Christianity and Greek Philosophy Part 14

[Footnote 211: Pp. 89,90.]

[Footnote 212: Muller, " Science of Language," p. 384.]

(ii.) _We do not hold that the idea of G.o.d, in its completeness, is a simple, direct, and immediate intuition of the reason alone, independent of all experience, and all knowledge of the external world_. The idea of G.o.d is a complex idea, and not a simple idea. The affirmation, "G.o.d exists," is a _synthetic_ and _primitive_ judgment spontaneously developed in the mind, and developed, too, independent of all reflective reasoning. It is a necessary deduction from the facts of the outer world of nature and the primary intuitions of the inner world of reason--a logical deduction from the self-evident truths given in sense, consciousness, and reason. "We do not _perceive_ G.o.d, but we _conceive_ Him upon the faith of this admirable world exposed to view, and upon the other world, more admirable still, which we bear in ourselves."[213]

Therefore we do not say that man is born with an "innate idea" of G.o.d, nor with the definite proposition, "there is a G.o.d," written upon his soul; but we do say that the mind is pregnant with certain natural principles, and governed, in its development, by certain necessary laws of thought, which determine it, by a _spontaneous logic_, to affirm the being of a G.o.d; and, furthermore, that this judgment may be called _innate_ in the sense, that it is the primitive, universal, and necessary development of the human understanding which "is innate to itself and equal to itself in all men."[214]

[Footnote 213: Cousin, "True, Beautiful and Good," p.102.]

[Footnote 214: Leibnitz.]

As the vital and rudimentary germ of the oak is contained in the acorn; as it is quickened and excited to activity by the external conditions of moisture, light, and heat, and is fully de developed under the fixed and determinative laws of vegetable life--so the germs of the idea of G.o.d are present in the human mind as the intuitions of pure reason (_Rational Psychology_); these intuitions are excited to energy by our experiential and historical knowledge of the facts and laws of the universe (_Phenomenology_); and these facts and intuitions are developed into form by the necessary laws of the intellect (_Nomology_, or _Primordial Logic_).

The _logical demonstration_ of the being of G.o.d commences with the a.n.a.lysis of thought. It asks, What are the ideas which exist in the human intelligence? What are their actual characteristics, and what their primitive characteristics? What is their origin, and what their validity? Having, by this process, found that some of our ideas are subjective, and some objective that some are derived from experience, and that some can not be derived from experience, but are inherent in the very const.i.tution of the mind itself, as _a priori_ ideas of reason; that these are characterized as self-evident, universal, and necessary and that, as laws of thought, they govern the mind in all its conceptions of the universe; it has formulated these necessary judgments, and presented them as distinct and articulate propositions.

These _a priori_, necessary judgments const.i.tute the major premise of the Theistic syllogism, and, in view of the facts of the universe, necessitate the affirmation of the existence of a G.o.d as the only valid explanation of the facts.

The _natural_ or _chronological order_ in which the idea of G.o.d is developed in the human intelligence, is the reverse process of the scientific or logical order, in which the demonstration of the being of G.o.d is presented by philosophy; the latter is _reflective_ and _a.n.a.lytic_, the former is _spontaneous_ and _synthetic._ The natural order commences with the knowledge of the facts of the universe, material and mental, as revealed by sensation and experience. In presence of these facts of the universe, the _a priori_ ideas of power, cause, reason, and end are evoked into consciousness with greater or less distinctness; and the judgment, by a natural and spontaneous logic, free from all reflection, and consequently from all possibility of error, affirms a necessary relation between the facts of experience and the _a priori_ ideas of the reason. The result of this involuntary and almost unconscious process of thought is that natural cognition of a G.o.d found, with greater or less clearness and definiteness, in all rational minds. The _a posteriori_, or empirical knowledge of the phenomena of the universe, in their relations to time and s.p.a.ce, const.i.tute the minor premise of the Theistic syllogism.

