Five Proofs of the Existence of God

Here is a great book discussing 5 unique proofs for the existence of God. Feel free to read and review it and come back with questions.

If you expect the existence of the Creator of everything to be proved "without a shadow of a doubt, that would convince the entire world population" in a reddit comment, then you either don't understand how proofs work or you severely underestimate the stubbornness of man.

But this is, again, all besides the point of your original question "Do you believe religion is still important in today's world".

The faithful go through periods of dryness according to tradition. The saints had this same experience.

Please consider the rational proofs for God to aid you during these times. https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333

If you are looking for proof of God's existence, may I suggest reading Edward Feser's book Five Proofs of the Existence of God?

Hello OP, I think this book by Edward Feser would interest you. He's a sharp thinker and very clear writer: 5 Proofs Of The Existence of God.

Five Proofs of the Existence of God https://www.amazon.com/dp/1621641333/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_7MhTEbRBV3B88

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333

You could try reading presentations of the cosmological argument from theistic philosophers, since they virtually always include reasons for thinking the uncaused cause is God.

For example, here (PDF), or here, or here, or here.

You rejecting the arguments doesn't make them untrue. Here's further reading establishing the certainty of the arguments: Five Proofs of the Existence of God. .

As I admitted to the other commenter, I'll have a harder time "proving" Divine Revelation to you. There is evidence of miracles and obviously there is evidence for the resurrection of Christ. However, what's at the heart of the matter - and also at the heart of our lives - is a transcendental experience with the Truth, with the realization that God exists and He has a plan for our lives. This is a real event, but it can't be "proved" by scientific means. As I stated in my original post, science does not contain all truth and no reasonable scientist would say that it does. Thus, we must appeal to the higher power, and when we do so, God answers emphatically: He is.

> I was referring to philosophical proofs within the context of Christianity, which I thought would be obvious from the topic at hand, but I apologize for not making that clearer.

I'm not sure what you mean. Christian proofs for God fall under logical argumentation, and there are many that pass those criterion such as when the premises are true, the conclusion is true.

Former atheist and Philosophy professor Dr. Feser goes through 5 arguments academically (not Christian) here :

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333

> I don't believe many people would claim it to be flawless, based on the responses I got from other people and my admittedly limited knowledge of Christianity

Well, all human epistemology (knowledge) is subjective (not "flawless"). Again, "proofs" for God fall under the standards of Logical argumentation.

> This sort of belief evokes the image of the Tower of Babel, what with humans trying to build their own way to heaven relying on their own human understanding and thinking it good enough. But that's neither here, nor there.

I think that you actually have a point there, that knowing God is not like a Math test. It is a test of one's entire self, which includes intellect and will.

> If this is an attempt to convert me, it's not working and I am not interested. If this is an attempt to engage in good faith, it's not working either.

Not at all. Again, I responded to what I saw as flawed premises. Hopefully you understand that. If someone said that because 2 + 2 = 5, Christianity is wrong, it would be remiss for me not to respond.

book

I read this book. And it’s very convincing to me about a existence of a higher power or undiscovered type of existence. The leap to a Christian god is something else but this was at least what changed me from Atheist to agnostic.

I am looking into the Catholic Church right now because it has a lot of educated and thought out decisions on belief.

No. Just think logically for a moment. According to a strict empricialism, what are the possible reasons that an event may defy the laws of nature?

1. We do not understand the laws of nature. In which case, by study and experimentation, we can show that there is a flaw in our understanding of the laws of nature that clarifies the behaviour.
2. Artifice. The event is a fake but in which case a reasonable explanation can be found. Further, there should be physical evidence that agrees with this explanation.

For the sake of argument, what if neither of these explains the event? Then the next logical step is to question the premises of the approach. Which ones? Well, the universe might not be intelligible. If it is not, then science does not work because an unintelligible universe implies we cannot understand nature. This is counter to our experience, so it is likely false. That leaves the assumption there is nothing beyond what is natural and testable. What if that assumption is faulty? This would add a third option, the supernatural.

