ROEHAMPTON I PRINTED BY JOHN GRIFFIN. STONYHURST PHILOSOPHICAL SERIES NATURAL THEOLOGY BY BERNARD BOEDDER, SJ, THIRD EDITION LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON FOURTH AVENUE & S OTH STREET, NEW YORK BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 1915 PREFACE. THE manual of Natural Theology which now makes its appearance before the English-speaking public, existed in manuscript substantially ready for print in the year 1889. Through a combination of untoward circumstances its publication has been delayed till now. The delay in its appearance has not been without advantage for the book itself. Its subject makes it most suitable to be the last in order of publication among those volumes of the Stonyhurst Series which are concerned about Speculative Philosophy; for though the utmost care has been taken to make it intelligible even to those who have studied no other branch of Philosophy, yet minds prepared for the reading of this manual by a careful perusal of its companions in the depart- ment of Speculative Philosophy, will arrive at a far deeper and fuller understanding of its contents. The better readers are versed in the laws of right reasoning by the study of Logic, the more thoroughly convinced they are of the absolute 358886 viii PREFACE. necessity for the human mind to admit the exist- ence, sources, and criteria of Certitude, as laid down in the First Principles of our Series, the greater diligence they have bestowed upon acquir- ing a firm grasp of the fundamental notions and principles treated of in General Metaphysics, and the more solid the knowledge is they have gained of the moral freedom, spirituality, and immortality of the human soul expounded in Psychology, the greater will be their ability to appreciate and to turn to practical account the doctrine about God which is explained and de- fended in the present volume. This manual embraces not only those questions which in our Latin compendia usually are treated of under the heading Theologia Natnralis, but also those which commonly are discussed as a part of Cosmologia. This was done in order to give the necessary completeness to the treatment of my subject. Our English volumes are in the first place intended to help those who do not intend to study in detail Catholic Theology to a sound understanding of the most important questions of Philosophy, and particularly to show them the way to judge intelligently and to solve clearly modern difficulties against those natural truths which form the basis of Christianity. PREFACE. ix In the celebrated Catholic controversy about the manner of Divine foreknowledge of and concur- rence in human actions, it has been my endeavour to give a good account of the opposite opinions and of my own position. I have purposely avoided quotations, as often as I could conveniently without doing harm to the cause of truth, in order to eliminate any element of prejudice or party strife. B. BOEDDER. St. Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst April 4, 1891. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTORY . ' * BOOK I. -OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. CHAP. I. VIEWS OF MONOTHEISTIC PHILOSOPHERS ON THE NATURAL FOUNDATION OF A REASONABLE BELIEF IN GOD. REFUTATION OF ONTOLOGISM AND OF THE SO-CALLED ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT . 8 ,, II. PROOFS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE OR PERSONAL GOD . . -3 ,, III. ON THE FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF THE PER- SONAL GOD . . .... 85 ,, IV. THE FUNDAMENTAL RELATION OF GOD TO THE WORLD. REFUTATION OF PANTHEISM. DOCTRINE OF* CREATION .... . . 109 ,, V. SOLUTION OF DIFFICULTIES AGAINST THE FUNDA- MENTAL TRUTHS OF NATURAL THEOLOGV . . 149 BOOK II. THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. PROLEGOMENA ......... 233 CHAP. I. THE IMMUTABILITV OF GOD .... 238 ,, II. THE ETERNITY OF GOD 243 ,, III. THE IMMENSITY OF GOD . . . - 249 ,, IV. THE DIVINE INTELLECT . . ... 256 ,, V. THE DIVINE WILL . . 290 ,, VI. THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD . . . 3*9 ,, VII. THE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD . . -325 CONTENTS. BQOK III. -THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. PAGE PROLEGOMENA. CONNECTION OF THIS BOOK WITH THE TWO PRECEDING ....... 344 CHAP. I. DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE . . 348 ,, II. DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND ITS RELATION TO EXISTING EVIL 381 ,, III. POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERNATURAL PROVIDENCE . 412 APPENDIX I. ST. THOMAS AND PREMOTION .... 439 ,, II. EXAMINATION OF PROPOSITIONS I. VI. IN SPINOZA'S ETHICS ...... 449 ,, III. IMMEDIATE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD IN THE PATRISTIC WRITINGS 461 IV. ST. THOMAS AND THE IDEA OF INDETERMINATE BEING . ...... 463 ,, V. THE LOGICAL CONNECTION BETWEEN THE UNITY AND INFINITY OF GOD 465 ,, VI. ON THE OPTIMISM OF ST. THOMAS . . 467 NATURAL THEOLOGY. INTRODUCTORY. . NATURAL THEOLOGY is the science of God, so far as God can be known by the light of our reason alone. In order to make the meaning of this definition clear, we have first to explain what we understand by Theology ; then what signification we attach to the compound term Natural Theology; and finally, what right we have to call Natural Theology a science. First, then, as regards the word Theology. It is derived from two Greek nouns, fleo? and \6yos, and means literally speaking or reasoning about God. In this sense the word occurs in both Plato and Aristotle. 1 By Natural Theology is meant that kind 1 Plato (Republ. 379 A) speaks of ol TVTTOI irepl fleoAoyfoy, meaning the forms in which tales about gods should be shaped. Aristotle (Meteorolog. Lib. II. c. i.) gives us the opinion of ol Siarpipovrfs irepl TO.S 6eo\oylas on the sources of the ocean. He refers to the old poets, Orpheus, Hesiod, Homer, and their fables about the gods. St. Thomas, in his commentaries on Aristotle, calls them the poete theologi; by Aristotle himself they are styled ol eeo\6yoi. (Mctaph. Lib. XI. al. XII. c. vi.) According to Max Miiller. Qf6s, Deus, is connected with the Sanscrit Deva, signifying " the Brilliant," a very suggestive denomination of the Supreme Being who, according to St. Paul, dwells in light inaccessible (i Tim. vi. 16), and according to St. John, is "Light" (St. John i. 5). (Cf. M. Miiller, Science of Language, Second Series, pp. 405, 449, and Science of Religion, p, 269.) B NATURAL THEOLOGY. of reasoning about God, which starts from princi- ples, the truth of which can be known to us by the light of our natural reason left to itself, that is, to its innate capacity of perceiving and judging the facts as well of common as of scientific experience, and of drawing conclusions from these facts according to principles that either are self-evident or have pre- viously been proved. If this reasoning is carried on systematically, it results, as we shall discover, in a system of truths about God, the First Cause of all things, and may therefore be rightly called the Science of Natural Theology. It is the object of this science to vindicate the existence and honour of the one true God against the denial of Atheists, the doubts of Agnostics, the misrepresentations of Pantheists, and the absurdities of Polytheists. 2. There is another system of truths regarding Almighty God which is called Supernatural, or more commonly, Dogmatic Theology. Between this and Natural Theology there is a wide difference. (1) In the first place they differ in their founda- tion. For whereas Natural Theology is based upon principles known by reason with human certainty, Supernatural Theology has for its foundation prin- ciples accepted by faith which rests on the autho- rity of God Himself, who has declared them to us by Divine revelation. (2) From this difference there results another regarding the method of demonstration used in the two sciences. Natural Theology draws its arguments from the intuitions of reason and from facts of ex- INTRODUCTORY. perience ; Supernatural Theology finds the premisses of its conclusions in the sources of Christian Revela- +ion, which are the Canonical Scriptures and the documents of Divine Tradition. (3) Finally there is a vast difference between the achievements of the one and the other. Natural Theology inquires into the existence, the attributes, and works of the one infinite God, without being able to treat of the inscrutable mysteries of the Blessed Trinity and of the Word Incarnate ; whereas Supernatural Theology, although it does not pre- tend to make these mysteries comprehensible to reason, yet, guided by Divine revelation, which has established their reality, analyzes their meaning, shows their consequences, illustrates their harmony with known truths, and thus throws light upon the Divine beauty of Christian Revelation. Hence we see that the chief subject-matter of which Natural and Supernatural Theology treat, is the same ; but the aspect, under which they view it, is altogether different, or to express this in the language of the schoolmen, Natural and Super- natural Theology agree to a large extent in their material object, but they differ in their formal object. 3. The very nature of Supernatural or Dogmatic Theology implies and demands that Natural Theology should precede it and prepare its way. For it is the duty of reason to prepare the minds of men for the acceptance of Divine revelation, upon which Dog- matic Theology is built. Before an infidel can reasonably feel obliged to acknowledge a creed as NATURAL THEOLOGY. Divine, he must be convinced that there is a God, who can communicate truths to men, and that men can accent these truths without danger of deception. It is Natural Theology that opens the way to this conviction by strict logical reasoning. Christian Doctors therefore rightly call the truths developed in Natural Theology the prceambula fidei; and the office assigned to Philosophy in general, when it is called the handmaid of (Dogmatic) Theology, belongs especially to the particular branch of Philosophy now under consideration. We may add that Dogmatic Theology taught under the supervision of the Infallible Church, is for the Catholic philosopher a guiding-star even to his philosophical reasonings about God. This is a most sound and intelligible proposition, but it is one peculiarly liable to misrepresentation. We are far from claiming the right to draw the course of philosophical reasoning away from its natural paths in order to bring the results into fictitious conformity with those of revelation. Such a procedure would be as foolish as it would be dishonest. Our claim is to imitate the mariner to whom the star is a guiding-star, not because it dispenses him from the due use of the compass, but because it enables him to check the errors into which he may have fallen in his estimate of the records of the needle. The Catholic philosopher is conscious that human reason, particularly when it embarks on the difficult sea of philosophical speculations, is liable to go astray through defective observance of its own laws. On the other hand he has sure grounds for his con- INTRODUCTORY. viction that the Church's teaching is absolutely reliable. What more reasonable than that on finding a discrepancy between the results of his philosophical reasoning and his Dogmatic Creed, he should conclude the former to be in some point defective and should retrace his steps to discover where the defect may lie ? 4. In what we have said about the stand-point of a Catholic writer on Natural Theology, we cannot reasonably expect to be fully understood by those outside the Church. All that we ask for from non- Catholic readers is to judge our conclusions in Natural Theology by the light of principles which must be admitted by every reasonable man. Let them consider whether we ever make an undue use of authority to establish a truth which should be proved by reason alone; let them judge for them- selves whether we meet our adversaries with solid arguments or with empty phrases, and whether we enunciate any opinion which is out of harmony with well-established scientific facts. 5. Approaching our subject in this spirit, we have a reasonable claim to the sympathy ai^ interest of our readers. For what subject of inquiry can be compared with the first source of all things, the Infinite Majesty of God ? Moreover, if as reason- able beings we are irresistibly drawn to inquire into the causes of things, must not all our researches suffer from want of solidity and completeness, if we lack a true knowledge of God, the First Cause of all things, and of His relation to this world ? Such knowledge throws light upon the origin of NATURAL THEOLOGY. the universe, upon the nature and destiny of man, upon the true meaning of life, upon our duties here on earth, upon our prospects for the future, upon the wonders as well as the woes of human history. Nay, there is no department of knowledge which is not ennobled when viewed in the light of these truths : because from God, and through Him, and in Him, are all subjects that can possibly have a claim on man's attention. What makes this study still more important is that without it we cannot hope truly to estimate and solidly to refute the charges brought forward against the reasonableness of Christian faith by atheists, agnostics, and pantheists, who know well how to support their statements with an array of specious arguments. If we wish to diminish the harm inevit- ably caused by the spreading of such false opinions, we must be able to produce a good store of arguments by which the existence of God, His attributes, and His relation to this world are proved, in such a way, that their force may come home to the mind of every one who does not obsti- nately prefer darkness to light. For some of our readers it may be useful to call attention to the danger of resting content with a partial knowledge of our subject, or thinking that a thorough grasp of it can be obtained without patient study. Beginners who have not persever- ance enough to reason step by step, but who pick out one question or another at random, must not wonder if they very soon find themselves hopelessly confused, and utterly unable either duly INTRODUCTORY. to appreciate or clearly to solve the difficulties of adversaries. 