The Theistic argument is, therefore, necessarily composed of both experiential and _a priori_ elements. An _a posteriori_ element exists as a condition of the logical demonstration The rational _a priori_ element is, however, the logical basis, the only valid foundation of the Theistic demonstration. The facts of the universe alone would never lead man to the recognition of a G.o.d, if the reason, in presence of these facts, did not enounce certain necessary and universal principles which are the logical antecedents, and adequate explanation of the facts. Of what use would it be to point to the events and changes of the material universe as proofs of the existence of a _First Cause,_ unless we take account of the universal and necessary truth that "every change must have an efficient cause;" that all phenomena are an indication of _power_; and that "there is an ultimate and sufficient reason why all things exist, and are as they are, and not otherwise." There would be no logical force in enumerating the facts of order and special adaptation which literally crowd the universe, as proofs of the existence of an _Intelligent Creator_, if the mind did not affirm the necessary principle that "facts of order, having a commencement in time, suppose mind as their source and exponent." There is no logical conclusiveness in the a.s.sertion of Paley, "that _experience_ teaches us that a designer must be a person," because, as Hume justly remarks, our "experience" is narrowed down to a mere point, "and can not be a rule for a universe;"

but there is an infinitude of force in that dictum of reason, that "intelligence, self-consciousness, and self-determination necessarily const.i.tute personality." A multiplicity of different effects, of which experience does not always reveal the connection, would not conduct to a single cause and to _one_ G.o.d, but rather to a plurality of causes and a plurality of G.o.ds, did not reason teach us that "all plurality implies an ultimate indivisible unity," and therefore there must be a _First Cause_ of all causes, a _First Principle_ of all principles, _the Substance_ of all substances, _the Being_ of all beings--_a G.o.d_ "of whom, in whom, and to whom are all things" (p??ta ?? t?? ?e??, ?? t?

?e?, e?? t?? ?e??).

The conclusion, therefore, is, that, as the idea of G.o.d is a complex idea, so there are necessarily a number of simple _a priori_ principles, and a variety of experiential facts conspiring to its development in the human intelligence.

(iii.) _The universe presents to the human mind an aggregation and history of phenomena which demands the idea of a G.o.d--a self-existent, intelligent, personal, righteous First Cause--as its adequate explanation._

The attempt of Positivism to confine all human knowledge to the observation and cla.s.sification of phenomena, and arrest and foreclose all inquiry as to causes, efficient, final, and ultimate, is simply futile and absurd. It were just as easy to arrest the course of the sun in mid-heaven as to prevent the human mind from seeking to pa.s.s beyond phenomena, and ascertain the ground, and reason, and cause of all phenomena. The history of speculative thought clearly attests that, in all ages, the inquiry after the Ultimate Cause and Reason of all existence--the ????, or First Principle of all things--has been the inevitable and necessary tendency of the human mind; to resist which, skepticism and positivism have been utterly impotent. The first philosophers, of the Ionian school, had just as strong a faith in the existence of a Supreme Reality--an Ultimate Cause--as Leibnitz and Cousin. But when, by reflective thought, they attempted to render an account to themselves of this instinctive faith, they imagined that its object must be in some way appreciable to sense, and they sought it in some physical element, or under some visible and tangible shrine. Still, however imperfect and inadequate the method, and however unsatisfactory the results, humanity has never lost its positive and ineradicable confidence that the problem of existence could be solved. The resistless tide of spontaneous and necessary thought has always borne the race onward towards the recognition of a great First Cause; and though philosophy may have erred, again and again, in tracing the logical order of this inevitable thought, and exhibiting the necessary nexus between the premises and conclusion, yet the human mind has never wavered in the confidence which it has reposed in the natural logic of thought, and man has never ceased to believe in a G.o.d.

We readily grant that all our empirical knowledge is confined to phenomena in their orders of co-existence, succession, and resemblance.

"To our objective perception and comparison nothing is given but qualities and changes; to our inductive generalization nothing but the s.h.i.+fting and grouping of these in time and s.p.a.ce." Were it, however, our immediate concern to discuss the question, we could easily show that sensationalism has never succeeded in tracing the genetic origin of our ideas of s.p.a.ce and time to observation and experience; and, without the _a priori_ idea of _s.p.a.ce_, as the place of bodies, and of _time_, as the condition of succession, we can not conceive of phenomena at all.