As far as why not Vishnu and why not more than one god, there are good logical reasons for that. But if you do not accept there is a possibility of a god, then it won't do any good to go into them. Fesser has a book that explains it quite logically why there is One God and its the Christian god. https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/

Personally, at the end of the day it comes down to who you say Jesus is. Look into Lewis's trilemma. he was either a liar, insane, or exactly who he said he was. If he was who he said was, the rest follows logically. The problem is the other two options appear highly irrational.

Hello, I replied to a comment below but I wanted to give your full post a response.

> I am a man of science and sometimes I have a hard time believing some of the things that the bible says and I have questioned the existence of god but I am still scared what if he is real

If you live in the US, Northern Europe, or any other place that has a majority Protestant population, or once had that, then unfortunately the concept of Biblical literalism has been part of the culture for a while.

The Catholic Church firmly believes that faith and reason are not contrary, and in fact lean on each other. Faith toward God does not imply we are always blindly rushing toward God, but instead is relaying to a level of trust we use all the time.

If you see someone presenting a new discovery then we have to test our faith in that person in the same way; is what they are saying reasonable, can I see the truth of what they are saying, etc.

The Church does not mean faith in the blind sense, nor that theology trumps scientific truths. Faith and reason live in harmony, and if something is contradictory, that means you need more observations, or you misunderstood somewhere down the line.

> I sometimes pray and I like to think that I believe in god or atleast some superior being. I just wanted to know, can I have my own relationship with god?

Protestantism has kind of distorted the meaning of prayer to that being worship and whatnot, but honestly all prayer means is talking to. The best way to start, and build, a relationship is to keep talking.

> What are the requirements to go to heaven? Who can be saved?

By loving God. God tells us we can love Him by following His commandments.

> And also I started looking up how I could get jesus to come down here and talk to me and I read that jesus doesnt come down, but that we could talk to him and god through angels.

I'm not entirely sure where this is from, but prayer is the best way to communicate with God. No matter the length any prayer is a good prayer.

> Do we all have an angel?

Yes, every person has a guardian angel who helps them during the person's lifetime

> How do I talk to him?

Prayer is the best way, but it's important to realize that an angel has made his decision to serve God's kingdom and will never do anything contrary to what God desires.

> How do I know if he is actually here?

Angels are immaterial beings, so unless God decides to grant you someway to communicate in the moment, you really can't.

> Also what is the scientific and historical evidence that god exists and that catholicism out of all religions is the right one?

Catholicism knows God as an immaterial eternal being. Meaning He is not constituted of any energy or matter of any kind, and is outside of time.

If I can make an analogy here, using the scientific method to find God is like trying to find plastic explosives with a metal detector. There is nothing wrong with a metal detector, and in fact it's a very useful tool, but it's the wrong tool for the job.

Trying to use the scientific method for everything is self defeating because you cannot prove the scientific method's truth with the scientific method. In fact you have to take a lot of philosophy for granted to use science in the first place. You have to believe everything is rational (otherwise truth is impossible), you have to believe that everyone perceives reality in the same way(otherwise replication of results by peer review is impossible), and you have to believe that humanity has a level of control in designing experiments. The scientific method cannot prove any of these things because it rests on the foundation that they are true. This is part of the reason why that method is so new to humanity; there was a crap ton of work that lead up to it!

The way I decided that monotheism is true was by listening to people explain their proofs and seeing which ones withstood their objections. This book in particular helped a lot because it not only explains the proof, but also goes through the objections and why those objections fail.

The way that I decided that Christianity was true was by listening to the truth claims being made by various religions and trying to chip away at those.

Yeah, ultimately Pascal's Wager won't "do" in the long run. Indeed, you could apply it to all sorts of non-religious questions and end up with some rather silly things: I mean, suppose one could argue that you'll personally benefit from believing in string theory--is that really an argument for it?

