Chapter II: The Christian Doctrine of God (3)

In this matter, the belief in God stands on the same level with the belief in objective reality. Both have been explained away by philosophers. Neither can be proved but by a circular argument. Both persist in the consciousness of mankind. Both have been purified and rationalized by the growth of knowledge. But the moment reason attempts to start without assumptions, and claims exclusive sovereignty over man, a paralysis of thought results. There have been, before now, philosophers who professed to begin at the beginning, and accept nothing till it was proved, and the result was a pure Pyrrhonism. They could not prove the existence of an external world. They believed it, even if they did not, like Hume, exult in the fact that belief triumphed over demonstration, but there was no sure ground for believing that the world was not a mere cerebral phenomenon, except the curiously rational coherence of its visions. Even Prof. Huxley, in his ultra-sceptical moods, admits this. He says[140] that 'for any demonstration that can be given to the contrary effect, the "collection of perceptions," which makes up our consciousness, may be an orderly phantasmagoria generated by the Ego, unfolding its successive scenes on the background of the abyss of nothingness.' But no one, least of all a man of science, believes this to be so. He takes reality for granted, and only tries to interpret it aright, i.e. in such a way as to make a rational unity of the facts perceived. Tell a scientific specialist,--'I am not going to let you beg the question. You must first prove that nature exists, and then I will hear about the science of nature,' and he will say 'That is metaphysics,' which to him is probably a synonym for an intellectual waste of time. 'Look at nature,' he will say, 'what more do you want? If nature had been merely a phantasmagoria there would have been no science of nature. Of course you must make your "act of faith[141]." You must believe not only that nature exists, but that it is a cosmos which can be interpreted, if you can only find the key. The proof that nature is interpretable is that we have, at least in part, been able to interpret her. There were people in John Locke's day who professed to doubt their own existence, and he was content to answer them according to their folly. "If anyone," he says[142], "pretends to be so sceptical as to deny his own existence (for really to doubt of it is manifestly impossible) let him, for me, enjoy his beloved happiness of being nothing, until hunger, or some other pain, convince him to the contrary."' We do not call a scientific man unreasonable if he answers thus, though he is justifying his premisses by his conclusion. We know that he that would study nature must believe that it is, and that it is a rational whole which reason can interpret. And 'he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of such as diligently seek Him.' We feel our kinship with both before the instinctive consciousness is justified by reason.

And there is a remarkable parallelism in the process of verification. The counterpart of the theological belief in the unity and omnipresence of God is the scientific belief in the unity of nature and the reign of law. But that belief, though implicit in the simplest operation of reason[143], is not consciously attained till late in the history of science. And even when it is reached, it is not at once grasped in all its wealth and fulness. It is thought of as mere uniformity, a dull mechanical repetition of events, which is powerless to explain or include the rich variety of nature and the phenomena of life and growth. It is to meet this difficulty that J. S. Mill naively assures us that 'the course of nature is not only uniform, it is also infinitely various[144].' But soon the truth is grasped, that the reign of law is a unity which is higher than mere uniformity, because it is living and not dead, and includes and transcends difference. It is the analogue in science to that higher and fuller view of God in which He is revealed as Trinity in Unity.

But as these parallel processes of verification go on, the truth is forced upon the world that religion and philosophy must either be in internecine conflict, or recognise the oneness of their Object. 'We and the philosophers,' says S. Clement, 'know the same God, but not in the same way[145].' Philosophy and religion have both been enriched by wider knowledge, and as their knowledge has become deeper and fuller, the adjustment of their claims has become more imperatively necessary. Few in our day would willingly abandon either, or deliberately sacrifice one to the other. Many would be ready to assent to the words of a Christian Father; 'when philosophy and the worship of the gods are so widely separated, that the professors of wisdom cannot bring us near to the gods, and the priests of religion cannot give us wisdom; it is manifest that the one is not true wisdom, and the other is not true religion. Therefore neither is philosophy able to conceive the truth, nor is religion able to justify itself. But where philosophy is joined by an inseparable connection with religion, both must necessarily be true, because in our religion we ought to be wise, that is, to know the true Object and mode of worship, and in our wisdom to worship, that is, to realize in action what we know[146].'

