Robert Mixa – Word on Fire Blog –

My best teaching experience ever came was when I followed the example of Bishop Barron’s high school religion teacher, Fr. Thomas Paulson, and presented to my students the classical proofs for the existence of God. 

My intention wasn’t defensive; I wasn’t trying to convince my skeptical students that God exists. I simply wanted to share with them arguments that contributed to my own religious awakening in high school, hoping to enkindle their desire for God. 

Most were unimpressed, but some thanked me later for introducing them to the idea that theology involved critical thinking, as much as it did faith.

These proofs are simple enough for high school students to grasp, and given that disbelief in the existence of God is growing (and happening at a much earlier age), religion teachers should make it their priority to teach them. They’re easy to learn, and teaching them requires only a little preparation. 

Like Bishop Barron, I first heard the classical proofs of God as put forth by St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Anselm in high school. Regrettably, my philosophy teacher dismissed them all, saying Kant and other modern philosophers had sufficiently rebutted the arguments. But I was not so sure about that. Perhaps I was naive, but the rebuttals seemed to be strawman arguments, something my teacher told us never to accept. To my mind, they were not disproving the existence of the God of classical theism or the God of Revelation but the supreme being “God” most atheists take theists to believe in. The classical proofs are much sounder than most moderns think, and they do a good job preparing the soul for faith. 

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