§ 1. God can be
known. § 2. God cannot be fully
known. § 3. Hamilton's Doctrine.
HAVING considered the arguments in favor of the
doctrine that God is, and also the various systems opposed to Theism, we come
now to consider the question, Can God be known? and if so, How? that is, How
does the mind proceed in forming its idea of God, and, How do we know that God
really is what we believe Him to be?
§ 1. God can be known.
It is the clear doctrine of the Scriptures that God can
be known. Our Lord teaches that eternal life consists in the knowledge of God
and of Jesus Christ, whom He hath sent. The Psalmist says, "In Judah is God
known" (Ps. lxxvi. 1). Isaiah predicts, that "the earth shall be full of the
knowledge of the Lord" (Is. xi. 9). Paul says even of the heathen, that they
knew God, but did not like to retain that knowledge (Rom. i. 19, 20, 21, 28).
A. State of the Question.
It is, however, important distinctly to understand what
is meant when it is said, God can be known.
1. This does not mean that we can know all that is true
concerning God. There were some among the ancient philosophers who taught that
the nature of God can be as fully understood and determined as any other
object of knowledge. The modern speculative school teaches the same doctrine.
Among the propositions laid down by Spinoza, we find the following: "Cognitio
aeternae et infinitae essentiae Dei, quam unaquaeque idea involvit, est
adaequata et perfecta."1
Hegel says, that God is, only so far as He is known. The sin against the Holy
Ghost, according to Hegel, is to deny that He can be known.2
Cousin holds the same doctrine. "God in fact," he says, "exists to us only in
so far as He is known."3
According to Schelling, God is known in his own nature
by direct intuition of the higher reason. He assumes that there is in man a
power which transcends the limits of the ordinary consciousness (an
Anschauungs Vermogen), which takes immediate cognizance of the Infinite. Hegel
says that "Man knows God only so far as God knows Himself in man; this
knowledge is God's self-consciousness, but likewise a knowledge of the same by
man, and this knowledge of God by man is the knowledge of man by God."4
Cousin finds this knowledge in the common consciousness of men. That
consciousness includes the knowledge of the Infinite as well as of the finite.
We know the one just as we know the other, and we cannot know the one without
knowing the other. These philosophers all admit that we could not thus know
God unless we were ourselves God. Self-knowledge, with them, is the knowledge
of God. Reason in man, according to Cousin, does not belong to his
individuality. It is infinite, impersonal, and divine. Our knowledge of God,
therefore, is only God knowing Himself. Of course it is in no such sense as
this that the Scriptures and the Church teach that God can be known.
God Inconceivable.
2. It is not held that God, properly speaking, can be
conceived of; that is, we cannot form a mental image of God. "All conception,"
says Mr. Mansel,5
"implies imagination." To have a valid conception of a horse, he adds, we must
be able "to combine" the attributes which form "the definition of the animal"
into "a representative image." Conception is defined by Taylor in the same
manner, as "the forming or bringing an image or idea into the mind by an
effort of the will." In this sense of the word it must be admitted that the
Infinite is not an object of knowledge. We cannot form an image of infinite
space, or of infinite duration, or of an infinite whole. To form an image is
to limit, to circumscribe. But the infinite is that which is incapable of
limitation. It is admitted, therefore, that the infinite God is inconceivable.
We can form no representative image of Him in our minds. The word, however, is
often, and perhaps commonly, used in a less restricted sense. To conceive is
to think. A conception is therefore a thought and not necessarily an image. To
say, therefore, that God is conceivable, in common language, is merely to say
that He is thinkable. That is, that the thought (or idea) of God involves no
contradiction or impossibility. We cannot think of a round square, or that a
part is equal to the whole. But we can think that God is infinite and eternal.
God Incomprehensible.