What I was getting at with the polytheism/monotheism thing is this: the difference between the two isn't that monotheism just asserts that there is only one of the same kind of being polytheists believe in. God in the Christian (and the Jewish, Muslim, Aristotelian, etc.) sense refers to an entirely different kind of being than polytheists do.

But ultimately, Pascal starts from a false premise. You CAN know by reason alone whether God exists.

(Mind you, reason alone is not going to take you as far as the cross, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and so on--but it CAN take you as far as an all-good and powerful entity that is Existence Itself. Even Aristotle, by no means a religious man, argued for this.)

Honestly the absolute best (and most readable) explanation of the proofs are found in this book.

I’ve started good conversations like this with asking about proof that there is no god. At its base, the debate is between intelligent design and spontaneous life. Due to a biased education system, most of us were brought up being taught that spontaneous life is supported by by science, but it is not. So just having a simple conversation about that can be eye opening to someone who never has had that conversation.

If you want to go deeper philosophically, I really like Five Proofs of the Existence of God by Edward Feser. Not an easy read but very interesting.

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333

We have proven God exists. See here: https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333

Edward Feser's Five Proofs of the Existence of God is an excellent book.

In "Five Proofs" Ed Feser dedicates the second part of the book pretty much to prove that "the prime mover" has the attributes of God of Christianity. Aquinas does that as well in the First Pars of the Summa Theol. as well and also in some parts of Summa Contra Gentiles.

Other authors, like Reginald Garrigau-Lagrange, Etienne Gilson or Eleanor Stump also have written on this as well (eg. Stump's The God of the Bible and the God of Philosophers)

However note that some things canNOT be known through reason alone. For example the Trinity is something we can only know though revelation.

To prove Christianity, in addition, the most important proof is basically the resurrection, because that is the ultimate connection.

I would recommend any books by Edward Feser on the topic:

https://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Beginners-Guide-Edward-Feser/dp/1851686908

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333

Also of course:

https://www.amazon.com/Summa-Theologica-Thomas-Aquinas-Volumes/dp/0870610635

(Also available online but some prefer a hard copy).

​

In relation to directly answering your question first we must understand what it means to have necessary existence.

A being which has its necessity from another could in theory begin to exist. Since it derives its necessity from something else, that something else could only begin to cause its necessity at some specific point in time. But a being which is necessary in itself will always exist, since it is intrinsic to its own nature to exist, and is not dependent upon anything other than itself for existence.

A being which has its necessity of itself is a being whose essence and existence must be identical. For Aquinas, essence is what something is (its nature), and existence is that something is, i.e. whether it is real or not.

So for example, an architect can conceive of what a house/bridge will look like before it is actually built, because it's nature is distinct from it's existence. If it's nature was not distinct from it's existence, conceiving of it would actually mean that it exists.

For most things, these are distinct. The essence of a tree cannot include existence, because trees don’t always exist. In fact, for anything that is contingent, or anything that is necessary but derives its necessity from another, essence and existence will be distinct. But for a being whose necessity is from itself, essence and existence will be identical. It will be a being whose quiddity/essence  just is existence, i.e. Existence Itself, or Pure Existence.

But a being that is pure existence is also pure act, for actuality and existence are equivalent. A being that is pure existence could not possibly have any potentials. And thus we must conclude that the being which is necessary in itself must be identical to the being of pure act arrived at in the previous two ways (of Aquinas). And a being of pure act must necessarily have the qualities of oneness, simplicity, immutability, immateriality, incorporeality, eternality, and timelessness. And these are the classical attributes of God.

Indeed Edward Feser in one of his five proofs in the book goes on to arrive from deductive reasoning at these characteristics:

>So, there exists a purely actual cause of the existence of things, which is one, immutable, eternal, immaterial, incorporeal, perfect, fully good, omnipotent, intelligent, and omniscient.

