Saint Thomas Aquinas placed in an "imbroglio": The demonstration that God exists

Abstract

This article attempts to clarify the thesis by St. Thomas Aquinas, according to which it is possible to prove that the existence of God can be demonstrated. On the basis of the analyses in Summa Theologica I, q.2 and Summa contra gentiles I (I-XV), there is an attempt to understand the meaning and relevance of this thesis, its implications and its philosophical and theological significance. Thomas Aquinas’ analyses underline the importance of distinguishing between a knowledge about the existence of God and one regarding his essence, while highlighting in each case a set of difficulties and lack of knowledge factors. In a context where the idea of confusion plays a central role, Thomas Aquinas tries to show that a) no matter how confused knowledge about God is and no matter how large the disproportion between the human and divine perspectives, there is an ineradicable notitia Dei, and b) this notice is linked at the same time to the inability to know God’s essence and the ability to demonstrate His existence by means of certain effects and traces of His. This all leads to the peculiar demonstration of the existence of a Deus absconditus. It is precisely the discovery of this God who manifests himself and at the same time hides himself that makes it possible to document the possibility of demonstrating that God exists and that constitutes the foundations on which every and any demonstration of the existence of God rests.