Thomas Aquinas’s famous work called the Summa Theologiae has three main parts. The first part deals with the presence of God in creation. The second part deals with the presence of God by grace in the souls of the just. And the third part deals with the presence of God in Christ and in his mystical body, the Church. The whole thing is really an extended meditation on the presence of God. But one of the greatest questions of all times is whether God exists.

托马斯·阿奎那的著作《神学大全》分为三大部分。第一部分探讨神在创造中的存在。第二部分探讨神以恩典在义人灵魂中的存在。第三部分探讨神在基督和他的奥秘身体——教会中的存在。整部著作实际上是对神的临在的深入默想。但历代最伟大的问题之一是神是否存在。

And Thomas takes the question head-on with his famous five ways, or five proofs, for the existence of God.

托马斯以他著名的五种方法，或五种证明，正面回答了这个问题，证明神的存在。

In this episode, we will give a brief sketch of the five ways.

在这一集，我们将简述这五种方法。

But let us first ask how human beings can know the existence of God.

但让我们首先问，人如何能知道神的存在。

One way to know God’s existence is by taking it on faith from what the Bible says. But Thomas is well aware that the Bible itself tells us that there’s another way to know the existence of God.

知道神存在的一种方式是凭信心接受圣经所说的。但托马斯深知，圣经本身也告诉我们，还有另一种方式可以知道神的存在。

In Romans chapter 1, verse 20, St. Paul tells us that the existence of God is known to everyone, at least in a general and confused sort of way, from the beauty and goodness of the natural world.

在罗马书第一章第二十节，圣保罗告诉我们，神的存在是众所周知的，至少是从自然界的美丽和善良中，以一种普遍而模糊的方式得知的。

And Romans chapter 1, verse 20, is a quick summary of a longer passage in the Book of Wisdom, chapter 13, verses 1 to 9. The two passages tell us to expect to find human beings who have never even read the Bible, but know that God exists just from their experience and rational reflection upon the natural world. Now, when Aquinas turned to the writings of ancient pagan philosophers, he found exactly that. He found people who had never read the Bible, but who had given serious arguments for the existence of God. The writings of ancient pagan philosophers confirmed the biblical teaching that it is possible for human beings to know the existence of God without ever even having read the Bible. For both of these reasons, Aquinas taught that human beings have a natural knowledge of God, or to put it another way, that we can know the existence of God by using our natural reason or human intelligence. That is the kind of knowledge we’re exploring here, our natural knowledge of God. Now, Thomas did not say that our natural knowledge of God was always explicit, clear, or easy to come by. He did not affirm that the existence of God was undeniable. Rather, he thought of the natural knowledge of God as falling on a spectrum of cognitive development. Everyone has a common and confused knowledge of God’s existence, but like any other form of knowledge, this common and confused knowledge of God is open to development for those who have the time, interest, and intellectual gifts for developing it. Thomas also realized that it was hard to develop our natural knowledge of God, and many factors stand in the way. Depending on cultural circumstances, people will develop it more or less, but generally not to its fullest perfection. But, he says, a few people, after a long time, and still with some errors mixed in, will develop their natural knowledge of God to such an extent that they can offer philosophically rigorous proofs for the existence of God, and answer all objections to those proofs with great dialectical skill. This is the task he takes up in the famous passage on the five ways, and in other more extensive writings of his on the topic. So, how exactly do we know the existence of God? The basic principle behind the five ways is that we know the existence of God from our experience of the world of nature, and looking for an ultimate explanation of it. We use the same kind of reasoning that we use when we know the existence of any invisible cause from visible effects. For example, if I’m driving down the freeway and see a billowing cloud of smoke coming up from the horizon, I can infer there must be a fire, even if I do not see the fire, even if it’s blocked from my view. The fire is invisible, but the smoke it produces is not, and I know the existence of the invisible cause from the visible effect. Or similarly, if I wake up one morning with a sore throat, I infer that I have some kind of infection or virus. I do not see the infection or the virus. The cause of the sore throat is invisible, but I know that it’s there by reasoning from the experience of the symptoms. So it is with our knowledge of God. What we see or experience around us is the natural world. God is invisible. We don’t see him, but from what we do see and experience of the natural world, we can infer that something must be behind it all.

罗马书第一章二十节是智慧书第十三章一至九节更长段落的简要总结。这两段经文告诉我们，即使从未读过圣经的人，也可以通过对自然界的经验和理性反思知道神的存在。当托马斯研究古代异教哲学家的著作时，他正好发现了这一点。他发现一些从未读过圣经的人，提出了关于神存在的严肃论证。古代异教哲学家的著作证实了圣经的教导，即人类能在未读过圣经的情况下知道神的存在。基于这两个理由，托马斯教导说，人类对神有一种自然的知识，换句话说，我们可以通过使用自然理性或人类智慧来知道神的存在。这就是我们在这里探讨的知识，我们对神的自然知识。托马斯并没有说我们对神的自然知识总是明确、清晰或容易获得。他并没有肯定神的存在是不可否认的。相反，他认为对神的自然知识是在认知发展的一个光谱上。每个人都有一个普遍而模糊的对神存在的知识，但像其他任何形式的知识一样，这种普遍而模糊的对神的知识是可以发展的，特别是对于那些有时间、兴趣和智力天赋去发展它的人。托马斯还认识到，发展我们对神的自然知识是困难的，许多因素会阻碍这一过程。根据文化环境的不同，人们会在不同程度上发展这种知识，但通常不会达到最完美的状态。但他说，有些人经过长时间的努力，虽然仍然有一些错误混杂在其中，能够发展出对神的自然知识，以至于他们可以提供哲学上严谨的神存在的证明，并以极高的辩证技巧回答对这些证明的所有反对意见。这是他在著名的五种方式的段落以及其他更广泛的著作中所承担的任务。那么，我们如何确切地知道神的存在呢？五种方式背后的基本原则是我们通过对自然界的经验，寻找其最终解释来知道神的存在。我们使用与知道任何无形原因从可见的效果相同的推理。例如，如果我在高速公路上行驶，看到地平线上升起一团浓烟，我可以推断那里一定有火，即使我看不到火，即使它被挡住了。火是无形的，但它产生的烟雾是可见的，我从可见的效果中知道了无形原因的存在。同样，如果我早上醒来喉咙痛，我推断我得了某种感染或病毒。我看不到感染或病毒，喉咙痛的原因是无形的，但通过症状的经验，我知道它的存在。因此，我们对神的知识也是如此。我们所看到或体验到的是自然界。神是无形的，我们看不到他，但通过我们对自然界的观察和体验，我们可以推断一定有某种东西在背后。