Hope I helped you out in some way :)

I present Edward Feser's 5 proofs. Five Proofs of the Existence of God https://www.amazon.com/dp/1621641333/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_i_QRFmEbA4G0MN5

I know plenty of Catholic intellectuals. Atheists don't have a monopoly on intelligence. Most of the Catholic intellectuals I know are much deeper thinkers than the atheist intellectuals. They go further and think more expansively.

If you want really intellectual, you may want to go for Edward Feser's Five Proofs for the Existence of God. I also enjoyed Faith and Reason which is an anthology of the conversion stories of several prominent philosophers.

So you've graduated from an elementary understanding of Judaism congrats! I was there too. Many of these issues become non-issues with more education. My advice? Read, read, and read some more. I'll give you a head start on certain titles and articles that address these issues in an intellectually honest manner:

For God's existence read Edward Feser's masterpiece.

Also, a must-read addressing many of the issues you describe: Created Equal by Rabbi Dr Joshu Berman.

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=five+proofs+of+the+existence+of+god&qid=1582496275&sr=8-1

The fact that you exist as a starting premise is the only evidence that is needed to prove that God must exist. So do you reject the evidence that you exist?

If not then read this book if you are serious about this and point out where there is a logical reasoning error between the premise that you exist and the conclusion that God exists.

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333

If you want some really solid logical arguments for the existence of God, check out Edward Feser's Five Proofs on the Existence of God and The Last Superstition: a Refutation of the New Atheism. I've also recommended this succinct video to others because it explains our logical basis for believing in God and presents counterarguments to the objections sometimes leveled against them.

And yes, praying for them would be very helpful. One of my favorite prayers is the "surrender novena" which is actually on Spotify and Apple Music if you need guidance in prayer.

I hope this helps you.

I don't have much time these days as I'm busy with school but OP, we do have a lot of evidence supporting Christianity. It's the reason why I'm a strong Christian today (100% certain). I have a blog dedicated to laying out the evidence for Christianity. So far, I have posts on the historical evidence for Jesus' miracles, the resurrection and Christian miraculous healings. Feel free to check them out below:

Jesus' miracles

The resurrection (part 1)

The resurrection (part 2)

The resurrection (part 3)

Christian miraculous healings

In the future, I also plan to write 6 more major posts on the historical evidence. These will include posts on the evidence for eucharistic miracles, Marian apparitions, the religious experiences and mystical gifts of Christian saints, religious experience, demonic activity and a post on a number of other points that point towards the truth of Christianity (e.g. morally admirable founder, consistency with the findings of natural theology, tremendous contribution to humanity, universality, rich intellectual tradition and strong conversion power). So yeah, feel free to be on the look out for those.

>It's human nature to have religion Egypt Greek Rome all separate and contradict each other but everyone wholeheartedly believed in their own religion.

Sure but how many of these religions enjoy support from any evidence? Is there any evidence that Zeus is real from philosophy, science or history?

Philosophy alone can get you to a God that is immutable, immaterial, omnipotent, omniscient, one, perfect goodness and necessary existence. This alone rules out the vast majority of religions in the world leaving you with the three great monotheistic religions -- Judaism, Islam and Christianity, whose conceptions of God are consistent with the findings of natural theology (what can be known about God through pure reason alone).

These divine attributes are not randomly arrived at by the way. They follow necessarily from God being pure being (as Aquinas said, ipsum esse subsistens). Aristotle explains why God must have certain ontological properties in his works and so does Aquinas (he spends around 100 pages in his Summa Theologica doing so). If you want a modern work explaining the matter, so does Feser in his Five Proofs.

> God let's so many horrible things happen the Holocaust is happening again in China.

