While God cannot be observed with the senses or detected with scientific formulas or equipment, the Catholic Church teaches that the existence of God can be known with certainty by man’s natural ability to draw conclusions from what he sees around him.
Man has a desire to understand the reality around him and is made aware that there is a higher power because of what God has created. Believing in an almighty God based on facts, logic, and reason is rational and explains why the physical universe exists and how it stays organized.
Throughout the history of the church, many scholars and theologians have offered ways to trust in the existence of God by using analogies of basic and observable things to give a better understanding of an invisible and complex God. One well-known set of arguments for God’s existence is St. Thomas Aquinas’ famous “five ways”.
While reason can direct man toward God and make him more receptive to how God reveals Himself, faith is still necessary for man to increase his knowledge of God and have a relationship with Him.
Faith in God based on knowledge:
Reason can support belief in God:
The same Holy Mother Church professes and teaches that God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certainty in the natural light of human reason through created things; in fact, the invisible things of Him are known by the intelligence of the human creature through the things that were made.
Pope Pius IX, Dei Filius, 24 April 1870
Man sees God indirectly:
Reason to trust in the existence of God:
Developing natural knowledge of God:
For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what He has made.
Romans 1: 19-20
Cause and effect:
Evaluating the evidence:
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.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 35
Allowing reality to lead to God:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Catholic treasure maps:
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