6. The order of our discussion is suggested by the three following questions : I. Can we know for certain that there exists One first intelligent and infinitely perfect Cause of all things, that is to say, One personal God of infi- nite perfection, Creator of the world ? II. Granted that there exists One personal God of infinite perfection, what are the special attributes of this One infinite Being ? III. If there be such a personal God, what can we know about His action upon this world ? Following the line of thought suggested by these three questions, we shall divide our treatise into three books : the first treating of the existence of God, the second of the attributes of God, the third of the influence which God exercises upon this world, NATURAL THEOLOGY, BOOK I. OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. CHAPTER I. VIEWS OF MONOTHEISTIC PHILOSOPHERS ON THE NATURAL FOUNDATION OF A REASONABLE BELIEF IN GOD. REFUTATION OF ONTOLOGISM AND OF THE SO-CALLED ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. SECTION I. Explanation of the different opinions about God's existence and the proofs for it. 7. THE chief object which we aim at in the first part of Natural Theology, is to discover the true reasons why the existence of an intelligent First Cause of the universe must be admitted as certain. To clear the ground, we first give a short review and estimate of the different opinions held by philo- sophers who believe in a personal God, concerning the natural relation of the human mind to that belief. 8. The more noteworthy opinions on the subject in question may be reduced to these four headings : VIEWS OF MONOTHEISTIC PHILOSOPHERS. g (1) The opinion that we have naturally an immediate consciousness of God's existence. This opinion is known under the name of Ontologism. (2) The opinion that we can prove the existence of God a priori from the mere concept which we form to ourselves of God. This kind of proof for the existence of God is commonly called the Onto- logical Argument. The name is unfortunate, as it suggests a connection of the argument so styled with the system of Ontologism. In reality there is none. (3) The opinion, that the existence of God, although it cannot be perceived by us immediately, nor be proved a priori, can yet be proved evidently a posteriori by reasoning from the contingent and finite things of this world to God, the necessary, self-existing, infinite Being. (4) The opinion, that it is reasonable and man's duty to believe in the existence of God, but that it is impossible to prove by evident arguments that the denial of that existence is an untruth. 9. Of these four opinions, the first has its most eminent representatives in Nicholas Malebranche (I7I5), 1 Vincenzo Gioberti (1852), Antonio Ser- bati Rosmini (1855), and Casimir Ubaghs (works published 1854 1856). The second can boast of such great names as St. Anselm of Canterbury (nog), and in later times, Ren6 Descartes (1650), and Leibnitz (1716). The third was generally held by metaphysicians of all ages, from the bright 1 The figures added to the names of philosophers in this section refer to the year of their death, with the exception of Ubaghs. id OF THE EXISTENCE OF GO?). dawn of metaphysical inquiry in Plato's Dialogues up to the bold revolution attempted in the realms of philosophical thought by Kant in his Critique oj Pure Reason. That the human mind is able to rise from the knowledge of the finite things which sur- round us to a certain, though inadequate, know- ledge of God, the first and the intelligent Cause of the universe, was unanimously asserted by Plato (348 B.C.) and Aristotle (322 B.C.), by St. Augustine (430 A.D.), by St. Thomas Aquinas (1274), and the long series of the schoolmen, by Bacon (1626), and Locke (1704). Moreover, although St. Anselm, Descartes, and Leibnitz thought the ontological argument to be a very easy proof of God's existence, they were by no means of opinion that it is the only one possible. On the contrary, in the writings of all three we find also arguments for God's existence drawn from the contemplation of finite things. 2 In recommendation of this third line of argument, we may further say that it is supported by scientific men of the first rank, such as Kepler, Newton, Faye, Sir John Herschell, Sir William Thomson, &c. 3 But, notwithstanding the great authority of the third opinion, its hold over the best minds of educated Europe was shaken considerably by Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. In this work, the first edition of which was published in the year 1781, the fourth opinion mentioned above was advo- 2 St. Anselm's Monolog. cc. i. iv. inclusive; Descartes* Pnncipia Phil. Part I. pp. 17, 18; Leibnitz, Opera (Edit. Erdm.), p. 506. 8 See below, 40. VIEWS OF MONOTHEISTIC PHILOSOPHERS. il cated as the only reasonable defence of the belief in God. According to the author of the 'Critique, convincing proofs for the existence of a Supreme Being are not attainable by the Speculative Reason. In order to confute atheism, he therefore appeals to what he calls the Practical Reason. Man, he says, feels himself under the sway of an internal voice which categorically commands him to do good and to avoid evil. He cannot despise this voice without violating his human dignity, nor can he follow it consistently, unless he acknowledges a supreme Lawgiver and Judge, to whom he is responsible for his moral conduct. Consequently it is man's duty to believe in God's existence, although he is not able to show con- vincingly that the denial of that existence contains an objective untruth. 10. The opinion of Kant has been adopted under various forms by many philosophers of our century, who nevertheless have been far from committing themselves to the whole of his theory of human knowledge. Thus Jacobi (1819) maintained that God's existence can be known neither by reasoning nor by immediate intuition, but is manifested to us by a kind of irresistible spiritual feeling. On the Continent, De la Bonald (1840) found what he thought a sufficient proof for God's existence in the necessity of a primitive Divine revelation, with- out which, according to his views, the origin of intellectual human knowledge cannot be explained. Lamennais (1854), in order to show how unreasonable the denial of God's existence is, fled for refuge to ft OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. the universal consent of mankind, which he took to be the general criterion of truth and certainty. In England, Hamilton and Mansel, urging that we necessarily entangle ourselves in glaring contradic- tions as soon as we compare the attributes of the Infinite with one another, deduced the obligation of faith in God, as He is put before mankind by Christ and His Apostles, chiefly from the perfect harmony between that faith and our moral instincts. This last way of defending God's existence against atheism proved injurious to the good cause on behalf of which it was undertaken. For the most striking of the arguments, by which Mr. Herbert Spencer in his First Principles, tries to prove that nothing definite can be known about the underlying cause of the universe, are borrowed trom Mansel's Limits of Religious Thought. 11. We shall now proceed to give our reasons for adhering to the third of the opinions we have just mentioned, which maintains that man can come to a certain knowledge of God by means of his natural understanding, not however by way of immediate intuition, nor by reasoning a prior*, but by arguments a posteriori based on the essence and properties of the things comprised under the term " world." SECTION 2. Refutation of Ontologism. 12. As we said above ( 8), Ontologists are those philosophers who believe that the mind of man, by its very nature, has a certain direct consciousness of God's existence. They do not affirm that man REFUTATION OF ONTOLOGISM. 13 by his natural faculties is able to see God face to face, to perceive Him as He is in Himself, or to have a direct intuition of His Essence. Indeed, they could not say so without exposing themselves to ridicule, and to the charge of contradicting the Christian Creed which they profess. What they mean is that man's knowledge begins by some dim perception of God, considered not in His Essence, but in His relation to creatures. 13. A germ of Ontologism thus explained is found in Descartes' Principia Philosophies.* He says that the idea which we possess of an infinitely perfect Being, could not be produced in us but by this Being Himself. Malebranche developed this germ into a philosophical system. In his celebrated work, Recherche de la Verite, he tells . us that the human mind knows all things save its own existence, through the ideas it forms of them. These ideas are occasioned by sense-impressions ; but they are not the mere result of sensations, nor are they the product of our mental activity. They are perceived in God, who is immediately present to us. He is, so to say, the Sun in the midst of the world of thinking created spirits, and only inasmuch as He pours out the light of His eternal ideas upon our minds do we see truth in Him, who is the First Truth, the Prototype of all things and of all thoughts that are true. Since Malebranche, no one has defended Onto- logism more vigorously than Gioberti in his Intro- duzione allo studio delta Filosofia. He represents the * Part I. pp. 17, 18, OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. immediate intuition of God, which he believes to be natural to man's mind, as a direct perception of God's influence upon this world. Consequently the starting-point of all human learning is this judg- ment : " Being creates existences." (L'Ente crea le esistenze.) By Being he understands the self-existing Divinity ; by existences, creatures, which he does not call beings, because they have no independent being of their own, but are dependent upon' the creative act of their first cause. His opinion consequently is, that our first intellectual act is a direct intuition of God creating the world. Another and milder form of Ontologism is to be found in Rosmini's Theosophia, and in Ubaghs' Theodicea. Rosmini holds that the idea of being, which according to his theory respecting the origin of ideas is innate in us, must be nothing else but the idea of God, the Creative Cause of finite beings. Ubaghs thinks that we are born with the idea of the Infinite God, and that this idea is in the beginning unformed, but becomes formed by reflection, to which we are led by our education in human society. Similar views on our natural knowledge of God are defended by Maret in his Essai sur le Pantheisme, by Gratry in his work De la Connaissance de Dieu, by Fabre in his Defense de I'Ontologisme, and by others in France, Belgium, and Italy. Notwithstanding the wonderful ingenuity which these authors exhibit in support of their hypothesis, we must, in the interest of truth, lay down the following thesis. REFUTATION OP ONTOLOGISM. Thesis I. Immediate intuition of God, as held by ontologists, is beyond the reach of man's natural under- standing. 14. In stating this proposition we admit with the ontologists as a fact of Christian revelation, that all men who die in the grace of God, shall in Heaven see Him as He is. And they on their part admit that this Beatific Vision, reserved for the servants of God, is not the natural endowment of our human understanding, but the supernatural reward of living faith. Consequently, to explain the possibility and truth of this Vision does not belong to the domain of Philosophy. So far we are at one with our adversaries. What we have to prove against them is, that God in His relation to creatures cannot be the object of our direct intuition here on earth. The first reason for which we assert this, is drawn from our internal ex- perience. 15. If the direct intuition of God in His relation to creatures is a natural endowment of the human soul, we certainly must be able to become with the greatest facility perfectly convinced by mere reflection of the fact that we are in God's presence, and no thought should be easier to us than the thought of God. However, this is not so. Effort is required to raise our mind from things visible to their in- visible First Cause. Even those who are perfectly convinced of God's existence, may live hours and days without thinking of Him. Nay, at times doubts may arise in their minds against their faith 16 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. in God, and how can they put off these doubts? Not by mere reflection, but either by dwelling upon the strong reasons from which God's existence is mediately evident, or by calling to their minds certain practical maxims, the reasonableness of which has been once understood, and with which the doubt about God's existence is incompatible. Every well- instructed Christian knows that the existence of an all-wise, all-powerful, and infinitely good God is a fundamental dogma of Christianity. Moreover, he has satisfied himself about the reasonableness of adhering to the truths of Christianity. After this it is a practical maxim with him, that a wilful doubt about God and His attributes is a serious sin. Appealing to this maxim, he rejects the doubts against God's existence as unreasonable sophistries. This is a reasonable process, and corresponds to a palpable need of the believing mind. But on the ontologistic hypothesis, such a need would not arise. 16. If we examine a little more deeply into our subject, we find that the conflict between experience and Ontologism has its root in the very nature of the human soul. This soul is neither an outgrowth of matter, as materialists would have us believe, nor is it a pure spirit, that is to say, a thinking and free being altogether independent of matter in the exer- cise of its natural functions. Man's soul is a spirit, organizing and quickening matter. The fact that our soul cannot exercise its vegetative and sensitive energies except in a material body and by the help of material organs, necessarily reacts upon its REFUTATION OP ONTOLOCISM. 17 spiritual faculties of understanding and free-will, albeit the acts of these faculties considered in them- selves are not organic acts. The conclusion drawn from this state of things, the fuller discussion of which belongs to Psychology, is this. Man's mind has for its immediate and direct object only such things as can be perceived by the senses. It can arrive at the knowledge of immaterial beings only by reasoning, and by faith in reliable authority. Con- vinced of this, Aristotle uses language which implies that it is as impossible for man's mind, left to its natural resources, to have a direct perception of spiritual things, as it is for an owl's eye to find delight in the rays of the mid-day sun. 5 Experience fully verifies this conclusion, for in order to explain things not accessible to sense perception, we con- stantly have resort to illustrations drawn from the objects of sense. If, then, no spiritual thing is directly accessible to our mind, how can we have an immediate vision of God the Infinite Spirit ? If there were any truth in the Ontologist hypo- thesis, such a direct intuition of God would be natural to us. For the ontologists say that we Aristotle, Metaph. Lib. I. brev. c. i. Aristotle's words are: Ssarirep yap KO.I ra ruv WKTfpiScav Psalm xviii. i. 3l Wisdom xiii. 5. 33 Acts xvii. 23. 33 Acts xiv. 16. OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSS 53 character than man's productions;" and to maintain that they are " infinitely better adapted to the most complex conditions of life, and plainly bear the stamp of far higher workmanship." 