God gave us free will so that we would be capable of love (otherwise we would be literal robots). However, giving us free will also comes with the possibility of us abusing it – resulting in moral evil like the Holocaust. Free will also comes with the possibility of us making poor decisions (e.g. poor investments, wasting time, not taking advantage of certain opportunities, acting irresponsibly in certain activities, etc) that lead to future suffering or hardship.

When it comes to natural evil and suffering, we can see that God created the world with higher goods in mind -- freedom and the capacity for full moral development. He did not create this world with the intention of making it a “pleasure park”.

With these ends in mind, we can see good reasons why God would create a world with natural evil:

• It enables great opportunity for moral development (e.g. perseverance, diligence, patience, charity, self-sacrifice, empathy, etc).
• It keeps us "morally fit" (as opposed to losing ourselves in hedonism, idleness and complacency). A favorite saying of mine comes to mind on this point: "Good times create weak men. Weak men create bad times. Bad times create strong men. Strong men create good times".
• It leads to the goods of interdependence -- community and relationships. If life posed no problems or inconveniences, we would have little need for each other.
• It is conducive to religious life. If we lived in a world were our every desire was met or where we experienced no troubles or inconvenience, then we would “forget God”. Suffering keeps God in our minds and hearts, and causes us to seek and depend on Him.
• God uses suffering to bring about man’s conversion. Personally, two sayings capture this single point well -- “A man only changes when he hits rock bottom” and (as C.S. Lewis once said) “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world”.
• Looking at revelation (divine and private), we also know God uses sacrifice and suffering to expiate man’s sin and for the salvation of souls. One important concept to note here is that of “redemptive suffering” -- that suffering, when united to Christ’s passion, can become a tremendous good. This is why whenever we suffer or are inconvenienced in our daily lives (both big and small), we can "offer it up" as prayers for particular intentions (e.g. for the conversion of sinners, the souls in purgatory, reparation for sins committed, etc).

The problem with the argument from evil is that for it to succeed as a proof against God's existence, there cannot be a SINGLE (emphasis) good reason why God would permit evil and suffering to exist in the world -- and that is a bar that is way too high. This is why the problem of evil cannot prove the non-existence of God. It is only a probabilistic argument. Theist philosophers have put forward various theodicies, which put forward many good reasons why God would create a world with evil and suffering (like I did above), and the answer to this always boils down to "trade-offs".

Anyway, on the problem of evil, I also think that we need to consider three more points:

1. The sufferings in this life are nothing compared to the joys of the next. God will "wipe away our tears" and bring the good and the just into His full presence in Heaven – the Beatific vision. No evil in this life will also go unknown (Luke 12:2-3). J ustice will be carried out perfectly. All the wrongs will be put right and good will prevail completely in the end.

2. In Christianity, God Himself was willing to share in our suffering, entering into human history in the form of man. In fact, He Himself, carried the entirety of our sin, dying for us so that we may be freed from the bondage of sin. Christ dying for us was not something that was necessary (one drop of divine blood was necessary to atone for the sins of man) but He chose to do so to show His love for us, His “being with us” with us (how He shares in our suffering) and to inspire us (that in our humanity, we are capable of demonstrating great goodness in the midst of great evil)

3. Although we can see good reasons why God would allow evil and suffering in this life, we must recognize that we cannot know his reasons entirely. Only God can see the whole picture. In the meantime, however, we can see a number of good reasons (through revelation and human reason and experience) why God created the world that He did, and these reasons involve making certain higher-order goods possible – trade-offs.

These two books were very helpful for me.

1. Five Proofs of the Existence of God This book is not solely about Aquinas' arguments - as the title might have suggested. You mentioned Aquinas' proofs in your post. I found Aquinas pretty dense at first. I felt like to really understand his arguments, I'd need to do read a book on his use of language and logic to actually grasp what he was saying. However, If you want to dig a little deeper into Aquinas, both the Pints with Aquinas podcast and Classical Theism podcast, did a pretty good job of explaining his arguments.
2. God and Natural Evil: A New Cosmological Argument and New Response to the Problem of Evil

Strange Notions has some pretty interesting content.

