People commonly speak of "proofs of God's existence." The expression is convenient but profoundly misleading. It suggests that these would be demonstrations in the ordinary sense: a reasoning that would start from neutral premises to arrive, by deduction, at a new conclusion—God's existence—as one demonstrates a theorem or the existence of a planet.

Yet this way of speaking is already inadequate.

For Being is not a possible conclusion. It is not an object that one could discover at the end of a well-conducted reasoning. It is that without which no reasoning is possible. It is prior to all premises, all deduction, all intellectual operation.

In other words: one does not demonstrate Being; one always already thinks from within it.

This is why the realist tradition—and Thomas Aquinas in particular—never spoke of "proofs" in the modern sense, but of ways (viae). Not demonstrations that would produce God as a conclusion, but intellectual paths that lead intelligence, starting from reality, back to what it already presupposes without naming.

It is therefore not a matter of de-monstrations (showing from), but of monstrations: showing in reality what is already at work there, but which we do not look at.

Why God is not a possible conclusion

A proof, strictly speaking, supposes three things:

1. premises independent of the conclusion,
2. a valid reasoning,
3. a conclusion that adds something new.

Yet God—understood as pure act, subsistent being, first principle—cannot fill this role.

Why? Because every possible premise already supposes:

• that there is something rather than nothing,
• that this something is intelligible,
• that the mind can say something true about it.

In other words: every metaphysics that has performative value (that does not destroy itself) already supposes Being, and therefore what tradition calls God. The ways do not demonstrate God after the fact; they show that all coherent thought is already engaged in his affirmation, even when it verbally denies him.

Materialists speak of matter. Idealists speak of ideas. Naturalists speak of laws. Realists speak of pure act.

But all speak, in reality, of an ultimate principle, and presuppose it in the very act of thinking.

The ways only lift the mask.

The five ways as readings of reality

The five ways of Saint Thomas are not five competing proofs, but five angles of reading the same reality, five ways of observing, starting from ordinary facts, the necessary presence of a first principle.

1. The way of motion: actuality

We observe that things change. It is a brute, daily fact: water heats, wood burns, children grow.

But to change is not to spring from nothing. It is to pass from potency to act. Yet this passage requires, here and now, a principle already in act. A chain of derived actualizations does not suffice; there must be an unborrowed act.

What this way shows is not "God exists," but this: changing reality supposes a first unchanging actuality.

Down-to-earth example: An object is in motion because it is moved. Even if I trace the chain back—motor, electricity, power plant, etc.—I cannot eliminate the necessity of an actual principle. Without a first act, nothing ever moves.

2. The way of efficient causality: dependence

We observe that things do not exist by themselves. They are produced, conserved, dependent. Nothing in experience presents itself as the efficient cause of itself.

The way does not say "everything has a cause in time," which would be naive. It observes that what is caused actually depends on a principle that does not depend in the same way.

Simple example: A tool acts, but only as long as it is used. If there are only tools and never an agent, nothing acts.

3. The way of contingency: the non-necessity of beings

The things we encounter could not be. They are born, change, disappear. Their existence is not necessary.

But the contingent cannot be the ultimate reason for being. If everything were contingent without a necessary foundation, one would have to explain why there is something rather than nothing—which the contingent is incapable of doing.

This way does not start from an empty past, but from the present fact of the fragile existence of things.

Concrete example: A chair exists, but nothing requires that it exist. It depends on conditions. Multiply the dependencies: you never produce necessity.

4. The way of degrees: participation

We observe degrees: more or less true, more or less good, more or less real, more or less accomplished. These comparisons are not arbitrary; they suppose a reference.

To say that something is "hotter" supposes something that is hot by itself, not by participation. Similarly, to say that something is more or less accomplished supposes a principle of plenary accomplishment.

Down-to-earth example: A copy is more or less faithful. But fidelity supposes an original. Without an original, the very notion of "degree" collapses.

5. The way of order: final intelligibility

Things act in a regular, oriented, intelligible way, even without conscious intelligence. Seeds become plants, organs fulfill functions, laws are stable.

It is not about saying that "everything is well made," but that finalized action is real. Yet finality without intelligence is not intelligible without a principle of intelligibility.

Simple example: A thermostat understands nothing, but it acts for an end. This orientation is not magical; it is derived.

Why the "bad proofs" fail

In light of this framework, we understand why so many alleged modern proofs are either useless or confused.

Intelligent design

It seeks "holes" in scientific explanations. Bad strategy. God is not a backup cause. When science progresses, the argument collapses.

The probability of a complex universe

Probabilistic calculations already suppose laws, regularities, an intelligible space of possibilities. In other words, they presuppose exactly what they claim to explain.

Chance

Chance is never a cause. It is a word designating our ignorance or the meeting of independent causalities. It produces nothing.

To say "it's chance" amounts to saying "I don't know," not "I have explained."

The Kalam

It confuses temporal causality and ontological causality. Even an eternal universe would require a principle of being. The beginning is not the decisive point.

Scientific proofs

Science describes regularities. It does not ground existence, intelligibility, or the value of its own methods. It rests on metaphysical presuppositions it cannot justify.

Conclusion: the ways do not prove God, they prevent avoiding him

The ways do not force assent like a mathematical demonstration. They do better—or worse: they show that to refuse God is not to be neutral, it is to adopt an implicit metaphysics, often incoherent, always borrowed.

God is not what one discovers at the end of a reasoning. He is that without which no reasoning holds.

The ways only force us to look at what we already do—think, explain, distinguish, understand—and to draw the consequences all the way through.

And that is precisely what many prefer not to do.