICLE II

THE TRANSCENDENTAL VALIDITY OF FIRST IDEAS AND FIRST PRINCIPLES

28.         The objections of modern idealistic and empirical Agnosticism and those of medieval Agnosticism .

29.         Direct proof of the transcendental validity of primary

ideas

3o. Indirect proof of the transcendental validity of pri-

mary notions

31.      The middle term of our demonstration is analogical

The force of such a demonstration

32.      This analogical knowledge enables the human mind to grasp the fact of God's existence, and to perceive something of His essence; but it is not a quidditative perception, that is, a perception of what properly constitutes the essence of the Deity             

33.         Solution of the objections raised against the transcendental validity of primary notions 

III Exposé of the Proofs for the Existence of God .

34.         The five main proofs. Their universality. Their order. What they are intended to demonstrate

35.         General proof, which includes all the others. Its principle is that the greater cannot proceed from the

less. The higher alone explains the lower

36.         Proof from motion. A. The proof.—B. Objections.—

C. Consequences

37.         Proof by means of efficient causes

38.         Proof based on contingency

39.         Proof based on the various grades of being

4o. Proof based on the order prevailing in the world

41. These five typical proofs establish five attributes, which can be predicated only of the self-subsisting being, who subsists above all things

APPENDIX

THE THOMISTIC PROOFS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IN THEIR RELATION TO THE NO-

TION OF PROPER CAUSE

FIRST PROOF: FROM MOTION

SECOND PROOF: FROM EFFICIENT CAUSES

THIRD PROOF: FROM THE CONTINGENCY OF BEINGS IN THE

WORLD

FOURTH PROOF: FROM THE DEGREES OF PERFECTION IN BE-

FIFTH PROOF: FROM THE ORDER PREVAILING IN THE UNI-

VERSE

THE ONE END TO WHICH ALL FIVE PROOFS CONVERGE