Answering Atheism - How to Make the Case for God with Logic and Charity

by Trent Horn

Classical theists such as Aquinas did not consider God to be one being among many (like a special star floating far away “out there”). They instead considered him to be “being” or “existence” itself. If God is the “ground of being” or the reason anything has existence, then it’s no surprise that God must exist. I have chosen to not talk about God as simply “being” itself because this is easily misunderstood as pantheism or the belief that God is identical to anything that exists, such as the book you are reading at this moment. However, when I say God is a being who explains his own existence, it’s important to remember that this quality, or God’s necessary existence, makes him a being unlike any other. It makes him, in the words of Pope John Paul II, “the supreme Being, the great “Existent.”