If, therefore, we know any thing beyond phenomena and their mutual relations; if we have any cognition of realities underlying phenomena, and of the relations of phenomena to their objective ground, it must be given by some faculty distinct from sense-perception, and in some process distinct from inductive generalization. The knowledge of real Being and real Power, of an ultimate Reason and a personal Will, is derived from the apperception of pure reason, which affirms the necessary existence of a Supreme Reality--an Uncreated Being beyond all phenomena, which is the ground and reason of the existence--the contemporaneousness and succession--the likeness and unlikeness, of all phenomena.

The immediate presentation of phenomena to sensation is the _occasion_ of the development in consciousness of these _a priori_ ideas of reason: the possession of these ideas or the immanence of these ideas, in the human intellect, const.i.tutes the original _power_ to know external phenomena. The ideas of s.p.a.ce, time, power, law, reason, and end, are the logical antecedents of the ideas of body, succession, event, consecution, order, and adaptation. The latter can not be conceived as distinct notions without the former. The former will not be revealed in thought without the presentation to sense, of resistance, movement, change, uniformity, etc. All actual knowledge must, therefore, be impure; that is, it must involve both _a priori_ and _a posteriori_ elements; and between these elements there must be a necessary relation.

This necessary relation between the _a priori_ and _a posteriori_ elements of knowledge is not a mere subjective law of thought. It is both a law of thought and a law of things. Between the _a posteriori_ facts of the universe and the _a priori_ ideas of the reason there is an absolute nexus, a universal and necessary correlation; so that the cognition of the latter is possible only on the cognition of the former; and the objective existence of the realities, represented by the ideas of reason, is the condition, _sine qua non_, of the existence of the phenomena presented to sense. If, in one indivisible act of consciousness, we immediately perceive extended matter exterior to our percipient mind, then Extension exists objectively; and if Extension exists objectively, then s.p.a.ce, its _conditio sine qua non_, also exists objectively. And if a definite body reveals to us the _s.p.a.ce_ in which it is contained, if a succession of pulsations or movements exhibit the uniform _Time_ beneath, so do the changeful phenomena of the universe demand a living _Power_ behind, and the existing order and regular evolution of the universe presuppose _Thought_--prevision, and predetermination, by an intelligent mind.

If, then, the universe is a created effect, it must furnish some indications of the character of its cause. If, as Plato taught, the world is a "created image" of the eternal archetypes which dwell in the uncreated Mind, and if the subjective ideas which dwell in the human reason, as the offspring of G.o.d, are "copies" of the ideas of the Infinite Reason--if the universe be "the autobiography of the Infinite Spirit which has also repeated itself in miniature within our finite spirit," then may we decipher its symbols, and read its lessons straight off. Then every approach towards a scientific comprehension and generalization of the facts of the universe must carry us upward towards the higher realities of reason. The more we can understand of Nature--of her comprehensive laws, of her archetypal forms, of her far-reaching plan spread through the almost infinite ages, and stretching through illimitable s.p.a.ce--the more do we comprehend the divine Thought. The inductive generalization of science gradually _ascends_ towards the universal; the pure, essential, _a priori_ reason, with its universal and necessary ideas, _descends_ from above to meet it. The general conceptions of science are thus a kind of _ide umbratiles_--shadowy a.s.similations to those immutable ideas which dwell in essential reason, as possessed by the Supreme Intelligence, and which are partic.i.p.ated in by rational man as the offspring and image of G.o.d.

Without making any pretension to profound scientific accuracy, we offer the following tentative cla.s.sification of the facts of the universe, material and mental, which may be regarded as hints and adumbrations of the ultimate ground, and reason, and cause, of the universe. We shall venture to cla.s.sify these facts as indicative of some fundamental relation; (i.) to Permanent Being or Reality; (ii.) to Reason and Thought; (iii.) to Moral Ideas and Ends.

