Cosmological Evidence for God

Welcome to Catholic Stuff You Should Know, the J-10 Initiative. Good afternoon, Father Sean Conroy. Good afternoon, Father Jacob. And good, whatever the time you're listening, listen to Land.

Good morning, good afternoon, good night, good day. We are here with Catholic Stuff You Should Know, telling you Stuff You Should Know. We hope so, dude. I'm a little tired right now.

I hope you can deal with that. Why are you tired? Well, I kind of fell asleep during the last conference. Ooh, we won't talk about it.

We are at the priest's convocation. This is year two, where we've recorded on Convocation, so we're making a tradition. That's a tradition. That's a tradition to come.

I'm going to record with Father John when I get home on Thursday. We're going to do a back-to-back. Back-to-back, that's right. We've got some recordings coming up.

The Dante series is pretty much over. I've got to record the Dante series. Okay. Part DCO.

Part DCO. And then we're done with Dante. And then, I don't know, should we do another series or should we just do the good old make up your topic as you go? Well, you know I like to make things up as I go.

Yes, so do I. But I have a couple of topic ideas, but waiting for my life to not be in as much flux. I'm moving in two weeks from the recording of this episode. This is true.

I'm moving in less than two weeks from the listening to this episode. Also true. And you are moving in two months. Surprise, I am moving.

Have you talked about that? I have not yet. Oh, well welcome to the inner loop, inner circle that everybody now knows because we announced publicly. Divine Mercy Sunday, right?

Divine Mercy Sunday, yes. Where are you going, Father John? I have known for like two and a half months. I just haven't been able to talk about it.

And then Divine Mercy Sunday, it's not very merciful. I've been trying to get it out of him. I was trying to get the news. And then you get all like, coy and I'm not going anywhere.

I've just been here for a year. And I'm like, that means you're definitely going somewhere. You're literally not allowed to talk about it. And then all these people are like, did you get a phone call?

I'm just like, you're not allowed to ask that because you're not allowed to know. Well, you're not allowed to know. But I can try and figure stuff out. Yes, that is called manipulation.

And it's sinful. And I figured out Sean was moving somewhere. But I didn't know where, but I'm very excited now that it's public that you are going to. I have been named the pastor of Our Lady of Lords and St.

Louis Parishes and Denver. And respectively. So as you all know, I was there for four years as parochial vicar under Father Brian Larkin. And then for the Brian has gotten to his 12 years, it's time for him to move.

And yeah, the diocese asked me, the Archbishop asked me to succeed him, which is a huge honor. I'm excited. I'm nervous. All the emotions.

All at once. But I would say mostly excited and honored. I mean, it's a huge first pastor at which is why I'm nervous. I was expecting just like a small little country parish that, you know, you have like 500 people that come to mass, like per weekend.

But instead they give me, you know, and they believe in me. Like I'm honored by that. So it should be great. Hopefully.

Hey, hopefully. Well, I put in for that job and they didn't give it to me. They sent me a donation I had since then because that's how it works. And we like apply and we're looking for promotions.

Dude, it's funny because I've requested a non-station Heights. Oh, so you've actually denied me. They've given it to you. Yes, because they like me more.

I also got one of those really cool Archdiocese of Denver sweatshirts that they only sent the email out to the cool people for. And you didn't get the email for them. Yeah, because you work for the chance for your offices. I don't know what that might be.

I don't know. As Chaplin, as like, I don't say it's like under the AOD. I don't know if others don't tell you that. The email went out for some Archdiocese swag and it went to the cool people and he didn't get one.

Dude, I was actually legit Matt when I saw Father David Hall wearing the Archdiocese of Denver hoodie. I just want a hoodie. No. That's all I want.

You've got your crit to hoodie. What else do you need? I do like this crassio guy hoodie. People are like, do you work for crassio?

I hope Archbishop Emeritus Aquila is listening to this episode and going like, I am so glad to be done with these guys. I know. No, he said like he was like crying tears of joy. I'm just like, thank God I'm done.

