THE PATRISTIC POINT OF VIEW
The philosophy of the Greeks during the first century of our era
presents a great contrast to that of the age of Socrates, Plato and
Aristotle. No longer do we find men engaged in the processes of
positive, constructive thought, but we have presented to our view an age
of retrospection, of literary criticism, and, to a great extent, of
intellectual exhaustion. Men live amid the ruins of the systems
constructed by their ancestors, and each one attempts to form for
himself, out of the scattered fragments, a combination which may serve
him as a sufficiently coherent rule of thought, and, especially, of
life. Stoicism, Epicureanism, Scepticism, the "Orientalizing Hellenes,"
and the "Hellenizing Orientals," all by their restless, nervous,
frequently erratic and aimless activity, bear witness to the fact that
the mind of man has had revealed to it its own limitations, and is well
on the way towards despair of ever arriving at truth. The Greek mind no
longer exhibits that elasticity and spontaneity and enthusiasm in the
search for truth, or that confidence in its results, which characterized
the representatives of the best period of the thought of the race. The
political fortunes of Greece do but typify the process which was going
on in the Greek mind itself, and the period which we are considering is
an age of intellectual as well as political decadence. This is
manifested by the further fact that the thought of the age was largely
turned backward and dwelt in the past. The day of original thought had
passed by, and men were now content to deal with ideas at second
hand--to be commentators rather than creators. This literary character
which Greek philosophy now first began to exhibit was often seen and
protested against. Thus Epictetus says: "If I study philosophy with a
view only to its literature, I am not a philosopher, but a littérateur;
the only difference is that I interpret Chrysippus instead of
Homer."[28] But protest as they might, the inexorable signs of old age
crept over the nation as irresistibly as they do over the individual,
and, like the venerable man, preserved beyond his generation, Hellas
lived largely in the memories of the past.
The influence of this condition of things is seen in the education of
the times. The Greek world of this period, as we know it, was
pre-eminently educated, but in a special, literary sense of the term.
The foundation of their education was Grammar--the "Belles Lettres" of
modern times. Sextus Empiricus says, "We are all given over to Grammar
from childhood, and almost from our baby-clothes."[29] After Grammar
came Rhetoric, "the study of literature by the study of literary
expression and quasi-forensic argument,"[30] and Rhetoric was followed
by Philosophy, which, however, like the other branches of study, so
partook of the characteristics of the age that we find Marcus Aurelius
congratulating himself in this manner: "I owe it to Rusticus that I
found the idea of the need of moral reformation, and that I was not
diverted to literary ambition, or to write treatises on philosophical
subjects, or to make rhetorical exhortations."[31]
This saying of the imperial Stoic suggests another characteristic of the
thought of the age--its ethical cast. From the time of Aristotle men had
been content to have, to a large extent, the abstract problems of
Ontology, Epistemology, and the others, and to lay emphasis on questions
of life and manners. Stoicism, Epicureanism, Scepticism, and all the
minor schools of the age, are pre-eminently ethical in their character.
To be sure it was ethical theory rather than practice with which they
were busied, but this fact makes the characteristic none the less
important for the student of the history of philosophy.
This disorganized condition of thought which we have been attempting to
depict has been well described by Dr. Stirling: "The fall of the old
world, which was at once political, religious and philosophical, was
characterized by a universal atomism. Politically, the individual, as an
atom, found himself alone, without a country, hardly with a home.
Religiously, the individual, as an atom, has lost his God; he looks up
into an empty heaven; his heart is broken, and he is hopeless, helpless,
hapless, in despair. Philosophically, all is contradiction; there is no
longer any knowledge he can trust. What the world is he knows not at
all. He knows not at all what he himself is. Of what he is here for, of
what it is all about, he is in the profoundest doubt, despondency and
darkness. Politically, religiously and philosophically thus empty and
alone, it is only of himself that the individual can think; it is only
for himself that the individual must care. There is not a single need
left him now--he has not a single thought in his heart--but {eu prattein},
his own welfare."[32]
It was in the midst of this lump of Eclecticism, Syncretism and
Scepticism that the leaven of Christianity was deposited, and the result
of the fusion which took place after the first antagonism had passed
away, makes this period a turning-point in the history of philosophy,
and of the utmost importance as regards its effects on subsequent
thought.
And of this antagonism and subsequent reconciliation, the early
Christian Apologists were concrete examples. They had most of them,
before they became Christians, been adherents of one or the other of the
different philosophical sects, and several of them had tried all in
turn.[33] They exemplified well the prevailing restless distrust of the
results and methods of the older schools, but in Christianity--the
belief in a Person, who was for them "the Way, the Truth and the
Life"--they finally found the certainty for which they had so long
sought in vain. The effect of this process, and of this result upon the
attitude of the early Christian philosophers, could be none other than
an increased distrust of the arguments for the existence of God, and an
inclination to ignore them completely. These already suspected processes
of reasoning by which the Greeks had been able to attain only to an
abstract principle, or force, or mechanical cause, or arranger of the
world, must be of very small importance to these men, upon whose sight
had burst all at once, in the height of their despair, the vision of the
Christian doctrine of God, certified to by one whom they believed to be
the veritable Son of God, "of one substance with the Father," and whose
testimony to the truth of any fact brought a certainty which was
infinitely superior to that which could be attained by any rational
argument on other grounds. The transcendent authority of the teaching of
Jesus Christ for these men, suddenly rescued by a belief in His claims
from an absolute scepticism which was rapidly overflowing their minds,
needs to be thoroughly appreciated before one can understand the
position which they assumed, especially with reference to such a
question as the one under discussion.
But though this basis of belief was sufficient for them, yet, as the
primary mission of the Christian was to "go, disciple all nations," they
were soon brought, in their endeavors to fulfil this command, into
contact with those who not only denied the authority of their Teacher,
but who were sceptical about the very fundamentals of religious belief.
For the sake of these, then, and occasionally for the further
confirmation of the faith of believers, and for purposes of
illustration, the patristic writers return again to the discussion of
those elements of belief for which they themselves felt no need, and
hence we have in their works a rather frequent reference to the various
forms of the theistic argument; but one which is evidently only
incidental to their main course of thought, and which is brought in
merely in accommodation to the needs of their readers. The ordinary
arguments to prove the existence of God were not at all an essential, or
even prominent, feature of early Christian Theology. And because of this
secondary and incidental position of these arguments, they were never,
as we shall see, given definite, conventional shape in the patristic use
of them, nor were the various forms of the argument differentiated; but
they were used in what we may call a mixed form, a combination of two or
more different forms being put forth as one composite whole.
Besides these general influences which shaped the patristic treatment of
the theistic arguments, we should notice certain fundamental and
characteristic principles assumed by the Fathers, or by most of them,
which have their bearing on our subject.
In the first place it is held by most of the early Christian authors,
and explicitly stated by many of them, that the idea of the existence of
God is innate in man as a "natural opinion." We have already noticed the
doctrine of {prolepsis} advanced by Epicurus, and the somewhat similar
position assumed by Philo, and we are not surprised to find that this
idea took a strong hold on the devout minds of the early Christians.
