1. Lesson 9 - GOD AND THE WORLD
Presented by:
Arnel O. Rivera
LPU-Cavite
Based on the presentation of:
Mr. Alexander Rodis

2. Review:
Who’s line is it? Anyhow?
Identify who said the
following lines. Write
if it is from PLATO,
ARISTOTLE, ST.
AQUINAS or ST.
AGUSTINE.

3. Who’s line is it? Anyhow?
1. EVIL IS NOT REAL.
2. Natural law governs all morality and
human behavior must conform to it.
3. There is nothing wrong with loving things
other than God, you must not love them as
if they were good in themselves for only God
is intrinsically good.

4. Who’s line is it? Anyhow?
4. The good of each kind of thing is defined
with reference to the nature of that kind of
thing . In the case of humans, goodness is
happiness.
5. The divine law is God’s gift to us, revealed
through his grace.

5. THEOLOGY
 It comes from the Greek word “theos” which means
“God”
 Theology is the study or science or knowledge of God.
TWO TYPES OF THEOLOGY
 Natural Theology
 Revealed Theology

6. WHAT IS NATURAL THEOLOGY?
 It means the study or knowledge of God through
the natural intellect. This means the intellect in its
natural state unaided by any special or
supernatural input.
 It is also known as philosophical theology or
rational theology.

7. WHAT IS REVEALED THEOLOGY?
 The knowledge of God through special revelation,
such as the Bible, the Church, Moses, Christ, the
Holy Spirit, and the like.

8. NATURAL VS. REVEALED.
 In natural theology, people attempt through their own
natural faculties to approach God, whereas in revealed
theology God has in his own special way approached
humanity.
 Natural theology if successful , delivers some basic
knowledge of God’s existence and perhaps something
or his nature but in revealed theology, if true, delivers
a knowledge which bears on human salvation.

9. NATURAL THEOLOGY:
A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT OF GOD’S
EXISTENCE
 COSMOLOGICAL
 TELEOLOGICAL

10. COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS
 Because it is based on the kosmos, the Greek word for
world. The world means here not just Earth by the whole
physical universe or the sum total of space and time.
 It is also called the First-Cause Argument because it
attempts to show that there must be a first cause of the
world.
EXAMPLE:
 There has to be a God, because, well the universe couldn’t
just happen.
 Do you think things just popped into being from nowhere?
 There must be a first cause of everything.

11. THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT IS
USUALLY FORMULATED AS FOLLOWS:
1. Here is the world, or space and time.
2. It could not be the cause of itself.
3. It could not come from nothing.
4. It could not be and effect in an infinite series of causes
and effects.
5. Therefore, it must be caused by something outside space
and time, something uncaused and ultimate.
 Stated in this way, it begins with the fact of the physical
world and then by a process of elimination arrives at the
only possible explanation for it: GOD, the FIRST CAUSED.

12. THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
Stated in categorical syllogism
All contingent (or caused) being depends for its
existence on some uncaused being.
The cosmos is a contingent being.
Therefore, the cosmos depends for its existence on some
uncaused being.

13. THE FIVE WAYS OF THE PROOF OF
GOOD ACCORDING TO AQUINAS:
The existence of Good can be proved in five ways:
1. The argument in motion.
Whatever moved is moved by another. But there is the first
mover moved by no other, and this everyone understands to be
God.
2. The nature of the efficient cause.
There is nothing in this world in which is a thing is found to be
the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself which
is impossible. Efficient causes cannot go on in infinity, because
in all efficient causes following in order, the first cause if the
cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate cause is
the cause of the ultimate cause. And to take away the cause is to
take away the effect. Therefore, it is necessary to admit a first
efficient cause, to which every one gives the name of God.

14. 3. Gradation to be found in things.
Among beings there are some more and some less
good, true, noble and the like. But more or less are
predicted of different things according as they
resemble in their different ways something which is
the maximum. Now the maximum in any genus is the
cause of all in that genus. Therefore, there must also
be something which is to all beings the cause of their
being, goodness and every other perfection.

15. 5. Governance of the world.
Things which lacks knowledge such as natural bodies,
act for an end, and this is evident from their acting
always I the same way, so as to obtain the best result.
Whatever lack knowledge cannot move towards an
end, unless it is directed by some being endowed with
knowledge and intelligence. Therefore, some
intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are
directed to their end.


16. TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
 The argument of the existence of God has something to do
with teleology.
 Teleology comes from the Greek word “telos” which means
“design or purpose”
 It is also a posteriori reasoning that employs the idea of
causality.
 God is the only adequate explanation for the apparent
order, purpose, unity, harmony and beauty of the cosmos.
 It goes beyond the cosmological argument by identifying
the ultimate cause as the rational cause and the rationality
displayed in the cosmos must be a product of mind.

17. THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
Stated in Categorical Syllogism
 Watches, houses, ships, machines, etc. all exhibit
design and they are planned and produced by
intelligent beings
 The universe exhibits designs
 Therefore, the universe was planned and produced by
an intelligent being.

18.  One of the best known, though out-of date,
statements of this argument is provided by the
Anglican divine William Paley (1743-1805).
Narrow Teleology
 In his famous, watch analogy, Paley argued that the
human eyeball demands an intelligent creator no less
that a watch.
 Paley belied in a special creation of the universe and
humans all at once, once upon a time, as a watcher
makes watch.

19.  Paley’s watch analogy became irrelevant when Charles
Darwin published the Origin of Spicies.
Darwin believed in the gradual and evolutionary
development of man over an untold number of years.
Instead of immediately fashioning , say the human
eye, evolution substituted long and progressive
sequences of natural causes and effects.

20. THEISTIC EVOLUTION
 F.R. Tennant (1866-1957) – wider or cosmic teleology
 He suggested to shift our attention from specific
instances of design to the “design of the whole” and to
appreciate the process and laws, including the
evolution as “conspiring” as it were , upon the
production of an intelligible universe, and upon
humanity – the bearer of moral and aesthetic values –
the crowning glory.