Something is responsible for the greatness, the beauty, the order of the world. Aquinas thought that this inference from the order of the world to the existence of something responsible for the order of the world was so fundamental that nearly all human beings reason this way.

有某种东西负责世界的伟大、美丽和秩序。阿奎那认为，从世界的秩序推论出有某种东西负责世界的秩序，这是如此根本，以至于几乎所有人类都这样推理。

But he also realized that this inference or argument was something like a seed. The seed can develop and grow through study and the application of the mind to the many philosophical issues involved in making the inference. But the seed can also be crushed by attachment to sin, willful self-denial, false philosophies, and other adverse conditions that ruin it.

但他也意识到，这种推论或论点如同种子。种子可以通过研究和思想的运用，在许多哲学问题上发展和成长。但这颗种子也可能因罪恶的依附、故意的自我否认、虚假的哲学以及其他不利的条件而被摧毁。

So we’re not committed to saying that agnosticism and atheism are impossible. They might even become prevalent in some societies. But we are committed to saying that natural theology is possible for human beings. And Thomas Aquinas is an example of someone who developed this natural knowledge of God to an extremely high degree. What he did was take the general argument from the order of nature and think it through along much more specific lines. To spell this out, let us give a sketch of each of the five ways. In the first way, we start with our experience of the order in the motion or change of things around us in nature. And careful study of what motion and change are leads us to conclude that there must be a first mover or unmoved mover or an ultimate source of change in things. In the second way, we start with our experience of an order of cause and effect in things around us. When we reflect carefully on what causality is, we learn that in order for there to be causes at work, there must be a first cause or uncaused cause. In the third way, we start by considering the order of contingent beings, things that exist but do not have to exist. When we reflect on things that exist but do not have to exist, we naturally ask, why do they exist? This leads to the conclusion that there must be a source of the very existence of contingent beings, and the source cannot not exist. The source simply is. In the fourth way, we look at how things around us exist in grades of perfection, and the grades of perfection lead to the conclusion that there must be a perfect being, the source of being in everything else.

所以我们并不认为不可知论和无神论是不可能的。它们甚至可能在某些社会中变得普遍。但我们坚信自然神学对人类是可能的。托马斯·阿奎那就是一个将自然神知识发展到极高程度的例子。他所做的是从自然的秩序中提出一般论点，并沿着更具体的思路进行思考。为了详细说明这一点，让我们概述一下这五种方法。第一种方法是从我们对自然界中事物运动或变化的秩序的经验开始。对运动和变化的仔细研究使我们得出结论，必须有一个第一推动者或不动的推动者，或者是事物变化的最终源头。第二种方法是从我们对周围事物因果秩序的经验开始。当我们仔细反思因果关系时，我们了解到，为了使因果关系存在，必须有一个第一原因或未受因果影响的原因。第三种方法是从考虑偶然存在的事物秩序开始，即存在但不必然存在的事物。当我们思考那些存在但不必然存在的事物时，我们自然会问，它们为什么存在？这引导我们得出结论，必须有一个偶然存在的事物的存在源头，而这个源头是必须存在的。这个源头就是存在本身。第四种方法是观察我们周围事物在完美程度上的存在，这些完美程度引导我们得出结论，必须有一个完美的存在者，是所有其他事物存在的源头。

And finally, in the fifth way, we find in nature that things without intelligence act for the sake of ends. Honeybees work to produce honey even though they do not have intelligence, properly speaking. Things without intelligence cannot work for the sake of an end unless a higher intelligence is directing them. This leads us to conclude that there must be a supreme mind or intelligence behind it all. Now what I have given here are just sketches of the arguments, and one can spend a lifetime considering all the issues surrounding them. But even the sketches give us a way to begin meditating on the presence of God in the world around us. God is present in things, moving them, causing them, giving them being, and directing the course of everything.

最后，在第五个方面，我们在自然界中发现无智的事物也为目的而行动。蜜蜂虽然没有真正的智慧，却会酿蜜。无智的事物若非有更高的智慧引导，是不能为目的而工作的。这使我们得出结论，必定有一个至高的心智或智慧在背后引导这一切。我在这里给出的只是论据的概要，人们可以花一生的时间来思考其中的所有问题。但即使是这些概要，也为我们开始默想神在我们周围世界中的存在提供了方法。神存在于万物之中，推动它们，成就它们，赋予它们存在，并引导一切的进程。

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