(Part 1)
THEOLOGY PROPER
CHAPTER I.
Origin of the Idea of God
§ 1. The Knowledge of God
is Innate. § 2. The Knowledge of God is not
due to a Process of Reasoning.
§ 3. Knowledge of God not
due exclusively to Tradition. § 4. Can the
Existence of God be proved?
ALL men have some knowledge of God. That is, they have
the conviction that there is a Being on whom they are dependent, and to whom
they are responsible. What is the source of this conviction? In other words,
what is the origin of the idea of God? To this question three answers have
been given. First, that it is innate. Second, that is a deduction of reason; a
conclusion arrived at by a process of generalization. Third, that it is to be
referred to a supernatural revelation, preserved by tradition
§ 1. The Knowledge of God is
Innate.
A. What is meant by Innate
Knowledge.
By innate knowledge is meant that which is due to our
constitution, as sentient, rational, and moral beings. It is opposed to
knowledge founded on experience; to that obtained by ab extra
instruction; and to that acquired by a process of research and reasoning.
It cannot be doubted that there is such knowledge, i.
e., that the soul is so constituted that it sees certain things to be true
immediately in their own light. They need no proof. Men need not be told or
taught that the things thus perceived are true. These immediate perceptions
are called intuitions, primary truths, laws of belief, innate knowledge, or
ideas. Provided we understand what is meant, the designation is of minor
importance. The doctrine of innate knowledge, or intuitive truths, does not
imply that the child is born with knowledge in conscious exercise in the mind.
As knowledge is a form or state of the intelligence, and as that is a state of
consciousness, knowledge, in the sense of the act of knowing, must be a matter
of consciousness; and, therefore, it is said, cannot be innate. The new-born
child has no conscious conviction of the existence of God. But the word
knowledge is sometimes used in a passive sense. A man knows what lies dormant
in his mind. Most of our knowledge is in that state. All the facts of history
stored in the memory, are out of the domain of consciousness, until the mind
is turned to them. It is not inconceivable, therefore, that the soul as it
comes into the world may be stored with these primary truths which lie dormant
in the mind, until roused by the due occasion. This, however, is not what is
meant by innate knowledge. The word innate simply indicates the source of the
knowledge. That source is our nature; that which is born with us. Nor does the
doctrine of innate knowledge imply that the mind is born with ideas, in the
sense of "patterns, phantasms, or notions," as Locke calls them; nor that it
is furnished by nature with a set of abstract principles, or general truths.
All that is meant is, that the mind is so constituted that it perceives
certain things to be true without proof and without instruction.
These intuitive truths belong to the several
departments of the senses, the understanding, and our moral nature. In the
first place, all our sense perceptions are intuitions. We apprehend their
objects immediately, and have an irresistible conviction of their reality and
truth. We may draw erroneous conclusions from our sensations; but our
sensations, as far as they go, tell us the truth. When a man feels pain, he
may refer it to the wrong place, or to a wrong cause; but he knows that it is
pain. If he sees an object, he may be mistaken as to its nature; but he knows
that he sees, and that what he sees is the cause of the sensation which he
experiences. These are intuitions, because they are immediate perceptions of
what is true. The conviction which attends our sensations is due not to
instruction but to the constitution of our nature.
In the second place, there are intuitions of the
intellect. That is, there are certain truths which the mind perceives to be
true immediately, without proof or testimony. Such are the axioms of geometry.
No man needs to have it proved to him that the part of a thing is less than
the whole; or that a straight line is the shortest distance between two given
points. It is an intuitive truth that "nothing" cannot be a cause; that every
effect must have a cause. This conviction is not founded on experience,
because experience is of necessity limited. And the conviction is not merely
that every effect which we or other men have observed has had a cause; but
that in the nature of things there can be no effect without an adequate cause.
This conviction is said to be an innate truth, not because the child is born
with it so that it is included in its infant consciousness, nor because the
abstract principle is laid up in the mind, but simply because such is the
nature of the mind, that it cannot but see these things to be true. As we are
born with the sense of touch and sight, and take cognizance of their
appropriate objects as soon as they are presented; so we are born with the
intellectual faculty of perceiving these primary truths as soon as they are
presented.