3. When it is said that God can be known, it is not
meant that He can be comprehended. To comprehend is to have a complete and
exhaustive knowledge of an object. It is to understand its nature and its
relations. We cannot comprehend force, and specially vital force. We see its
effect, but we cannot understand its nature or the mode in which it acts. It
would be strange that we should know more of God than of ourselves, or of the
most familiar objects of sense. God is past finding out. We cannot understand
the Almighty unto perfection. To comprehend is (1.) To know the essence as
well as the attributes of an object. (2.) It is to know not some only, but all
of its attributes. (3.) To know the relation in which these attributes stand
to each other and to the substance to which they belong. (4.) To know the
relation in which the object known stands to all other objects. Such knowledge
is clearly impossible in a creature, either of itself or of anything out of
itself. It is, however, substantially thus that the transcendentalists claim
to know God.
Our Knowledge of God Partial.
4. It is included in what has been said, that our
knowledge of God is partial and inadequate. There is infinitely more in God
than we have any idea of; and what we do know, we know imperfectly. We know
that God knows; but there is much in his mode of knowing, and in its relation
to its objects, which we cannot understand. We know that He acts; but we do
not know how He acts, or the relation which his activity bears to time, or
things out of Himself. We know that He feels; that He loves, pities, is
merciful, is gracious; that He hates sin. But this emotional element of the
divine nature is covered with an obscurity as great, but no greater, than that
which rests over his thoughts or purposes. Here again our ignorance, or
rather, the limitation of our knowledge concerning God, finds a parallel in
our ignorance of ourself. There are potentialities in our nature of which, in
our present state of existence, we have no idea. And even as to what we are
now, we know but little. We know that we perceive, think, and act; we do not
know how. It is perfectly inscrutable to us how the mind takes cognizance of
matter; how the soul acts on the body, or the body on the mind. But because
our knowledge of ourselves is thus partial and imperfect, no sane man would
assert that we have no self-knowledge.
The common doctrine on this subject is clearly
expressed by Des Cartes:6
"Sciri potest, Deum esse infinitum et omnipotentem, quanquam anima nostra,
utpote finita, id nequeat comprehendere sive concipere; eodem nimirum modo,
quo montem manibus tangere possumus, sed non ut arborem, aut aliam quampiam
rem brachiis nostris non majorem amplecti: comprehendere enim est cogitatione
complecti; ad hoc autem, ut sciamus aliquid, sufficit, ut illud cogitatione
attingamus."
Even Spinoza7
says: "Ad quaestionem tuam, an de Deo tam claram, quam de triangulo habeam
ideam, respondeo affirmando. Non dico, me Deum omnino cognoscere; sed me
quaedam ejus attributa, non autem omnia, neque maximam intelligere partem, et
certum est, plurimorum ignorantiam, quorundam eorum habere notitiam, non
impedire. Quum Euclidis elementa addiscerem, primo tres trianguli angulos
duobus rectis aequari intelligebam; hancque trianguli proprietatem clare
percipiebam, licet multarum aliarum ignarus essem."
While, therefore, it is admitted not only that the
infinite God is incomprehensible, and that our knowledge of Him is both
partial and imperfect; that there is much in God which we do not know at all,
and that what we do know, we know very imperfectly; nevertheless our
knowledge, as far as it goes, is true knowledge. God really is what we believe
Him to be, so far as our idea of Him is determined by the revelation which He
has made of Himself in his works, in the constitution of our nature, in his
word, and in the person of his Son. To know is simply to have such
apprehensions of an object as conform to what that object really is. We know
what the word Spirit means. We know what the words infinite, eternal, and
immutable, mean. And, therefore, the sublime proposition, pregnant with more
truth than was ever compressed in any other sentence, "God is a Spirit,
infinite, eternal, and immutable," conveys to the mind as distinct an idea,
and as true (i. e., trustworthy) knowledge, as the proposition "The
human soul is a finite spirit." In this sense God is an object of knowledge.
He is not the unknown God, because He is infinite. Knowledge in Him does not
cease to be knowledge because it is omniscience; power does not cease to be
power because it is omnipotence; any more than space ceases to be space
because it is infinite.
B. How do we know God?
How does the mind proceed in forming its idea of God?