34 Any good popular treatise on astronomy and physiology will serve as a rich source of illustrations bearing on the truth of these statements, nor is there any one who will be foolish enough to dispute them. It must, however, be carefully noted, that we do not as yet affirm that everything in this world is well-ordered, nor do we say that there is a. universal combination of things for the fulfilment of one common purpose. Were we to claim all this, we should indeed be claiming only what, if rightly understood, is most true. But so far-reaching a proposition is not necessary for the argument from Design, nor would it be sufficiently warranted until we have carried our inquiry further. 42. Confining, therefore, our attention to those manifestations of order which are obvious to every one who cares for the study of the workings of nature, we ask : How did these orderly arrange- ments, their harmony, beauty, and usefulness, come to be ? May we suppose, with Epicurus, that they are the effect of chance ? in other words, that they are owing to an accidental concurrence of atoms, moving in infinite space, and meeting one another in such a way as to form, after many failures, various kinds of inanimate and animate bodies ? Such an hypothesis would be not only inadequate to account for the laws and results of chemical combinations, 34 Origin of Species, c. iv. p. 65. 54 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GCD. and for the origin of life ; it would be intrinsically absurd, conflicting with the universality of the Prin- ciple of Causation, inasmuch as this fortuitous con- currence would be an uncaused concurrence. 35 There must then have been a cause of the formation of the heavenly orbs and their arrangement in systems: a cause again which, on our earth, grouped together the elements into organized structures, moving, growing, repairing themselves, and reproducing their kind according to definite laws. Where shall we find this cause ? It must either be inherent in the elements of matter, or it must be something out- side these. If it is outside matter, it can only be a mind, understanding and designing the order of matter. But will not the inherent forces of matter suffice to explain this complex order ? Let us see. 35 On this point not only all sound metaphysicians, but also all true scientists, are at one. " The one act of faith in the convert to science," says Professor Huxley, "is the universality of order, and of the absolute validity, in all times and under all circumstances, of the law of causation. This confession is an act of faith, because, by the nature of the case, the truth of such propositions is not susceptible of proof. But such faith is not blind, but reasonable, because it is invariably confirmed by experience, and constitutes the sole trustworthy foundation for all action." Then picturing, for illustration's sake, the raging sea, he thus continues : " The man of science knows that here, as everywhere, perfect order is manifested ; that there is not a curve of the waves, not a note in the howling chorus, not a rainbow glint on a bubble, which is other than a necessary consequence of the ascertained laws of nature, and that with a sufficient knowledge of the conditions, competent physicc- mathematical skill could account for and indeed predict every one of these 'chance' events." (Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, by F. Darwin, Vol. II. c. 5, written by Professor Huxley, p. 200.) We agree fully with all of this, inasmuch as it implies that nothing happens without a proportionate cause, and that consequently an accidental concurrence of causes is nonsense. OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 55 43. In the first place, the inherent forces of matter cannot be appealed to as the cause of the order prevailing in the inorganic world. We know that material elements produce different effects according to their different collocations in regard to one another. 36 Consequently, each effect is the natural outcome of a previous disposition of the parts of matter. This being so, every orderly effect is due to a pre-arrangement of particles suitable to the pro- duction of such an effect. That is, the order which is worked out by the elements of matter, presupposes order in the combination of the working elements. Thus the question of order in the world of inani- mate matter is thrown back to the origin of that combination of elements which gen-crated order. Nor do we escape the necessity of seeking a cause external to the combinations themselves, by pleading the possibility of an eternal series of combinations. In the first place, eternal succession is a self-contradictory conception. Succession im- plies links of a series, it is constituted by the con- tinuous addition of link to link. Now links added to one another are always numerable. Links of a series must always be in some number, however immense the number may be. But to be in some number, is to be finite : for every number is made up of finite unities. Thus eternal succession would be essentially finite, because it was succession, and yet infinite because eternal. 36 " The last great generalization of science, the Conservation of Force, teaches us that the variety in the effects depends partly upon the amount of force, and partly upon the diversity of the collocations." (Mill, Three Essays on Religion, p. 145. Third Edit.) 56 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. In the second place, even if eternal succes- sion were possible, it would furnish no explanation of the phenomenon of orderly combination which the world exhibits : any more than infinite exten- sion of a chain hung in air would supply the want of supports for it. Consequently, although we have nothing to say against the assumption made by astronomers, that our cosmic system resulted from the condensation and division of a primitive rotating nebula; yet we cannot admit this nebula, without observing that there must have been a first arrangement of the material elements which constituted it, one which already contained in germ the present system, or else the said system could never have resulted from it. Now this first arrangement was neither the effect of the forces of matter, nor was it essential to matter. Had it been the effect of material forces, it could not possibly have been the first disposition of matter, but was rather the effect of a preceding disposition of the elements. Again, had it belonged essentially to matter, it could not have yielded to another dispo- sition so long as matter existed, and thus the present cosmic system could never have been formed. There- fore, if we w r ould explain the origin of that system without violation of reason, we are forced to say that its first beginning, nebular or otherwise, is due to an intelligent cause. 37 37 Professor Huxley supports our conclusion, when in defence of Darwin's Origin of Species he writes: "The teleological and the mechanical views of nature are not, necessarily, mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the more purely a mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he assume a primordial molecular arrangement of OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 57 44. If the forces of matter are inadequate to explain the order of the inorganic world, much less can they account for the existence of life and the orderly relations which exist between animate and inanimate beings. Whence comes the adaptation of inanimate nature to the support of life ? The natural tendency of brute matter cannot explain it. The relation of brute matter to life is accidental to its nature. Whence then did the relation originate ? No satisfactory answer to this question can be given except this : that an Intelligent Ruler of this world arranged the material elements of which the universe is built up in such a way that they gradually became adapted to the service of living beings whose existence he intended and foresaw. This answer must be insisted upon all the more from the fact that man, the most noble being on earth, finds it rich with an innumerable multitude of things accommodated to his bodily and mental wants. As we have proved before ( 32, seq.), the soul of man is not the outgrowth of matter, but the work of an intelligent Creator only. No evolu- tion of matter, of plants, and of animals, could culminate in the existence of man, composed of a human soul and a human body ; and yet matter and which all the phenomena of the universe are the consequences, and me more completely is he thereby at the mercy of the teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the universe." (Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, by F. Darwin, Vol. II. pp. 201, 202, in Professor Huxley's chapter on "Reception of The Origin of Species.") OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. life inferior to man, conspire to furnish him what he needs for the maintenance of his body, and to help him in the cultivation of his intellect. Certainly no reasonable explanation of this great fact can be given but by recurring to an intelligent mind, superior to man and the irrational world, which arranged the latter, ere man was created, with a view to prepare him a fit dwelling-place. 38 45. We have then seen hitherto that the adapta- tions to one another which connect the various groups of beings in the macrocosm of the universe must be attributed to a Designing Mind. The same conclusion we arrive at by pondering the order pre- vailing in the microcosm of each living organism, from the tiniest unicellular plant up to the most highly organized animal. Just as in scientific inquiry, the further that it proceeds, the more it becomes evident that brute matter by its own forces alone never developes into organized living structures ; so, when we look at the subject from a metaphysical point of view, we are forced to maintain that the vast differences which separate the natural tendencies of living bodies from those of lifeless matter, are a sufficient evidence of the impossibility of a natural evolution of the latter into any species of the former. And with this conclusion coincides the verdict of scientific experience. 33 " A successively increasing purpose," says St. George Mivart, " runs through the irrational creation up to man. All the lower creatures have ministered to him, and have, as a fact, prepared the way for his existence. Therefore, whatever ends they also serve, they exist especially for aim." (On Truth, p. 495.) OP AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 5 j Mr. St. George Mivart speaks on this point with authority. He says : " That there is an absolute break between the living world and the world devoid of life, is what scientific men are now agreed about thanks to the persevering labours of M. Pasteur. Those who affirm that though life does not arise from inorganic matter now, nevertheless it did so 'a long time ago,' affirm what is at the least contrary to all the evi- dence we possess, and they bring forward nothing more in favour of it than the undoubted fact that it is a supposition which is necessary for the validity of their own speculative views. There is, then, one plain evidence that there has been an interruption of continuity, if not within the range of organic life, yet at its commencement and origin. But we go further than this, and affirm, without a moment's hesitation, that there has, and must necessarily have been, discontinuity within the range of organic life also. We refer to the discontinuity between organ- isms which are capable of sensation and those which do not possess the power of feeling. That all the higher animals ' feel ' will not be disputed. They give all the external signs of sensitivity, and they possess that special organic structure a nervous system which we know supplies all our organs of sensation. In the absence of any bodily mutila- tion, then, we have no reason to suspect that their nervous system and organs of sense do not act in a manner analogous to our own. On the other hand, to affirm that the familiar vegetables of our kitchen- gardens are all endowed with sensitivity, is not only OF THE EXISTENCE OP GOD to make a gratuitous affirmation, but one opposed to evidence, since no vegetable organisms possess a nervous system, and it is a universally admitted biological law, that structure and functions go together. If, then, there are any organisms what- ever, which do not feel, while certain other organisms do feel (as a door must be shut or open), there is, and must be, a break and distinction between one set and the other." 39 What then was it which gave birth to organic life ? To say, it had no beginning, but that from eternity there existed one or several series of living organisms, would involve the postulate of succession without beginning, which we have proved to be self- contradictory. ( 43.) But, if organic life can neither be considered as an effect of the forces of dead matter, nor have the source of its own existence within itself, we cannot reasonably explain its origin except by admitting that an intelligent Being, ruling over the matter of our earth, first put into it the germ of life, although we are not able to point out when, and in what way, this influence was exercised. Hence, the countless living organisms that people our globe are the realizations of ideas conceived by an immaterial superhuman Intelligence. This Intel- ligence drew the plans on which they are built, fore- saw the stages of evolution, through which they run with so astonishing a regularity, furnished them with a multitude of skilfully-contrived organs, and adapted their whole structure to the environment in v/hich they are placed. 10 Origin of Human Reason, pp. 10, n. OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 6l 46. That the Ruler in whose mind the order of the world originated is a self-existing intelligence, and consequently a personal God, does not follow immediately from the fact that the order of the world must be the work of a superhuman Intelli- gence. What does, however, follow immediately is, that the Intelligence which rules the physical world is so vast, that no human understanding and wisdom can be compared with it. For many ages the cleverest of men have been occupied in studying the relations that exist between the different parts of living beings, and between these parts and their functions, and yet there is no man who understands completely the mysteries hidden even in one living cell. Far indeed then above human comprehension must be the excellence of that Mind whose ideas were the models after which the universe was fashioned, with its wealth of marvels and com- plexity of order. If, however, we would show that the order of the world is due, not only to an Intelligence far exceeding all intelligence of man, but ultimately to a self-existent Intelligence in other words, to a personal God, we must go back to the argument of the First Cause. Either the intelligent mind who designed the order of our world is dependent upon a series of other minds without beginning, or it depends upon a first mind, or it is itself the first mind. The first alternative is absurd, because it implies a series of causes produced without a self- existent cause to produce them ( 38); therefore either the second or the third must be admitted. But this OF THE EXISTENCE OP GOD. is equivalent to an admission that the order of the world depends upon an intelligent, self-existent cause ; for the cause of the cause of order must also, at least mediately, be the cause of order itself. 