It is sometimes argued,--You have let in more than the thin end of the wedge. You admit that 'it is the province of reason to judge of the morality of the Scripture[147].' You profess no antagonism to historical and literary criticism. Under the criticism of reason, Fetichism has given way to Polytheism, Polytheism to Monotheism, even Monotheism has become progressively less anthropomorphic. Why object to the last step in the process, and cling to the belief in a Personal God? Simply because it would make the difference between a religion purified and a religion destroyed. The difference between the 30,000 gods of Hesiod, and the One God of Christianity, is a measurable difference: the difference between a Personal God and an impersonal reason is, so far as religion is concerned, infinite. For the transition from Monotheism to Pantheism is made only by the surrender of religion, though the term 'theism' may be used to blur the line of separation, and make the transition easy.

Religion has, before all things, to guard the heritage of truth, the moral revelation of God in Christ, to 'contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints,' and to trust to the promised guidance of the Spirit of Truth. And reason interprets religion to itself, and by interpreting verifies and confirms. Religion therefore claims as its own the new light which metaphysics and science are in our day throwing upon the truth of the immanence of God: it protests only against those imperfect, because premature, syntheses, which in the interests of abstract speculation, would destroy religion. It dares to maintain that 'the Fountain of wisdom and religion alike is God: and if these two streams shall turn aside from Him, both must assuredly run dry.' For human nature craves to be both religious and rational. And the life which is not both is neither.

[59] Fiske, _Idea of God_, p. 139, quoting H. Spencer.

[60] S. Clem. Alex. _Strom._ I. v.

[61] Cf. Herbert Spencer, _First Principles_, Pt. I.

[62] See this criticism excellently stated in Caird's _Phil. of Religion_, pp. 32, etc.

[63] _Natural Religion_, iii. p. 45, quoted by Martineau.

[64] Ibid., iv. p. 74.

[65] Frederic Harrison's _New Year's Address_, 1884.

[66] _A Study of Religion_, vol. i. pp. 11, 12.

[67] Ibid., p. 15.

[68] _Old Faith and New_, § 41.

[69] 'Hoc vinculo pietatis obstricti Deo et religati sumus, unde ipsa religio nomen accepit, non ut Cicero interpretatus est, a relegendo,' Lact. _Inst._ iv. 28.

[70] _De verâ religione_, sub fin.

[71] _Sum. Theol._ 2. 2. 81. Art. 1.

[72] _Idea of God_, p. 117.

[73] See Seth's _Hegelianism and Personality_, pp. 223, 224, one or two sentences from which are, almost verbatim, transferred to the text.

[74] Justin Martyr (_Exhort. ad Graec._, ch. xxxiv) explains the anthropomorphisms of polytheism as an inversion of the truth that man is in the image of God.

[75] Hume, _Essays_, II. 425.

[76] H. Spencer, _Eccl. Inst._, p. 1.

[77] _Psych._ vol. ii. §§ 388-391.

[78] Caird, _Philosophy of Religion_, p. 162.

[79] Ritter and Preller, _Hist. Phil. Graec._, 7th ed. § 82.

[80] Ibid., § 83.

[81] Plat. _Rep._ 377-385.

[82] _Theaet._ 176 C.

[83] H. Spencer, of course, follows Kuenen in assuming a polytheistic origin of Hebrew monotheism. See Kuenen, _Religion of Israel_, i. 223.

[84] It is strange that Mr. Darwin should have failed to see that this was the answer to his difficulty. It appeared to him, he tells us (_Autobiography_, p. 308), 'utterly incredible that if God were now to make a revelation to the Hindoos, he would permit it to be connected with the belief in Vishnu, Siva, &c., as Christianity is connected with the Old Testament.' Incredible, no doubt. But why? For the very reason which makes it 'incredible' that man should be evolved directly from a fish, as Anaximander is said to have taught, and not incredible that he should be evolved, as Darwin teaches, from one of the higher vertebrates. The very idea of development, whether in species or religions, implies a law, and order in the development.

[85] S. Athan. _De Incarn._ c. xii.

[86] It is needless to say that this section is largely indebted to Dean Church's _Discipline of the Christian Character_.

[87] _Edinb. Rev._, Apr. 1888, p. 512.

[88] _Discipline of the Christian Character_, p. 85.

[89] Ibid., p. 87.

[90] Hegel, _Phil. of Hist._, p. 247, Eng. Tr.

[91] _Cont. Rev._, Oct. 1878, p. 645.

[92] Ranke, _Popes_, i. 395.

[93] Dollinger, _The Church and the Churches_, p. 239.

[94] _Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy_, p. 103.

