Sunday, July 25, 2010

The Thomist Ground of Religion

A nice quote from James Chastek:

St. Thomas did more than anyone to show the reasonableness of the Faith, and yet his argument that religion is natural (and I here really mean religion, not some shorthand for Christianity) is that man simply cries out to something greater than himself when he is beset by his weakness and need. I’m reminded of a PBS drama that showed a group of Jews arguing about the existence of God at a concentration camp, and by the end of the show everyone had proven that God did not and could not exist. In the last moment of the show, they are all ushered away, and one of them asks “so what do we do now?” and another, with calm assurance, says “Now? Now we pray.”

James has passages like ST 2-2.85.1 in mind.