40 SECTION 4. The Moral Proof. Thesis V. Mankind has at all times believed in the existence of an intelligent nature superior to the material world and to man. This universal belief can only be explained as the result of the real existence of such a nature. But to grant this much is to grant implicitly the existence of a personal God. 47. When we have convinced ourselves by a train of reasoning that some proposition is true, we are always anxious to know if our conclusion is identical with that of other minds. Our own minds may have been the victims of some lurking fallacy, but it is less likely that other minds should have been simultaneously deceived in the same manner. Thus we gain confidence when we find them to be in agreement with us, and our confidence becomes very great indeed when these other minds are in immense number and belong to various classes of persons acting independently of one another. It is natural therefore that now that we have completed our proofs of the existence of God drawn from intrinsic evidence, we should go on to inquire how far the Divine existence is universally 40 On the argument from Design, cf. Janet, Final Causes. Trans- lated into English by William Affleck, B.D. Second Edition. Edinburgh : T. and T. Clark, 1883. Of AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 65 recognized, and that we should claim the result of the inquiry as a signal corroboration of our position. We claim more, however, than this in the present argument. We claim to find in this uni- versal recognition which we assert, not only a corro- boration of what has preceded, but an argument of absolute value in itself. We claim that a fact like this of the consent of nations in the recognition of God must be deemed the voice of universal reason yielding to the compelling evidence of truth. The cause must be adequate to the effect. A universal effect must imply an equally universal cause. But truth alone is such a cause. Error is always partial, local, temporary ; truth alone is everywhere the same. 48. This is the outline of the argument we now advance. Its force will become more manifest when we have examined into its details. First, about the fact. From the ancient writers, pagan as well as Christian, many well known passages have been collected in which this universal recognition of a Divine government of the world is attested. Thus Plutarch says : " If you go round the world, you may find cities without walls, or literature, or kings, or houses, or wealth, or money, without gymnasia, or theatres. But no one ever saw a city without temples and gods, one which does not have recourse to prayers, or oaths, or oracles, which does not offer sacrifice to obtain blessings or celebrate rites to avert evil." 41 And Cicero has declared that "there is no nation so wild and ** Adv. Coloten Epicnreum OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. fierce, as not to know that it must have a God. although it may not know what sort of a God it should be." 42 From among Christian witnesses we may take Clement of Alexandria, who tells us that " all nations, whether they dwell in the East or on the remotest shores of the West, in the North or the South, have one and the same rudimentary apprehension of Him by whom this government (of the world) has been established." 43 One is prone nowadays to suspect passages like these of resting too little on solid information, too much on the inferences and generalizations of oratory. Still they have their value, and attest to us the results of such actual experience as came within the reach of former generations. They have a right also to be taken together with the results of modern inquiry which, if they are found to agree with them, they can complete. And they do agree with the discoveries of the most recent times. There are few tribes of the earth which have not been scrutinized by the active-minded explorers of the present century, and scrutinized on the whole with scientific care and skill. Out of the entire number thus examined it is just possible that a few are altogether without religious ideas. Sir John Lubbock has maintained that there are such. But it is a task of no small difficulty to elicit from savages a true account of their religious beliefs. They are shy in the presence of the white man, and they have also often a superstitious fear of mentioning the names of their gods. Thus it becomes likely that De Leg. I. c. 8. 43 Strom. Lib V. n. 260. OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 65 even this small residuum is not really as atheistic as it has been alleged to be. This is the judgment of one who is in the front rank of anthropologists, and is clear from any suspicions of undue partiality in favour of the religion of theists. Mr. Tylor writes : "'The assertion that rude non-religious tribes have been known in actual existence, though in theory possible, and perhaps in fact true, does not at present rest on that sufficient proof which for an exceptional state of things we are entitled to demand. ... So far as I can judge from the immense mass of accessible evidence, we have to admit that the belief in spiritual beings appears among all low races with whom we have attained to thoroughly intimate acquaintance." 44 That the facts brought forward by Sir John Lubbock to prove the contrary, are not really to the point, has been clearly shown by Gustav Roskoff. 45 The conclusion at which he arrives is, that " hitherto no tribe has been found to be without any traces of religious sentiments." In this he is fully borne out both by the distinguished German ethnologist, Oskar Peschel, 46 who denies categorically that any tribe has been met with without religious ideas, and 44 Primitive Culture, Vol. I. pp. 378 and 384. 45 Gustav Roskoff 's words are as follows: " Es ist bisher noch kein Volksstamm ohne jede Spur von Religiositat betroffen worden." (Das Religionswesen der rohesten Natiirvolker, p. 178, Leipzig, 1880.) 46 " Stellen wir uns die Frage, ob irgendwo auf Erden ein Volksstamm ohne religiose Anregungen und Vorstellungen jemals angetroffen worden sei, so darf sie entschieden verneint werden." (Oskar Peschel, Volkerkunde, p. 260. Fifth Edit. Leipzig, 1881.) F 66 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. also by F. v. Hellwald, in his Natural History of Man. 47 49. Even if there were a few races altogether without religion it would not touch our argument. Our object is to ascertain the voice of nature, and of rational nature. It is only to be expected that we shall find its tones affected by an admixture of the tones of error in degraded races, and that the extent of the confusion should follow the degrees of degradation. Here, however, the very natural objection will occur to the reader's mind : Do we not find an opposing voice at the other end of the scale of civilization ? Do not those who deem themselves and are perhaps deemed by the mass of men to repre- sent the acme of intellectual culture, proclaim them- selves to be conscientiously agnostic in reference to this important doctrine? That there are these apparent exceptions to the general law must of course be admitted. But we must not allow our adversaries to assume too much. Undoubtedly there is an increasingly large number of persons who profess themselves to be agnostics. Still only a small portion of these can be regarded as persons of special culture : and if there are some such, it must not be forgotten that there are many more of equal culture who are earnest theists. The fact thus alleged against us when reduced to its proper 47 " Mit Fug und Recht darf man von einer Religion der Wilden sprechen ; denn bisjetzt sind noch keine vollstandig religionslosen Volkerstamme gefunden worden." (F. v. Hellwald, Natnrgeschichte des Mensclien, p. 95. Stuttgart, 1883.) OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 6? proportions becomes this. In the present age there are many agnostics who declare that they do not see grounds for admitting the Divine existence, and some among them are in the front rank among the thinkers of the day. After all, this is a fact not peculiar to the present age. It can be paralleled by similar instances in the last century, and it can be paralleled also by similar instances among the philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome. Even the reasonings on which modern agnostics rely are substantially the same with those which we find in the writings of these ancient atheists. If any one, certainly Professor Huxley must know, whether the scientific progress of our age has really created new and formidable difficulties against Natural Theology. Yet he says : " There is a great deal of talk and not a little lamentation about the so-called religious difficulties which physical science has created. In theological science, as a matter of fact, it has created none. Not a solitary problem presents itself to the philosophical Theist at the present day which has not existed from the time that philosophers began to think out the logical grounds and the logical consequences of Theism." 48 50. Thus we are able Jo state as generally true the fact with which we have to deal. The acknow- ledgment of a superior and invisible intelligence governing the visible universe is common to all ages and all regions, to civilized and uncivilized tribes alike. We find a disposition on the part of 48 Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, by F. Darwin, Vol. II. c. v p. 203. 68 CF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. some few philosophers to dispute the validity of the belief, but nevertheless the belief has proved to be persistent and indestructible in the mass of mankind. It is this persistency among the mass of men, retained even in the teeth of sceptical opposition, on which our argument is based. Now for the interpretation of this important fact. How comes it that minds are so accordant in their inference that the nature and movements of the visible world imply the existence of an invisible over-ruling spirit ? There must be motives acting on the mind to induce it to draw this conclusion : and the motives must have been the same every- where, since the effect, the inference, is the same everywhere. If the inference is of the character which we have investigated in the previous theses, and if this inference is true ; if it is true that the universe bears upon its face the characteristic marks of an effect, and an effect presupposes a propor- tionate cause, if the universe bears upon its face the marks of design and purpose, and the only pro portionate cause of design and purpose is a cause endowed with intelligence, then the world-wide recognition of such an intelligent ruler of the world is fully justified and explained. And that this is the true explanation we may establish by way of elimination. What other explanation is there in the field ? Bayle in the seventeenth century undertook to suggest other possible causes. He named the following : (i) Ignorance of natural causes. Men observed the marvellous course of nature in the midst of OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 6 g which they lived, and, unable as yet to detect the physical causes from which they actually spring, attributed them to the action of invisible beings which they anthropomorphically invested with form and qualities resembling their own. (2) Fear excited by the stupendous forces of nature, by the flash of the lightning, the roll of the thunder, the fury of the waves, and the shock of the earthquake. Primus in orbe decs fecit timor ardua cceli Fulmina durn caderent. (3) The fraud of the ruling classes, of priests and kings, who played upon these natural predisposi- tions of the people by stamping them with the seal of their own superior authority : so doing because they perceived that the tendency of the beliefs was to exalt their own character as priests and kings by causing them to be regarded as the Divine representatives and as the mediators through whose instrumentality alone the Divine anger could be appeased. Of these three reasons only the first is radical and need be considered. Given a belief in the existence of a Divine ruler, fear would naturally ensue, and where the idea of God was mingled with error, as it undoubtedly has been among barbarous nations, this fear would take an unreason- able form. But fear alone could not create a belief in God. In like manner, given belief in the existence of God formed on other grounds, the natural consequence would be a conviction that earthly OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. rulers are His representatives holding authority under Him, and this conviction might lend itself to the interested motives of unworthy rulers where the people were sufficiently untutored to credit such fraudulent representatives. What then is to be said of the ' first alleged cause of the belief in question ? And be it noticed, that this self-same cause which is said to have originated the belief in God in past ages, is alleged to be sustaining it now among the ignorant theists, who, according to our modern men of progress, shut their eyes to the enlightenment of modern thought. You discover final causes, is the charge against us, and you then infer from them the existence of an architect of the universe, because you fail to see that the existing physical causes are quite able of themselves to evolve the complicated system which we call the world. This charge, however, is a little out of date now. Those who used confidently to make it are beginning to realize what was seen by their adversaries all along, namely, that the appeal to physical causes and even to a long course of evolution under their action only results in push- ing back the need of a designer to an earlier stage, and indeed makes the need itself the more impera- tive. However, this is a point that has already been sufficiently considered. All that we are at present concerned to notice is, that if failure to regard physical causes as containing within themselves an adequate explanation of the cosmos has been the motive which has engendered this universal recog- OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. *i nition of the Divine existence, the failure is not one which can be confidently appealed to as discrediting the recognition. We are merely reduced to this, that whereas a certain argument seems to modern agnostics unsound and to modern theists sound, the general consent of mankind is on the side of the theists, not of the agnostics. And this is just what the theist appeals to as constituting an independent argument in his favour. How explain, he says, this persistent general belief without seeing in it the voice of rational nature ratifying the truth of the conclusion and the validity of the inference ? 51. Of course it must not be supposed that we deny that here and there some among the thinkers of former ages have erred, just as barbarous tribes even may err now, in attributing to the immediate action of the Divinity results of which the imme- diate cause was the action of some physical agent. Errors in assigning wrong causes to physical facts have no doubt been committed repeatedly, and have been corrected by our superior information. Herein, in fact, we see, from the opposite side, an illustration of the value of our principle that persistent universal belief is an evidence of truth. The errors in question proved themselves to be errors by dropping out with the march of discovery. They have proved not to be universal and persistent. But these crude notions of immediate Divine action in the move- ment of the storm or the flash of the lightning, are not what we are appealing to. The question is not why some men multiplied their gods, or attributed to them this action or that ; but why mankind in OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. general have agreed in thinking that the world as a whole presupposes the existence of an intelligent governor, and why this belief has shown itself, and continues to show itself to be as persistent in the face of all attacks made upon it by the agnostic thought of the various ages, as the other beliefs have shown themselves to be yielding and transitory. Error, we know, cannot live for ever. It is always in danger of destruction, because its foundations are insecure. Truth, on the other hand, though it may lie for a time obscured, must persist, because its foundation is on the rock of evidence. 52. It will help to render the force of our argu- ment more distinct, if we bear in mind the difference between what were once happily called by Cardinal Newman "Implicit and Explicit Reason." To reason, that is to say, to be intellectually moved by certain premisses to the adoption of the conclusion towards which they point, is one thing. To give an accurate account of the nature of the premisses grasped by the mind, is quite another. To quote the Cardinal's words : " Let a person only call to mind the clear im- pression he has about matters of every-day occur- rence, that this man is bent on a certain object, or that man was displeased, or another suspicious : or that one is happy and another unhappy; and how much depends in such impressions on manner, voice, accent, words uttered, silence instead of words, and all the many subtle symptoms which are felt by the mind, but cannot be contemplated ; and let him consider how very poor an account he is able to give Of AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 73 of his impression, if he avows it and is called upon to justify it." 49 The illustration is taken from one class of in- ference, but is applicable to others. To give an accurate account of one's reasoning is a faculty confined mainly to those who possess the art of reflection and analysis, born of the discipline of philosophical training. To reason correctly is a faculty much more widely found. It is noticeable that most men reason correctly concerning practical matters which come within their special sphere of interest and experience. All men who are in their right senses reason correctly concerning those matters which are of fundamental importance for the conduct of life. And thus it comes to pass that in a certain sense untrained minds are given to reason more correctly than philosophers. The latter, although enjoying the power to analyze their reason- ings into its elements, do not always enjoy this power to perfection. Accordingly they set down the premisses. inaccurately, and then, finding them in- sufficient to bear the weight of the inference, dis- card as unsound conclusions which are really valid. Meanwhile the untrained mind, undistracted by any such false notions, pursues its natural course, and arrives with certainty at the true conclusion. Here, then, we have the justification of the stress we have been laying on the appeal to the persistent universal consent of mankind in recognizing the existence of a superior intelligence. The appeal is from the mind caught in philosophical mazes through its 49 Sermons before the Universitv oj Oxford, p. 274. Third Edit. OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. inability to grasp with sufficient accuracy the true premisses on which the arguments for God's exist- ence rest ; and it is to minds free from this dis- tracting influence which by their concord in such number, variety, and persistency, prove themselves to be dominated by the evidence of truth. 53. In the last clause of the thesis we are proving, we assert that to admit this universal recognition of a superior intelligence governing the universe is implicitly to admit the existence of a personal God. The word " implicitly " must be carefully noticed. The argument from universal recognition is often misapprehended, because it is understood to aspire to more than it really does. Cicero, long ago, said, in words already cited : " No nation is so wild and fierce as not to perceive that there must be a God, although ignorant what kind of God it must be." The two questions, whether God exists, and what is the true nature of God, are to be distinguished. As to the latter, the grossest and most absurd of notions have prevailed, and it might be urged against us that if we desire to take the beliefs of the mass of mankind as in itself an evidence of truth, we ought in consistency to take their gross and absurd notions as an integral part of the belief. What right have we to pick and choose ? What right have we to cite as valuable witnesses the polytheists and even the fetish worshippers, and at the same time disregard as valueless their belief in polytheism and fetichism ? However, the answer is reasonable enough. The element of persistent universality on which we lay stress is to be found OF AX INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 75 in the belief in the existence of a supreme intelli- gence. But as soon as men went beyond this, and sought to conceive to themselves the form and manner of this overruling intelligence, they fell into error, and their error is revealed as such by its want of universality and its want of persistency. The forms which mythology has assumed among the various tribes may resemble one another in certain general characteristics, because even erro- neous thought is an attempt to understand realities, and must be governed to a certain extent by what it sees ; still, on the whole, the mythologies are characterized by their dissimilitude : they are racy of the soil where they spring up. We are content, then, to appeal to the consent of mankind for the rudimentary conception of a governing intelligence (or intelligences) overruling the world. But we contend that in this rudimentary conception is contained implicitly the doctrine of a personal God. To show that this is the true inference from the premisses is not the task of the present thesis. It has been partly demonstrated already, and remains to be more completely demonstrated in the theses yet to come. Such is the Moral proof, grounded uoon the belief of the human race in the existence of God. It is not absolutely conclusive, except when taken in conjunction with the argument of the First Cause. That argument shows perfectly the existence of a personal God ; yet it gains much in practical value, when accompanied by the other two 76 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GGD. (the argument from general consent and the argu- ment from Design), which appeal more directly to ordinary understandings. To confirm our conclusion now indirectly, by evincing the untenableness of the opposite, we will point out some of the practical consequences that flow from agnosticism. SECTION 5. Logical consequences of Agnosticism. Thesis VI. The logical consequences of Sceptical Atheism or Agnosticism in the practical order show clearly that tlie position of the agnostic is opposed to reason. 54. The word atheist suggests the idea of a man living without regard for God. If he does so, because he thinks that there is no sufficient reason for believing in God's existence, he may be called a theoretical atheist ; if on the other hand, he admits that existence, but disregards the law of God in regulating his free actions, he will then be called a practical atheist. In this place we have not to treat of the consequences of practical atheism except in so far as they are included in those connected with atheism maintained as a theory. Confining ourselves to the theoretical atheists, we have again to distinguish dogmatic and sceptical atheism. A dogmatic atheist is one who asserts without doubt, "There is no God;" whereas a sceptical atheist, commonly called an agnostic, maintains only that we can know nothing definite about the First Cause of things. If the logical consequences of Sceptical Atheism are disastrous, those of Dogmatic Atheism will OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 77 not be less disastrous, though they can hardly be more. We may, however, limit our attention to the consequences of the former only. Dogmatic Atheism is not very common now-a-days, at least among men of culture. Agnostics, we know, are wont to protest very strongly against the desig- nation of atheists being applied to them, and the protest, whether reasonable or not, proves at least this much, that in their estimation the intel- lectual position of one who should claim to have demonstrated the non-existence of God is altogether irrational. Under these circumstances it is not necessary to consider the practical consequences of Dogmatic Atheism, but only those of Agnosticism. This we call Sceptical Atheism, since the name is one that is founded on truth and required by symmetry. The objection that may be raised to it by agnostics may become less if they will observe that the name atheist taken by itself has been defined to mean one who acts as if there were no God. Agnostics can hardly deny that they do this. "Worship of the silent sort" has indeed been pronounced fitting before the " altar of the Unknowable." But is such an evanescent homage, whether it be fitting or not, really sufficient ? We assert then, in the present thesis, that the logical consequences of sceptical atheism in the practical order are so opposed to reason as to involve a condemnation of its tenets. There are pessimists in the world, and their number is said to be increasing with the spread of " modern thought." But although these may be cited as valuable wit- THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. nesses to the force of the argument about to be advanced, the thesis is not addressed to them. It is rather addressed to those who cannot think that Nature is a fraud or a pest, but believe its course to be stamped with the promise of a true hope. In proof of our thesis, we will first invite atten- tion to the moral paradox in which the agnostic finds himself entangled, or rather would find himself entangled if only he would reflect sufficiently. Few agnostics would deny that, if the Christian assump- tion were correct and the existence of such a God as Christians believe in were an ascertained truth, it would follow at once that He must desire the worship of loving reverence. Just as it is incon- ceivable that, if two persons hold towards each other the physical relationship of father and son, the father should not desire to enter into the moral relationship of intercourse with his son and have it reciprocated by loving and reverent affection and obedience, so also, if there is a personal God from whom man, has received his being, faculties, and all else that he can call his, it is inconceivable that God should not desire to enter into moral relationship with him and receive a loving and obedient service and worship. The conception of a God who, at some past moment, made the world, set it spinning like a top, and then ceased to care about it, has always been rejected by the larger part of civilized nations, and at the present day has fallen into discredit. If, therefore, God desires this worship, man ought to render it, and in the case of his not rendering it, the requirements of natural OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 79 equity are violated and an indignity is offered to God. So much as this will be generally conceded to us by agnostics. They do not challenge the inference as to conduct and worship which Christians draw from Christian premisses. They only challenge the premisses, that is, the certainty of the existence of God. They do not go so far as positively to deny the existence of God. They merely contend that it is uncertain. But in declaring it to be uncertain most of them go farther, and admit with Darwin that it is more probable than the opposite opinion. That is to ay, it is probable that there exists a God desirous of receiving love and worship from His creatures, and therefore reciprocally probable that it is man's sacred duty to render it to Him. This the agnostic, by the very fact that he protests against being called an atheist, is bound to admit, and yet because he professes himself unable to go farther and convert the probability into a certainty, he cannot render the worship. Such is the moral paradox to which the agnostic is reduced. And the paradox will be felt the greater if the agnostic will observe that, on his own principles, the hypothesis of the existence of an intelligent ruler of the world is not only probable, but even the most probable theory to account for the facts. When he forgets his philosophy, and as a man of science, that is, of physical science, adopts the attitude of the pure realist, he professes himself agnostic on the ground that Evolution in its extremest form may account for that order reigning through Nature do OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. which is the theist's foundation-stone. Now, Evo- lution thus conceived, however it may be dressed up in modern fashions, is in essence nothing but the old theory of the fortuitous concourse of atoms : the theory that, given eternal atoms and eternal motion, eventually order will result from their inter- action, since order is self-sustaining and chaos is not. Although in answer to this we have given clear reasons to show that neither the theory of chance nor that of evolution can account for the orderly arrangements of the universe ( 42 46) ; nevertheless let us grant again, for the sake of argument, that either of the two is a conceivable explanation of the genesis of the cosmos. Can it pos- sibly be claimed as relatively probable, or anything but relatively most improbable when set in competi- tion with the rival theory of a personal Designer ? If the agnostic puts on his philosophic cloak and becomes a transfigured realist with Mr. Spencer, the existence of an " Infinite " is admitted, and all denied is the lawfulness, in face of the relativity of knowledge, of attributing to the Unknown Cause of the universe any attributes derived from the consideration of the things of this world, man not excluded. The protest made against the practice of assigning them to Him is made on the ground that they are likely to be altogether beneath Him : that is to say if logically explained on the likelihood that He may possess attributes which may go so far beyond even the most noble qualities of the human mind, that the latter are nothing but a dim and comparatively insignificant image of a OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE 8* First Mind, and that human personality is but a dim and comparatively insignificant image of the Person- ality of the First Cause. In other words, that the great " Unknowable " is supereminently a person. If the agnostic declines to be in any sense a realist, and shuts himself up in some form of pure idealism, we will not attempt to press him with the statement of the present thesis. . The idealist is guilty of inconsistency in his every act of inter- course with the outer world. With such a burden of inconsistencies upon him, and all so easily borne,, we cannot expect him to shrink from one more. But we may say this, that for realists the hypothesis of the existence of a personal God ought to count as the most probable of the theories in the field, and thus the moral paradox which has been described as arising out of the agnostic position becomes the more acute. 55. Such is the logical consequence of agnos- ticism as regards the duties more properly called religious. Its logical effects on the observance of the moral law in general are also fatal. We main- tain that in the great mass of mankind, were agnosti- cism ever universally accepted, its effects, moral and social, would be most pernicious. Individuals of the average human type cannot lose the belief in an all-seeing and infinitely holy and just God without being exposed to commit many crimes,, which they would not have committed if they had persevered in that belief. If God does not exist,, no one is able to point out any sufficient prin- ciple of morality, which he can prove that man is absolutely bound to abide by. .Of course certain G OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. actions will be more becoming than others, because more suited to rational nature. If a man is a man of good taste he will so far forth abide by these actions and abstain from their opposites. But suppose he does not care to be a man of taste, what is to oblige him to it ? On that supposition, no one has a right to blame his fellow-man for enjoying life as he thinks fit. What is man, if you take God away? What else but a machine made .of matter, held together by material forces ? What shall oblige me to have more respect for that machine called man, than for another called ox or sheep or monkey, which anatomy proves to be con- structed on quite a similar plan and to be made of the same organic elements ? Why is it a greater crime to destroy a man-machine than to destroy a monkey-machine ? Unless there is an immaterial Divine Spirit, there cannot possibly be an imma- terial human soul, and if there is not an imma- terial human soul, our so-called freedom of will is an illusion. But if our freedom is an illusion, moral responsibility is an empty name, and if that is an empty name, nobody is to be blamed, however erroneous may be the misdeeds by which, in the opinion of men, he sins against the dignity, as it is called, of man. These and the like are the practical lessons which logically follow from agnos- ticism. How can they be put into practice without giving free rein to the most revolting vices in the mass of men? Again, if agnosticism with these moral conse- quences, which objectively are implied in it, were OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 83 universally prevalent, all social relations would sooner or later be in hopeless confusion. The good order of a commonwealth rests above all upon a healthy family life. Where domestic relations, domestic authority, domestic virtues are not respected, civil relations will constitute a very frail machinery : civil authority will only rest upon changeable party- passions ; civil virtues will degenerate into hypo- critical egotism. But if in the family God is not acknowledged, if His fear does not check the impe- tuosity of vicious cravings, the most sacred bonds of family life will soon be broken. A nation of agnostics soon would suffer from so many evils that, to quote the saying of the Roman historian, Sallust, "neither the evils nor their remedies would be bearable." If such a nation did continue to exist for awhile, if agnostic philosophers succeeded in stemming the deluge of universal disorder by the moral principles of utilitarians and altruists, the reason could only be this, that human nature is too good to suffer a universal application of the moral principles which strict logic would recommend as the consistent outcome of the agnostic theory. To sum up, Agnosticism is a hypothesis which in its logical consequences leads to the destruction of the most fundamental principles of reason, and to the moral and social ruin of mankind. Therefore it must be out of harmony with human reason, it must be altogether untrue and unreasonable. No doubt it will be objected to this reasoning, that agnostics are numerous now-a-days, and are found to be as respectable as Christians in their CF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. moral conduct. If by agnostics are meant select indi- viduals of that body, mainly persons in comfortable circumstances, no imputation on their moral conduct is intended. Their probity is quite recognized, and is consistent with our argument : although it must be admitted that agnosticism has yet to show that it can scale the moral heights on which Christian heroism is so much at home. The question is as to logical consequences: and these must be sought, not in individuals, but in masses. Moreover, a suffi- ciency of time must be allowed for the tendencies to work out their natural results. If agnosticism and Christianity are compared in their effects on the masses of men, already the baneful tendency of the former is disclosing itself in a growing corruption of morals wherever it prevails. This, we may infer, is only the beginning. Centuries of recognition of the Christian sanctions of the moral law have bequeathed a strong here- ditary bias in favour of morality which will hold out for awhile against the adverse forces. But this bias must abate, if the world continues to drift away from the only sound form of theism, which is Christianity. Mr. Spencer, we know, ?nticipates a blissful age when the feeling of moral constraint, of the "ought," will die of atrophy, becau se the path of right and the path of pleasure will, under the influence of more suitable education, have been made to coincide. We can only say that the pi>$ent outlook, if we go by observation, not by questionable a priori infer- ences, offers no anticipations Oi *ny such eventual coincidence. CHAPTER III. ON THE FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF THE PER- SONAL GOD AND HIS FUNDAMENTAL RELATION TO THINGS DISTINCT FROM HIM. Introductory Remarks. 56. THERE exists a personal God, that is to say, a self-existing, intelligent Being, upon whom the material world and mankind depend. This state- ment is the outcome of the proofs given in the preceding chapter. Against it and the evidences for it several difficulties have been advanced, which it is our duty to weigh and to solve. However, to do this with greater clearness, it will be useful first to treat of the most fundamental attributes of the personal God, His unity, simplicity, and infinity; and then to state the fundamental relation, in which nil things distinct from God stand to Him ; in other words, to show that there is no being besides God, which does not owe its origin to creation out of nothing by God's power. SECTION i. The Unity of God Thesis VII. There can be but One personal God. 57. When we say that God is One, we mean that the Divine Nature exists undivided, and con- 86 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. sequently is not something belonging to several Beings. From what Christian Revelation teaches about the incomprehensible mystery of the Blessed Trinity, the Christian student is acquainted with the dogma that God is One and Three ; that there are three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, each of whom is the same One God. Therefore if we say the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Ghost is God, we do not wish to be understood as predicating the Divine Nature of the Divine Persons in exactly the same sense in which we predicate the human nature, when we attribute it to three human persons, Peter and Paul and Andrew. By the affirmation that one human nature is common to three human persons, we do not mean that really one and the same existing human nature belongs equally to the three, for, as St. Thomas expresses it, in three individuals of the human nature there are three humanities; 1 that is to say, three human persons are not rightly spoken of as having one human nature, but as being per- fectly similar to one another, in regard of those attributes, which, being contained in our general idea of human nature, are predicable of each of them. But quite another meaning is to be given to the statement that One Divine Nature is common to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It means that the three Divine Persons are One real Divine Existence, One undivided Divine Essence. In the language of St. Thomas we may thus express, the 1 St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. i. 39. 3. In tribus suppositis humanae naturae sunt tres humanitates." FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. Sy difference between the meanings of the terms "one" and " common " in the two phrases mentioned : " The unity and community of the human nature is not an objective reality but a subjective conception of objective reality, . . . but the actuality signified by the name ' God,' that is to say, the Divine Essence, is in its objective reality both one and common." 2 58. The mystery of the Blessed Trinity and its relation to the Unity of God is in our thesis neither affirmed nor denied. Its truth transcends human reason, and is to be believed on the authority of that personal God whose unity and infinity we can prove, and whose infinite perfection guarantees His veracity. The Divine character of the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity is to be vindicated by Dogmatic Theology, whose task it is also to show that there is no manifest contradiction between the two state- 3 St. Thomas, i. 39. 4. ad 3m. " Unitas autem sive communitas humanae naturae non est secundum rem, sed solum secundum con- siderationem. . . . Sed forma significata per hoc nomen, Deus, scilicet essentia divina est una et communis secundum rem." Neither St. Thomas nor we ourselves must be understood to mean that there is no objective foundation for the oneness of our conception of human nature. There is indeed an objective foundation for it ; but it does not consist in the real identity, but in the real similarity of human nature as considered in many human subjects. It is this which St. Thomas teaches (Sum. Theol. i. 13. 9), saying: " Natura humana communis est multis secundum rem et rationem." He implies thereby that the meaning of the abstract term " human nature " is really verified in each of many human individuals. Yet as each individual verification of that term differs from any other individual verification considered as individual, there is no objective identity, but only objective similarity. For further information on this subject, cf. Clarke's Logic, pp. 140 162. 88 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. ments, God is One in Essence, God is Three in Persons, We have to prove only the former of these state- ments. 59. We may commence by appealing to the unity of the universe as testifying to the unity of its author. It is true that a two-fold objection may be taken to the validity of such an appeal. It may be urged that in addition to the universe in which we are placed, there may possibly be other universes, one or more, in the remotest regions of space, so far off as to enter into no relations whatever with any even the most distant of the constellations which belong to our cosmos. Whatever unity we discern in our own cosmical environment, however it may point to a single Creator of itself, is quite consistent, it may be urged, with the co-existence of other self- existing creators for other universes of the kind suggested. This is the first objection. Another is that unity of result need not imply more than unity of action in the cause. Thus the unity even of our own universe might be satisfied by the hypothesis of several self-existing Gods acting in friendly com- bination. It must be conceded that in view of these objections an appeal to the unity of our universe as evidence of the oneness of God fails short of absolute validity. In other words, it can only establish a presumption, predisposing our minds to the accept- ance of the metaphysical arguments presently to be propounded. The presumption, however, is entitled to be regarded as exceedingly strong. The two possibilities mentioned as depriving it of full cer- FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 3$ tainty are not of a very solid character. Only captiousness could accept them as in themselves probable solutions of the problem of cosmical unity. On this point we may hear Mr. John Stuart Mill, a man not too given to assent to the conclusions of Natural Theology. He says: 3 "The specific effect of science is to show by accumulating evidence, that every event in nature is connected by laws with some fact or facts which preceded it, or in other words, depends for its existence on some antecedent; but yet not so strictly on one as not to be liable to frustration or modification from others : for these distinct chains of causation are so entangled with one another, the action of each cause is so interfered with by other causes, though each acts according to its own fixed law, that every effect is truly the result rather of the aggregate of all causes in existence than of any one only, and nothing takes place in the world of our experience without spreading a perceptible influence of some sort through a greater or less portion of Nature, and making perhaps every portion of it slightly different from what it would have been, if that event had not taken place. Now, when once the double conviction has found entry into the mind that every event depends on antecedents ; and at the same time that to bring it about many ante- cedents must concur, perhaps all the antecedents in Nature, insomuch that a slight difference in any 3 Mill, Three Essays on Religion, pp. 132, seq. We give Mill's words in full, without committing ourselves to every statement he makes on the subject. 90 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD one of them might have prevented the phenomenon, or materially altered its character the conviction follows that no one event, certainly no one kind of events, can be absolutely pre-ordained or governed by any Being but one who holds in his hand the reins of all Nature and not of some department only. At least if a plurality be supposed, it is necessary to assume so complete a concert of action and unity of will among them that the difference is for most purposes immaterial between such a theory and that of the absolute unity of the Godhead. . . . The reason, then, why monotheism may be accepted as the representative of theism in the abstract, is not so much because it is the theism of all the more improved portions of the human race, as because it is the only theism which can claim for itself any footing on scientific ground." We agree fully with Mill's last statement, and would refer the reader to Ch. Pesch, 4 who argues that the result of the best modern archaeological researches is to show that monotheism and not polytheism was the primitive form of religious belief. 60. Let us now pass on to the metaphysical argument, for which we must claim certainty, although it has to be acknowledged that it is some- what subtle and requires careful reflection for the perception of its full force. But this, after all, is only what must be expected when we have to deal with so sublime a subject. With St. Thomas we may introduce the argument 4 Cf. Ch. Pesch, Der Gottesbe griff, i. and ii. Freiburg : Herder, 1885 and iSSS. FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. gj thus : If the reality expressed by the concept of Socrates did not comprise more notes than the reality expressed by the concept of man, the extension of both concepts would be the same : in other words, there would be only one man, as there is only one Socrates. Now the reality corresponding to the concept of this God does not contain more notes than the reality corresponding to the concept of God or of Divine Nature : because God has not a nature produced by another being, but is His nature, being a cause without cause. 5 In other words, when there are diverse beings sharing the same common nature, as there are distinct men sharing the common nature of man, there must be a principle of diversity as well as a principle of unity. The diversity cannot be without its raison d'etre any more than the unity. In the case of God there is not this double principle. It will help to the understanding of this argument, which we acknowledge to be very abstract, if we put it also in another way. If there are several self-existing beings, the reason of the distinction between them must either be self- existence as such, or something necessarily con- nected with self-existence as swc/t, or something accidentally connected with it. Manifestly, however, self-existence as such cannot be the ground of the distinction in question. Nor can the distinction 6 Cf. St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. i. n. 3. "Si ergo Socrates per id esset homo per quod est hie homo, sicut non possunt esse plures- Socrates, ita non possent esse plures homines. Hoc autem convenit Deo : nam ipse Deus est sua natura. . . . Secundum igitur idem est Deus et hie Deus. Impossibile est igitur esse plures Deos." OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. proceed from anything necessarily connected with self-existence as such; for that must be wherever self-existence is. Nor can anything accidentally connected with self-existence be said to constitute a reason for the said distinction ; because a self- existent being is necessarily unchangeable, change implying the possibility of successive states of exist- ence, and such possibility is incompatible with self- existence, which must be as constant as the essence with which it is identical. 6 SECTION 2. The Simplicity of God. Thesis VIII. God's Being is physically and metaphysically simple. 61. What is one is undivided in so far as it is one ; what is simple, is not only undivided but indivisible. Oneness does not exclude composition, although it excludes division ; with simplicity all composition is incompatible. Every man is one natural being, but he is not one simple being, because he consists of two substantial principles, body and soul, united with one another. Man therefore is composed of substantial parts ; in him there is substantial composition. If we consider the immaterial soul of man alone, we have a being not composed of substantial parts, and therefore rightly called a simple substance. Never- theless, even the soul is not exempt from all compo- sition. It is liable to accidental composition. For it is changeable in regard to its thoughts and voli- tions, so that we can distinguish these and it as com- 6 See another wa]' of proving the Unity of God in Appendix V. pp. 465, seq. FUNDAMENTAL ATl'RIBUTES OF GOD. 93 ponent parts of a whole. Both these kinds of com- position are found in existing things, and we call them real or physical composition. In God neither of them exists, consequently He is physically simple in the strictest sense. The proof of the physical simplicity of God rests upon His self-existence. Whatever is sub- stantially compounded, depends in its essential constitution upon the union of parts, each of which differs from the compound substance. But since the self-existent owes nothing to what is different from itself, its essential constitution cannot depend upon the union of parts different from itself. There- fore God, being self-existent, cannot be substantially compounded. Nor is accidental composition con- ceivable in the Divine Being. How could it be ? An accident is a perfection or modification added to the nature of a substance. But to the nature of the Divine Substance no perfection or modifica- tion can be added. Any addition made could not be the addition of anything self-existent, because what falls under the conception of self-existence belongs to the Divine Nature itself. Nor, again, could it be the addition of anything not self-existent : because what is not self-existent cannot be found in the Divine Nature. The same follows from the infinity of God which, as we shall see, is a corollary of God's self-existence and unity. This infinity supposed, we argue thus : What is infinitely perfect can receive no addition. But every accident is an addition to the substance in which it inheres. Therefore a being infinitely OF THE EXISTENCE OP GOD. perfect, as God's Being really is, can receive no accident. 62. Moreover God is not only physically simple, but also metaphysically. As physical simplicity excludes physical composition, so metaphysical simplicity excludes metaphysical composition. The difference between physical (real) and metaphysical (virtual) composition may be thus expressed : Physical com- position means union of diverse realities completing one another to constitute one really existing being, as for instance, man is a physical compound of body and soul ; metaphysical composition means union of diverse concepts referring to the same real being in such a way that none of them by itself signifies either explicitly or even implicitly the whole reality signified by their combination ; man, for instance, is a metaphysical compound of animal and rational. This metaphysical composition belongs to all creatures, even to such as are physically simple. The reason for this assertion is obvious enough. That which is signified by the defi- nition of a created thing, its essence as we call it, depends for its existence, not upon itself, but upon its creating cause. Without the influx of the creating power of God the creature is nothing but an objective idea of the Divine Mind, something known only as capable of existing under the con- dition that God wills its existence. In other words, the essence of every creature is in itself a mere possibility ; not a real, but a conditional existence. In conceiving its essence, or the contents of its definition, we thereby neither express nor imply its FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 95 existence. Consequently the objective concept of the real existence of a creature is metaphysically compounded of the two concepts of its essence and existence. 6 That this first kind of metaphysical composition cannot be predicated of God is evident; for its only foundation is the contingency of created being; therefore it must be alien to the Divine Nature, which exists with absolute necessity. 63. Another sort of metaphysical composition in creatures is that contained in the objective concept of their specific nature. The species man or rational animal includes what is meant by the two concepts animal and rational. As the former is equally applicable to irrational beasts and to men, it evidently neither expresses nor implies the meaning of the concept rational. Therefore we say that human nature is metaphysically composed of the genus animal and the specific difference rational. Now this sort of metaphysical composition is in- compatible with the Divine Nature ; because God cannot be included in any genus of beings. Beings can be classed as one genus, only so far as under some one aspect their essences are perfectly similar, occupying in this respect a perfectly equal position in the scale of beings. But God cannot be perfectly similar to any order of beings diverse from Himself under any aspect whatsoever; because all other beings are dependent upon Him; they are, as it 6 St. Thomas and the scholastics expressed this briefly by saying that in no created thing are essence and existence the same ; and that every created thing is composed of essence and existence, or of potentiality and actuality (potentia and actus). 96 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. were, an outflow of His unchangeable simple self- existence. His justice cannot be perfectly similar to any sort of created justice, nor His mercy to any mercy belonging to any of His creatures. Borrowing a beautiful, although necessarily inadequate illustra- tion from the Angelic Doctor, 7 we may say : As the sun by his light and heat is the unapproachable prin- ciple of millions of forms of life and growth, so God by His wisdom and power is the unapproachable principle of all kinds of beings, surpassing in His simplicity the manifold perfections of all and each of them by an infinite distance. It is this which Mr. Herbert Spencer has in view when he rightly maintains that those who admit a first self- existing unconditional Being must admit that this Being cannot be classified. " Between the creating and the created," he says, 8 " there must be a distinction transcending any of the distinctions existing between different divisions of the created. . . . The infinite cannot be grouped along with something that is finite ; since, in being so grouped, it must be regarded as not-infinite. It is impossible to put the absolute in the same category with any- thing relative, so long as the absolute is defined as that of which no necessary relation can be pre- dicated. . . . There cannot be more than one First Cause. . . . The unconditioned therefore as classable neither with any form of the conditioned nor with any other unconditioned cannot be classed at all." So far so good. But when the same author goes on to say of the unconditioned First Cause: "To 7 Sum. Theol. i. q. 4. a. 2. ad im. First Principles, p. Si. FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 97 admit that it cannot be known as of such or such kind, is to admit that it is unknowable," he certainly is wrong. It is true, from the impossibility of classifying God with any creatures, it follows that no creature can know Him adequately as He is knowable and known by Himself; that no creature can comprehend Him. But our inability to com- prehend God does not imply that we cannot predicate of God whatever real perfection there is in creatures. Later on we shall give reasons to show that we have a real and true knowledge of God, however utterly inadequate it may be. 64. For the present we may add that not only the metaphysical composition mentioned above, but any conceivable sort of metaphysical composi- tions are all inapplicable to God. The general reason for this may be stated thus : Concepts which in their application to objective reality are absolutely inseparable, so that none of them can have a real foundation different from the real foundation of the rest, cannot be metaphysically compounded. For though none expresses what is expressed by the others, yet each of them implies all the rest. But the concepts which we form of the Divine attributes are in their application to objective reality absolutely inseparable. Each of the Divine attributes in its objective reality coincides with the one self-existing Divine substance, which we have proved to be a simple unchangeable essence. Consequently none of the Divine attributes has any objective foundation except in so far as it is one with the rest; which is evidently the same as to say that the Divine H OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. attributes are absolutely inseparable in their appli- cation to objective reality. Divine justice, for instance, without Divine mercy is impossible ; and so is Divine power without Divine wisdom. There- fore these attributes are not metaphysically com- pounded, although they must be said to be meta- physically or virtually distinct; the concept of justice does not express what is expressed by the concept of mercy, although it implies the same. 9 SECTION 3. The Infinity of God. Thesis IX. God is infinitely perfect. 65. Infinite, according to the etymological mean- ing of the word, is that which has no limits. Now a thing may be said to have no limits, either because we are not able to assign its limits, or because it is really unlimited. We speak, for instance, of an * Real distinction does not necessarily mean real composition, nor does virtual distinction necessarily mean virtual composition. For things to be compounded they must first be distinct ; but, given the existence of distinct things, it is not necessary that they should be compounded together into a unity. Catholic Theology recognizes a real distinction between the three Divine Persons, because They are, as " substantial " relations within the One Godhead, opposed to one another ; but it is not constrained in consequence to admit that the Godhead is really compounded of Them, because it teaches that each Person is not really distinct from, but really identical with, the Essence of the Divinity. Again, Catholic Theology recognizes a virtual distinction between the Divine Essence and each Divine Person, but it does not teach us that the Divine Essence is virtually compounded of the three Persons, because the concept of each Divine Person does not prescind from, but involves the concept of the Divine Essence. These observations show us that the mystery of the Blessed Trinity is opposed neither to the physical nor to the metaphysical simplicity of God. FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OP GOD. 99 infinite number, of infinite space. These expressions do not imply that number and space do or can exist without limit. That is repugnant to reason. For what is number in reality but a collection of units, all of which are equally conceivable by one general concept ? But no collection of such units can be so great that the addition of another unit would be inconceivable; on the contrary, however much it may be increased, it must remain a limited number. If it ever became really unlimited or infinite, the taking away of one unit would make it finite ; and its infinitude would be made up of a finite number and a finite unit, which is evidently absurd. 