And thank God that it's Archbishop James Golka. Which we are so pumped for as well. I mean, it's all good news. Yeah.

No, Archbishop was awesome. I wish will he ordained me. He did ordained me. We owe him our priesthoods in real way with that.

He was a good father to both of us. And I'm sad to see him go. Very excited to see Bishop Golka can take in the reigns. All is good.

I've really appreciated Bishop Golka's kind of just modeling, receiving a call that he wasn't expecting, being the bishop in a new diocese and just taking it as the Lord's will. Especially as I'm, you know, making a move and you're making a move and we're just receiving as God's will. Amen. It's hard to move.

Yeah. It's hard to move. Especially your first assignment. It was really hard when I left Lords to go to the same time as more.

But I've just really fallen in love with the same time as more. There's really good people there. I'm going to miss it. First assignment is always the hardest.

We often say the first assignment is for the priest. Every other assignment is for the people. So you've learned how to be a priest in many ways from the good people of Glenwood Springs. The people form us.

We form the people. It's a reciprocal loop. So I am very grateful. I will be back to visit the people in Glenwood Springs.

I'm very sad. Especially the school. I think I mentioned that last time we talked about it. But.

I think summer camp. You'll receive many graces with summer camp. I would anticipate the two hardest things if I were going there and maybe you can relate to this. One, you don't really have a stable people.

Right? You get new campers each week. You get new families each weekend. And the second thing is your busy times are everyone's slow times.

Meaning when are you going to take vacation with Brother Priest? Because most priests will take vacation. At least I do. I try to take vacation during the summer.

That's when all my kids are on summer break. For you. You can't take vacation during the summer. Summer is my busy time now.

Here's my proposal, Father Jake. Since you get January off more or less. Yeah. Not really.

They closed the camp for two weeks. Since you get half of January off. Maybe we could do one of two things. One, we could go to Southern Hemisphere and enjoy summer.

Or we could go to Alaska and have sweet skilines. Real winter. It would be epic. Winter winter.

I'm hearing Father Sean says I'm a pastor now. I'm also going to close January for two weeks. Give them a J-term. I'm okay with that.

One of the cool things I do get to do with the camp is people coming in every week for camps. But there's the year-long missionaries and the summer missionaries. They come in typically young adults, college age, gap years, things like that. And then there's the full-time staff.

And so there's a regular community that I'll be working with. And especially those missionaries I get to do formation with. And one of the things we'll do is pilgrimage. And so they kind of do a state-side pilgrimage and then they do a pilgrimage out of the country.

And I don't know when they started doing this or how long it's been going because I'm still new to everything. But it's like every other year. And I think two years or three years ago they went to Rome and the CC. And then last year they did something in the US.

And then this year they were hoping to go to the whole event. And do everything going on there. We're actually going back to Rome and the CC. So I'm excited to inherit that.

But that will be in January. So I will be working in January a little bit. And then we do a February. And in January or somewhere in February we do a five-day silent retreat for the missionaries.

So I'll be leading that which is exciting. So are you saying you'll be working all year round and you have a vacation? Sam, there's a chance. No, I do.

Things to come down during the winter. Thanksgiving week is quiet. And Father David Hall, also with being Bishop Secretary, has that week open with that schedule. And so me and him are going to go visit our brother, Father Trevor Lontine, in Rome.

Which is a little bit sad because we are going when the companions at Denver are meeting for Villa. But we're going to go do a mini-Villa with Father Trevor so he feels included. That's my excuse. I mostly just want to go to Rome and visit him.

So you're going to Rome twice in one year? I am. Wow. I did that last year.

I'm going to go November and then I'm going to go in January. Twice in one fiscal year. Yeah. Once for a work and once for play.

Yeah. So companions, we allegedly have this rule called only one international trip per calendar or per year per fiscal year calendar. That's how the rules written. And I think all of us break it.

Like I broke it last year. I went to Rome twice last year. Yeah. There's a room for discussion with the moderator related to the work element of it.