If you want specifically Catholic content, Catholic Answers is the best resource.

I would say that saying "...the greatest proof/evidence of God, is the human being itself....because we are the only creatures that can display all of the names and attributes of God at the highest level beyond any other creature" is not a good response. Let me explain why.

First, knowing ourselves can help us get a somewhat better appreciation of the essentially Unknowable Nature of God. But for someone who isn't even sure that God exists to begin with, this response wouldn't make any sense. The seeker wants to understand a more fundamental thing: whether God exists at all. The seeker is not asking what is the nature of God. If I try to put your response in a deductive argument, I think the logic doesn't follow fully:

• Premise 1: Knowledge of Self is knowledge of God.
• Premise 2: Humans are the only creatures that can display all of the names and attributes of God at the highest level beyond any other creature.
• Conclusion: God exists.

The conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. In fact, the first premise assumes the existence of God, which the argument was supposed to establish as a conclusion.

The good response, in my opinion, would be to provide clear evidence for the existence of God. A perfectly reasonable way, as you have mentioned, is: “This proof is His Word; His own Self, the testimony of His truth.” The Qur'an instructs the same. Muslims use this method a lot, they frequently give people a copy of the Qur'an and leave the rest to the Word of God itself. The Word of God is powerful and can work on the hearts of people on its own. So, we can just give the seeker access to the Word of God. It can lead some people to recognize that these words have come from a divine source and both the existence of God as well as the authority of His Manifestation will be established in the heart.

For someone who is contemptuous of religion itself and is absolutely secularized, it is first important to establish theistic belief and religion as a rational position in their eyes. Just like ‘Abdu’l-Bahá provides rational evidences for the existence of God in the beginning of Some Answered Questions, we can provide rational grounds for believing in God. Ian Kluge has done some good work in this regard. Contingency argument is my favorite, especially the one by Avicenna, here and here. A technical, book length defense can be found here. I always recommend Five Proofs of the Existence of God by Edward Feser.

Hope this is helpful. Good luck!

Most proofs of God are philosophical not scientific, the thing is that science doesn´t contradict God´s existence in anyway (I would argue that it supports it) I can recommend you some philosophers that you can check out if you want to go deep, remember that what you are asking is super complex so depending on what you want and where you put the bar for evidence the amount of time you will have to put in order to learn is going to be a lot.

Trent Horn´s books are probably the best place to start, his book "answering atheism" makes the case for the existence of God and his books: "the case for Catholicism" and "why we are Catholic" talks about the Catholic Church. He has other books in other issues if you want to check those as well.

https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Trent-Horn/dp/1938983432 answering atheism

https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Trent-Horn/dp/1683570243 why we are catholic

https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Trent-Horn/dp/1621641449 the case for Catholicism

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For me Aquinas 5 ways are the best arguments for the existence of God, although they can be hard to understand properly and most don´t really get them, I recommend Edward Feser´s books on him although they are a bit heavy and his tone can be a bit condescending (some people say this). Note that almost all arguments against Aquinas are always either misunderstandings of the arguments, full of fallacies, or simply misrepresenting what the argument really is saying. So while many atheists have claimed to refute his arguments I will argue that nobody has done it.

https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Edward-Feser/dp/1851686908 Aquinas a beginners guide

https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333 Five proofs for the existence of God

https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Edward-Feser/dp/1587314525 The last superstition a refutation of the new atheism

The study of Thomas Aquinas is called Thomism and there are other Thomists you can check out if you find Edward Feser hard to read.

Peter Kreeft (an ex atheist) has a collection of books about Catholicism plus his own recomendations as well:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/850urz/peter_kreefts_26_books_nobody_should_die_without/

Other philosophers/Authors to check out:

John Lennox

Jimmy Akin

William Lane Craig

John Henry Newman

G.K Chesterton

C.S Lewis

Just make some research on them and what they wrote and see who are you must willingly to read and learn from.

