Chapter IX: Part II: Conceptions of God (5)

"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, creator of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, only-begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of the same substance with the Father, by whom all things were made in heaven and in earth, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, was incarnate, was made man, suffered, rose again the third day, ascended into the heavens, and He will come to judge the living and the dead; and in the Holy Ghost. Those who say there was a time when He was not, and He was not before He was begotten, and He was made of nothing (he was created), or who say that He is of another hypostatis, or of another substance (than the Father), or that the Son of God is created, that He is mutable, or subject to change, the Catholic church anathematizes."[1]

2. _Creed of St. Athanasius:_ Nearly all Ecclesiastical writers doubt of Athanasius being the author of the creed accredited to him; but all agree, nevertheless, that it is an orthodox explanation of the Nicene Creed. "This creed was evidently composed long after the death of the great theologian whose name it bears, and after the controversies closed and the definitions established by the councils of Ephesus (A. D. 431), and Chalcedon (A. D. 451). It is a grand (?) and unique (!) monument of the unchangeable faith of the whole Church as to the great mysteries of Godliness, the Trinity of the Persons in the one God, and the duality of natures in the one Christ." (Commentary on the confession of Faith--Presbyterian--by Rev. A. A. Hodges, D. D., 1870. Designed for Theological Students, ch. i, pp. 6, 7.) The creed follows:

"We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is all one; the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet there are not three eternals, but one eternal. As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreate, but one uncreate and one incomprehensible. So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Ghost almighty; and yet they are not three almighties, but one almighty. So the Father is God, the Son, is God, and the Holy Ghost is God; and yet there are not three Gods, but one God."

"So, likewise, the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not three Lords; but one Lord. For likewise as we are compelled by the Christian verity: to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord. So are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion to say: There be three Gods, or three Lords. The Father is made of none, neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone; not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding. So there is one Father; not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts.

"And in this Trinity none is afore, or after, other; none is greater, or less than another; but the whole three Persons are co-eternal together, and co-equal. So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped. He, therefore, that will be saved, must thus think of the Trinity.

"Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation; that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess: that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God, of the Substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the Substance of his Mother, born in the world; perfect God, and perfect man; of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting; equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father, as touching his Manhood. Who, although he be God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ; one, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the Manhood into God; one altogether, not by confusion of Substance, but by unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ; who suffered for our salvation; descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead. He ascended into heaven, He sitteth on the right hand of the Father, God Almighty; from whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. At Whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give account for their own works." (Common Prayer, Church of England.) (For comment upon this creed, see Year Book II, Lesson xxxvii.)

3. _Pro Et Con of the Arian Controversy:_ The orthodox doctrine of deity for the Patristic period, is found in the last two creeds quoted, still it is well enough to give each side of the controversy, out of which the creeds were born, opportunity to state its own case. Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, Egypt, states the orthodox side. He first represents Arius, leader of the opposition, as:

"Denying the divinity of our Saviour, pronounced him on a level with all other creatures. He says that they held, there was a time when the Son of God was not; and he who once had no existence, afterwards did exist; and from that time was, what every man naturally is; for (say they) [the Arians] 'God made all things of nothing, including the Son of God, in this creation of all things, both rational and irrational; and of course, pronouncing Him to be of a changeable nature, and capable of virtue and of sin.'" Then, affirmatively, Alexander gives his own views as follows:

"We believe, as the Apostolic Church does, in the only unbegotten Father, who derived his existence from no one, and is immutable and unalterable, always the same and uniform, unsusceptible of increase of diminution; the giver of the law, and the prophets, and the gospels; Lord of the patriarchs and apostles, and of all saints; and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, not begotten from nothing, but from the living Father; and not after the manner of material bodies, by separations and effluxes of parts, as Sabellius and Valentinian supposed, but in an inexplicable and indescribable manner, agreeably to the declaration before quoted: 'Who shall declare his generation?' For His existence is inscrutable to all mortal beings, just as the Father is inscrutable; because created intelligences are incapable of understanding this divine generation from the Father--'No one knoweth what the Father is, but the Son; and no one knoweth what the Son is, but the Father.'

"He is unchangeable, as much as the Father; lacks nothing; is the perfect Son, and the absolute likeness of the Father, save only that He is not unbegotten. * * * Therefore, to the unbegotten Father, His proper dignity must be preserved. And to the Son, also, suitable honor must be given, by ascribing to Him an eternal generation from the Father."

Arius, making complaint that he is persecuted by Alexander--states first the position of his adversary thus: Arius and his friends are persecuted--"Because we do not agree with him, publicly asserting that God always was, and the Son always was; that He was always the Father, always the Son; that the Son was of God himself." Then stating his own position affirmatively, he says:

"We have taught, and still teach, that the Son is not unbegotten, nor a portion of the unbegotten, in any manner; nor was He formed out of any subjacent matter, but that in will and purpose, he existed before all times and before all worlds, perfect God, the only begotten, unchangeable; and that before He was begotten, or created, or purposed, or established, He was not; for He was never unbegotten. We are persecuted, because we say, the Son had a beginning, but God was without beginning. We are also persecuted, because we say, that He is from nothing; and this we say, inasmuch as He is not a portion of God, nor formed from any subjacent matter. Therefore we are persecuted. The rest you know." (Mosheim, Vol. I, p. 288--Notes).