Kind of like optional pilgrimage that I'm kind of sucked into because of my work. And yes, I'll enjoy it. But I'm working a lot. Or is this kind of like a vacation type of thing.

The risk is you can kind of get invited to a lot of things or a lot of pilgrimages or start stacking. And then all of a sudden it's kind of like. Priests go on these things for free, right? Like free in the sense that like we're paid because like as a chaplain like you're working.

If you're leading a pilgrimage like you're celebrating mass, you're giving homilies, you're kind of leading the tour group. That's work involved. And so your ticket is free. That's the perk of leading a trip.

However, you could be invited to go on pilgrimages like five times a year. And what are you going to do going five international trips? It becomes ostentatious. All that to say, we try to live poverty somewhat as companions.

And it's hard, but we strive for it. That's all I can say about that. I'm not going to go out of the country. So I think I guess that means we're going to Alaska in January.

That's what I'm hearing. We can go to Alaska. Or. Does Canada count?

Can we get some key turns in Canada? It is tricky. It is international, but it's not overseas. Is it ostentatious?

Definitely ostentatious. I don't know. I've got to figure out when I move in, I will see what my life and schedule will be. But I'm excited for it.

Yeah. I think you're going to crush it. It'll be. Yeah.

I mean, you've lived in Glen with the last couple of years. So you'll still be in the mountains. You'll still be far away. But I actually think I'll see you more at an sensation heights then.

Yeah. I'm closer to the metro area by an hour. I'm closer to, well, I guess I'm closer to Denver by an hour. I'm closer to Boulder and Longmont by a lot more.

I'm like an hour from each of them. But if you're in listener land and you know if other Jason Wunch, our moderator, the companions, don't tell him that I feel like I'm closer to everything. I still want the excuse that it's from the mountains. And it's really hard to get down there and it's hard to get there for Lord's Day.

Totally. But if they're doing Lord's Day in Boulder, that'll save you. No, I'm excited. With the, like you said, the schedule's different at camp.

So my summer's busy. I've been able to come down for all the association gatherings, or not all, but a lot of them. Well, I'm in Glenwood, but I couldn't come down for any association Lord's Day. During the summer, I won't be able to come to the association gatherings for those two months.

But I should be able to make the association Lord's Day's every month. So just things are different. And then hopefully I'll be able to be in some of them of normalcy with Lord's Day. With the Boulder guys and the Fort Collins guys.

So yes, Fort fun. I think what Joseph was trying to call it now. Interesting. Don't roll your eyes.

Fort fun. It's going to be fun. Yes, this is. Yes.

Oh, yeah, yeah. So what message do you have for your new parishioners? Pray for me. But I might be a holy pastor in the parish well.

You all know me. I was there for four years. Hopefully you're excited and not scared. What do you have for your outgoing parishioners?

Also pray for me that I might be a holy pastor. Again, I love my time at St. Thomas More. It really is a great place.

And I think when you have a big parish, you're going to have a lot of turnover. Because you have a lot of prokey liquors who, yeah, there's a changeover. And I know it's been really hard on the parishioners. They get close to someone that leaves.

But don't be discouraged by that. Continue to draw close to priests and continue to draw close to Christ through priests. Amen, brother. That's our privilege.

All right. Stop stalling. Can we just get to your topic early? No, because it's not a super heavy lift topic.

So I wanted to banter a lot. I have a short episode. All of our episodes have to be an hour long. They have to be an hour long.

You must suffer with us. What's in your pocket over here? What's in your pocket? I think there's a deodorant in Zinn.

That's what you need in your pocket. Anywho. Yeah. It's sweaty out here.

It's hot. It's almost summertime. I left my deodorant in the car in the docket and I needed to grab it after a meeting. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm a mess. I'm sorry I'm admitting this live. We can just get on with you.

Very awkward now. I appreciate you bringing that. It wasn't awkward. There's anyway, my topic today.

Yes. I read this article. There's a writer, physicist, Sarah Salviander. She writes a sub-stack called Schrodinger's Poodle.