The older theologians answered this question by saying that it is by the way
of negation, by the way of eminence, and by the way of causality. That is, we
deny to God any limitation; we ascribe to Him every excellence in the highest
degree; and we refer to Him as the great First Cause every attribute
manifested in his works. We are the children of God, and, therefore, we are
like Him. We are, therefore, authorized to ascribe to Him all the attributes
of our own nature as rational creatures, without limitation, and to an
infinite degree. If we are like God, God is like us. This is the fundamental
principle of all religion. This is the principle which Paul assumed in his
address to the Athenians (Acts xvii. 29): "Forasmuch then as we are the
offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or
silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." For the same reason we
ought not to think that He is simple being, or a mere abstraction, a name for
the moral order of the universe, or the unknown and unknowable cause of all
things, -- mere inscrutable force. If we are his children, He is our Father,
whose image we bear, and of whose nature we partake. This, in the proper sense
of the word, is Anthropomorphism, a word much abused, and often used in a bad
sense to express the idea that God is altogether such a one as ourselves, a
being of like limitations and passions. In the sense, however, just explained,
it expresses the doctrine of the Church and of the great mass of mankind.
Jacobi8
well says: "We confess, therefore, to an Anthropomorphism inseparable from the
conviction that man bears the image of God; and maintain that besides this
Anthropomorphism, which has always been called Theism, is nothing but atheism
or fetichism."
C. Proof that this Method is Trustworthy.
That this method of forming an idea of God is
trustworthy, is proved, --
1. Because it is a law of nature. Even in the lowest
form of fetichism the life of the worshipper is assumed to belong to the
object which he worships. The power dreaded is assumed to possess attributes
like our own. In like manner under all the forms of polytheism, the gods of
the people have been intelligent personal agents. It is only in the schools of
philosophy that we find a different method of forming an idea of the Godhead.
They have substituted to. o'n for
o` w'n, to. qei/on for
o` Qeo,j, to. avgaqo,n
for o` avgao,j. It is here as with regard to
the knowledge of the external world. The mass of mankind believe that things
are what they perceive them to be. This philosophers deny. They affirm that we
do not perceive the things themselvcs, but certain ideas, species, or images
of the things; that we have, and can have, no knowledge of what the things
themselves really are. So they say we can have no knowledge of what God is; we
only know that we are led to think of Him in a certain way, but we are not
only not authorized to believe that our idea corresponds to the reality, but,
say they, it is certain that God is not what we take Him to be. As the people
are right in the one case, so are they in the other. In other words, our
conviction that God is what He has revealed Himself to be, rests on the same
foundation as our conviction that the external world is what we take it to be.
That foundation is the veracity of consciousness, or the trustworthiness of
the laws of belief which God has impressed upon our nature. "Invincibility of
belief," according to Sir William Hamilton, "is convertible with the truth of
belief,"9
although, unhappily, on this subject, he did not adhere to his own principle,
"That what is by nature necessarily believed to be, truly is."10
No man has more nobly or more earnestly vindicated this doctrine, which is the
foundation of all science and of all faith. "Consciousness," he says, "once
convicted of falsehood, an unconditioned scepticism, in regard to the
character of our intellectual being, is the melancholy but only rational
result. Any conclusion may now with impunity be drawn against the hopes and
the dignity of human nature. Our personality, our immateriality, our moral
liberty, have no longer an argument for their defence. 'Man is the dream of a
shadow.' God is the dream of that dream."11
The only question, therefore, is, Are we invincibly led to think of God as
possessing the attributes of our rational nature? This cannot be denied; for
universality proves invincibility of belief. And it is a historical fact that
men have universally thus thought of God. Even Mr. Mansel12
exclaims against the transcendentalists, " Fools, to dream that man can escape
from himself, that human reason can draw aught but a human portrait of God."
True, he denies the correctness of that portrait; or, at least, he asserts
that we cannot know whether it is correct or not. But this is not now the
question. He admits that we are forced by the constitution of our nature thus
to think of God. And by the fundamental principle of all true philosophy, what
we are forced to believe must be true. It is true, therefore, that God really
is what we take Him to be, when we ascribe to Him the perfections of our own
nature, without limitation, and to an infinite degree.
Our Moral Nature demands this Idea of God.
2. It has already been shown, when speaking of the
moral argument for the existence of God, that all men are conscious of their
accountability to a being superior to themselves, who knows what they are and
what they do, and who has the will and purpose to reward or punish men
according to their works. The God, therefore, who is revealed to us in our
nature, is a God who knows, and wills, and acts; who rewards and punishes.
