# Historical Arguments for God's Existence: Anselm, Aquinas, and Scotus - Prof. Thomas Ward Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-thomistic-institute-521456/historical-arguments-for-god-s-existence-anselm-aquinas-and-scotus-prof-thomas-ward Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-thomistic-institute-521456/historical-arguments-for-god-s-existence-anselm-aquinas-and-scotus-prof-thomas-ward.md Podcast: [The Thomistic Institute](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-thomistic-institute-521456) Published: 2026-07-06T11:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://podcast.thomisticinstitute.org Audio file: https://audio-delivery.cohostpodcasting.com/audio/1ec23f95-40fe-429d-a0f3-244bca6fbb8f/episodes/a198a1f5-6fe3-4905-9409-93467a5d0622/episode.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-thomistic-institute-521456/episodes/historical-arguments-for-god-s-existence-anselm-aquinas-and-scotus-prof-thomas-ward Duration seconds: 2628 ## Resource Prof. Thomas Ward examines medieval arguments for God’s existence in Anselm, Aquinas, and Scotus, showing how each thinker approaches the question from a different starting point and why their arguments still matter for faith and reason. This lecture was given on April 21st, 2025, at Saint Vincent College. To make a gift this June, visit  https://truth.thomisticinstitute.org/pod . About the Speaker: Thomas M. Ward is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Austin, in the School of Civic Leadership. He specializes in the history of philosophy and theology of the Middle Ages. Ward is the author of After Stoicism: Last Words of the Last Roman Philosopher (Word on Fire, 2024), Ordered by Love: An Introduction to John Duns Scotus (Angelico, 2022), Divine Ideas (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and has translated, with commentary, John Duns Scotus’s Treatise on the First Principle (Hackett, 2024). He has been a NEH Fellow (2022) and Harvey Fellow (2009-2011), and is a past winner of the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy Founder's Award (2013) and the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly Rising Scholar Essay Contest (2018). He studied philosophy at Biola University (BA 2004) and theology at Oxford University (M.Phil 2006), where he was Head Resident at the Kilns, the former residence of C.S. Lewis. His PhD in philosophy is from UCLA (2011). Ward is married with six children and is a member of St. Peter Catholic Student Center in Waco. Keywords: Anselm, Aquinas, Arguments For God, Cosmological Argument, Faith And Reason, John Duns Scotus, Ontological Argument, Philosophy, Theology ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-thomistic-institute-521456/episodes/historical-arguments-for-god-s-existence-anselm-aquinas-and-scotus-prof-thomas-ward/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-thomistic-institute-521456/historical-arguments-for-god-s-existence-anselm-aquinas-and-scotus-prof-thomas-ward.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.