This week we continue our examination of the Creed with our focus centering on the meaning of “One God.”  The Christian faith is one of the major religions in the world that follows a monotheistic belief, or the belief in one God.  We do know from Scripture that we believe in one God for it is the First Commandment that God gave to Moses:  “I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. You may not have other gods beside me” (Exodus 20:2-3).  As I mentioned last week, we can also come to the knowledge of God through our reason alone.  St. Thomas Aquinas provides us with 5 proofs of the existence of God from our reason.

1.  Motion—According to Aquinas, everything that is put in motion has to be placed in motion by something else.  For example, my car cannot move itself.  I have to put gas in it and hit the ignition, as well as other things, to move it.  Even our own existence is not brought in motion by ourselves.  The problem is we cannot have an infinite backward chain of motion.  Something has to be able to start the motion without being moved itself, which would be called the “First Mover”.  This “First Mover” is God.
2. Cause—Similar to motion, nothing in existence can cause itself.  The reason my car starts is because I do something to cause it to start.  The reason I exist is because of my parents and their parents before them and so forth.  Like motion, cause cannot go infinitely back in time because, without it, the universe would have never have a beginning.  This is part of the Big Bang Theory.  Something must have caused the universe to exist and not just a random Big Bang, and the “First Cause” is what we call God.
3. Necessity—Everything in existence has the possibility of existing or not.  For example, my car did not exist until the manufacturer thought of the idea, designed, and built the car.  The problem with all of existence is that if nothing ever existed, then something cannot come from it.  Something cannot come from nothing like magic.  With that in mind, there must be a necessary being who must exist in order for everything else to exist.  We call the “Necessary Being” God.
4. Degrees of Perfection—When we say something is beautiful, we are attempting to express that something is aesthetically pleasing as compared to other things.  For example, I believe a Ford Mustang is a beautiful car.  This is based on comparing the Mustang to other cars in a degree that I believe to be more perfect than other cars.  Beauty in a car can be subjective, but even that beauty needs a principle to compare what is beautiful and what is ugly.  Something has to be the most true, the most good, and the most beautiful objectively for us to be able to compare it to other things.  That which is the “most” is God.
5. Governance—The final proof centers on the concept that things that exist in order must have an intelligence behind the order.  I could not throw an engine, tires, seats, battery, transmission, and other parts in a pile together and expect a car to suddenly appear.  There must be someone there to put the car together.  The universe is the same way.  The balance of the stars, planets, and other objects in space come together in an ordered and beautiful way.  If this was all random, then how could me measure and predict things in the universe and on our planet?  With this in mind, there must be an “intelligence” behind the universe’s order which we call God.

As you can see, we can reasonably come to the conclusion that God exists and based on these proofs we can see how it is one God (the First Mover and First Cause arguments prove that one can begin).  The issue with the proofs is that it does not explain God in a relational way.  They show us that God does exist, but not who God is, which is why God enters into our history through his interactions with Adam and Eve, Abraham, Israel, and ultimately through Jesus Christ.  Reason shows us that God exists, but revelation shows us who God is and His love for us.  This is what the rest of the Creed will state.