That is, He is a person; an intelligent, voluntary agent, endowed with moral
attributes. This revelation of God must be true. It must make known to us what
God really is, or our nature is a lie. All this Mr. Mansel, who holds that God
can not be known, admits. He admits that a sense of dependence on a superior
power is "a fact of the inner consciousness;" that this superior power is "not
an inexorable fate, or immutable law, but a Being having at least so far the
attributes of personality, that He can show favour or severity to those
dependent upon Him, and can be regarded by them with the feelings of hope, and
fear, and reverence, and gratitude."13
No man, however, is, or can be grateful to the sun, or to the atmosphere,
or to unintelligent force. Gratitude is a tribute of a person to a person.
Again, the same author admits that "the moral reason, or will, or conscience
of man, call it by what name we please, can have no authority save as
implanted in him by some higher spiritual Being, as a law emanating from a
law-giver."14
"We are thus compelled," he says, "by the consciousness of moral obligation,
to assume the existence of a moral [and of course of a personal] Deity, and to
regard the absolute standard of right and wrong as constituted by the nature
of that Deity."15
Our argument from these facts is, that if our moral nature compels us to
believe that God is a person, He must be a person, and consequently that we
arrive at a true knowledge of God by attributing to Him the perfections of our
own nature.
Our Religious Nature makes the same Demand.
3. The argument from our religious, as distinct from
our moral nature, is essentially the same. Morality is not all of religion.
The one is as much a law and necessity of our nature as the other. To worship,
in the religious sense of the word, is to ascribe infinite perfection to its
object. It is to express to that object out aknowledgments for the blessings
we enjoy, and to seek their continuance; it is to confess, and praise, and
pray, and to adore. We cannot worship the law of gravity, or unconscious
force, or the mere order of the universe. Our religious nature, in demanding
an object of supreme reverence, love, and confidence, demands a personal God,
a God clothed with the attributes of a nature like our own; who can hear our
confessions, praises, and prayers; who can love, and be loved; who can supply
our wants, and fill all our capacities for good. Thus again it appears that
unless our whole nature is a contradiction and a falsehood, we arrive at a
true knowledge of God when we ascribe to Him the perfections of our own
nature.
Mr. Mansel admits that our nature does demand a
personal and moral Deity; but, he says, "the very conception of a moral nature
is in itself the conception of a limit, for morality is the compliance with a
law; and a law, whether imposed from within or from without, can only be
conceived to operate by limiting the range of possible actions."16
In like manner he says, "The only human conception of personality is that of
limitation." Therefore, if God be infinite, he can neither be a person, nor
possess moral attributes. This is the argument of Strauss, and of all other
pantheists, against the doctrine of a personal God. Mr. Mansel admits the
force of the argument, and says we must renounce all hope of knowing what God
is, and be content with "regulative knowledge," which teaches not what God
really is, but what He wills us to think Him to be. We are thus forbidden to
trust to our necessarv beliefs. We must not regard as true what God by the
constitution of our nature forces us to believe. This is to subvert all
philosophy and all religion, and to destroy the difference between the
rational and the irrational. Why is this contradiction between reason and
conscience, between our rational and moral nature, assumed to exist? Simply
because philosophers choose to give such a definition of morality and
personality that neither can be predicated of an infinite Being. It is not
true that either morality or personality imply any limitation inconsistent
with absolute perfection. We do not limit God when we say He cannot be
irrational as well as rational, unconscious as well as conscious, finite as
well as infinite, evil as well as good. The only limitation admitted is the
negation of imperfection. Reason is not limited when we say it cannot be
unreason; or spirit, when we say that it is not matter; or light, when we say
it is not darkness; or space, when we say it is not time. We do not,
therefore, limit the Infinite, when we exalt Him in our conceptions from the
unconscious to the conscious, from the unintelligent to the intelligent, from
an impersonal something to the absolutely perfect personal Jehovah. All these
difficulties arise from confounding the ideas of infinite and all.
