Corrado Gnerre
Some time ago, we talked about the existence of God in this column. Better: the possibility of knowing the existence of God through reason. Of course, this is an argument used by authentic Catholic philosophers. Catholic Theology also holds firm on this possibility. But I ask myself: is it logical to believe that our “finite” way of thinking can relate to God, that is, to the One who is infinite?
Dear…, It is not at all illogical and now I’ll explain why. There are three methods to relate to God, and therefore to relate the natural reality to the supernatural one, that is the creation to the creator. They are: the univocal, the analogical and the equivocal. Two are inaccurate and lead to very dangerous mistakes; one on the other hand is the right one and leads to the truth.
I will use an example dear …, that ideally will lead you to a picture gallery and will invite you to imagine that there is a guide who is illustrating a beautiful painting.
The first case. The guide, after having illustrated the painting, concludes by saying:… the painting and the painter are the same reality! What would his reaction be? Certainly like this: the guide is not using his brain! Indeed, to affirm that the picture and the painter are the same thing is illogical. This is the univocal method, that is the claim to affirm that there is a perfect identity between natural and supernatural reality, between creation and God. It is a method that leads to pantheism, which is precisely the belief that God and nature are the same thing.
Let’s now make a second case. The guide, after having illustrated the painting, states:… it is not known if the painting was painted by someone or if it just came out of nowhere. Dear …, your reaction would always be the same as the previous one: the guide is a madman! In fact, to say that a picture can come out of nowhere, without anyone having painted it, is going against the natural order of things. In this case we have an equivocal method. That is, there would be no relationship between natural reality and supernatural reality. Such a method leads to agnosticism: one cannot know if God exists, because there would be no link between creation and creator.
Third case. The guide, after describing the painting, states: … from what we are admiring we can understand a lot about the painter who made it. We can understand how good he was. We can understand how he thinks, what his feelings were, his deepest motivations. Of course, we cannot understand and know everything about him, but yes we do know a lot, yes. Dear …, in this case – let’s face it frankly – you wouldn’t want to break out, on the contrary, what the guide said is perfectly logical: the painting is not the painter, but there is a link with him, so by observing the work you can understand much of the artist. In this case the method is analog: neither perfect identity between natural and supernatural reality, nor total inequality, but analogy, similarity. Such a method leads to the most correct position: theism, or the belief in the existence of a God as the first cause, which he created, but who is not confused with creation.
As you see, dear …, it is not at all illogical in believing that with a finite reason one can investigate and discover the Infinite.
(From La buona battaglia. Apologetica cattolica in domande e risposte, 2019©Chorabooks. Translated by Aurelio Porfiri. Used with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved)
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