God is conceived in the Christian tradition as: a. The creator of all that exists; b. a personal god, having a particular identity that makes Him a person; c. capable of becoming incarnated in human form while still remaining God; d. having a particular concern and interest in all that exists, as caring about each individual; e. all powerful; f. all knowing; g. completely moral and good.
a. Aristotle's God and Plato's form of the Good are completely formal; it does not make sense to speak of them as being persons.
b. Neither the Form of the Good nor Aristotle's God has any special relationship or concern for any individuals. In fact their formal, abstract nature rules out such relationships between the ultimate existence and individuals for Plato and Aristotle.
a. Individuality: In Christianity it is possible to escape the pain and suffering of the material world and reach a higher realm without giving up one's individuality or particularity. In Plato and Aristotle we become safe from the things that can happen to us in the material world by withdrawing from any commitments we might have to particular material things.
b. Subjective relationships: Living a fulfilling life in Christianity essentially involves subjective commitments and relationships with other people and with God. Thus, Jesus summarizes the way to a fulfilling life in two laws: (1) Love God above all things; and (2) Love your neighbor as yourself. This obviously involves a deep commitment to particular relationships rather that a withdrawal from them.
c. Internal/External Distinction: The distinction between the soul and the body and the distinction between those concerns that are most important and real and those which are more illusory becomes a distinction between the internal and the external for Christianity. Leading a fulfilling life and developing the essential part of us involves paying attention to our internal nature, our soul and its subjective condition and commitments, rather than external actions and concerns. (This is different than in Plato and Aristotle where this distinction is made in terms of the particular and the general, matter and form.) The subjective-objective distinction becomes a distinction between the internal and the external, rather than a distinction between the formal and the particular as it had been with the Greek philosophers.
d. Free Will: The human soul for Christianity is no longer characterized simply by reason. Humans also essentially have will. This is the ability to make subjective commitments to activities, persons, values and goals. This ability to subjectively commit oneself makes it possible to give order and meaning to our lives through commitments to God and other people. In Christianity, the will is seen as being free from determination by reason or by outside influences. It is possible for us to overcome outside influences and commit our will in the correct way, and it is possible for us to ignore reason and commit our will in the wrong way. (In Plato, reason would completely control the soul in its correct state, wisdom. There would be no possibility of acting contrary to reason.)
Since Christianity sees the key to leading a fulfilling life in certain types of subjective commitments of the will it is important to have an account of the types of subjective commitments that will help to lead a fulfilling life and those that will hinder this attempt.
A. Virtue: A virtue is an excellence of character or of the subjective commitment of one's will. They make it easier to find value and live a fulfilling life. An external action cannot be seen as virtuous or unvirtuous unless one sees what type of character or subjective commitment the action flows from.
The Cardinal Virtues: These are the virtues recognized by the Greeks. They involve wisdom or the control of the other faculties by reason:
1. wisdom. 3. justice.
2. temperance. 4. courage.
The Christian virtues: These are uniquely Christian virtues. They involve particular types of commitments of the will:
B. Sin: Sin is a defect in character or in the type of subjective commitments we are capable of. These make it more difficult to find value and lead a fulfilling life. Again, an act is sinful because it flows from a sinful character, from a type of sickness of the will.
1. God is seen as all powerful and all knowing. He is aware of all that happens and has the power to change it.
2. God is seen as completely good. Any action that produces less than the maximum possible amount of good is incompatible with God's nature.
These three facts about how we conceive God are often seen as incompatible with two facts about how the world seems to us.
1. Natural evil: It seems that many things in the world are evil. That is, it seems that the world would have been better off otherwise.
2. Moral evil: Humans, who were created by God, seem capable of great evils as well.
1. God is a being greater than which none can be conceived.
2. A being that exists in reality is greater than a being that exists in thought only.
3. Assume that God doesn't exist in reality. (RAA assumption)
4. God, therefore (from 2 and 3), wouldn't be the best being we could conceive. (A perfect being that existed in reality would be better.)
5. But this is absurd. (It contradicts number 1.)
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Therefore, God exists.
1. The world contains things that are in motion.
2. Whatever is moved, is moved by another. A thing cannot move itself. (This is proved from the nature of potentiality and actuality.)
3. All motion cannot be moved by something else, or else there would be an infinite regress of movers.
4. There cannot be an infinite regress of movers, or else all motion would be impossible, having no original source.
Therefore,
5. There must be an original source of motion who moves other things, but is not itself moved: an unmoved mover.
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Therefore, God exists.
1. All things must have an efficient cause, or cause for their existence.
2. No thing can be the efficient cause of itself, for this would require that it existed before itself.
3. There cannot be an infinite regress of efficient causes, or nothing would be able to exist since there would be no original cause.
Therefore,
4. There must be a first efficient cause.
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Therefore, God exists.
1. Some things in nature are contingent; they can either be or not-be.
2. All things that can not-be at some time do not exist.
Therefore,
3. If everything can not-be, then at one time nothing existed.
4. If this were so then nothing could exist now, since if nothing existed there would be nothing to bring anything into existence.
5. But things do exist now.
Therefore,
6. Not all that exists is contingent. There must be some things that exist necessarily.
7. All things that exist necessarily must have a necessary cause.
8. This regression of causes cannot go on infinitely.
Therefore,
9. There must exist a necessary being which gets its necessity from itself and not from something else.
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Therefore, God exists.
1. Of the things that exist some are more good and some are less.
2. Things can be said to have more or less of a property only insofar as they resemble something that is the maximum of that property.
3. The maximum of any genus is the cause of all the things of that genus.
Therefore,
4. There must be some thing which is the cause of the being and the goodness of all that exists.
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Therefore, God exists.
1. Things in the world that lack intelligence act so as to achieve the best result.
2. Hence, they achieve their end, not fortuitously, but by design.
3. Whatever lacks knowledge cannot move towards an end unless governed by something else with intelligence.
Therefore,
4. Some intelligent being exists by whom all things are directed towards their end.
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Therefore, God exists.