There are many others as well but of course I can´t name them all, I really encourage you to dive into Christian Philosophy and apologetic as there is some very good content that can convince you of the truth of our faith!

I suggest reading Edward Feser's book entitled Five Proofs: https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333

Also, Peter Kreeft's arguments: https://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm#2

And there is also this book: https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Why-Question-Whatsoever-Philosophy/dp/0813218632

And this book too is probably very good: https://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Theology-Gods-Existence-Theologiae/dp/3868382216

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Kant's wrong. Existence is a predicate. "Man exists." "Money exists." To say that "existence" adds nothing to the "money" would mean that there's no real difference between money that exists and money that doesn't exist, which case the non-existence of $20 in my pocket would entail that I have $20 in my pocket. Certainly, existence isn't a predicate in the manner in which other things can be predicates, but that doesn't entail that it cannot be predicated in any sense. Being isn't like other things, which is why you have a whole course of study dedicated to it called metaphysics.

For the cosmological argument, it seems like your difficulty might be with why the infinite regress has to terminate. Well, there are all sorts of things written on this topic. I think Michael Rota has a good article on why infinite causal chains aren't possible: https://www.pdcnet.org/acpaproc/content/acpaproc_2007_0081_0000_0109_0122

Also, Avicenna gives a demonstration or near demonstration of it in his work the Salvation. The key excerpt on it can be found here on pages 24-25: https://www.academia.edu/8350907/Avicenna_s_argument_against_infinite_regress_in_The_Metaphysics_of_the_Healing_as_a_step_in_proving_the_existence_of_God

It seems you want resources, so I'll link a few books on my reading list which you may find helpful.

Problem of Evil:

- Wandering In Darkness

- Why Does God Allow Evil?

- The Problem of Animal Pain

- The Problem of Pain (by CS Lewis)

Resurrection:

- The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (by Habermas)

- Can We Trust the Gospels?

Arguments for theism:

- Infinity, Causation and Paradox (by Pruss)

- 5 Proofs for the Existence of God (by Feser)

- Necessary Existence (by Pruss and Rasmussen)

- A Fortunate Universe (by Luke Barnes)

- The Bridge of Reason: Ten Steps to See God

- Summa Theologica (by Aquinas) [has other stuff]

- God and Ultimate Origins: A Novel Cosmological Argument (by Andrew Loke)

Big Detailed Overview (my highest recommendation):

- The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology

You realize the Big Bang Theory was proposed by a Catholic priest, Monsignor Georges Lemaître, right? Also, most of the worlds Christians don’t have any issue with evolution as contradictory to faith.

People come to believe in many different ways and/or have different barriers or obstacles to belief to overcome. If you have questions, good! Commit to seeking answers. I agree that saying "You just have to have faith" is usually a poor answer. Luckily, I doubt you could conceive a question that doesn't have numerous volumes answering it over the past 2,000 years or so.

Here are some books on different topics - see if any of them speak to you.

Science

• Modern Physics and Ancient Faith
• New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy
• Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism
• The Genealogical Adam and Eve: The Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry

History

• The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus
• The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Histiographical Approach

Philosophy

• How Reason Can Lead to God: A Philosopher's Bridge to Faith
• God and Natural Evil: A New Cosmological Argument and New Response to the Problem of Evil
• Five Proofs of the Existence of God
• Taking Pascal's Wager: Faith, Evidence and the Abundant Life

Modern Miracles

• Nothing Short of a Miracle: God's Healing Power in Modern Saints
• The Case for Miracles: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for the Supernatural

Apologetics

• Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense
• Mere Christianity
• The Everlasting Man
• Prepare the Way: Overcoming Obstacles to God, the Gospel and the Church

Hard Stuff in the Bible

• Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?
• Hard Sayings

Spirituality

• The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton