which founds on the fact of our existence and its limitations is
manifestly _a posteriori_. The other two both proceed from the idea
of a perfect being. The first is, that the idea of an all-perfect and
unlimited being is involved in the very consciousness of imperfection
and limitation. The imperfect can only be seen in the light of the
perfect; the finite cannot be conceived of except in relation to the
infinite. But can a finite and imperfect cause--like the human mind
or the outward world--be reasonably supposed to originate the idea of
an infinite and perfect being? Descartes holds that it cannot; that
the idea of an infinite and perfect being can only be explained by
the existence and operation of such a being. Was he correct in this
judgment? Perhaps not; but what has been urged in refutation of it
is probably by no means conclusive. It has been said that the ideas
of infinity and perfection are mere generalisations from experience.
But this is a statement which can only be proved on the principles
of sensationalism, and never has been proved. It has been likewise
said that these ideas are purely subjective, or, in other words,
that there may be nothing whatever to correspond to them. But this
is a meaningless collocation of words. No finite mind can conceive
the infinite, for example, as within itself at all. The human mind
can only think of the infinite as without itself. If the infinite
be not objective, the idea of the infinite is false and delusive.
The infinite, it has been further objected, means merely what is not
finite; and the perfect what is not imperfect. So be it; the argument
is as valid if the words be taken in that sense as in any other. Only
do not add, as some do, that the perfect and the imperfect, the finite
and the infinite, are mere verbal correlatives. Such a proposition can
be spoken, but it cannot be thought; and it is most undesirable to
divorce thought from speech. It has also been urged that all men have
not the idea of perfection; that different men have different ideas
thereof; and that in each man who possesses it the idea is constantly
changing. This must be granted; but it does not affect the argument,
which is founded on the existence of the idea of a perfect being, and
not on the perfection of the idea itself.
The second form of the Cartesian argument is, that God cannot be
thought of as a perfect Being unless He be also thought of as a
necessarily existent Being; and that, therefore, the thought of God
implies the existence of God. "Just as because," for example, "the
equality of its three angles to two right angles is necessarily
comprised in the idea of a triangle, the mind is firmly persuaded that
the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles; so, from
its perceiving necessary and eternal existence to be comprised in the
idea which it has of an all-perfect Being, it ought manifestly to
conclude that this all-perfect Being exists." Kant met this argument
thus: "It is a contradiction that there should be a triangle the three
angles of which are not equal to two right angles, or that there
should be a God who is not necessarily existent. I cannot in either
case retain the subject and do away with the predicate. If I assume
a triangle, I must take it with its three angles. If I assume a God,
I must grant Him to be necessarily existent. But why should I assume
either that there is a triangle or that there is a God? I may annul
the subject in both cases, and then there will be no contradiction in
annulling the predicate in both cases. There may be no such thing as a
triangle, why should there be such a Being as God?"
This reasoning of Kant has generally been accepted as conclusive. It
does not appear to me to be so. He ought not merely to have asserted
but to have shown that we can annul the subject in either of the cases
mentioned. We obviously cannot. I can say "there is no triangle," but
instead of annulling that implies the idea of a triangle, and from
the idea of a triangle it follows that its three angles are equal to
two right angles. In like manner I can say "there is no God," but
that is not to annul but to imply the idea of God, and it is from
the idea of God that, according to Descartes, the existence of God
necessarily follows. Kant should have seen that the proposition "there
is no God" could be no impediment to an argument the very purpose
of which is to prove that that proposition is a self-contradiction.
It is futile to meet this by saying that existence ought not to be
included in any mere conception, for it is not existence but necessary
existence which is included in the conception reasoned from, and that
God can be thought of otherwise than as necessarily existent requires
to be proved, not assumed. To affirm that existence cannot be given
or reached through thought, but only through sense and sensuous
experience, can prove nothing except the narrowness of the philosophy
on which such a thesis is based.