[95] H. Spencer, _Data of Ethics_, pref.

[96] See Ihne's remarks on the separation of morals and religion in Rome at the time of the Punic wars. 'The religious cravings were not satisfied, and men were carried either to the schools of Greek Philosophy or to the grossest and meanest superstition.' _Hist. of Rome_, vol. ii. pp. 477, 478.

[97] _History of Religions_, p. 22.

[98] Edersheim, _Life and Times_, i. p. 17.

[99] See Edersheim, i. pp. 31, etc.

[100] Hegel, _Philosophy of History_, p. 343, Eng. Tr.

[101] 2 S. Pet. ii. 1.

[102] 1 Tim. vi. 20.

[103] 1 Cor. viii. 6.

[104] 1 Cor. iii. 19.

[105] Euseb. iii. 28.

[106] 1 Cor. ii. 12.

[107] Newman's _Arians_, ch. ii. § 1.

[108] _Natural Truth of Christianity_, §§ 1, 2.

[109] _Phil. of Hist._, p. 343, Eng. Tr.

[110] Dorner. _Hist. of Doct._ i. pp. 362, etc.

[111] _Adv. Prax._ ch. iii.

[112] _Cont. Noet._ § xiv.

[113] _Inst._ iv. c. 29.

[114] _Strom._ v. 1.

[115] _De Princ._ I. ii. § 10.

[116] _Adv. Arianos_ i. § 20.

[117] _De Trin._ viii. 10 and ix. 2.

[118] Iren. _Adv. Haer._ IV. iv. I. 2.

[119] Cf. pp. 333-336.

[120] Plat. _Phaed._ 98 B. Arist. _Met._

[121] p. 455ᵇ17. The references are to the Berlin edition.

[122] p. 199ᵃ8, 18: 415ᵇ17: 731ᵃ24.

[123] p. 1070ᵃ7, 1033ᵇ8, 753ᵃ3.

[124] Dorner, _Hist. of Doct._ i. p. 366.

[125] S. Athan. _Contra Gentes_, § 42.

[126] Morison's _Service of Man_, p. 48.

[127] Quoted by W. S. Lilly, _Nineteenth Century_, Aug. 1888, p. 292.

[128] Morison, _Service of Man_, p. 49.

[129] It is far from our purpose to undervalue the work of Dr. Martineau. No more earnest and vigorous, and so far as it goes, no truer defence of religion has been published in our day. But his strength lies mainly in his protest against what destroys religion, and in his uncompromising assertion of what religion, as a condition of its existence, demands. He has done little to shew us how these demands can be rationally satisfied, how the personal God, which religion demands, is even an intelligible idea. He wavers between a view which logically developed must result in pantheism, and a view implying a distinction in the Divine nature, which carries him far in the Trinitarian direction. More often he contents himself with leaving the speculative question alone, or storming the rational position by the forces of religion and morals. See _A Study of Religion_, vol. ii. p. 145 compared with p. 192.

[130] Newman's _Arians_, p. 84.

[131] Cf. Fiske, _Idea of God_, pp. 103, 104. Martineau, _A Study of Religion_, ii. 172, 173.

[132] _Idea of God_, cf. § v. and pp. 105-110.

[133] Apparently by Prof. Allen's _Continuity of Christian Thought_.

[134] Fiske, _Idea of God_, p. 94.

[135] Ibid., § vii.

[136] _De Incarn._ c. 17.

[137] _De Civ. Dei_, vii. c. xxx; cf. too _De Gen. ad lit._ iv. c. 12; _Enchir. ad Laur._ c. 27.

[138] S. Thoa. Aq. _Sum. Theol._ I. i. Quaest. 2, says that the Existence of God is demonstrable, but he explains that he does not mean strict demonstration, _demonstratio apodeictica_ but _demonstratio ab effectibus_.

[139] _The Existence of God._ By Rev. R. F. Clarke, S.J., p. 6.

[140] Huxley's _Hume_, p. 81.

[141] 'The one act of faith in the convert to science, is the confession of 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.' Huxley in _Darwin's Life and Letters_, vol. ii. p. 200.

[142] _Essay_ IV. 10. § 2.

[143] Cf. Green's _Works_, vol. ii. p. 284.

[144] _Log._ Bk. III. ch. iii. § 2.

[145] _Strom._ vi. 5.

[146] Lact. _Institt._ IV. iii.

[147] Butler's _Analogy_, Pt. II. ch. iii. p. 183.