She is a Christian believer, physicist. She basically writes articles on how faith and science coexist, how she came to faith during her university studies, especially studying physics. This is just a very simple article. She said the five science-based arguments, how these five science-based arguments destroyed my atheism.

I was reading it and I appreciate them and I'm going to share them with you and you can comment on them. But I also want to ask you the question of what is it that's most compelling, most convincing of you for the existence of God. Is it experiential? Is it liturgy?

Is it science-based? Is it scripture-based? So as I'm reading through these, think about that. But these are what the science-based ones and you guys know that I want to be science nerd.

All the actual science nerds are way smarter than me. I know what they're talking about, but I love looking at the pictures and reading the explanations of things that they do. Yeah, sure books. I've been leaked out at the Artemis II mission around the moon, which Father Sean is trying to deny.

Or are you denying that one? The moon landing? The new one. Artemis II.

Oh, I don't think Artemis II, actually. Well, can we not talk about this on the podcast? People already think I'm of crazy lunatic. That's why I brought it up.

I want them to think you're crazy lunatic. Those photos were awesome. Could you see any of them? Which ones are the ones that they were taking of the moon or back to Earth?

Both. So there was the moon famous moonrise photo in 68 from Apollo 8. As they came around the moon, they saw the photo of, or they saw the Earth kind of appearing from outside the moon as they came around the dark side. And there's actually some really fun audio that they have recording from that moment where they have this slide film in the Hasselblad camera that they're looking at.

And it was a black and white. So the first photo they actually took is black and white, because they were taking black and white photos for the detail of the moon. And then he's like, oh, you got to pass in one of those color cartridges. And then by the time he gets it, he can't see the moon in the portal window from the capsule.

And then one of the other guys like, oh, I've got it down here. So he's like jacking the moon around to get the photo of the moonrise photo. So the Artemis II mission, which just happened, they wanted to recreate it as best they could. Obviously, the flight path wasn't exactly the same.

So I've got a cool side-by-side photo that I put together that I ordered a metal print from the hang up in my office. The Earth, sorry, the Earth rise and the Earth set, which is the Artemis I, because the Earth, the one that kind of matched was when the Earth was actually setting behind the moon for the Artemis, kind of matched the orientation of the moon a little bit more. Anyway, I love those images. There's also a really cool moment where the capsule was in a eclipse, where the moon eclipsed the sun.

And so they could see the corona of the sun looking back at the moon. And they have some really cool photos of that one from the most recent trip, as well as the photos of the Earth as they were flying away from it, which is a really cool image. It's the dark side of the Earth, so the sun is backlighting the Earth. On the top, you can see the aurora borealis.

On the bottom, you get like a corona of the sun that's coming through the atmosphere. And then I think Venus is in the bottom right corner shining super bright. And then the Earth is actually being lit by the reflection of the light off of the moon, which was either full moon or close to full moon. So the moon was reflecting light back into the backside of the Earth and they're able to take this photo.

So it's more dull than the Apollo 8 blue pearl Earth image, which was fully sunlit from behind them. And then this one's dull Earth. So people are like, look, that's proof that Apollo didn't happen because the photo was better, which means it was fake. It's literally the difference of light and the direction of light.

And like generations of cameras. I would love that camera. If anybody has a Hasselblad rangefinder medium format, I can't remember the exact model that they had on the Apollo's. It's just sitting on your shelf, send it my way.

I know it's like a $4,000 camera, but I'm not ostentatious, I swear. Yeah. One thing that always blows me away about reading the missions, though, is the Apollo missions, I mean, is how faithful Christians they were, right? So Apollo 8, they read Genesis chapter 1.

Is the creation story? The creation story. And then was it Apollo 11, where they read Psalm 8, the heavens proclaim the glory of God. I can't remember which Apollo mission was, but I'll have to say like circling the moon for the first time, Apollo 8, orbiting the moon, and then they look over at Earth and they're just like, in the beginning, God creates.