4. The fourth argument on this subject is, that if we
are not justified in referring to God the attributes of our own nature, then
we have no God. The only alternative is anthropomorphism (in this sense) or
Atheism. An unknown God, a God of whose nature and of whose relation to us we
know nothing, to us is nothing. It is a historical fact that those who reject
this method of forming our idea of God, who deny that we are to refer to Him
the perfections of our own nature, have become atheists. They take the word
"spirit," and strip from it consciousness, intelligence, will, and morality;
and the residue, which is blank nothing, they call God. Hamilton and Mansel
take refuge from this dreadful conclusion in faith. They say that reason
forbids the ascription of these, or of any other attributes, to the Infinite
and Absolute, but that faith protests against this conclusion of the reason.
Such protest, however, is of no account, unless it be rational. When Kant
proved that there was no rational evidence of the existence of God, and fell
back from the speculative to the practical reason (i. e., from reason
to faith), his followers universally gave up all faith in a personal God. No
man can believe in the impossible. And if reason pronounces that it is
impossible that the Infinite should be a person, faith in His personality is
an impossibility. This Mr. Mansel does not admit. For while he says that it is
a contradiction to affirm the Infinite to be a person, or to possess moral
attributes, he nevertheless says that, "Anthropomorphism is the indispensable
condition of all human theology;"17
and he quotes from Kant18
this passage: "We may confidently challenge all natural theology to name a
single distinctive attribute of the Deity, whether denoting intelligence or
will, which, apart from anthropomorphism, is anything more than a mere word,
to which not the slightest notion can be attached, which can serve to extend
our theoretical knowledge." It is greatly to be lamented that men should teach
that the only way in which it is possible for us to form an idea of God, leads
to no true knowledge. It does not teach us what God is, but what we are forced
against reason to think He is.
Argument from the Revelation of God in Nature.
5. A fifth argument is from the fact that the works of
God manifest a nature like our own. It is a sound principle that we must refer
to a cause the attributes necessary to account for its effects. If the effects
manifest intelligence, will, power, and moral excellence, these attributes
must belong to the cause. As, therefore, the works of God are a revelation of
all these attributes on a most stupendous scale, they must belong to God in an
infinite degree. This is only saying that the revelation made of God in the
external world agrees with the revelation which He has made of himself in the
constitution of our own nature. In other words, it proves that the image of
himself which He has enstamped on our nature is a true likeness.
Argument from Scripture.
6. The Scriptures declare God to be just what we are
led to think He is, when we ascribe to Him the perfections of our own nature
in an infinite degree. We are self-conscious, so is God. We are spirits, so is
He. We are voluntary agents, so is God. We have a moral nature, miserably
defaced indeed, God has moral excellence in infinite perfection. We are
persons, so is God. All this the Scriptures declare to be true. The great
primal revelation of God is as the "I am," the personal God. All the names and
titles given to Him; all the attributes ascribed to Him; all the works
attributed to Him, are revelations of what He truly is. He is the Elohim, the
Mighty One, the Holy One, the Omnipresent Spirit; He is the creator, the
preserver, the governor of all things. He is our Father. He is the hearer of
prayer; the giver of all good. He feeds the young ravens. He clothes the
flowers of the field. He is Love. He so loved the world as to give his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him might not perish but have
everlasting life. He is merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and
truth. He is a present help in every time of need; a refuge, a high tower, an
exceeding great reward. The relations in which, according to the Scriptures,
we stand to God, are such as we can sustain only to a being who is like
ourselves. He is our ruler, and father, with whom we can commune. His favour
is our life, his loving-kindness better than life. This sublime revelation of
God in his own nature and in his relation to us is not a delusion. It is not
mere regulative truth, or it would be a deceit and mockery. It makes God known
to us as He really is. We therefore know God, although no creature can
understand the Almighty unto perfection.
Argument from the Manifestation of God in
Christ.
7. Finally, God has revealed Himself in the person of
his Son. No man knoweth the Father but the Son; and he to whom the Son shall
reveal Him. Jesus Christ is the true God. The revelation which He made of
Himself was the manifestation of God. He and the Father are one. The words of
Christ were the words of God. The works of Christ were the works of God. The
love, mercy, tenderness, the forgiving grace, as well as the holiness, the
severity and power manifested by Christ, were all manifestations of what God
truly is. We see, therefore, as with our own eyes, what God is. We know that
although infinite and absolute, He can think, act, and will; that He can love
and hate; that He can hear prayer and forgive sins, that we can have
fellowship with Him, as one person can commune with another. Philosophy must
veil her face in the presence of Jesus Christ, as God manifest in the flesh.
She may not presume in that presence to say that God is not, and is not known
to be, what Christ himself most clearly was. This doctrine that God is the
object of certain and true knowledge lies at the foundation of all religion,
and therefore must never be given up.
§ 2. God cannot be fully
known.
The modern German philosophers take the ground that all
science, all true philosophy, must be founded on the knowledge of being, and
not of phenomena. They reject the authority of the senses and of
consciousness, and teach that it is only by the immediate cognition of the
Absolute that we arrive at any true or certain knowledge. God, or rather, the
Infinite, can be as thoroughly known and comprehended as the simplest object
of sense or of consciousness; He is, only so far as He is known.
It would seem impossible that the presumption of men
should be so extreme that such a creature as man should pretend to understand
the Almighty to perfection, when in fact he cannot understand himself or the
simplest objects with which he is in daily contact. The assumption is that
being, as such, Infinite and Absolute Being, can be known; that is, that we
can determine what it is, and the necessary laws by which it is developed into
the phenomenal world. This knowledge is attained apriori;not by any
induction or deduction from our own nature or the facts of experience, but by
an immediate act of cognition, which transcends all consciousness. The great
service rendered by Sir William Hamilton and Mr. Mansel to the cause of truth
was to demonstrate the utter futility of this pretended philosophy of the
Infinite, on the principles of its advocates. To the common mind it needed no
refutation, being intuitively seen to be impossible and absurd.
Sir William Hamilton's Argument.
Hamilton shows, in the first place, that the immediate
intuition of Schelling, which Hegel ridiculed as a mere imagination, the
dialectics of Hegel, which Schelling pronounced a mere play of words, and the
impersonal reason of Cousin which enters into our consciousness but not into
our personality, utterly fail to give us a knowledge of the Infinite.
"Existence," he says, "is revealed to us only under specific modifications,
and these are known only under the conditions of our faculties of knowledge.
Things in themselves, matter, mind, God, all in short that is not finite,
relative, and phenomenal, as bearing no analogy to our faculties, is beyond
the verge of our our knowledge."19
In what sense Hamilton places God "beyond the verge of our knowledge" will be
seen in the sequel. It is, however, self-evident that our knowledge must be
limited by our faculties of knowing. Other animals may have senses which we do
not possess. It is utterly impossible that we should have the kind of
knowledge due to the exercise of those senses. It is probable that there are
faculties dormant in our nature which are not called into activity in our
present state of being. It is clear that we cannot now attain the knowledge
which those faculties may hereafter enable us to attain. It is just as plain
that we cannot cognize the Infinite, in the sense of these philosophers, as
that we cannot see a spirit, or guide ourselves in space, as does the
carrier-pigeon or the migrating salmon.
Only the Infinite can know the Infinite.
2. In the second place, it is admitted that none but
the Infinite can know the Infinite, and to know God in this sense, it is
admitted that we must be God. "Schelling claimed for the mind of man, what
Kant had demonstrated to be impossible, a faculty of intellectual intuition
which is apart from sense, above consciousness, and released from the laws of
the understanding, and which comprehends the absolute by becoming the
absolute, and thus knows God by being God."20
This assumption that man is God, shocks the reason and common sense of men as
well as outrages their religious and moral convictions.
