Thomas Griffin 4/28/24
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Rational dialogue is dead and gone when people decide they can define terms in any way they see fit.
Thomas Aquinas provides a simple but desperately needed definition for our time. Truth is the correct correlation between one’s mind and the external reality. The most fundamental debate that must be kept rational and cogent is the one that determines everything else. Namely, is God real? So many of the issues we have in our hearts, our culture and our country are actually rooted in the inability to have a rational discussion on the existence of God.
Most think that proving God’s existence is impossible and that this truth, like all others, is simply a matter of opinion – relative to who is being asked and what one thinks. We have accepted that people can have contradictory claims regarding the same topic and both can still be logically correct. This is the result of the advancement of tolerance as the greatest good. We have to accept everyone’s opinion as true. Over 2,300 years ago, however, Aristotle explained the principle of noncontradiction as the fact that “opposite assertions cannot be true at the same time” (Metaph IV 6 1011b13–20). Truth is not in opposition to tolerance; tolerance must serve truth.
Despite this ancient found fact, our country continues to move further away from logical reasoning. The founding fathers were, in many ways, the result of the Enlightenment (1715-1789). The time period that was so concerned with depending on reason and science gave birth to America. Now, there are so many forces attempting to drop reason on its head and sign up for a culture dependent on feelings and relativistic ideologies.
The acceptance of irrational inquiry into the ground of being itself allowed for the misunderstanding and transformation of the realities of marriage, gender, and reality itself. “From nothing comes nothing,” said Parmenides. Yet, we accept that it is logical to pose that the material world has no cause. When we live as atheists we risk ruining the human project because we forget that all things must bow to Him.
All matter must have a cause, so there must be a God. However, the organization of the universe also points to God’s existence. Edwin Conklin, one of Albert Einstein’s closest associates, stated that the probability of the universe originating from a random act explosion would be analogous to a printing press exploding and forming into a perfectly organized unabridged dictionary. Essentially, the probability is zero.
If human beings refuse to use their reason to conclude that something cannot come from nothing and that all matter must have a cause, how can we possibly agree on realities of sexuality, governance, marriage and the family? The consequences of the incapacity to speak rationally about God’s existence have become catastrophic.
These words can make one think that I am calling down the apocalypse but that is not my intention at all. The reason why we need to show, logically, that God is real is simple. Truth is real so there is either a God or no God. Morality is either real or a fabrication Sin is either real or it is a guilt trip of the imagination.
If God is real then we know we are made on purpose and for a purpose. We are infinitely loved. We did not have to exist but we do exist. Nothing has to exist, but it does. So, we are called to come more and more to grips with the fact that there are facts about reality. This will impact the way that we live. It will also impact our happiness more than anything else in this world.
C.S. Lewis, in his masterpiece entitled Mere Christianity, said: “God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there.”
If you saw someone fill up their Honda with orange juice while you were at gas station you would think they were crazy because that will destroy their car. When we make anything besides God our number one focus it has the same effect – it destroys us. The wreckage we see in American politics, the average family and our overall culture is that result.
Don’t be so convinced that proving God’s existence is impossible or that it is irrelevant. Logical reasoning shows us that God is real and that defining the truth is crucial. Define reality for what it is and stand by the truth. Because without unchanging definitions the truth is determined by those in power, and that is both anti-logic and anti-Christian. It also leads to a world that drives away God rather than cling to Him out of devotion, trust and love.
Thomas Griffin is the chairperson of the religion department at a Catholic high school on Long Island where he lives with his wife and two sons. He has a masters degree in theology and is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Empty Tomb Project: The Magazine.
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