Principles of natural theology

the long version

The study by Fr. George Hayward Joyce, S.J., "The Principles of Natural Theology," provides an excellent overview of a number of philosophical demonstrations of the existence and nature of God. The early chapters offer a very clear and logical defense of the first principles of reasoning and of the famous Thomistic metaphysical arguments (reasoning from motion to the Prime Mover, from causation to the First Cause, from contingency to the Necessary Being, and from imperfection to the Infinitely Perfect Being) as well as the moral and physical arguments. Later chapters treat of the Divine Attributes, such as omnipotence and omniscience. Fr. Joyce is careful throughout to carefully expose the errors propounded by various agnostic and atheistic interlocutors.