Natural Theology

The terms of the question of God's existence, the urgency of settling it, and the chief theories — theistic and anti-theistic — that have been advanced.

Whether God's existence needs demonstrating and whether it can be demonstrated; the rejection of the ontological argument and the case for a posteriori proof.

The four causes — material, formal, efficient, and final — and the distinction of cause from principle, reason, and occasion, as the framework for the proofs of God's existence.

The proofs from motion, from the order of efficient causes, and from contingency — the first three of the traditional Thomistic ways.

The proofs from grades of perfection and from the order and design of the universe — the fourth and fifth ways.

The moral proof from conscience and obligation, the historical proof from the universality of religion, and indirect proofs which reduce the denial of God to absurdity.

The perfections that reason establishes of God — aseity, simplicity, spirituality, infinity, unicity, and the rest — which taken together constitute His physical essence.

The theories advanced on the metaphysical essence of God, and the conclusion that it consists in His radical aseity — that He is Subsistent Being Itself.

What a divine attribute is, how it differs from the divine essence, and how the attributes are classified.

The divine attributes of goodness, immensity, immutability, and eternity, established in detail and defended against misconception.

The divine knowledge — its perfection, its object, the divine ideas, and the classification of God's knowledge, including the vexed question of future contingencies.

The divine will — its nature, the classification of God's will-acts, its object, and the standing difficulty of the divine will in relation to evil.

What personality means, the demonstration that God is personal, and the mistaken notions which deny or disfigure the divine personality.

The power of God, the meaning of creation as production from nothing, and the demonstration that the world was in fact created.

The fact of divine conservation — that creatures depend on God for continuance in being as truly as for their first production.

The fact of divine concurrence with the action of creatures, and the disputed question of its mode — the Premotionist and Molinist positions.

Divine governance and providence — their meaning, the demonstration of the fact, and the difficulties raised against them, chiefly the problem of evil.