Cudworth, Leibnitz, and Mendelssohn modified the Cartesian argument
last specified in ways which do not greatly differ from one another. It
may be doubted whether their modifications were improvements.
In the eighteenth century there were elaborated a great many proofs
which claimed to be _a priori_ theistic demonstrations based on the
notions of existence and causality. Assuming that something is,
and that nothing cannot be the cause of something, these arguments
attempted to establish that there must be an unoriginated Being of
infinite perfection, and possessed of the attributes which we ascribe
to God. The most famous of them was, perhaps, that of Dr Samuel Clarke,
contained in the Boyle Lecture of 1704. But Dr Richard Fiddes, the
Rev. Colin Campbell, Mr Wollaston, Moses Lowman, the Chevalier Ramsay,
Dean Hamilton, and many others, devised ingenious demonstrations
of a similar nature. It is impossible for me to discuss here their
merits and demerits. Probably not one of them has completely satisfied
more than a few speculative minds. They are certainly not fitted to
carry conviction to the ordinary practical understanding. Yet it is
not easy to detect flaws in some of them; and the more carefully they
are studied, the more, I am inclined to think, will it be recognised
that they are pervaded by a substantial vein of truth. They attempted
logically to evolve what was implied in certain primary intuitions or
fundamental conditions of the mind, and although they may not have
accomplished all that they aimed at, they have at least succeeded
in showing that unless there exists an eternal, infinite, and
unconditioned Being, the human mind is, in its ultimate principles,
self-contradictory and delusive.[49]
[49] See Appendix XXXVIII.
There must, for example, unless consciousness and reason are utterly
untrustworthy, be an eternal Being. Present existence necessarily
implies to the human intellect eternal existence. The man who says
that a finite mind cannot rise to the idea of an eternal Being talks
foolishly, for all the thinking of a finite mind implies belief in
what he says is inaccessible to human thought. No man can thoughtfully
affirm his own existence, or the existence even of a passing fancy of
his mind, or of a grain of sand, without feeling that that affirmation
as certainly implies that something existed from all eternity as any
mathematical demonstration whatever implies its conclusion. And this
truth, that the most transient thing cannot be conceived of as existing
unless an eternal Being exist, may be syllogistically expressed and
exhibited in a variety of ways, because the contradictions involved
in denying it are numerous. This is what has been done by the authors
above mentioned with much ingenuity, and by some of them in a manner
which never has been and never can be refuted. It may be doubted
whether they did wisely in throwing their arguments into syllogistic
form; but as nobody ventures to undertake the refutation of them, they
must be admitted to be substantially valid. The reasonings of men like
Clarke and Fiddes, Lowman and Ramsay, have sufficiently proved that
whoever denies such propositions as these,--Something has existed from
eternity; The eternal Being must be necessarily existent, immutable,
and independent; There is but one unoriginated Being in the universe;
The unoriginated Being must be unlimited or perfect in all its
attributes, &c.,--inevitably falls into manifest absurdities.
This, it may be objected, is not equivalent to a proof of the existence
of an infinite and eternal Being. It leads merely to the alternative,
either an infinite and eternal Being exists, or the consciousness and
reason of man cannot be trusted. The absolute sceptic will rejoice to
have the alternative offered to him; that the human mind is essentially
untrustworthy is precisely what he maintains. I answer that I admit
that the arguments in question do not amount to a direct positive
proof, but that they constitute a _reductio ad absurdum_, which is just
as good, and that if they do not exclude absolute scepticism, it is
merely because absolute scepticism is willing to accept what is absurd.
I am not going to examine absolute scepticism at present. I shall have
something to say regarding it when I treat of antitheistic theories.
Just now it is sufficient simply to point out that if disbelief in an
infinite, self-existent, eternal Being necessarily implies belief in
the untrustworthiness of all our mental processes, the absolute sceptic
is the only man who can consistently disbelieve in God. Unless we are
prepared to believe that no distinction can be established between
truth and error--that there is no certainty that our senses and our
understandings are not at every moment deceiving us--no real difference
between our perceptions when we are awake and our visions when we
are asleep--no ground of assurance that we are not as much deluded
when following a demonstration of Euclid as any have been who busied
themselves in attempting to square the circle,--we must accept all
arguments which show that disbelief of the existence of an infinite and
eternal Being logically involves a self-contradiction or an absurdity,
as not less valid than a direct positive demonstration of the existence
of such a Being. If, although I am constrained to conclude that there
is an infinite and eternal Being, I may reject the conclusion on the
supposition that reason is untrustworthy, I am clearly bound, in
self-consistency, to set aside the testimony of my senses also by the
assumption that they are habitually delusive. When any view or theory
is shown to involve absolute scepticism it is sufficiently refuted,
for absolute scepticism effaces the distinction between reason and
unreason, and practically prefers unreason to reason.
II.
The _a priori_ arguments have a value independent of their truth and
of their power to produce conviction. True or false, persuasive or
merely perplexing, they are admirable means of disciplining the mind
distinctly to apprehend certain ideas which experience cannot yield,
yet which must be comprehended in any worthy view taken of God. They
help us steadily to contemplate and patiently to consider such abstract
and difficult thoughts as those of being, absolute being, necessary
being, cause, substance, perfection, infinity, eternity, &c.; and this
is a service so great, that it may safely be said--as some writer whose
name I cannot recall has said--that they will never be despised so long
as speculative thinking is held in repute.
While believing that several of these arguments on the whole accomplish
what they undertake, I am not prepared to maintain that any of them
are faultless or even conclusive throughout. They are all, probably,
much too formal and elaborate, so far as any directly practical
purpose is concerned. It ought to be constantly kept in view that
they presuppose an immediate apprehension of the infinite, and that
their value consists entirely in establishing that that apprehension
implies the reality and presence of God. The simplest mode of doing
this must be the best. It may be thought that no reasoning at all is
needed; that the intuition does not require to be supplemented by any
inference; that if the infinite be apprehended, the living God must be
self-evidently present to the human mind. But this is plainly a hasty
view. Few atheists will deny that something is infinite, or that they
immediately apprehend various aspects of infinity. What they refuse
to acknowledge is, that the apprehension of the infinite implies
more than the boundlessness of space, the eternity of time, and the
self-existence of matter. There is certainly some reasoning needed in
order to show that this interpretation of the intuition is inadequate.
But such reasoning cannot be too direct, for otherwise the function of
the intuition is almost certain to be obscured, and argument is almost
certain to be credited with accomplishing far more than it really
effects.
According to the view of the theistic argumentation which has been
given in the present course of lectures, all that is now necessary to
complete the theistic proof is very simple indeed. The universe has
been shown to have an inconceivably powerful and intelligent cause,
a Supreme Creator, who has dealt bountifully with all His creatures,
who has given to men a moral law, and who has abundantly manifested
in history that He loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity. We are
further conscious of having ideas or intuitions of infinity, eternity,
necessary existence, and perfection. We may dispute as to whence and
how we have got them, but we cannot deny that we possess them. Were
any person, for example, to affirm that he did not believe that there
is a self-existent or necessary being--a being which derived its
existence from no other and depends upon no other but is what it is in
and of itself alone--we should be entitled to tell him either that he
did not know the meaning of what he said, or that he did not himself
believe what he said. But if we undoubtedly possess these ideas, they
must, unless they are wholly delusive--which is what we are unable to
conceive--be predicable of some being. The sole question for us is,
Of what being? And the whole of our previous argumentation has shut
us up to one answer. It must be, Of Him who has been proved to be the
First Cause of all things--the Source of all the power, wisdom, and
goodness displayed in the universe. It cannot be the universe itself,
for that has been shown to be but an effect--to have before and behind
it a Mind, a Person. It cannot be ourselves or anything to which our
senses can reach, seeing that we and they are finite, contingent, and
imperfect. The author of the universe alone--the Father of our spirits,
and the Giver of every good and perfect gift--can be uncreated and
unconditioned, infinite and perfect.
This completes the idea of God so far as it can be reached or
formed by natural reason. And it gives consistency to the idea. The
conclusions of the _a posteriori_ arguments fail to satisfy either
mind or heart until they are connected with, and supplemented by,
this intuition of the reason--infinity. The conception of any other
than an infinite God--a God unlimited in all perfections--is a
self-contradictory conception which the intellect refuses to entertain.
The self-contradictions inherent in such a conception have been
exposed times without number, and in ways which cannot possibly be
refuted. The chief value of most of the _a priori_ arguments lies in
such demonstration; and no theologian who has thoughtfully discussed
either the immanent or the transitive attributes of God has been
able to dispense with as much of _a priori_ reasoning as necessary
to establish that a denial of the eternity, or immutability, or
omnipotence, or ubiquity, or omniscience, or any other attribute
implied in the infinity of the Divine Being, logically leads to
absurdity. If the infinity or independence, for example, of the First
Cause be questioned, whoever would maintain it must return some
such answer as that which Mr Spencer, although not assenting to it,
puts in these words: "If we go a step further, and ask what is the
nature of this First Cause, we are driven by an inexorable logic to
certain further conclusions. Is the First Cause finite or infinite?
If we say finite, we involve ourselves in a dilemma. To think of the
First Cause as finite is to think of it as limited. To think of it
as limited necessarily implies a conception of something beyond its
limits: it is absolutely impossible to conceive a thing as bounded
without conceiving a region surrounding its boundaries. What now
must we say of this region? If the First Cause is limited, and there
consequently lies something outside of it, this something must have
no First Cause--must be uncaused. But if we admit that there can be
something uncaused, there is no reason to assume a cause for anything.
If beyond that finite region over which the First Cause extends there
lies a region which we are compelled to regard as infinite, over which
it does not extend--if we admit that there is an infinite uncaused
surrounding the finite caused--we tacitly abandon the hypothesis of
causation altogether. Thus it is impossible to consider the First Cause
as finite. And if it cannot be finite it must be infinite. Another
inference concerning the First Cause is equally unavoidable. It must
be independent. If it is dependent, it cannot be the First Cause; for
that must be the First Cause on which it depends. It is not enough to
say that it is partially independent; since this implies some necessity
which determines its partial dependence, and this necessity, be it what
it may, must be a higher cause, or the true First Cause, which is a
contradiction. But to think of the First Cause as totally independent,
is to think of it as that which exists in the absence of all other
existence; seeing that if the presence of any other existence is
necessary, it must be partially dependent on that other existence, and
so cannot be the First Cause."
It is impossible, I think, to show that we are justified in ascribing
to God the attributes most essential to His nature without having
recourse to a very considerable extent to reasoning of an _a priori_
kind similar to that of which we have a specimen in the passage just
quoted. Such reasoning may be perfectly legitimate and conclusive. Mr
Spencer, I have said, does not accept as valid the arguments cited. But
he admits that from their inferences "there appears to be no escape,"
characterises their logic as "inexorable," and makes not the slightest
attempt directly to refute them. On what grounds, then, does he
withhold his assent from them?
One reason is, that the very conclusions which such arguments yield,
lead, he thinks, by a logic as inexorable, to self-contradictions as
great as those found to be involved in the denial of the infinity,
independence, &c., of God. Reasoning from which there appears to be no
escape, and in which no logical fallacy can be detected, yields the
conclusion that there is an infinite and absolute First Cause; but
reasoning as faultless yields also the conclusion that an infinite and
absolute First Cause is a self-contradiction--that there is no infinite
and absolute First Cause. In other words, an inexorable logic proves
both that there is an infinite and absolute First Cause, and that there
is none. Therefore it proves nothing at all except the worthlessness of
logic when applied to such an idea as that of a First Cause.
