Nathan Gilmour hosts a conversation about the five “proofs of God” from the opening sections of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae. 
Our discussion ranges over what a proof is for, whether the ontology in the proofs holds up post-Kant, whether reason and revelation can really be friends, and all sorts of groovy philosophical things.
Our intro music this week is “Dear God” by Monsters of Folk, from their 2010 self-titled album.
Thank you all for another great episode. As the nature (or τέλος even) of these arguments came up several times, it’s worth noting that Thomas’s word for them is “via” (Latin for road, or path). Proof is probably not the right English word. “Way” or perhaps “demonstration” would probably be better choices.
Another question: does David Bentley Hart take up the 4th proof in any of his work? “The Beauty of the Infinite” certainly sounds rather Platonic, but I’ve not read him yet. It also strikes me that the argument from desire found in Lewis and then developed by Kreeft is a Platonic argument, though not quite the same one that Thomas makes.
[…] in 2014, the Christian Humanist Podcast had a little conversation about the medieval proofs for God, noting that in their own original context, what needed defending was not the claim that God is […]