Thus St. Justin Martyr states that "the appellation 'God' is not a name,
but _an opinion_ ({prosagoreuma}) _planted in the nature of man_ of a
thing that can hardly be explained,"[34] and makes one of his
discussions conclude that souls "can perceive ({noein}) that God
exists."[35] St. Clement of Alexandria goes even further and affirms
that "the Father, then, and Maker of all things is apprehended by all
things, agreeably to all, _by innate power and without teaching_."[36]
Tertullian thinks that "the soul was before prophecy. From the beginning
the knowledge of God is the dowry (_dos_) of the soul,"[37] and among
the "things known even by nature" is "the knowledge of our God" which is
"possessed by all,"[38] so that he could write a treatise, _De
Testimonio Animæ_, and exclaim, "O noble testimony of the soul by nature
Christian."[39] Origen speaks of "the uncorrupted idea of Him which is
implanted in the human mind,"[40] and St. Cyprian makes this knowledge
so plain that "this is the very height of sinfulness to refuse to
acknowledge Him whom you cannot but know."[41] Arnobius, too, in a
passage in which much allowance must be made for rhetorical fervor,
exclaims, "Is there any human being who has not entered on the first day
of his life with an idea of that Great Head? In whom has it not been
implanted by nature, on whom has it not been impressed, aye, stamped
almost in his mother's womb even, in whom is there not a native
instinct, that He is King and Lord, the ruler of all things that be? In
fine, if the dumb animals even could stammer forth their thoughts, if
they were able to use our languages; nay, if trees, if the clods of the
earth, if stones dominated by vital perceptions were able to produce
vocal sounds, and to utter articulate speech, would they not in that
case, with nature as their guide and teacher, in the faith of
uncorrupted innocence, both feel that there is a God, and proclaim that
He alone is Lord of all?"[42] Such language as this last example is, of
course, the exclamation of the orator rather than the deliberate
judgment of the philosopher, but taken in connection with the other
passages cited it will indicate how strong a hold this conviction had on
the Fathers, and will anticipate, to some extent, what we shall have to
say later as to the use of the _Argumentum e Consensu Gentium_.
In direct connection and sharp contrast with this opinion of the
Fathers, there stands the seemingly contradictory statement, as
frequently encountered in their writings, that the soul of itself cannot
see God nor attain to true religion. In the very same sentence in which
St. Justin Martyr asserts that souls "can perceive ({noein}) that God
exists," he states that they do not see ({idein}) God,[43] and insists in
more than one place that "neither by nature nor by human conception is
it possible for men to know things so great and divine."[44] Frequently
the patristic writers have occasion to emphasize the inability of man to
attain by any of his natural powers to religious truth, and to point to
the impotent longings and aspirations of Greek philosophy as an example
of this. St. Clement of Alexandria, for example, asserts that "the
chiefs of philosophy only guessed at" religious truth,[45] and lays
down the general principle that "God, then, being not a subject for
demonstration, cannot be the object of science."[46] Origen, too, states
that "for ourselves, we maintain that human nature is in no way able to
seek after God, or to attain a clear knowledge of Him without the help
of Him whom it seeks."[47]
The inconsistency between these two fundamental positions of the
Fathers, of which much is often made, is, I think, more apparent than
real. For they make a clear distinction in their thought, though the
mere language which they use is sometimes confusing, between knowledge
of the existence of God--the undefined feeling or belief that there is a
God--which is the "innate opinion," for which they give every man
credit; and the knowledge of God, _i.e._, of His attributes, etc., the
subject-matter of dogmatic theology. The existence of the former of
these, it is true, as of the latter, may be obscured and nearly
obliterated by sin and the consequent disorganization; for in the
teaching of the Fathers, as in that of their Master, it is the pure in
heart that see God,[48] and it is only the man whose nature is kept in
due balance by a life of moral rectitude--the "righteous man" of the
Scriptures--who can be expected to exhibit clearly this "natural
opinion" or to attain to a full knowledge and appreciation of the
Christian doctrine of God. At the very best, the knowledge of the Deity
attained apart from revelation seemed to the Fathers to be, in
comparison with their own certainty, miserably vague and conjectural,
and they are constantly contrasting, in the most striking and graphic
way, the contradictory and uncertain results to which the philosophers
attained with the definiteness and consistency of the already
well-defined doctrine of the Christian church. To them certainty in
regard to knowledge of God can only come by means of the testimony of
one who had seen and known,[49] and this testimony they are satisfied
that they find in two places chiefly--first, in the testimony of the
Prophets of the Old Testament, and, second, but in fact primarily, in
the life and words of Jesus Christ, "the Word."
Of the antiquity and reliability of this first source--the
Prophets--they were never tired of talking, and they were so confident
of the necessity of resorting to it that they developed their famous
theory of the indebtedness of Plato and Aristotle to those Hebrew seers
for their theology. "From every point of view, therefore," concludes St.
Justin Martyr, "it must be seen that in no other way than only from the
prophets, who teach us by divine inspiration, is it at all possible to
learn anything concerning God and the true religion."[50]
But the chief source from which the Fathers drew that certainty which
they could not find in the demonstrations of philosophy was in the
teaching of the Word, Jesus Christ. God, indeed, as we have seen, is not
an object of science, "but the Son is wisdom and knowledge and truth,
and all else that has affinity thereto. _He is also susceptible of
demonstration and of description._"[51] It is in the incarnate Word of
God that the patristic writers find expressed all that man is able to
comprehend, and all that he needs to know in this present world, of the
Divine Nature, and it is His words that confirm their confidence in that
"innate opinion" of the existence of God, of the presence of which in
every man they were so sure.
The subject of the "demonstration" of the existence of God is spoken of
at some length in several places by St. Clement of Alexandria, and with
his position most of the Fathers agree in the main. He regards the
subject largely from an Aristotelian point of view. All knowledge is
derived from Sensation and Understanding. "Intellectual apprehension is
first in the order of nature; but in our case, and in relation to
ourselves, Sensation is first, and of Sensation and Understanding the
essence of knowledge is formed, and evidence is common to Understanding
and Sensation."[52] But "should any one say that knowledge is founded on
demonstration" (which "depends on primary and better known
principles,"[53] being "discourse agreeable to reason, producing belief
in points disputed, from points admitted"[54]) "_by a process of
reasoning_, let him hear that first principles are incapable of
demonstration, for they are neither by art" ({technê}), which is "practical
solely, and not theoretical," "nor by sagacity" ({phronêsis} = practical
wisdom), which is "conversant about objects which are susceptible of
change,"[55] but are "primary," "self-evident," and
"indemonstrable."[56] Thus this "demonstration by a process of
reasoning," apart from Sensation _and_ Understanding, is only "to
syllogize;" "for to draw the proper conclusion from the premisses is
merely to syllogize. But to have also each of the premisses true is not
merely to have syllogized, but also to have demonstrated," "so that if
there is demonstration at all, there is an absolute necessity that there
be something that is self-evident, which is called primary and
indemonstrable."[57] On the basis of this theory of knowledge, it is
evident that the usual arguments for the existence of God would have but
little weight. For they either attempt to attain their end by formal
thought alone, and thus result in mere "syllogizing;" or, starting from
valid enough premises, they try to extend the conclusion beyond the
limits imposed by the laws of "demonstration." For St. Clement, then,
God is not "apprehended by the science of demonstration." If the Deity
is to be known, there must be some place in which a union of the
material and formal elements of "demonstration" of His existence is to
be found. This he places in the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, who,
as God incarnate, furnishes the "evidence" which "is common to
Understanding and Sensation," and thus translates the "Infinite" and
"Ineffable" into terms of the finite and comprehensible. In this paradox
Christian theology has ever since been content to rest as one of the
fundamental mysteries of the Faith.
But even with all the aids of revelation, the Fathers would not claim
that man can advance to a full or adequate knowledge of God--we can
simply know so much _about_ God as is necessary for _practical_
purposes--for ascertaining our proper end and duties. God is, from the
very limitations of the human mind, "ineffable," "incomprehensible,"
"the unknown;"[58] and St. Clement of Alexandria expressly states even
the best knowledge of God that man can by any means attain is only
negative.[59]
These general positions, which in their broad lines are common to
practically all of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, serve to confirm the
historical interpretation of the place occupied by early Christian
theistic thought, and will pave the way to an appreciation of their use
of the arguments for the existence of God.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] _Enchiridion_, 49.