They were kind of left for when they came out of the dark side, and they go out of contact. And so when they come back in contact, they were kind of left with their choice of what they wanted to say, and they decided through the creation story, because it was Christmas. Right. And so they read the creation story.

Christmas day, 1968. Yeah. And then today, or not today, but this year, when Artemis was going around, one of the astronauts at the pilot was kind of mentioning the dual commandments of Christ to love God and to love your neighbor. And he thanked everybody for loving them and supporting their mission and looking back at the Earth and saying, like, I see all of you, and from here, you know, you are one, and I love you.

We love you as our neighbor, which is kind of cool. So they have the Christian themes there. Anyway, all that to say, one of the big things for me is quite literally just looking at the stars, looking at spiral galaxies, looking at deep space astrophotography, just blows my mind. Yeah.

But to go back to the topic, can you say the topic? Yeah. So these are science-based arguments that crushed my atheism from Sarah Selvander. And so just talking about what it is that kind of draws you to God and makes you say, wow, I believe there's a creator.

So she said, to theology, as she studies in her undergrad studying the data from the Big Bang, said, everything I needed to answer my specific questions, the chemistry of the very early universe before started cooking up, have your elements was conveniently in place, too conveniently. The fact that teleology is an end, there's a purpose, an end to something, there's an order to it and it's ordered to an end, and so creation itself just being so ordered seems to have a purpose and have a creator behind it, have a mind behind it. So she said, the order in the teleology of the universe seems to just fight against atheism. And then what we were just talking about, beauty.

She said, beauty itself. Just the universe, she says it's flat-out stunning, and almost everyone agrees. And I think most people, yeah, you see this amazing image of the Earth, you see this amazing image of the Orion Nebula, you see an amazing image, you look at it, you know, looking at the, I love taking people out to look in the telescope, and I'm like a junior, junior, junior, junior astronomer. And so I have like five things that I can impress people.

It's the same way I play piano. I know like five things to impress you, and if you go through my repertoire, you're bored. But one of the first things I'll point out with people is Jupiter, because you can see the moons in relation, you can see the move throughout the night, if you reemend it. And just seeing people have that experience of the light is coming off of the planet, into this telescope, reflecting off a mirror and into my eye.

In this moment, I am seeing technically like an eight-minute delay or something. It's eight minutes from Jupiter, I don't know, but from the sun to the Earth, it's eight minutes for one photon. So that's like the sun to Jupiter back to Earth. Yeah, I think it's a 40-minute, well, from Jupiter to Earth is the time that we see, but I think it's like 40 minutes or something.

So you're seeing 40 minutes in the past, in the past, which, yeah, it's still just crazy, right? Yeah, the scope, the size of it. But that you're in this moment, seeing Jupiter and the moons, and then you can like look and say, whoa, and you see them orbiting, and there's just something amazing about that. And then you turn the scope to the Orion Nebula, which you can see, and that just like it's people really excited because you can see the dust of the nebula, and then you look at some star clusters, and you look at it with your eyes and say, oh, there's a lot of stars there, and you look through binoculars or a telescope, and then there's like thousands of stars, and it just is overwhelming.

And then you look at Andromeda Galaxy, and that's when it's really good because you're like, man, that's an entire other spiral galaxy that we can see. Right. Yeah, and I can't remember. Maybe, you know, but like how long do we take to travel from one end of the galaxy to the next?

It's like, you know, like, like years, but it's just like the universe is constantly expanding, and we're constantly learning new things about it as technology improves. I mean, it's just wild. And like, the scope of it and everything is impressive, but just the beauty. The fact that you like, do you remember the first time you saw the Milky Way with your own eyes?

Uh, yeah, I mean, I remember the most impressionable time I would say I was in Utah camping, and we were sleeping on our backs, and then we were looking up, it's just like, whoa, like there it is. Very middle Utah, middle of Utah, and you just look up, no light pollution, it's just like, this is incredible. Like, it's so peaceful and quiet to the point where like, I'd never seen this before, but you can see satellites when the light hits them the right way, you can see a satellite moving across the sky. Yeah.

It's, it's overwhelming. To go to your point though, like, um, this could not have just happened by chance, when you study if the earth was even just like a mile closer to the sun, uh, there'd be no water. Like it would just evaporate too quickly. And if the worth was just one mile away from the sun, it would freeze to death.

Like the precision of how precise the earth is in the atmosphere, even Jupiter, it seems scientists have now said like Jupiter, where it is and how big the gravitational pull is on it. Uh, it'll pull a lot of asteroids into itself. Yeah. It just got hit recently with a pretty big one.

As opposed to those asteroids then would, it prevents those asteroids from hitting earth. Like all of this is so intentional. Yeah. It could not have happened by chance.

The third argument is when she started studying fine-tuning at the universe. And when we hear fine-tuning, uh, as believers, as theists, as Christians, um, fine-tuning obviously implies a fine tuner. Rather you write in physics, fine-tuning just means that there is a very, um, small margin where something could happen. And so the precision of the ordering of the universe shows that it is fine-tuned.

That's kind of what they talk about fine-tuning. Now it cries out explaining intentionality, explaining, uh, somebody who a mind or something that is, is tuning, doing the tuning, um, rather than just the, oh yeah, of course we're lucky, um, type of thing. But that's the fine-tuning of the universe that you're talking about. You have, um, the, the big bang and expansion of the universe happens a little bit faster or a little bit hotter or a little bit cooler at the very beginnings of the universe.

And there is either not enough density for stars to form and then planets to form or there's too much and everything collapses in on itself. So the, um, the probability of life existing at all being in a universe where there's enough gravity, but you know, to keep things together, but not too much, um, to where it cuts pull back in, where you've got enough, uh, heat and mass and everything else that you can actually have particles bumping into each other to develop into, to more things. Um, if we turn those levers, those levels just a little bit, uh, in, in, it's not just like one place. It's not just like, oh, the earth in its relation to the sun, which is a real thing or Jupiter's relation to us to take.

It's like across the entire universe, if you change the levers of the physics behind it, the base physics behind everything, um, things fall apart really fast to where, to life isn't possible. There's a cosmologist I was listening to and he's a agnostic guy, but he basically said, yeah, when I talked to cosmologists and we, we talked about the size and the scope of the universe. It's like, of course there's other intelligent beings out there. Of course there's other life out there.

But then I talked to a biologist and they show me how rare life is and how hard life is to get going. And then it's like, it's a miracle that even sludge exists anywhere and it's like, oh, okay. Orton water, right? Like, uh, for hydrogen and oxygen to come together to make water, uh, it's, it's, it's, uh, like so many things have to go right, um, but if there's water, if there's hydrogen and oxygen somewhere on a planet, like Mars, then you can, uh, mine that in some way and I don't know what the proper term is, but then you can make, um, gas emissions and that way you can have, right?

We could make a fuel on Mars. If we ever get there, then you can fly back to Earth. Yeah. And then she talks about enormity, which is way over my head when she talks about the Boltzmann brain paradox and the likelihood of based on statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics and things that I don't understand at all.

Apparently it's way more likely that like a mind would fluctuate into existence and hallucinate all of the ideas of the universe than that universe actually existing. Don't even get me started. I don't know what that means. It was affecting to her.

Um, but again, I think kind of with fine tuning, it's like that this is when so many other options are apparently mathematically more probable, um, but we have what we have. And then the last one is just existence alone, uh, that existence that anything exists, that anything exists, uh, stirred her to reflect on why, which brings me to the theological point of the cosmological arguments, um, Aquinas has a couple of cosmological arguments. I think it's second and its third, second is from causation and third is from contingency. And so these are the proofs of God arguments with the proofs of God.

One is causality as, and contingency is a strange type of causality. It's like a, it's like a riff on, on the causal argument, but basically you have, uh, broadly speaking, the horizontal and the hierarchical causality. And so horizontal is go back in the past, something causes, something causes, something causes, something causes. Is there a first cause?

