In this paper I revise my previous version of a simple argument for contemplating the existence of God. The argument rests on the assumption that the internal constitution of the human faculty of the will is pre-established and set in motion by God.
One of the basic activities of the human will is the exercise of the action of love. As Aquinas said,
"Nothing moves us to love another person more than the experience of that person's love for us." (1)
Now it is obvious that by nature we are endowed with many faculties and talents. Among these, the faculty of the will occupies a central place while being at the same time one of the most difficult to explain.
The will is essential for us to be and to behave as human beings. Thus no matter which way we understand our origin, the faculty of the will can be seen as a gift given to us.
It is true that we influence and alter our beings, and that of others, by our choices and actions, but, again, no choice, not even our first act of love, is constitutive of the will. The faculty of the will is there from the very beginning of our existence. It is fiber of our being.
Suppose you receive a gift with the condition that for some time the name of the giver is going to remain undisclosed to you, and that you really liked what you received. What would you do the moment you found out who it was that had read your mind so well?
Similarly, we can examine the option of contemplating the existence of God. The faculty of the will could be seen as a God-given gift. And we should be able to recognize that in receiving that gift we are already experiencing the love God has for us.
Under this assumption, evidently the one who deserves our first love is the Giver of that precious gift. Not without reason the first commandment of the natural law says, "Love God above all things" (Mt 22:37). The commandment comes indeed from revelation but, as shown, reason is able to reach some knowledge of that fundamental duty.
It should be mentioned here that the truth that God exists is not only a truth of reason; it is as well a revealed truth. Fittingly the proem of "Fides et Ratio" says that
"Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth - in a word, to know God - so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves." (2)
I would say that the truth of the existence of God reaches far beyond intellectual knowledge. It affects the whole person.
Not even the philosophical training of the mind is enough of a disposition to accept the proofs of God's existence because, regardless of the source from which the proofs may come, the free-will component of the argument-guided assent plays a decisive role in crediting the proofs with validity.
To conclude. The pre-established dynamism of the internal constitution of the human will serves as an indication that, by giving to us the very faculty whereby we are capable of eliciting acts of love, God has loved us first. If we reciprocate that initiative of love, we recognize that He exists and that He is near us.
Notes
(1) Thomas Aquinas, "De Rationibus Fidei," chap. 5, no. 8. The same thought appears in Aquinas, "Summa Contra Gentiles," bk. IV, chap. 54, no. 5: "Nothing induces us to love another person so much as the experience of that person’s love for us. For this is just the property of love, to unite the lover with the loved."
For the interested reader, I quote here the two texts in the original Latin. (a) Aquinas, "De Rationibus Fidei:" "Non est aliquid quod ad amandum magis provocet quam quod aliquis se cognoscat amari." (b) Aquinas, "Summa Contra Gentiles:" "Nihil autem sic ad amorem alicuius nos inducit sicut experimentum illius ad nos. Est enim proprium amoris unire amantem cum amato, inquantum possibile est."
(2) Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter "Fides et Ratio," 14 September 1998, proem: "Fides et ratio binae quasi pennae videntur quibus veritatis ad contemplationem hominis attollitur animus. Deus autem ipse est qui veritatis cognoscendae studium hominum mentibus insevit, suique tandem etiam cognoscendi ut, cognoscentes Eum diligentesque, ad plenam pariter de se ipsis pertingere possint veritatem."