SECTION III                                           PROOF OF THE DEMONSTRABILITY OF GOD'S EXISTENCE

To prove this demonstrability we shall defend: (1) the ontological validity of first ideas and first principles, and at the same time show the necessity of these principles; (2) their transcendental validity. The ontological range of first ideas is essentially presupposed by their transcendental validity. It is clear that if these ideas have but a phenomenal import, and do not enable us to detect the substantial being underlying the phenomena, they cannot be the means of our reaching God, the first transcendental cause.

Perhaps some may be surprised that so many pages of this book are taken up with the discussion of the abstractive intuition of intelligible being and of the first laws of being. The reason is that it seems to us impossible to reply to the current objections against the traditional proofs for the existence of God, without recurring to these preliminary fundamentals of general metaphysics concerning being, identity, becoming, multiple, substance, causality, and finality, If there are any ideas that are of profound and permanent significance from an apologetic point of view, may we not say that it is above all these first notions which demand our serious consideration? From their analysis we obtain an explanation and justification of the senses communis or natural reason.