(i.) _Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation to Permanent Being or Reality_.

1. _Qualitative_ Phenomena (properties, attributes, qualities)--the predicates of a _subject_; which phenomena, being characterized by likeness and unlikeness, are capable of comparison and cla.s.sification, and thus of revealing something as to the nature of the _subject_.

2. _Dynamical_ Phenomena (protension, movement, succession)--events transpiring in _time_, having beginning, succession, and end, which present themselves to us as the expression of _power_, and throw back their distinctive characteristics on their _dynamic_ source.

3. _Quant.i.tative_ Phenomena (totality, multiplicity, relative unity)--a multiplicity of objects having relative and composite unity, which suggests some relation to an absolute and indivisible _unity_.

4. _Statical_ Phenomena (extension, magnitude, divisibility)--bodies co-existing in _s.p.a.ce_ which are limited, conditioned, relative, dependent, and indicate some relation to that which is self-existent, unconditioned, and absolute.

(ii.) _Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation to Reason or Thought_.

1. _Numerical and Geometrical Proportion_.--Definite proportion of elements (Chemistry), symmetrical arrangement of parts (Crystallography), numerical and geometrical relation of the forms and movements of the heavenly bodies (Spherical Astronomy), all of which are capable of exact mathematical expression.

2. _Archetypal Forms_.--The uniform succession of new existences, and the progressive evolution of new orders and species, conformable to fixed and definite ideal archetypes, the indication of a comprehensive _plan_(Morphological Botany, Comparative Anatomy).

3. _Teleology of Organs_.--The adaptation of organs to the fulfillment of special functions, indicating _design_(Comparative Physiology).

4. _Combination of h.o.m.otypes and a.n.a.logues_.--Diversified h.o.m.ologous forms made to fulfill a.n.a.logous functions, or special purposes fulfilled whilst maintaining a general plan, indicating _choice_ and _alternativity_.

(iii.) _Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation to Moral Ideas and Ends_.

1. _Ethical Distinctions_.--The universal tendency to discriminate between voluntary acts as right or wrong, indicating some relation to an _immutable moral standard of right_.

2. _Sense of Obligation_.--The universal consciousness of dependence and obligation, indicating some relation to Supreme _Power_, an Absolute _Authority_.

3. _Feeling of Responsibility_.--The universal consciousness of liability to be required to give account for, and endure the consequences of our action, indicating some relation to a Supreme _Judge_.

4. _Retributive Issues_.--The pleasure and pain resulting from moral action in this life, and the universal antic.i.p.ation of pleasure or pain in the future, as the consequence of present conduct, indicate an _absolute Justice_ ruling the world and man.

Now, if the universe be a _created effect_, it must, in some degree at least, reveal the character of its Author and cause. We are ent.i.tled to regard it as a created symbol and image of the Deity; it must bear the impress of his _power_; it must reveal his infinite _presence_; it must express his _thoughts_; it must embody and realize his _ideals_, so far, at least, as material symbols will permit. Just as we see the power and thought of man revealed in his works, his energy and skill, his ideal and his taste expressed in his mechanical, artistic, and literary creations, so we may see the mind and character of G.o.d displayed in his works. The skill and contrivance of Watts, and Fulton, and Stephenson were exhibited in their mechanical productions. The pure, the intense, the visionary impersonation of the soul which the artist had conjured in his own imagination was wrought out in Psyche. The colossal grandeur of Michael Angelo's ideals, the ethereal and saintly elegance of Raphael's were realized upon the canvas. So he who is familiar with the ideal of the sculptor or the painter can identify his creations even when the author's name is not affixed. And so the "eternal Power" of G.o.d is "clearly seen" in the mighty orbs which float in the illimitable s.p.a.ce.

The vastness of the universe shadows forth the infinity of G.o.d. The indivisible unity of s.p.a.ce and the ideal unity of the universe reflect the unity of G.o.d. The material forms around us are symbols of divine ideas, and the successive history of the universe is an expression of the divine thought; whilst the ethical ideas and sentiments inherent in the human mind are a reflection of the moral character of G.o.d.