19 66. Nor can space be actually unlimited, because its real foundation consists in the dimensions between the extreme surfaces of one body, or of many bodies taken together, or of all bodies forming the one universe, as we call it. Now such dimensions cannot become so large as not to allow of a larger one. If space ever were actually infinite, a certain part of it, say a cubic inch, would be contained in the whole a really infinite number of times, the impossibility of which is clear from what we have said about infinite number. 11 67. A so-called infinite number, therefore, can only be a number so great that every number assign- able by us is next to nothing in comparison with it. In the same way, infinite space can exist only so far as there can exist a space so great that any corporeal magnitude assigned by us is next to nothing when compared with its dimensions. * Cf. St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. i. 7. 4. u Ibid. 7. 3. too OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. These remarks about infinite number and space vvill serve to illustrate the meaning of the word " infinite " when applied to God. We do not intend thereby to suggest the idea of a being containing infinite extended parts, or compounded of any sort of infinite entities. Such notions not only suppose the possibility of infinite extension and number, but are also opposed to the simplicity of God, as already proved. 68. Infinity, then, when predicated of God, means that He is unlimited in His perfection, that is to say, that every perfection conceivable belongs to Him. The proof of this statement is based on the truth that God alone is self-existent, and every- thing else contingent. This truth supposed, we may argue thus: All perfections conceivable fall either under the heading self -existent or under the heading contingent, in other words, they are either uncaused or capable of being caused. The former class God possesses formally, that is, He possesses them as tfiey are in themselves according to their own proper nature. The other class, since He, as the only First Cause, is able to produce them, He must have equivalently and eminently : that is, in some manner superior to the manner in which they exist outside Him, and at the same time enabling Him to realize them in their own proper nature. Thus God is infinite in all perfections. For it is no limitation to His perfection that He does not contain contingent perfections formally. To contain them eminently is more than to contain them merely FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OP (?07>.^ , 39l formally. It is, in fact, to contain them in an infinite instead of a finite manner, 69. This truth of the infinite perfection of God must be our guide in deciding whether any given attribute can be predicated of God or not. There is a truth underlying the error of the agnostic, namely,* the fact that our knowledge of God, although evi- dently true as far as it goes, must necessarily be inadequate. From this, however, it by no means follows that no name expressing a created perfection can be given to the Most High. On the contrary, we say that all nouns and verbs applied to creatures, so far as their objective meaning expresses pure perfection without connoting imperfection, must be true of God before they can be true of creatures. Indeed perfection, as such, signifies something actual ; and everything actual, so far as it can be conceived without the limitations and privations which accompany its existence in created beings, must be eminently in the Infinite Being. 70. The preceding observations enable us to lay down the following three canons for the predicates to be given to God in common with creatures in general and with man in particular. I. Although no predicate given to creatures, and expressing a perfection, attributes this perfection to them without limit; yet the meanings of some predicates, taken by themselves, do not connote imperfection, whereas the meanings of others always connote it. The former must be applied to God in the proper sense of the words, the latter not. Thus we may say of God that He is infinitely mighty, infinitely wise, has infinite know- 102 OF THE EXISTENCE OP GOD. ledge, is infinitely just, infinitely benevolent, and so on. But we cannot say that He is infinitely extended like a body, that He reasons with infinite perfection, that He possesses infinite courage, &c. To illustrate the difference by an example, let us take the two adjectives wise and courageous. I may say and must say of God that He is wise in the proper sense of the word. And why so ? Because the word wise denotes the perfection of knowing the causes of things, and this perfection can be conceived without the addition of any imperfection. But it is quite otherwise with the word courageous. This connotes the condition of having to face danger, whereas a being which can be threatened with danger necessarily must be limited in its perfection ; only things weak and not wholly self-sufficient can be brought into danger. And thus the infi- nitely perfect God cannot be properly said to be courageous. 71. II. Although certain predicates are in the most proper sense applicable to God and to creatures; yet they are true. of God in an infinitely higher sense than of creatures. In God they are found without limit and independently, in creatures they are found under limitation, and with entire dependence upon the power of God. Consequently, the relation of these predicates to God and to creatures is not equal, but most unequal, although their meaning is realized in both : and, in consequence, when we ascribe them to God, our intention is to ascribe them to Him with the understanding, implied or expressed, that there is this inequality of relation FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. ZOj between the mode in which the reality signified exists in Him and in creatures. This may be illustrated by our parallel procedure when in propositions worded in exactly the same terms, we ascribe beauty of countenance to a portrait and to its living original. In each case we say, " What a beautiful face," and by employing in each case exactly the same language, we signify that the same reality finds a truthful concrete expression alike in the original and in the portrait; but we are quite aware of the great difference between the mode in which beauty of countenance is realized and predi- cable in the two cases. If we do not call attention to the difference by the wording of our proposition, this is partly because when a reality is predicated of a subject in a simple proposition, the predication asserts only the fact of the subject possessing the reality, not the mode in which it is possessed, partly because the difference of mode is sufficiently clear to the persons addressed without formal statement, or at all events can be left to stand over till another time, as one cannot be always explaining. As it is always an advantage to have technical terms to fix distinctions like this, predication is said to be univocal when the reality predicated is not only found in all the subjects of predication, but found in each of them in the same manner, and analogical when it is found in them, and thereby founds an analogy between them, but is not in them all in the same manner. To apply this doctrine to the case of God, we say that attributes like "being," "goodness," 104 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. "power," "wisdom," &c., are predicable of God as well as of creatures, meaning thereby that the meaning of these terms has a true realization in Him, although we are quite aware, and on fitting occasions explicitly declare, that the manner in which they are realized in Him differs widely from the way in which they are realized in His creatures : that His Being, Goodness, Power, Wisdom, &c., are necessary, uncaused and self-existent, and without limit ; whereas the being, goodness, power, wisdom, &c., of creatures is contingent, caused, and finite. We say, therefore, that these terms are predicable of God and creatures, not mtivocatly, but analogi- cally. 12 From this second canon there follows the very important corollary : The application of the same predicates to God and to creatures does not imply co-ordination or classification of God with creatures. Wherever two things are co-ordinated or classi- fied together there must be not only likeness, but, under one aspect at least, perfect likeness. Now creatures, though imitations of the Divine Essence in all their perfections, are under no aspect perfectly like that Essence. What we mean, when we speak of created perfections, is in God really ; but the way in which it is in Him, differs under all aspects from 12 " Quantum igitur ad id quod significant hujusmodi nomina, proprie competunt Deo et magis proprie quam ipsis creaturis, et per prius dicuntur de eo. Quantum vero ad modum significandi non dicuntur proprie de Deo." Sum. Theol. i. 13. 3. c. Cf. ibid. ad adum. : ' Id quod significatur per nomen non convenit eo mode ej Deo quo nomen significat sec} exceUentiori modo. ' FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 105 the way in which it is in creatures, not only in degree but in kind. Thus, for instance, wisdom, or the knowledge of the nature of things and their causes, is truly in God, and can to a certain extent be truly in man. But in God it is identical with the simple and infinite Divine substance ; consequently God is His wisdom, and His wisdom is an eternal all-compre- hensive act of knowledge, including (as identical with it) an infinitely perfect Will, which never can act against the practical corollaries of theoretical wisdom. In man, on the contrary, wisdom exists as an acquired accidental quality, now as actual know- ledge, now as an habitual disposition to actual knowledge ; and so far as it is actual knowledge in the mind, it is composed of many successive mental acts, all of which are more or less inadequate expressions of their objects. In a word, a wise man is not his wisdom, but has wisdom, and has it only in a very small degree. 72. III. Predicates, the meaning of which expresses perfection with connotation of imperfection, though they cannot be true of God in their proper sense, may be true of Him when used metaphorically. As man belongs to the order of sensible things, he is fond of clothing his thoughts in impressive imagery drawn from the objects of sense. A hero is a lion ; a discoverer a luminary of science ; and so forth. This use of metaphors, provided it be in taste and moderation, is a great aid to human language, even in speaking of God Himself. Instead of naming a perfection of His directly, we may to<5 OF THE EXISTENCE O/ GOD. suggest it indirectly by expressing something which bears a resemblance to it at least under one or other aspect. Thus we may attribute eyes to God to signify His knowledge, ears to express His acceptance of our prayers. We may speak of Him as angry with sinners, when we would point to effects of His justice. 73. This subject of the application of terms of human thought to the Deity is treated by St. Thomas, 13 whose doctrine is the doctrine of all Catholic philosophers. It could therefore only be want of familiarity with their teaching which led Mr. Herbert Spencer not to except them from the charge of anthropomorphism which he launches against even the most civilized believers in a knowable Deity. These are his words : 14 " From the time when the rudest savages imagined the causes of all things to be creatures of flesh and blood like themselves, down to our own time, the degree of assumed likeness has been diminishing. But though a bodily form and sub- stance similar to that of man, has long since ceased among cultivated races to be a literally-conceived attribute of the Ultimate Cause ; though the grosser human desires have been also rejected as unfit elements of the conception; though there is some hesitation in ascribing even the higher human feelings, save*in greatly idealized shapes ; yet it is still thought not only proper, but imperative, to is St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. i. q. 13. Especially, art. 3. art. 5. and art. 6. are to be noted. w First Principles, pp. 109, no. FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 107 ascribe the most abstract qualities of our nature. To think of the Creative Power as in all respects anthropomorphous, is now considered impious by men who yet hold themselves bound to think of the Creative Power as in some respects anthropomor- phous, and who do not see that the one proceeding is but an evanescent form of the other." Certainly it would be great irreverence to enter- tain an anthropomorphous conception of God, so as to attribute to Him human perfections, as such, in the limited and imperfect way that those perfections exist in ourselves. But no instructed theist will do so. It is true that we attribute to God what Mr. Spencer seems to call the most abstract qualities of our nature, understanding, free-will, wisdom, bene- volence, love of justice, &c. Yet at the same time we explain that only the abstract meaning of these perfections is objectively real in God, not the dependence and limitation which attend the realiza- tion of that meaning in man. Instead of co- ordinating God with man in any of these attri- butes, we prove that all of them in Him are identical with His self-existing nature in a way infinitely perfect, and therefore infinitely exceeding our experience and our comprehension. But the fact that we are unable to comprehend God's infinity is no proof that we can know nothing definite about Him. On the contrary, as we have shown, His very infinitude compels us to predicate of Him whatever created perfection is, by way of abstraction and exclusion of limits, conceivable without in- cluding objective defect or imperfection. Moreover, io8 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. after having predicated all this, as far as we can, we must confess that all the predicates by which we have tried to describe the infinite Majesty of the Most High, though they express what is truly proper to His Being, nevertheless fall infinitely short of an adequate representation of that Being. The final practical conclusion, therefore, to which we are led by reasoning from creatures to their First Cause, is not that of the agnostic who says, " We ought to be silent about the attributes of God," but that of the Psalmist: "Great is the Lord and exceedingly to be praised;" 15 "Magnify the Lord with me, and let us extol His name together. " ie / J3 Psalm xlvii. 7. ;c Psalm xvxiii.