Most persons will probably be of opinion that a view like this is its
own sufficient refutation; that the reasoning which tries to prove
that reasoning may be necessarily and essentially self-contradictory
is self-condemned. And they will be quite right in their opinion. If
for any proposition the proof and counter-proof be equally cogent--if
for contradictories there may be perfect demonstrations--it is not God
only, but everything, that we shall have to cease to believe in. Such
a _reductio ad absurdum_ of a proposition would be also a _reductio ad
absurdum_ of the reason itself, leaving no inference, no intuition, no
perception, to be rationally trusted. A scepticism more absolute and
comprehensive than any human being has dared to advocate, would be the
only legitimate result. Our whole nature would have to be regarded as a
lie. But we need have no fear of reason thus terminating its existence
by committing suicide. If we are disposed to be afraid that the human
mind is in danger of so terrible a calamity, an examination of the
reasoning by which it has been attempted to show that the idea of an
infinite and absolute First Cause involves a variety of contradictions
ought speedily to reassure us. Few persons of ordinary reasoning
powers, if not committed to a foregone conclusion, will regard as
"inexorable logic" the argumentation by which Mr Mansel and Mr Spencer
fancy that they show that one and the same Being cannot be a cause,
infinite and absolute, or its inferences as those "from which there
appears to be no escape." On the contrary, ninety-nine men in a hundred
will deem them extremely weak, and possessed of no other plausibility
than that which they derive from an inaccurate and ambiguous use of
language. There are arguments proving that there is a First Cause, and
that the First Cause must be infinite and absolute, in which no fallacy
can be detected. But the only arguments which have yet been invented
to show that the First Cause cannot without contradiction be thought
of as infinite and absolute, are good for little else than to exercise
students of logic in the examination of fallacies. The two sets of
arguments are by no means of equal worth and weight.
They are also notably different in nature. Those which attempt to
prove the First Cause to be infinite and absolute imply no more than
that the mind may conclude that such a cause is not finite, dependent,
and imperfect. In this there is nothing arrogant. Those which attempt
to prove that the First Cause cannot be infinite and absolute are of
a much less humble character. They imply that we have a positive and
comprehensive knowledge of the First Cause; the infinite, and the
absolute; that we can define, compare, and contrast them, and thus find
out that they are incompatible and contradictory. But we may be quite
unable to do anything of the kind, and yet be fully entitled to hold
that the First Cause is not finite, dependent, or imperfect. We may
reason _to_ the infinite, if we only know what the finite is and is
not, without being justified in reasoning _from_ the infinite, as if we
knew definitely, not to say exhaustively, its nature.
The idea of an infinite First Cause--the idea of the infinite
God--contains no self-contradiction; on the contrary, it solves certain
otherwise inevitable self-contradictions of thought. It is only by
the apprehension of a Being who passeth knowledge that knowledge
can be rendered self-consistent; only by the admission that all
existence is not included within the conditions of the finite that
thought can escape self-destruction. But, of course, we may easily
put contradictions into our idea of an infinite Being, by assuming
that we know more about unoriginated existence, primary causation,
infinity, independence, &c., than we really do, and by defining or
describing them in ways for which we have no warrant. The idea of an
infinite First Cause is, it must not be forgotten, the idea of an
incomprehensible Being. No sane mind can refuse to acknowledge that
something is eternal and immense; but we cannot comprehend eternity and
immensity, and when we reason as if we comprehended them, we speedily
find ourselves involved in absurdities. We may know and believe that
God is eternal and immense, but if He be so, we undoubtedly cannot
comprehend Him. We cannot think of God otherwise than as self-existent,
yet we certainly cannot comprehend the nature of self-existence. We
can think of it negatively as unoriginated and independent existence,
and consequently as a positive, most perfect, and peculiar manner of
existence, unlike that which is characteristic of ourselves and other
finite beings; but we are ignorant wherein its peculiarities and
perfections positively consist.