[29] _Adversus Grammaticos_, I, 44.
[30] Hatch: _Hibbert Lectures_, 1888, Lect. II, where a full account is
given of the education of the time, and what it signified.
[31] I, 7.
[32] _Philosophy and Theology_, p. 164.
[33] See e.g., St. Justin Martyr: _Dialogue with Trypho_, II.
[34] _Second Apology_, VI.
[35] _Dialogue with Trypho_, IV (end).
[36] _Stromata_, V, 14.
[37] _Against Marcion_, I, 10.
[38] _Resurrection of the Flesh_, III.
[39] _Apology_, XVII.
[40] _Against Celsus_, II, 40.
[41] _Treatise_ VI, § 9. See, also, Tertullian: _Apology_, XVII; "And
this is the crowning guilt of men that they will not recognize One of
whom they cannot possibly be ignorant."
[42] _Against the Heathen_, I. 33.
[43] _Dialogue with Trypho_, IV, "Even Homer distinguishes simple seeing
({idein}) from {noein}, which implies perception by the mind as consequent
upon sight."
[44] _Hortatory Address to the Greeks_, V.
[45] _Exhortation to the Heathen_, XI.
[46] _Stromata_, IV, 25. In V, 12, he explains what he means by
"demonstration": "Nor any more is He apprehended by the science of
demonstration, for it depends on primary and better known principles.
But there is nothing antecedent to the Unbegotten."
[47] _Against Celsus_, VII, 20. See also VII, 44, and Clem. Alex.:
_Stromata_, II, ii, 4, and often.
[48] E.g., Theophilus (I, 1, 2) replies to the demand: "Show me thy
God," by the counter-demand: "Show me _yourself_, and I will show you my
God."
[49] E.g., St. Justin: _Hortatory Address_, V.
[50] _Ibid._, XXXVIII. See also V, VIII, and Athenagoras: _Embassy_,
VII; Clem. Alex.: _Exhortion to Heathen_, VI, XI; _Stromata_, I, 13; II,
2, 11; V, 14; Tertullian: _Apology_, XVIII; Methodius: _Miscellaneous
Fragments_, 1.
[51] St. Clem. Alex.: _Stromata_, IV, 25. For a few among many
references, see: St. Irenaeus: _Against Heresies_, V, i, 1; St. Clem.
Alex.: _Exhortation to Heathen_, XI; _Instructor_, I, 12; _Stromata_, I,
5, 19; II, 2; V, 1, 6, 11-13; VII, 1; VI, 5; Tertullian: _Against
Marcion_, V, 16; _Against Praxeas_, XIV; Origen: _De Principiis_ I, iii,
1; _Against Celsus_, VII, 42, 44; Novatian: _De Trinitate_, VIII;
Arnobius: _Against the Heathen_, I, 38.
[52] _Stromata_, II, 4: "{ek de aisthêseôs kai tou nou hê tês epistêmês
synistatai ousia koinon de nou te kai aisthêseôs to enarges}." The student
of Kant's _Kritik der Reinen Vernunft_ will find a number of familiar
passages in St. Clement.
[53] _Ibid._, V, 12.
[54] _Ibid._, VIII, 3.
[55] _Ibid._, II, 4.
[56] _Ibid._, VIII, 3.
[57] _Stromata_, VIII, 3.
[58] E.g., Theophilus: _To Autolycus_, I, 3; St. Clem. Alex.:
_Stromata_, V, 12.
[59] _Stromata_, V, 12: "If, then, abstracting all that belongs to
bodies and things called incorporeal, we cast ourselves into the
greatness of Christ, and then advance into immensity by holiness, we may
reach somehow to the conception of the Almighty, _knowing not what He
is, but what He is not_."