In the third place, there are moral truths which the
mind intuitively recognizes as true. The essential distinction between right
and wrong; the obligation of virtue; responsibility for character and conduct;
that sin deserves punishment; are examples of this class of truths. No man
needs to be taught them. No one seeks for further evidence of their being
truths than that which is found in their nature.
There is another remark to be made in reference to the
intuitions of the mind. The power of intuitional perception is capable of
being increased. It is in fact greater in one man than in other men. The
senses of some persons are far more acute than those of others. The senses of
hearing and touch are greatly exalted in the case of the blind. It is the same
with the intellect. What is self-evident to one man, has to be proved to
another. It is said that all the propositions of the First Book of Euclid were
as plain at first sight to Newton as the axioms. The same is true in our moral
and religious nature. The more that nature is purified and exalted, the
clearer is its vision, and the wider the scope of its intuitions. It is not
easy to see, therefore, why Sir William Hamilton should make simplicity a
characteristic of intuitive truths. If a proposition be capable of resolution
into simpler factors, it may still to a powerful intellect be seen as
self-evidently true. What is seen immediately, without the intervention of
proof, to be true, is, according to the common mode of expression, said to be
seen intuitively.
It is, however, only of the lower exercises of this
power that we can avail ourselves in our arguments with our fellow men.
Because a truth may be self-evident to one mind, it does not follow that it
must be so to all other minds. But there is a class of truths so plain that
they never fail to reveal themselves to the human mind, and to which the mind
cannot refuse its assent. Hence the criteria of those truths which are
accepted as axioms, and which are assumed in all reasoning, and the denial of
which renders all faith and all knowledge impossible, are universality and
necessity. What all believe, and what all men must believe, is to be assumed
as undeniably true. These criteria indeed include each other. If a truth be
universally admitted, it must be because no man can
rationally call it to question. And if it be a matter of necessary belief it
must be accepted by all who possess the nature out of the constitution of
which the necessity arises.
II. Proof that the Knowledge of
God is Innate.
The question now is, Whether the existence of God is an
intuitive truth? Is it given in the very constitution of our nature? Is it one
of those truths which reveal themselves to every human mind, and to which the
mind is forced to assent? In other words, has it the characteristics of
universality and necessity? It should be remarked that when universality is
made a criterion of intuitive truths, it is intended to apply to those truths
only which have their foundation or evidence in the constitution of our
nature. As to the external world, if ignorance be universal, error may be
universal. All men, for example, for ages believed that the sun moves round
the earth; but the universality of that belief was no evidence of its truth.
When it is asked, Whether the existence of God is an
intuitive truth, the question is equivalent to asking, Whether the belief in
his existence is universal and necessary? If it be true that all men do
believe there is a God, and that no man can possibly disbelieve his existence,
then his existence is an intuitive truth. It is one of those given in the
constitution of our nature; or which, our nature being what it is, no man can
fail to know and to acknowledge.
Such has been the common opinion in all ages. Cicero1
says: "Esse Deos, quoniam insitas eorum, vel potius innatas cognitiones
habemus." Tertullian2
says of the heathen of his day, that the common people had a more correct idea
of God than the phtilosophers. Calvin3
says "Hoc quidem recte judicantibus semper constabit, insculptum mentibus
humanis esse divinitatis sensua, qui deleri nunquam potest." The whole
tendency in our day is, to make the existence of God so entirely a matter of
intuition as to lead to the disparagement of all argument in proof of it. This
extreme, however, does not justify the denial of a truth so important as that
God has not left any human being without a knowledge of his existence and
authority.
The word God, however, is used in a very wide sense. In
the Christian sense of the word, "God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and
unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and
truth." This sublime idea of God no human mind ever attained either
intuitively or discursively, except under the light of a supernatural
revelation. On the other hand, some philosophers dignify motion, force, or the
vague idea of the infinite, with the name of God. In neither of these senses
of the word is the knowledge of God said to be innate, or a matter of
intuition. It is in the general sense of a Being on whom we are dependent, and
to whom we are responsible, that the idea is asserted to exist universally,
and of necessity, in every human mind. It is true that if this idea is
analyzed, it will be found to embrace the conviction that God is a person, and
that He possesses moral attributes, and acts as a moral governor. Nothing is
asserted as to how far this analysis is made by uneducated and uncivilized
men. All that is maintained is that this sense of dependence and
accountability to a being higher than themselves exists in the minds of all
men.