Um, you can kind of look at a, a, a, eternal universe is kind of being the beginning source of that one. There's some arguments as to why that couldn't be, but I think the contingency argument's better for that one. Um, but for example, your parents caused you, your grandparents caused them, your grandparents caused them, right? Uh, the causal agent doesn't have to still be in existence for the power to cause in the moment.

Um, but you go back and there's a, can have an infinite regressive causality type of thing. It's causal argument. But then the third one, the argument from contingency, that something exists rather than not existing. And if something comes into existence or goes out of existence, it doesn't necessarily exist.

So because we observe things that go out of existence, or we observe things coming into existence, uh, that by their definition, um, are not necessary things. Now then we look at what is contingent and things are contingent on other things to bring them into existence or to take them out of existence. And so we start looking at, um, kind of a cross section of the causal, which is the, the hierarchical causal, which is in this very moment, there are an, an, a number of innumerable chain of causes that are keeping you in existence, Father Sean right now. And if I cut any of those things in that chain from the skeletal structure of your body to the molecular structure, to the oxygen that's your breathing, if I cut any of the causality that's causing you right now, you would cease to exist.

But that can't go back infinite regress as well. And so we have an uncaused unmoved mover, uncaused, cause first cause contingency then is that things come into existence. And the fact that the universe seems to have a beginning, uh, shows its contingency and shows its need for something that is not contingent, that is necessary, that has the power to give existence to something else. Because if there is nothing in existence, which if we see things go out of existence, you can hypothesize a time in the past or in the future where nothing exists.

And so if you can hypothesize time where nothing exists, but then things exist, there must be something that caused them to exist. And that's the causality of God, the necessary being. And so these cosmological arguments are really compelling and they're hard to break. But now you have physicists and cosmologists trying to do multiverse theories and actually saying, well actually the universe isn't infinite contraction, expansion contraction, or any number of things to explain away the beginning or moment of creation.

And then it still bakes the question of that's a system of a universe that still doesn't explain itself. So that's why I like the contingency one. And that's your last point. Existence itself points to God.

So I just want to share some of that, mostly because I want to talk about Artemis II, second arily because we're convocation and I didn't prep anything else. And thirdly because I want to hear Sean at base level what brings you back to just faith in God. So basically what you just walked us through right of the five proofs, not all five, but Aquarius has the five proofs for the existence of God. Essentially, how can we know God through natural reason alone without faith, right?

Because faith is like a gift that God gives me to help me understand and help me to know and help me to believe, whereas could I just come to know God through reason alone. And the reason why this is so important to understand is because before you have faith, like you can actually believe in God, this is what Aristotle does. So Aquinas takes most of these arguments from Aristotle. Aristotle is writing these and hypothesizing these as a monotheist long before Christ actually comes.

In many ways. And he's a pagan. Okay. I'll have to say, I mean, I think cosmology, cosmological arguments are very good.

I think causality is the one I always go to whenever I teach OCIA, like you didn't cause yourself, your parents didn't cause themselves, like you can keep going back. Well, what about Adam and Eve? Like, eventually you get to a point where there has to be an unmoved mover as Aristotle calls it and then Aquinas will take that argument and say, and we all understand this to be God. Now it takes faith then to understand who God is and how he acts, but it takes reason alone to understand that God, you need a God to create the world in the universe.

My personal favorite, though, is just phenomenologically talking about like, what is my experience of life? And maybe this is on my mind because convocation we're talking about, Augustine confessions, probably the most famous lion confessions, right, is my heart is restless until it rests on you, oh God. My favorite argument whenever I teach OCIA is just to say, there is an infinite hole in your heart that only something infinite can fill. And our temptation in life is we recognize we have this infinite hole and we try to fill it with a bunch of finite things.

More accolades, more pleasure, which would be like the pleasure meeting sex, drugs, alcohol, food, et cetera. But if we try to fill our infinite longing with more finite things, it'll never happen, right? Like I'm always going to be looking for more and more and more and it never fills. The only thing that can fill something infinite is something infinite, meaning if I have an infinite hole in my heart, only a being, a person that is infinite can satisfy me.

