Knowing God involves knowing His attributes, his character and His ways so that we know Him for who He is, not simply for the self-centred belief that He is there for me. Trust is the basis for a true relationship with God, shorn of ulterior motives.
The arguments are often named as follows: (1) argument from motion, (2) argument from efficient cause, (3) argument from necessary being, (4) argument from gradations of goodness, and (5) argument from design.
Aquinas's first three arguments—from motion, from causation, and from contingency—are types of what is called the cosmological argument for divine existence. Each begins with a general truth about natural phenomena and proceeds to the existence of an ultimate creative source of the universe.
Aquinas's Natural Law Theory contains four different types of law: Eternal Law, Natural Law, Human Law and Divine Law.
Much of the discussion has focused on Kant's “big three” arguments: ontological arguments, cosmological arguments, and teleological arguments.
The Summa Theologica is a famous work written by Saint Thomas Aquinas between AD 1265 and 1274. It is divided into three main parts and covers all of the core theological teachings of Aquinas's time.
God. Aquinas believes that natural reason can demonstratively prove God's existence. The first step is to show that, for everything in the changeable world around us, there is a first cause, or prime mover, in virtue of which all other things have their existence, their motion, their qualities and direction.
Aquinas thought there must be something not dependent on other things for its existence, and upon which everything else rests on for its own existence; for Thomas Aquinas, that thing is God. The Argument from Degree: The fourth argument is about degrees of good things.
Step 1: Understand God is a Person
This first step to knowing God is obvious, but it is overlooked many times. If you don't view God as a person, it can be a huge hindrance when you go to talk to God in prayer, or you go to learn from Him in the Word.
Knowledge of God as understood in the New Testament is highly reflective of Old Testament conceptions yet also expansive with reference to the centrality of Jesus. Both Testaments represent theological knowledge as based on divine self-revelation—a gift of the Spirit.
Nothing can happen without God ordaining it. Psalm 57:2 says, “I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.” This is key in understanding God's purpose for your life. God has numbered your days and will fulfill every purpose He has for you. However, our choices and actions also really matter.
One argument to prove God's existence is known as the 'ontological argument' — an argument which, by reason alone – proves that, the very idea of God as a perfect being means that God must exist, that his non-existence would be contradictory.
Evidence for the existence of God is seen in several ways in what have traditionally been called the Classical Arguments for God's existence. The four Classical arguments are simply called: The Ontological argument, The Cosmological argument, The Teleological argument, and The Moral argument.
Aquinas' argument can be explained as follows: “The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result.
Theism is the view that there is a God which is the creator and sustainer of the universe and is unlimited with regard to knowledge (omniscience), power (omnipotence), extension (omnipresence), and moral perfection. Though regarded as sexless, God has traditionally been referred to by the masculine pronoun.
The idea that God is a self-existent being was developed and explained by St. Anselm in the eleventh century. By various arguments Anselm had satisfied him- self that among those beings that exist there is one that is supremely great and good-nothing that exists or ever did exist is its equal.
In philosophy, however, and more specifically in the philosophy of religion, the term “atheism” is standardly used to refer to the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, to the proposition that there are no gods).
Atheists argue that because everything in the universe can be explained in a satisfactory way without using God as part of the explanation, then there is no point in saying that God exists.
A scientist has calculated that there is a 67% chance that God exists. Dr Stephen Unwin has used a 200-year-old formula to calculate the probability of the existence of an omnipotent being.
Human law is concerned with the really existing individual as a member of the family or people. Divine law is concerned with the same person insofar as he is beyond reality (Wirklichkeit. )