Why the Ultimate Cause of Everything in Existence Must be God

(NOTE: This it the third of a three part series on Bernard Lonergan's philosophical proof for God. Be sure to read the first part and second part.) V. The One Unrestrictedly Intelligible Uncaused Reality is an “Unrestricted Act of Thinking” We will now explain Lonergan’s contention that unrestricted intelligibility can only occur through an unrestricted idea, which in turn can only occur through an unrestricted act of thinking. As noted above, the one uncaused reality that exists... Read More

The One Cause Behind Everything Else in Reality

(NOTE: This it the second of a three part series on Bernard Lonergan's philosophical proof for God. Read the first part here. We'll share the third part on Friday.) III. A Reality which is Unrestricted in Intelligibility Must be Absolutely Unique The general argument is as follows: If there were more than one unrestrictedly intelligible reality, there would have to be a difference between the one and the other, and if there were such a difference, then one of the supposedly “unrestricted... Read More

Introducing Bernard Lonergan’s Philosophical Proof for God

(NOTE: This it the first of a three part series on Bernard Lonergan's philosophical proof for God. We'll share the second and third parts on Wednesday and Friday, respectively.) Introduction Bernard Lonergan was a Canadian Jesuit priest, philosopher, and theologian, regarded by many as one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century. He articulated a philosophical proof for God's existence which may be stated as follows: If all reality is completely intelligible, then God exists.   But... Read More

Can We Make Sense of the World?

Is reality intelligible?  Can we make sense of it?  Or is the world at bottom an unintelligible “brute fact” with no explanation?  We can tighten up these questions by distinguishing several senses in which the world might be said to be (or not to be) intelligible.  To make these distinctions is to see that the questions are not susceptible of a simple Yes or No answer.  There are in fact a number of positions one could take on the question of the world’s intelligibility –... Read More

The Theory of Everything: A God-Haunted Film

The great British physicist Stephen Hawking has emerged in recent years as a poster boy for atheism, and his heroic struggles against the ravages of Lou Gehrig’s disease have made him something of a secular saint. The new biopic “The Theory of Everything” does indeed engage in a fair amount of Hawking-hagiography, but it is also, curiously, a God-haunted movie. In one of the opening scenes, the young Hawking meets Jane, his future wife, in a bar and tells her that he is a cosmologist.... Read More