The Knowledge of God is
Universal.
In proof of this doctrine, reference may be made --
1. To the testimony of Scripture. The Bible asserts
that the knowledge of God is thus universal. This it does both directly and by
necessary implication. The Apostle directly asserts in regard to the heathen
as such without limitation, that they have the knowledge of God, and such
knowledge as to render their impiety and immorality inexcusable. "Because that
when they knew God," he says, "they glorified him not as God, neither were
thankful." (Rom. i. 19-2 1.) He says of the most depraved of men, that
they know the righteous judgment of God, that those who commit sin are worthy
of death. (Rom. i. 32.) The Scripture everywhere addresses men as sinners; it
calls upon them to repent; it threatens them with punishment in case of
disobedience: or promises pardon to those who turn from their sins. All this
is done without any preliminary demonstration of the being of God. It assumes
that men know that there is a God, and that they are subject to his moral
government. It is true that the Bible at times speaks of the heathen as not
knowing God, and says that they are without God. But this, as explained by the
context in which such declarations appear, and by the general teaching of the
Scriptures, only means that the heathen are without correct, or saving
knowledge of God; that they are without his favour, do not belong to the
number of his people, and of course are not partakers of the blessedness of
those whose God is the Lord. In teaching the universal sinfulness and
condemnation of men: their inexcusableness for idolatry and immorality,
and in asserting that even the most degraded are conscious of guilt and just
exposure to the divine judgment, the Bible takes for granted that the
knowledge of God is universal, that it is written on the heart of every man.
This is still more apparent from what the Bible teaches
of the law as written on the heart. The Apostle tells us that those who have a
written revelation, shall be judged by that revelation; that those who have no
externally revealed law, shall be judged by the law written on the heart. That
the heathen have such a law, he proves first, from the fact that "they do by
nature the things contained in the law," i. e., they do under the
control of their nature the things which the law prescribes; and secondly,
from the operations of conscience. When it condemns, it pronounces something
done, to be contrary to the moral law; and when it approves, it pronounces
something to be conformed to that law. (Rom. ii. 12-16.) The recognition of
God, therefore, that is, of a being to whom we are responsible, is involved in
the very idea of accountability. Hence every man carries in the very
constitution of his being as a moral agent, the evidence of the existence of
God. And as this sense of sin and responsibility is absolutely universal, so
must also, according to the Bible, be the knowledge of God.
2. The second argument in favor of the universality of
this knowledge, is the historical one. History shows that the religious
element of our nature is just as universal as the rational or social one.
Wherever men exist, in all ages and in all parts of the world, they have some
form of religion. The idea of God is impressed on every human language. And as
language is the product and revelation of human consciousness, if all
languages have some name for God, it proves that the idea of God, in some
form, belongs to every human being.
Objections to the Assumption
that the Knowledge of God is Universal.
There are two objections often urged against the
doctrine that the knowledge of God results from the very constitution of our
nature, and is therefore universal. The one is, that travellers and
missionaries report the existence of some tribes so degraded that they could
discover in them no traces of this knowledge. Even if the fact be admitted
that such tribes have no idea of God, it would not be conclusive. Should a
tribe of idiots be discovered, it would not prove that reason is not an
attribute of our nature. If any community should come to light in which
infanticide was universal, it would not prove that parental love was not one
of the instincts of humanity. But the probability is that the fact is not as
reported. It is very difficult for foreigners to get acquainted with the
interior life of those who differ from themselves so much in their
intellectual and moral condition. And besides, Christians attach such an
exalted meaning to the word God, that when they see no evidence of the
presence of that exalted conception in the minds of the heathen, they are apt
to conclude that all knowledge of God is wanting. Unless such people show that
they have no sense of right and wrong, no consciousness of responsibility for
character and conduct, there is no evidence that they have no knowledge of
such a being as God.
The other objection is drawn from the case of the deaf
and dumb, who sometimes say that previous to instruction, the idea of God
never entered their minds. To this the same answer may be given. The knowledge
obtained by Christian instruction so much surpasses that given by intuition,
that the latter seems as nothing. It is hardly conceivable that a human soul
should exist in any state of development, without a sense of responsibility,
and this involves the idea of God. For the responsibility is felt to be not to
self, nor to men, but to an invisible Being, higher than self, and higher than
man.
The Belief in God Necessary.
But if it be admitted that the knowledge of God is
universal among men, is it also a necessary belief? Is it impossible for the
mind to dispossess itself of the conviction that there is a God? Necessity, as
remarked above, may be considered as involved in universality, at least in
such a case as this. There is no satisfactory way of accounting for the
universal belief in the existence of God, except that such belief is founded
on the very constitution of our nature. Nevertheless, these two criteria of
intuitive truths are generally distinguished, and are in some aspects
distinct.
The question then is, Is it possible for a sane man to
disbelieve in the existence of God? This question is commonly answered in the
negative. It is objected, however, that facts prove the contrary. No man has
ever been found, who denies that two and two make four, whereas atheists
abound in every age and in every part of the world.
There, are, however, different kinds of necessary
truths.
1. Those the opposite of which is absolutely
unthinkable. That every effect must have a cause, that a part of a given thing
is less than the whole, are propositions the opposites of which cannot have
any meaning. When a man says that something is nothing, he expresses no
thought. He denies what he affirms, and therefore says nothing.
2. There are truths concerning external or material
things, which have a power to constrain belief different from that power which
pertains to truths concerning the mind. A man cannot deny that he has a body;
and he cannot rationally deny that he has a will. The impossibility in both
cases may be equal, but they are of different kinds, and affect the mind
differently.
3. Again, there are truths which cannot be denied
without doing violence to the laws of our nature. In such cases the denial is
forced, and can only be temporary. The laws of our nature are sure sooner or
later to assert themselves, and constrain an opposite belief. A pendulum when
at rest hangs perpendicularly to the horizon. It may by extraneous force be
made to hang at any degree of inclination. But as soon as such force is
removed, it is sure to swing back to its normal position. Under the control of
a metaphysical theory, a man may deny the existence of the external world, or
the obligation of the moral law; and his disbelief may be sincere, and for a
time persistent; but the moment the speculative reasons for his disbelief are
absent from his mind, it of necessity reverts to its original and natural
convictions. It is also possible that a man's hand may be so hardened or
cauterized as to lose the sense of touch. But that would not prove that the
hand in man is not normally the great organ of touch. So it is possible that
the moral nature of a man may be so disorganized by vice or by a false
philosophy as to have its testimony for the existence of God effectually
silenced. This, however, would prove nothing as to what that testimony really
is. Besides this, insensibility and the consequent unbelief cannot last.
Whatever rouses the moral nature, whether it be danger, or suffering, or the
approach of death, banishes unbelief in a moment. Men pass from skepticism to
faith, in many cases, instantaneously; not of course by a process of argument,
but by the existence of a state of consciousness with which skepticism is
irreconcilable, and in the presence of which it cannot exist. This fact is
illustrated continually, not only in the case of the uneducated and
superstitious, but even in the case of men of the highest culture. The simple
fact of Scripture and experience is, that the moral law as written upon the
heart is indelible; and the moral law in its nature implies a lawgiver, one
from whom that law emanates, and by whom it will be enforced. And, therefore,
so long as men are moral creatures, they will and must believe in the
existence of a Being on whom they are dependent, and to whom they are
responsible for their character and their conduct. To this extent, and in this
sense, therefore, it is to be admitted that the knowledge of God is innate and
intuitive; that men no more need to be taught that there is a God, than they
need to be taught there is such a thing as sin. But as men are ignorant of the
nature and extent of sin, while aware of its existence, until instructed by
the Word of God, and enlightened by his Spirit; so they greatly need the same
sources of instruction to give them any adequate knowledge of the nature of
God, and of their relations to him.
§ 2. The Knowledge of
God is not due to a Process of Reasoning.
Those who are unwilling to admit that the idea of God
is innate as given in the very constitution of man, generally hold that it is
a necessary, or, at least, a natural deduction of reason. Sometimes it is
represented as the last and highest generalization of science. As the law of
gravitation is assumed to account for a large class of the phenomena of the
universe, and as it not only does account for them, but must be assumed in
order to understand them; so the existence of an intelligent first
cause is assumed to account for the existence of the universe itself, and for
all its phenomena. But as such generalizations are possible only for
cultivated minds, this theory of the origin of the idea of God, cannot account
for belief in his existence in the minds of all men, even the least educated.
Others, therefore, while regarding this knowledge to be
the result of a course of reasoning, make the process far more simple. There
are many things which children and illiterate persons learn, and can hardly
avoid learning, which need not be referred to the constitution of their
nature. Thus the existence of God is so obviously manifested, by everything
within and around us, the belief in that existence is so natural, so suited to
what we see and what we need, that it comes to be generally adopted. We are
surrounded by facts which indicate design;by effects which demand a cause. We
have a sense of the infinite which is vague and void, until filled with God.
We have a knowledge of ourselves as spiritual beings, which suggests the idea
of God, who is a spirit. We have the consciousness of moral qualities, of the
distinction between good and evil, and this makes us think of God as a being
of moral perfections. All this may be very true, but it is not an adequate
account of the facts of the case. It does not give a satisfactory reason for
the universality and strength of the conviction of the existence of God. Our
own consciousness teaches us that this is not the ground of our own faith. We
do not thus reason ourselves into the belief that there is a God; and it is
very obvious that it is not by such a process of ratiocination, simple as it
is, that the mass of the people are brought to this conclusion.
Moreover, the process above described does not account
for the origin of our belief in God, but only gives the method by which that
belief is confirmed and developed. Very little is given by intuition in any
case, at least to ordinary minds. What is thus discovered needs to be
expanded, and its real contents unfolded. If this be true with the intuitions
of sense and of the understanding, why should it not be so of our religious
nature?
The truth is, that all the faculties and feelings of
our minds and bodies have their appropriate objects; and the possession of the
faculties supposes the existence of those objects. The senses suppose the
existence and reality of the objects of sense. The eye, in its very structure,
supposes that there is such an element as light; the sense of hearing would be
unaccountable and inconceivable without sound; and the sense of touch would be
inconceivable were there no tangible objects. The same is true of our social
affections; they necessitate the assumption that there are relations suited to
their exercises. Our moral nature supposes that the distinction between right
and wrong is not chimerical or imaginary. In like manner, our religious
feelings, our sense of dependence, our consciousness of responsibility, our
aspirations after fellowship with some Being higher than ourselves, and higher
than anything which the world or nature contains, necessitates the belief in
the existence of God. It is indeed said that if this belief is intuitive and
necessary, there is no virtue in it. This objection overlooks the fact that
the moral character of our feelings depends on their nature and not on their
origin. They may spring from the constitution of our nature, and yet be good
or evil as the case may be. A mother's love for her child is instinctive; the
absence of the maternal affection in a mother is something unnatural and
monstrous, the object of universal condemnation. The sense of pity, of
justice, the feelings of benevolence, are instinctive, but none the less
virtuous. The same is true of our religious feelings, and of the belief which
they involve. We cannot help feeling that we are responsible, and it is right
that we should feel so. The man who has brought himself to a state of
insensibility to all moral obligation, is what the Scriptures call a
"reprobate." Adam believed in God the moment he was created, for the same
reason that he believed in the external world. His religious nature, unclouded
and undefiled, apprehended the one with the same confidence that his senses
apprehended the other. It is of great importance that men should know and feel
that they are by their very nature bound to believe in God; that they cannot
emancipate themselves from that belief, without derationalizing and
demoralizing their whole being.
§ 3. Knowledge of God
not due exclusively to Tradition.
There are some theologians who are unable to believe
that the knowledge of God can be referred either to the constitution of our
nature, or to any process of reasoning. Not only the exalted view of the
Divine Being presented in the Bible, but the simple and perverted
apprehensions of his nature prevailing among the heathen, they say must be
referred to an original supernatural revelation. Such a revelation was made to
our first parents and from them passed over to their descendants. When the
knowledge thus communicated began to die out among men, God again revealed
himself to Abraham, and made him and his posterity the depositaries of the
truth. Either, therefore, from the remains of the primitive revelation, or by
radiation from the chosen people, all the knowledge of God existing in the
world has been derived. The attempt is made to show that the more remote any
people were from the Jews, the less did they know of God; and the more any
nation enjoyed of intercourse with the people to whom God had committed his
oracles, the more correct and extended was their knowledge.
This view, although arising from reverence for the Word
of God, is evidently extreme. It is true that the further we go back in the
history of the world, the nearer we approach the primal revelation, the purer
is the knowledge concerning Him. It may also be true, as a general rule, that
the more any people were brought under the influence of the truth as held by
the chosen people of God, the more enlightened they became. It may further be
conceded that those who with the Bible in their hands reject its teachings,
and give themselves up to their own speculations, turn, as the Apostle
expresses it, "the truth of God into a lie," losing all knowledge of the
living and true God. All this, however, does not prove that the knowledge of
God is not written on the heart. Our intuitive perceptions need to be
cherished, developed, and interpreted. We know from Scripture that the law is
written in characters which cannot be obliterated, upon the souls of all men,
and yet it has been perverted, misinterpreted, or disregarded by men in every
age and in every part of the world.
§ 4. Can the Existence
of God be proved?
A large class of theologians and philosophers deny that
the existence of God is susceptible of proof. This is done on different
grounds.
First. It is said that the knowledge of God being
intuitive, it is not a proper subject of proof. This is the position taken by
that class of theologians who resolve all religion into feeling, and by the
modern school of speculative philosophers, who make such a wide distinction
between the reason and the understanding; the former being the intuitional,
and the latter the discursive faculty. Eternal and necessay truths belong to
the province of the reason; subordinate truths to the sphere of the
understanding. It is the understanding that argues and concludes. The reason
apprehends by immediate vision. What relates to God, as the eternal, infinite,
necessary Being, belongs to the province of reason, and not to that of the
understanding. Even such theistic writers as Twesten4
say that the good need no proof that God is, and that the wicked are not
susceptible of conviction. You cannot prove that a thing is beautiful, or that
it is good. So neither can you prove that there is a God. The fallacy of this
statement is obvious. Beauty and goodness are qualities which must be
discerned by the mind, just as the objects of sight are discerned by the eye.
As it is true that you cannot prove to a blind man that an object is red, so
you cannot prove to a peasant that the "Paradise Lost" is sublime. But the
existence of God is an objective fact. It may be shown that it is a fact which
cannot be rationally denied. Although all men have feelings and convictions
which necessitate the assumption that there is a God; it is, nevertheless,
perfectly legitimate to show that there are other facts which necessarily lead
to the same conclusion.
Besides, it is to be remembered that theistical
arguments are designed to prove not only that there is a necessity for the
assumption of all extra-mundane and eternal Being, but mainly, to show what
that Being is; that He is a personal Being, self-conscious, intelligent,
moral. All this may lie inclosed in the primary intuition, but it needs to be
brought out and established.
Secondly. Another class of objections against all
theistical arguments, relates to the arguments themselves. They are pronounced
fallacious, as involving a petitio principii; or declared to be
invalid as derived from false premises; or heading to conclusions other than
that intended to be established. Of this every man must judge for himself.
They have been regarded as sound and conclusive by the wisest men, from
Socrates to the present day. Of course the argument on the principle of
causation must be invalid to those whc deny that there is any such thing as an
efficient cause; and the argument from design can have no force for those who
deny the possibility of final causes.
Most of the objections to the conclusiveness of the
arguments in question arises from a misapprehension of what they are intended
to prove. It is often assumed that each argument must prove the whole doctrine
of Theism; whereas one argument may prove one element of that doctrine; and
other arguments different elements. The cosmological argument may prove the
existence of a necessary and eternal Being; the teleological argument, that
that Being is intelligent; the moral argument that He is a possessing moral
attributes. The arguments are not designed so much to prove the existence of
an unknown being, as to demonstrate that the Being who reveals himself to man
in the very constitution of his nature must be all that Theism declares him to
be. Such writers as Hume, Kant, Coleridge, and the whole school of
transcendental philosophers, have more or less expressly denied the validity
of the ordinary arguments for the existence of a personal God.
Endnotes
1. De Natura Deorum, i. 17.
2. Testimonium Animae.
3. Institutio, I. iii. 2.
4. Vorlesungen.
