SOURCE: "Ockham on Nature and God," The Thomist, Vol. XXXVII, No. 1, January, 1973, pp. 69-87.

In the following essay, Woods examines Ockham's proof for the existence of a first cause and discusses how this proof differs from Aristotle's proof for the existence of God.

I

I should like to discuss the Ockhamist argument for the existence of God from efficient causality. In particular, I intend to focus on the relation, in Ockham, between the universe and God, insofar as that relation can be elaborated by reason without the aid of Revelation. Briefly, I desire to indicate the kind of being in which Ockham's proof for the existence of God terminates.

The principal philosophical enterprise of the Middle Ages is usually referred to as Fides quaerens intellectum. This means, I take it, that mediaeval thinkers, possessing the Christian faith, desired to penetrate it, to draw out its implications, and to...