The reader can not have failed to observe the form in which the Theistic argument is stated; "_if_ the finite universe is a created effect, it must reveal something as to the nature of its cause: _if_ the existing order and arrangement of the universe had a commencement in time, it must have an ultimate and adequate cause." The question, therefore, presents itself in a definite form: "_Is the universe finite or infinite; had the order of the universe a beginning, or is it eternal_?"

It will be seen at a glance that this is the central and vital question in the Theistic argument. If the order and arrangement of the universe is _eternal_, then that order is an inherent law of nature, and, as eternal, does not imply a cause _ab extra:_ if it is not eternal, then the ultimate cause of that order must be a power above and beyond nature. In the former case the minor premise of the Theistic syllogism is utterly invalidated; in the latter case it is abundantly sustained.

Some Theistic writers--as Descartes, Pascal, Leibnitz, and Saisset--have made the fatal admission that the universe is, in some sense, _infinite_ and _eternal_. In making this admission they have unwittingly surrendered the citadel of strength, and deprived the argument by which they would prove the being of a G.o.d of all its logical force. That argument is thus presented by Saisset: "The finite supposes the infinite. Extension supposes first s.p.a.ce, then immensity: duration supposes first time, then eternity. A sudden and irresistible judgment refers this to the necessary, infinite, perfect being."[215] But if "the world is infinite and eternal,"[216] may not nature, or the totality of all existence (t? p??), be the necessary, infinite, and perfect Being?

An infinite and eternal universe has the reason of its existence in itself, and the existence of such a universe can never prove to us the existence of an infinite and eternal G.o.d.

[Footnote 215: "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. p. 205.]

[Footnote 216: Ibid, p. 123.]

A closer examination of the statements and reasonings of Descartes, Pascal, and Leibnitz, as furnished by Saisset, will show that these distinguished mathematicans were misled by the false notion of "_mathematical_ infinitude." Their infinite universe, after all, is not an "absolute," but a "relative" infinite; that is, the indefinite. "The universe must extend _indefinitely_ in time and s.p.a.ce, in the infinite greatness, and in the infinite littleness of its parts--in the infinite variety of its species, of its forms, and of its degrees of existence.

The finite can not express the infinite but by being _multiplied_ infinitely. The finite, so far as it is finite, is not in any reasonable relation, or in any intelligible proportion to the infinite. But the finite, as _multiplied_ infinitely,[217] ages upon ages, s.p.a.ces upon s.p.a.ces, stars beyond stars, worlds beyond worlds, is a true expression of the Infinite Being. Does it follow, because the universe has no limits,--that it must therefore be eternal, immense, infinite as G.o.d himself? No; that is but a vain scruple, which springs from the imagination, and not from the reason. The imagination is always confounding what reason should ever distinguish, eternity and time, immensity and s.p.a.ce, _relative_ infinity and _absolute_ infinity. The Creator alone is eternal, immense, absolutely infinite."[218]

[Footnote 217: "The infinite is distinct from the finite, and consequently from the multiplication of the finite by itself; that is, from the _indefinite_. That which is not infinite, added as many times as you please to itself, will not become infinite."--Cousin, "Hist, of Philos.," vol. ii. p. 231.]

[Footnote 218: Saisset, "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. pp. 127, 128.]

The introduction of the idea of "the mathematical infinite" into metaphysical speculation, especially by Kant and Hamilton, with the design, it would seem, of transforming the idea of infinity into a sensuous conception, has generated innumerable paralogisms which disfigure the pages of their philosophical writings. This procedure is grounded in the common fallacy of supposing that _infinity_ and _quant.i.ty_ are compatible attributes, and susceptible of mathematical synthesis. This insidious and plausible error is ably refuted by a writer in the "North American Review."[219] We can not do better than transfer his argument to our pages in an abridged form.

[Footnote 219: "The Conditioned and the Unconditioned," No. CCV. art.

iii. (1864).]

Mathematics is conversant with quant.i.ties and quant.i.tative relations.