_The Differences Summed Up:_ Summing up the differences between the two parties, Murdock, the able translator and annotator of Mosheim, says: "According to these statements, both the Arians and the orthodox considered the Son of God the Saviour of the World, as a derived existence, and as generated by the Father. But they differed on two points. (1.) The orthodox believed His generation was from eternity, so that he was coeval with the Father. But the Arians believed there was a time when the Son was not. (2.) The orthodox believed the Son to be derived of and from the Father; so that He was of the same essence with the Father. But the Arians believed that He was formed out of nothing, by the creative power of God. Both, however, agreed in calling Him God, and in ascribing to Him divine perfections. As to His offices, or His being the Saviour of sinful men, it does not appear that they differed materially in their views." (Ibid).

4. _Origin of These Metaphysical Difficulties:_ Undoubtedly it was contact with Oriental and Greek philosophical vagaries, and seeking to harmonize the facts of revelation, with these vagaries, that led to the intellectual difficulties of patristic Christianity. The temptation to seek such harmony, was strong. Already a similar work had been done for the Jews at Alexandria, under the leadership of Philo. He found, in the lofty speculations of Plato, the wisdom of Moses and of Solomon; and in the second century of the Christian Era, Numenius could ask "What is Plato but Moses talking Attic?" "The arms of Macedonians," remarks Gibbon," diffused over Asia and Egypt the language and learning of Greece"; and with that language and learning, and as part of the latter, went the philosophy of Plato, until among the learned and influential it was largely the ground plan of their thinking. The Christians, in the first three centuries of their existence, had been despised sectaries, with no standing among those who made any pretensions to learning; so that when there came opportunity to show identity between the holy trinity of the Christian faith, and the supposed trinity of Plato's philosophy; and identity of the "word" of John's Gospel with the "Logos" of Plato's divine "being," it was seized upon with avidity, not alone, it is to be feared, because of the semblance of truth that was seen in the two things, but also because of the advantages that struggling Christianity would secure by linking the theology of the church with the philosophy of the Academy. "The lofty speculations," says Gibbon, "which neither convinced the understanding nor agitated the passions of the Platonists themselves, were carelessly overlooked by the idle, the busy, and even the studious part of mankind. But after the 'Logos' had been revealed as the sacred object of the faith, the hope, and the religious worship of the Christians, the mysterious system was embraced by a numerous and increasing multitude in every province of the Roman world. Those persons who, from their age, or sex, or occupations, were the least qualified to judge, who were the least exercised in the habits of abstract reasoning, aspired to contemplate the economy of the divine nature; and it is the boast of Tertullian, that a Christian mechanic could easily answer such questions as had perplexed the wisest of the Grecian sages. Where the subject lies so far beyond our reach, the difference between the highest and the lowest of human understandings may indeed be calculated as infinitely small, yet the degree of weakness may perhaps be measured by the degree of obstinacy and dogmatic confidence." What more is necessary to know upon this topic, can be learned from the note entitled "Patristic Doctrine of God of Pagan Rather than of Christian Origin," and Lesson xxxvii, in Year Book II.

5. _The Manner of Apprehending "That Which Is"--God:_ The manner of apprehending God--"that which is"--by the Christian Fathers, is very similar to the method of the pagan philosophers in apprehending "being"--or the "absolute." Take two examples of this process; the first from Plato's "Republic," a conversation between teacher and pupil; the second from the confessions of Augustine; where the father describes how he came to his apprehension of God:

It is necessary first to remind the student that in Plato's philosophy the "supreme being" is "being absolutely bare of quality." Of Him it can only be said that he is not _what_ he is. In Timaeus, Plato says: "We say, indeed, that 'he was,' 'he is,' 'he will be,' but the truth is that 'he is;' alone truly expresses him." (Jowett's Translation, Vol. 2, p. 530.) And now as to the method of arriving at the apprehension of the "infinite being," or the "absolute," through the medium of finite or relative things; and which, in the case here quoted from Plato, is from "relative beauty" to "absolute beauty"; the same process, however, may be followed from "finite being" to "infinite being."

"This is the distinction which I draw between the sight-loving, art-loving, practical class, and those of whom I am speaking, and who are alone worthy of the name of philosophers.

"How do you distinguish them? he said.

"The lovers of sounds and sights, I replied, are, as I conceive, fond of fine tones and colors and forms, and all the artificial products that are made out of them, but their mind is incapable of seeing or loving absolute beauty.

"That is true, he replied.

"Few are they who are able to attain the sight of absolute beauty.

"Very true.

"And he who, having a sense of beautiful things, has no sense of absolute beauty, or who, if another lead him to a knowledge of that beauty, is unable to follow--of such an one, I ask, Is he awake or in a dream only? * * * *

"I should certainly say that such an one was dreaming.

"But take the case of the other, who recognizes the existence of absolute beauty, and is able to distinguish the idea from the objects which participate in the idea, neither putting the objects in the place of the idea nor the idea in the place of the objects--is he a dreamer? or is he awake?

"He is the reverse of a dreamer, he replied.

"And may we not say that the mind of the one has knowledge, and that the mind of the other has opinion only?

"Certainly."

And how Augustine, the Christian father, spoken of as "the brightest, clearest, most comprehensive" of Christian philosophers. ("Lectures on the History of Christian Philosophy"--Elmendorf--p. 92):

"And I inquired what iniquity was, and found it to be no substance, but the perversion of the will, turned aside from Thee, O God, the Supreme, towards these lower things, and casting out its bowels, and puffed up outwardly.

"And I wondered that I now loved Thee, and no phantasm for thee. And yet did I not press on to enjoy my God; but was borne up to Thee by Thy beauty, and soon borne down from Thee by mine own weight, sinking with sorrow into these inferior things. This weight was carnal custom. Yet dwelt there with me a remembrance of Thee; nor did I any way doubt, that there was One to Whom I might cleave, but that I was not yet such as to cleave to Thee; for that 'the body which is corrupted, presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things.' And most certain I was, that 'Thy invisible works from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even Thy eternal power and God-head.' For examining whence it was that I admired the beauty of bodies celestial or terrestrial; and what aided me in judging soundly on things mutable, and pronouncing, 'This ought to be thus, this not'; examining, I say, whence it was that I so judged, seeing I did so judge, I had found the unchangeable and true Eternity of Truth above my changeable mind. And thus, by degrees, I passed from bodies to the soul, which through the bodily senses perceives; and thence to its inward faculty, to which the bodily senses represent things external, whitherto reaches the faculties of beasts; and thence again to the reasoning faculty, to which what is received from the senses of the body, is referred to be judged. Which, finding itself also to be in me a thing variable, raised itself up to its own understanding, and drew away my thoughts from the power of habit, withdrawing itself from those troops of contradictory phantasms; that so it might find what that light was, whereby it was bedewed, when, without all doubting, it cried out:

"'That the unchangeable was to be preferred to the changeable'; whence also it knew _That Unchangeable_, which, unless it had in some way known, it had had no sure ground to prefer it to the changeable. And thus with the flash of one trembling glance it arrived at _That Which Is_. And then I saw 'Thy invisible things understood by the things which are made.'"

6. _Patristic Doctrine of God of Pagan Rather Than of Christian Origin--Data Not in the Old Testament:_ The data for the doctrine that God is "pure being," "being absolutely bare of all quality," are not found in the Old Testament, for that teaches the plainest anthropomorphic ideas respecting God. It ascribes to Him a human form, and many qualities and attributes possessed by man, which, in the minds of orthodox Christian philosophers, limit Him who must be, to their thinking, without any limitation whatsoever, either as to essence, or form, or passion, or quality; and ascribes relativity to Him who, according to their conceptions, must not be relative but absolute. The passage usually depended upon as giving the data for this "being absolutely bare of quality," and that is held to identify the ground plan of the philosophy of Moses and Plato--_"I am that I am"_--the God who appeared to Moses in the burning bush; and Who replied when the Hebrew prophet asked what he should say when the Egyptians and Israel should ask who had sent him--"Say, I Am sent me;" that is the Self-Existing One sent me. This passage, I say, does not furnish the data for the Orthodox Christian conception of God, that He is "being, absolutely free from all quality"; not material (the "without body" of the creeds), without parts, and without passions; for to be self-existent does not demand the absence of quality; indeed, to be without quality, run to its last analysis, would mean non-existence.

_Data Not in the New Testament:_ The data for the doctrine of God's absolute "simplicity," or, "being absolutely without quality," do not come from the New Testament; for the writers of that volume of scripture accept the doctrine of the Old Testament respecting God, and even emphasize its anthropomorphic ideas, by representing that the man Christ Jesus was in the "express image" of God, the Father's person; was, in fact, God manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 3: 16); "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1: 5); God, the Word, who was made flesh, and dwelt among men, and they beheld His glory (St. John 1:1-14). Hence the Orthodox Christian doctrine of God's "simplicity" cannot claim the warrant of New Testament authority.

_Data Found in Pagan Doctrines:_ It is easy, however, to trace this doctrine to Pagan sources. Plato, in his Timaeus (Jowett's translation, p. 530), incidentally referring to God, in connection with the creation of the universe, says: "We say indeed that 'he was,' 'he is,' 'he will be,' but the truth is that 'he is' alone truly expresses him, and that 'was' and 'will be' are only to be spoken of generation in time."

Here, then, is the Orthodox Christian doctrine of "pure being," "most simple," "not compound."

Again: "We must acknowledge that there is one kind of being which is always the same, uncreated and indestructible, never receiving anything into itself from without, nor itself giving out to any other, but invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the sight is granted to intelligence only." (Ibid. p. 454). Here the Orthodox Christian may find his God, 'who cannot change with regard to his existence, nor with regard to his mode of existence.' Also his God who can only be seen with the 'soul's intellectual perception, elevated by a supernatural influx from God.' Dr. Mosheim, in his account of Plato's idea of God, says: "He considered the Deity, to whom he gave the supreme governance of the universe, as a being of the highest wisdom and power, and totally unconnected with any material substance." (Mosheim's "Historical Commentaries on the State of Christianity, During the First Three Hundred Years," Vol. 1. p. 37).

To the same effect, also, Justin Martyr (second Christian century) generalizes and accepts as doctrine what may be gathered from the sixth book of Plato's "Republic," with reference to God. To the Jew, Trypho, Justin remarks: "The Deity, Father, is not to be viewed by the organs of sight, like other creatures, but He is to be comprehended by the mind alone, as Plato declares, and I believe him. * * * * Plato tells us that the eye of the mind is of such a nature, and was given us to such an end, as to enable us to see with it by itself, when pure, that Being who is the source of whatever is an object of the mind itself, who has neither color, nor shape, nor size, nor anything which the eye can see, but who is above all essence, who is ineffable, and undefinable, who is alone beautiful and good, and who is at once implanted into those souls who are naturally well born, through their relationship to and desire of seeing him."

Athanasius (third Christian century) quotes the same definition (Contra Gentes, ch. 2), almost verbatim. Turning again to the Timaeus of Plato, this question is asked: "What is that which always is and has no becoming; and what is that which is always becoming and has never any being? That which is apprehended by reflection and reason [God] always is; and is the same; that on the other hand which is conceived by opinion, with the help of sensation without reason [the material universe], is in a process of becoming and perishing but never really is. * * * * Was the world [universe], always in existence and without beginning? or created and having a beginning? Created, I reply." In this, the orthodox Christians may find their God of pure "being," that never is "becoming," but always is; also the creation of the universe out of nothing.

_Pagan Origin of Doctrine of God Admitted:_ "In his great work on the 'History of Christian Doctrine,' Mr. William G. T. Shedd says (Vol. I, p. 56): "The early Fathers, in their defenses of Christianity against their pagan opponents, contend that the better pagan writers themselves agree with the new religion in teaching that there is one Supreme Being. Lactantius (Institutiones, 1, 5), after quoting the Orphic Poets, Hesiod, Virgil, and Ovid, in proof that the heathen poets taught the unity of the supreme deity, affirms that the better pagan philosophers agree with them in this. 'Aristotle,' he says, 'although he disagrees with himself, and says many things that are self-contradictory, yet testifies that one supreme mind rules over the world. Plato, who is regarded as the wisest philosopher of them all, plainly and openly defends the doctrine of a divine monarchy, and denominates the supreme being, not ether, nor reason, nor nature, but as he is, God; and asserts that by him this perfect and admirable world was made. And Cicero follows Plato, frequently confessing the deity, and calls him the supreme being, in his Treatise on the Laws.'"

"It is conceded by Christian writers that the Christian doctrine of God is not expressed in New Testament terms, but in the terms of Greek and Roman metaphysics, as witness the following from the very able article in the Encyclopedia Britannica on 'Theism,' by the Rev. Dr. Flint, Professor of Divinity, University of Edinburgh: 'The proposition constitutive of the dogma of the Trinity--the propositions in the symbols of Nice, Constantinople and Toledo, relative to the immanent distinctions and relations in the Godhead--were not drawn directly from the New Testament, and could not be expressed in New Testament terms. They were the product of reason speculating on a revelation to faith--the New Testament representation of God as a Father, a Redeemer and a Sanctifier--with a view to conserve and vindicate, explain and comprehend it. They were only formed through centuries of effort, only elaborated by the aid of the conceptions, and formulated in the terms of Greek and Roman metaphysics.' The same authority says: 'The massive defense of theism, erected by the Cambridge school of philosophy, against atheism, fatalism, and the denial of moral distinctions, was avowedly built on a Platonic foundation.'" (See note).

Guizot, the eminent stateman and historian of France, in one of his lectures of which this is a sub-division of the title--"Of the Transition from Pagan Philosophy to Christian Theology"--says, in concluding his treatment of this theme: "I have thus exhibited the fact which I indicated in the outset, the fusion of Pagan philosophy with Christian theology, the metamorphosis of the one into the other. And it is remarkable, that the reasoning applied to the establishment of the spirituality of the soul is evidently derived from the ancient philosophy, rather than from Christianity, and that the author seems more especially to aim a convincing the theologians, by proving to them that the Christian faith has nothing in all this which is not perfectly reconcilable with the results derived from pure reason."

"In method of thought also, no less than in conclusions, the most influential of the Christian fathers on these subjects followed the Greek philosophers rather than the writers of the New Testament. 'Platonism, and Aristotelianism,' says the author of the 'History of Christian Doctrine,' exerted more influence upon the intellectual methods of men, taking in the whole time since their appearance, than all other systems combined. They certainly influenced the Greek mind, and Grecian culture, more than all the other philosophical systems. They reappear in Roman philosophy--so far as Rome had any philosophy. We shall see that Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero exerted more influence than all other philosophical minds united, upon the greatest of the Christian Fathers; upon the greatest of the Schoolmen; and upon the theologians of the Reformation, Calvin and Melanchthon. And if we look at European philosophy as it has been unfolded in England, Germany and France, we shall perceive that all the modern theistic schools have discussed the standing problems of human reason, in very much the same manner in which the reason of Plato and Aristotle discussed them twenty-two centuries ago. Bacon, Descartes, Leibnitz, and Kant, so far as the first principles of intellectual and moral philosophy are concerned, agree with their Grecian predecessors. A student who has mastered the two systems of the Academy and Lyceum, will find in modern philosophy (with the exception of the department of natural science) very little that is true, that may not be found for substance, and germinally, in the Greek theism."

"It is hoped that enough is said here to establish the fact that the conception of God as 'pure being,' 'immaterial,' 'without form,' 'or parts or passions,' as held by orthodox Christianity, has its origin in Pagan philosophy, not in Jewish nor Christian revelation." (Mormon Doctrine of Deity--Roberts--pp. 114-119).

Footnotes

1. For a brief account of the Arian controversy which resulted in the formulation of this creed, see notes in Year Book II, Lesson xxxvii; also note 3, this Lesson.

LESSON XXVII.

(Scripture Reading Exercise.)

_MEDIAEVAL CONCEPTIONS OF GOD._

_ANALYSIS._ _REFERENCES._

_I. The Mediaeval Period and Schools The works cited in
of Thought._ Lessons xxv and xxvi
will be helpful in this
_II. Definitions._ Lesson under the topics
of the analysis; and of
_III. Representative Doctors of the Various course the authorities
Schools of Thought:_ cited in the notes of this
lesson.
1. Erigena, Extreme Realist.

2. Roscelina, of Compiegne, Extreme
Nominalist.

3. Anselm, Realist.

4. Thomas Aquinas, Properly Neither
Realist nor Nominalist,
Scholastic.

5. Eckhart, Mystic.

_SPECIAL TEXT: "And without controversy, great is the mystery of Godliness." I. Tim. iii, 16_.

_NOTES._

1. _The Mediaeval Period:_ The Patristic Period, according to our announced grouping of the Christian Fathers, extended to 750 A. D. and included in the enumeration of the fathers John of Damascus. The Mediaeval Period will extend from the above date to the middle of the sixteenth century, which brings us to the establishment of Protestantism, and the commencement, theologically, of the modern world. This gives us a period of eight hundred years. "Of this period," says Shedd, "not more than four centuries witnessed any great activity of the theological mind."

The "Orthodox Christian" doctrine of God for this period, and for matter of that, for all subsequent periods, was fixed by the Nicene Creed and the creed of St. Athanasius, quoted in Lesson 26. The effort of the Christian scholars of the Mediaeval Period was to maintain, first, the truthfulness of these creeds against skepticism and doubts within the Church itself; and, second, to reconcile the creeds with reason, and develop patristic philosophy into something like system (History of Philosophy--Elmendorf--p. 102). However, "As there is never a proper end to reasoning which proceeds on a false foundation," to quote Cicero, the efforts of the schoolmen were not very successful, and resulted in multiplying systems of philosophy, rather than in bringing the patristic doctrine into harmony with reason. The systems of thought developed by these efforts may be classed under three heads: Realism, Nominalism, and Mysticism. A brief definition of each will be necessary.

2. _Definitions--"Realism:"_ Realism divides into two classes, extreme and moderate. (1) "Extreme realism taught that universals were substances or things, existing independently of and separate from particulars; this was the essence of Plato's ideas." (Cent. Dict.) The thinking process of the realist is admirably depicted in Note 5, Lesson xxvi, where St. Augustine describes his rise from the conception of the "changeable" to the "Unchangeable," and "thus with the flash of one trembling glance," arrived at the conception of "that which is"--to the real--to the universal--to the apprehension of "God."

"Moderate Realism also taught that universals were substances, but only as dependent upon and inseparable from individuals, in which each inhered; that is, each universal inhered in each of the particulars ranged under it. This was the theory of Aristotle, who held that the individual thing was the first essence, while universals were only second essences, real in a less complete sense than first essences. He thus reversed the Platonic doctrine, which attributed the fullest reality to universals only, and a participative reality to individuals." (Cent. Dict.)

Elmendorf represents moderate realism as recognizing that "the universal has objective reality, as to its contents, in individuals"--(i. e., the universal is expressed through individuals).

_Nominalism:_ Nominalism also divides into two classes, extreme and moderate. "Extreme nominalism taught that universals had no substantive or objective existence at all, but were merely empty names or words. Moderate nominalism or 'conceptualism' taught that universals have no substantive existence at all, but yet are more than mere names signifying nothing; and that they exist really, though only subjectively, as concepts in the mind, of which names are the vocal symbols." (Cent. Dict.).

_Mysticism:_ "Mysticism is a phase of thought, or rather perhaps of feeling, which from its very nature is hardly susceptible of exact definition. It appears in connection with the endeavor of the human mind to grasp the divine essence or the ultimate reality of things, and to enjoy the blessedness of actual communication with the Highest. More specifically, a form of religious belief which is founded upon mysticism, spiritual experience, not discriminated or tested and systematized in thought. 'Mysticism and rationalism' represent opposite poles of theology, rationalism regarding the reason as the highest faculty of man and the sole arbiter in all matters of religious doctrine; mysticism, on the other hand, declaring that spiritual truth cannot be apprehended by the logical faculty, nor adequately expressed in terms of the understanding." (Cent. Dict.). Mysticism may also be regarded as the result of "a despair of reason, a refuge in higher intuitions." (Elmendorf.) These definitions may be regarded as difficult, but I know of no way by which the ideas considered can be more simply explained. The definitions should be discussed until mastered. Perhaps they will grow in clearness after considering the rest of the notes of this lesson.

3. _Explanatory:_ Limiting our inquiry concerning the philosophy of this mediaeval period to the doctrine of God, and selecting an expression of that doctrine from an illustrious representative of each school of thought, may be of assistance in forming a clearer understanding of the definitions given in previous notes, and likewise represent the leading conceptions of God that obtained in the period under consideration.

4. _John Scotus Erigena:_ Extreme realist, and something of a Mystic; "Man finds not God, but God finds himself in man," (Elmendorf) is the keynote of this philosopher's teaching. Erigena was born in Ireland, 800 A. D. Made a pilgrimage to the birthplace of Plato and Aristotle A. D. 825; "and indulged the hope of uniting philosophy and religion in the manner proposed by the ecclesiastics who were studying in Spain."

"From Eastern sources, John Erigena had learned the doctrines of the eternity of matter, and even of the creation, with which, indeed, he confounded the Deity Himself. He was therefore a Pantheist, accepting the Oriental ideas of emanation and absorption, not only as respects the soul of man, but likewise all material things. In his work 'On the Nature of things,' his doctrine is, 'That, as all things were originally contained in God, and proceeded from Him into the different classes by which they are now distinguished, so shall they finally return to Him, and be absorbed in the source from which they came; in other words, that as, before the world was created, there was no being but God, and the causes of all things were in Him, so after the end of the world, there will be no being but God, and the causes of all things in Him. This final resolution he denominated deification, or theosis. He even questioned the eternity of hell, saying, with the emphasis of a Saracen, 'There is nothing eternal but God.' It was impossible under such circumstances, that he should not fall under the rebuke of the Church." (Draper's "Intellectual Development," Vol II, p. 9.)

5. _Roscelin of Compiegne:_ Extreme Nominalist. Sometimes credited with being the originator of the system; but he was "not the originator of the system," says Elmendorf, "but its clearest exponent and sharpest defender in the eleventh century." The same authority says that he regarded "universals" as "merely universal names." A title "for the totality of things. This be applied to the doctrine of the Trinity in the form of tritheism. There are three divine essences or substances, like one another; for only individuals have a real existence"--(Hist. of Philosophy--Elmendorf--pp. 105-6.) "Roscellinus taught that whatever exists as a real thing or substance, exists as one self-identical whole, and is not susceptible of division into parts. This was the part of his teaching which created so much scandal when applied to the doctrine of the Trinity. Roscellinus maintained that it is merely a habit of speech which prevents our speaking of the three persons as three substances, or three Gods. If it were otherwise, and the three persons were really one substance or thing, we should be forced to admit that the Father and the Holy Spirit became incarnate along with the Son. Roscellinus seems to have put forward this doctrine in perfect good faith, and to have claimed for it at first the authority of Lanfranc and Anselm. In 1092, however, a council convoked by the Archbishop of Rheims, condemned his interpretation, and Roscellinus, who was in danger of being lynched by the orthodox populace, recanted his error. As his enforced penitence did not prove lasting, his opinions were condemned by a second council (1094), and he himself fled to England. Forced by a fresh persecution to return to France at a later date, he taught at Tours and Loc-menach in Brittany (where he had Abelard as a pupil), and resided latterly as canon at Besancon." (Ency. Brit.).

_6. St. Anselm, Realist:_ Born at or near Aosta, Italy, 1033, A. D.; died at Canterbury, 1109. Credited with being the founder of scholastic theology. He held that faith is not the pre-requisite, and the regulator of knowledge, but leads to it. Also that "God can be known through reason, attempts ontological, a priori proof, from the concept of the objective existence. That than which a greater cannot be conceived cannot exist in intellect alone; for then a greater can be conceived." His doctrine is set forth in detail by Shedd: "The human mind possesses the idea of the most perfect Being conceivable. But such a being is necessarily existent; because a being whose existence is contingent, who may or may not exist, is not the most perfect that we can conceive of. But a necessarily existent Being is one that cannot be conceived of as non-existent, and therefore is an actually existent Being. Necessary existence implies actual existence. In conceiving, therefore, of a being who is more perfect than all others, the mind inevitably conceives of a real, and not an imaginary, being; in the same manner as in conceiving of a figure having three sides, it inevitably conceives of a figure having three angles." (History of Christian Doctrine--Shedd--Vol. I, pp. 231-2.)

This argument of Anselm's was attacked by a Catholic Monk of the name of Gaunilo, whose main point is that the existence of an idea of a thing does not prove the existence of the thing itself. Shedd, in order to exhibit the strength of Anselm's argument, suggests throwing it into dialogue form, thus:

_Anselm:_ "I have the idea of the most perfect being conceivable."

_Guanilo:_ "True; but it is a mere idea, and there is no being corresponding to it."

_Anselm:_ "But if there is no being answering to my idea, then my idea of the most perfect being conceivable is that of an imaginary being; but an imaginary being is not the most perfect being that I can conceive of. The being who corresponds to my idea must be a real being. If, therefore, you grant me my postulate, namely, that I have the idea of the most perfect being conceivable, you concede the existence of an actual being correspondent to it." (History of Christian Doctrine--Shedd--Vol. I, p. 237.)

One feels, however, that this is but playing with and upon words, and is much of kith and kin with that other abstraction, that "the thought of God makes God." Maurice remarks upon this argument of Anselm's for the divine existence, as follows: "In the present day, when the arguments for the Divine existence from the constitution of the visible world have displaced all others in the minds of theological advocates, and when these are in their turn exposed to the severest criticism from philosophers, such a subtlety as this of Anselm's would be dismissed by both parties with indifference or scorn. Without participating in either feeling, or pre-judging the question whether the argument is tenable in itself, we may express our opinion, that in a time of clubs and newspapers, it would be a serious moral offense to introduce into discussion, upon a subject of the greatest interest to all men, that which must appear to nine out of ten a play upon words, or a conjurer's trick." (History of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy, Vol. I, 524.)

7. _Abelard, Peter:_ A moderate nominalist, and usually regarded as the founder of "Conceptualism." Born in Brittany, 1079. Moderate nominalist. "Inspired by Aristotle, he taught * * * * that nothing exists apart from the individual, and in it the individual only." (Elmendorf History of Philosophy, p. 108.) Abelard also held that there is "no believing antecedent to scientific understanding, and consequently that the degree of posterior faith depends upon the degree of anterior science." "Knowledge is prior to faith," was his dictum. (See Shedd, Vol. I, pp. 163, 186 et seq.)

8. _St. Thomas Aquinas:_ Scholastic par-excellence. Born at Acquino, in the kingdom of Naples, 1225. His great effort was to reconcile faith and reason. Called the "Aristotle of the middle ages." His doctrine respecting God, condensed by Elmendorf, is:

"In God is no composition of matter or form, nor any other. He is pure actuality; for potentiality, in any sense, would imply an actuating cause.

"In Him essence and being are one.

"In Him is no imperfection, because no potentiality; all perfections which earthly things possess, being from Him, are in Him, one and indivisible.

"From God as Absolute Intelligence, follows, necessarily, the concept of God as Absolute Will. He wills what is not Himself freely, because it is not necessary to His perfection and beatitude. From this follows His Omnipotence.

"His Providence is the ordering of all things, both universal and singular, with reference to an end, for it extends as far as His knowledge and causality.

"The casual is with respect to a particular cause, not to the universal.

"Ills, corruptions, defects, are permitted in particular things, contributing to the greater good of the whole." (History of Philosophy--Elmendorf--p. 121.)

"The system of philosophical theology set forth in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, is of supreme importance in Ecclesiastical History, not only as intellectually perhaps the most perfect work of the Scholastic age, but because it has been adopted as the authoritative standard of doctrine in the Roman Catholic Church. Such pre-eminence is reported to have been assigned to Thomas by the saying of his great master, Albert, that he had "put an end to all labor even unto the world's end." * * *

"In the great controversy of the schools, Aquinas cannot be ranked strictly with either the Realists or the Nominalists; his position has been described as an Aristotelian Realist. Like the orthodox in general he ranged himself with the modern section of the Realists, who while holding that Universals--namely, genera and species--are more than mere mental abstractions, and have a real existence, yet limited them to an existence in the individual, and refused to attribute to them any antecedent or independent existence." * * * *

"In this work of buttressing authority by philosophy, and vindicating orthodoxy by the light of nature, as the way was led by Albert, so his greater pupil carried it on to perfection; and the consequence has been that the stately edifice of Systematic Theology, reared in the Church of the West by the labors of the Schools, repose on the foundation laid by the great luminary of Pagan Greece." (Smith's Students' Ecclesiastical History, Vol. II, pp. 512-515.)

_Eckhart, Mystic:_ Born, it is thought, at Strasburg, 1250 A. D. Taught and preached through Germany. Follows to some extent Erigena, tending, unconsciously, to emanistic pantheism. "The inner ground of man's soul is Divine, a 'spark' of Deity; knowledge is a real union of subject and object. The soul's highest power is an immediate intuition of the 'Godhead' transcending the determinate.

"The Absolute is impersonal, concealed even from thought; of the 'Godhead' no predicates may be used; it is hidden in eternal darkness. In the act of self-knowledge, God is developed as the Trinity, the form of 'Godhead' which beholds itself with love;--the subject is the Father, the object is the Son, the love is the Holy Spirit. * * * *

"God is the essence of all essences, which are ever in Him; in sending forth His Son, He sends forth all things (ideal world). In space and time, natura naturata, are the Three Persons of the Trinity, eternal as the world is, but in natura non naturata is only the 'Godhead.'

"Apart from God, the world is nonentity; God is in all things, and is all things, for creatures have no essence except God. Yet He is not nature, but above it, for the world of space and time is created out of nothing. The motive of God's goodness, which necessarily extends itself; and, by the same necessity, creation is continuous, eternal. Different from this, as the realizing of the ideal by the artist, is the creation out of nothing, in time." (History of Philosophy--Elmendorf--pp. 136-137.)

LESSON XXVIII.

(Scripture Reading Exercise.)

_MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD._

_ANALYSIS._ _REFERENCES._

_I. The Period--State of Philosophy._ Many of the authorities
cited in Lessons xxv,
_II. Modern Schools of Philosophy:_ xxvi and xxvii will be
available in this; also
1. Empiricism; the works of Bacon,
Locke, Hobbes, Descartes,
2. Idealism; Spinoza, Hamilton,
Berkeley, Hume,
3. Rationalism; Mill; also Kant, Fichte,
Hegel and Spencer.
4. Pantheism;
It may be that the
5. Materialism; works of these masters
may only be available to
6. Monism; those within reach of
reference libraries. The
7. Mormonism--Eternalism. following, however, are
one-volume works that
would be of great service
in studying this lesson:
John Fiske's Studies
in Religion; History
of Philosophy, Elmemdorf;
"The Conception of
God"--Royce, Leconte,
Howison, Meze; "Typical
Modern Conceptions
of God," Leighton;
Haeckel's "Riddle of the
Universe;" ditto, "Wonders
of Life," and J. S. Mills'
"Theism and
Berkeley," and Roberts'
"Mormon Doctrine of
Deity."

_SPECIAL TEXT: "Gird up now thy loins like a man * * * and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof if thou knowest, or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereon are the foundations thereof fastened, or who laid the cornerstone thereof?" Job xxxviii_.

_NOTES._

1. _The Period:_ The Modern period extends from the establishment of Protestantism, in the middle of the sixteenth century, until the present time. Necessarily the limits imposed upon our treatise can admit only of a very limited presentation of the conceptions of God during that important thought-revolutionary period, covering something over 250 years. In this period philosophy occupies a most independent position. It is no longer dominated by the Church; nor are its efforts consecrated to the advocacy of the defense of "orthodox Christian" dogma In fact, little is heard of that dogma. "Highest truths," writes Elmendorf in his "History of Philosophy," "were to be determined by reason alone; not even an appeal for verification to Christian revelation (was) recognized. Ancient systems were reconstructed without any reference to the teaching of the Church, or it was maintained that philosophic truth might be false according to faith and conversely. * * * * The sixteenth century was a period of transition, of confusion, without settled method or principle; there was no predominating school, no originality, but a vague following of every ancient school. Greek thinkers were now read in the original, and men, no longer scholastics, were Platonists, Peripatetics, etc.; but rather as scholars, classicists, than with any comprehensive or productive grasp of the principles which they professed.

"Without great names, there was a widening of the sphere of philosophy; it was popularized, but the influence of classicism made the culture of mere form as extreme as the neglect of it among the later schoolmen; but philosophy at the same time exerted, particularly through the 'humanists', a more manifest influence on general literature, science, and social life. * * * The invention of printing, together with the increase of wealth in the free cities, widened immensely the interest in philosophy, and brought it sensibly into general literary culture and political life." (History of Philosophy--Elmendorf--pp. 142-3.)

There was a reversion in Europe to the speculations of Plato and Aristotle, and the intellectual battles of the two Greeks were fought over again in Europe, with sometimes one and sometimes the other prevailing.

The effort of philosophical thinking, as already remarked, was not now to either sustain or disprove the Divine Existence or the mode of that existence, as expressed in the Orthodox Christian creeds; but its aim was more especially to set forth the modes of divine existence independent of theological conceptions. Is the Absolute to be apprehended as "Will," "finding its completion in the intuition of perfect attainment?" Or "Reason," "comprehending itself as the eternal process of the world and finding that all is Good?" Or "Feeling," "which apprehends the unity of things in a single and immediate act of self-consciousness?" Or merely "Blind Energy," "which seems in a cross-section of time, as viewed by the average spectator, to have a definite direction, but which in reality has neither a "whence nor whither;" and no other goal than the meaningless eternal oscillation between states of motion and states of rest." ("Typical Modern Conceptions of God"--by Joseph Alexander Leighton--1901--Introduction, p. 8.)

2. _Modern Schools of Philosophy:_ So extensive is the period now under consideration, and so numerous the voices to be heard, that one cannot hope in three lessons--to which space it is necessary that we limit ourselves--to convey, even by quotation from typical philosophers of the period, an adequate idea of the conceptions of God that have obtained. It will be necessary for the individual student personally to take up the subject in private study if he feels the necessity of wide knowledge on the speculations of men on the Supreme Being and His modes of existence.

Meantime, the numerous teachers of this period may be grouped under general descriptive terms which relate either to their methods of thought or the result of their thinking, sometimes to both.

"In the wave of philosophical inquiry which swept over Europe in the middle of the seventeenth century, and is regarded as the beginning of a new, scientific age of the world, there were two controlling, but divergent forces, those, namely, represented by Bacon and Descartes, the first the founder of the experimental, and the latter the idealistic or dogmatic method of philosophizing. From the former (Bacon), we may trace a continuous influence through Locke, Berkeley, Hume down to Mill, Spencer, Darwin and Huxley; from the latter (Descartes), the development of the modern idealism represented by Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Lotze." (Introduction to the Works of Spinoza, p. 5.)

From this it will appear that our modern philosophers are mainly divided, as to their methods of thought, into Empirics and Idealists.

(a) _Empiricism:_ "The empirical character, or method; reliance on direct, and especially individual, observation and experience, to the exclusion of theories or assumed principles, and sometimes of all reasoned processes, inductive or deductive. The doctrine that all knowledge is derived from the senses, or experience through the senses, or at least from the perception of simple historical fact; experientialism; opposed to intuitionalism. Empiricism, as its name imports, affirms that all our knowledge comes from experience, and is therefore subject to all the imperfections and limitations of experience." (Standard Dictionary.)

(b) _Idealism:_ "Idealism--that explanation of the world which maintains that the only thing absolutely real is mind; that all material and all temporal existences take their being from mind, from consciousness that thinks and experiences; that out of consciousness they all issue, to consciousness are presented, and that presence to consciousness constitute their entire reality and entire existence." (Prof. Howison, Conceptions of God,--1902--p. 84.)

(c) Rationalism: In philosophy means, "the doctrine that reason furnishes certain elements that underlies experience, and without which experience is impossible; opposed to empiricism or experientialism." (Standard Dictionary.) "In metaphysics, the doctrine of a priori cognitions; the doctrine that knowledge is not all produced by the action of outward things upon themselves, but partly arises from the natural adaption of the mind to think things that are true.

"The form of Rationalism which is now in the ascendant, resembles the theory of natural evolution in this, that the latter finds the race more real than the individual, and the individual to exist only in the race; so the former looks upon the individual reason as but a finite manifestation of the universal reason." (Cent. Dict.)

(d) _Rationalistic Elements and Methods:_ A fine description of rationalistic elements and method of philosophizing, is given in one of Ernest Haeckel's latest works.