Only God can satisfy the deepest longings of our heart. I think of the reading from just last weekend, the two disciples walking to Emmaus, walking away from Jerusalem and Jesus draws near to them and they don't recognize him at first and they only see him in the breaking of the bread. But when they're talking afterwards, we're our hearts not burning within us as he expounded the scripture. And that one, I think to your point, again, my heart is restless until it rests on you, we're our hearts not burning, something was moved in us.

I think for me, it's the experience of love, of sacrifice, of devotion, of like those very poignant moments where you are just moved as a person, especially towards the good or in empathy, compassion and suffering with somebody through an evil, but together. And so I think those, you can call them really human moments and I call them human because they're personal. They're personal moments that really only persons can share, which then points again to the personal God, which is one of the beautiful elements of being created image and likeness of God. But those moments, so love itself, something kind of intangible that everybody has an experience of, even if it's disordered or lacking or confused at times, those moments do cry out to something beyond.

And then again, where is the locus of that? Where do we situate ourselves in that? So the scientific arguments, the unmoved mover that we see things move, we think move and be moved. They have to be moved and so again, you need something to start the motion, who itself is not moved, causality is a form, motion is a form of causality, but then causality of kind of time of existence, family, whatever it might be, and then the contingency existence versus non-existence.

The old philosophical phrase of nameo.nonquote habit, which is, you can't give it what you don't got. Correct, yes. And so if we aren't able to give it ourselves, we are contingent, we don't necessarily exist. We exist only via other causes, it begs the question, it calls out for what made me to exist, what moves me, what causes me.

And then we get back to God. So that's all I got. I hope that helps. Quick little Catholic stuff.

You should know, engage in the five proofs of God a little bit and, yeah, I love it. Beauty as well. Beauty is a big one for me. Beauty is a big one for Aquinas.

But yeah, the five, if you were just a Google, yeah, the five proofs for the existence of God from Aquinas, it would come up. Yeah. And fine gold has a great book. Five proofs of God.

Fine gold, which is, like, Lauren's fine gold. Lauren's fine gold. He's going to expound on it. But then one of the best books that I've found on this is actually The Last Superstition by Edward Phaser.

He's a philosopher. He just kind of goes through, like, why are people superstitious, the last eight, the new atheism, if you will. And he kind of goes through, like, we're so superstitious, we're so nervous and we're just like, so what's the word? I can't think of it right now.

But we're just, oh, it's skeptical. That's why we're always skeptical of things. And he's just like, we don't have to be skeptical. Why?

Because these arguments make perfect sense. And if you actually look into them, just like, oh, it's actually necessary for God to exist, it's like, OK, now what does that call me to do with my life then? I actually think I was right. I think I was Phaser who also wrote the five proofs of God, Richard Spence.

So I think he has the last superstition and then one just on the five proofs. So Phaser's great. Yeah. Many shout outs.

Ooh, I did not come prepared for shout outs, so. Father Mike Rabbit. Then I will shout out the whole world. I'd like to shout out Archbishop Aquila.

I'd like to shout out Archbishop Golka. I'd like to shout out the whole Diocese of Colorado Springs where we are right now. And of course, I'd like to shout out the whole Archdiocese of Denver, which is the territory where we serve as priests. I want to shout out Father Dan Norex, brother, who is an engineer on like one little box that went into the Artemis capsule, which I thought was super cool.

The payload. Yeah, I don't know what he worked on, but it wasn't plumbing. He wasn't the plumber. Yeah.

They had a bathroom on this spaceship. But I thought that was super cool that, you know, there's some connection there. My mom knew them through like the homeschooling network or something. And I'll have more shout outs that I'll actually prepare before next time.

So shout out all you dolphins and water creatures. Bless the Lord. Thanks for listening to CatholicStuff podcast at gmail.com. We'll catch you next time.

Happy Easter.