3. In the third place, Hamilton and Mansel demonstrate
that, assuming the definitions of the Absolute and Infinite given by the
transcendentalists, the most contradictory conclusions may logically be
deduced from them. "There are three terms familiar as household words in the
vocabulary of philosophy, which must be taken into account in every system of
metaphysical theology. To conceive the Deity as He is, we must conceive him as
First Cause, as absolute, and as infinite. By First Cause, is meant that which
produces all things, and is itself produced of none. By the Absolute, is meant
that which exists in and by itself, having no necessary relation to any other
being. By the Infinite, is meant that which is free from all possible
limitation; that than which a greater is inconceivable, and which,
consequently, can receive no additional attribute or mode of existence which
it had not from all eternity."21
According to these definitions, in the sense in which
they are intended to be taken, it follows : --
1. That the Infinite and Absolute must include the sum
of all being. For "that which is conceived as absolute and infinite must be
conceived as containing within itself the sum, not only of all actual, but of
all possible modes of being. For if any actual mode can be denied of it, it is
related to that mode and limited by it; and if any possible mode can be denied
of it, it is capable of becoming more than it now is, and such a capability is
a limitation."22
2. If the Absolute and Infinite be as above defined, it
cannot be the object of knovledge. To know is to limit. It is to distinguish
the object of knowledge from other objects. We cannot conceive, says Hamilton,
of an absolute whole; i. e., of a whole so great that we cannot
conceive of it as a part of a greater whole. We cannot conceive of an infinite
line, or of infinite space, or of infinite duration. We may as well think
without thought, as to assign any limit beyond which there can be no
extension, no space, no duration. "Goad imagination to the utmost, it still
sinks paralyzed within the bounds of time."23
It follows, therefore, from the very nature of knowledge, according to
Hamilton, that the Infinite and Absolute cannot be known.
The Infinite cannot Know.
3. It also follows from these premises, that the
Infinite cannot know. All knowledge is limitation and difference. It supposes
a distinction between subject and object, between the knower and what is
known, inconsistent with the idea of the Absolute.
4. It follows also that the Absolute cannot be
conscious, for consciousness involves a distinction between the self and the
not-self. It is knowledge of ourselves as distinct from what is not ourselves.
Even if conscious only of itself; there is the same distinction between
subject and object; the self as subject and a mode of the self as the object
of consciousness. "The almost unanimous voice of philosophy," says Mansel, "in
pronouncing that the Absolute is both one and simple must be accepted as the
voice of reason also, so far as reason has any voice in the matter." "The
conception of an absolute and infinite consciousness contradicts itself."24
The Absolute cannot be Cause.
5. It is equally clear that the Absolute and Infinite
cannot be cause. Causation implies relation; the relation of efficiency to the
effect. It also implies change; change from inaction to activity. It moreover
implies succession, and succession implies existence in time. "A thing
existing absolutely (i. e., not under relation)," says Hamilton, "and a
thing existing absolutely as a cause, are contradictory." He quotes Schelling25
as saying, "He would deviate wide as the poles from the idea of the Absolute,
who would think of defining its nature by the notion of activity." "But he who
would define the Absolute by the notion of a cause," he adds, "would deviate
still more widely from its nature, inasmuch as the notion of a cause involves
not only the notion of a determination to activity, but of a determination to
a particular, nay a dependent, kind of activity."26
"The three conceptions, the Cause, the Absolute, the Infinite, all equally
indispensable, do they not," asks Mr. Mansel,27
"imply contradiction to each other, when viewed in conjunction, as attributes
of one and the same Being? A cause cannot, as such, be absolute: the Absolute
cannot, as such, be cause."
6. According to the laws of our reason and
consciousness, there can be no duration without succession, but succession as
implying change cannot be predicated of the Absolute and Infinite, and yet
without succession there can be no thought or consciousness; and therefore, to
say that God is eternal is to deny that He has either thought or
consciousness.
7. Again, "Benevolence, holiness, justice, wisdom,"
says Mansel, "can be conceived by us only as existing in a benevolent and holy
and just and wise being, who is not identical with any one of his attributes,
but the commnon subject of them all; in one word, in a person. But
personality, as we conceive it, is essentially a limitation and a relation. --
To speak of an absolute and infinite persons is simply to use language to
which, however true it may be in a superhuman sense, no mode of human thought
can possibly attach itself."28
The Conclusion to which Hamilton's Argument
leads.
What then is the result of the whole matter? It is,
that if the definitions of the Absolute and Infinite adopted by
transcendentalists be admitted, the laws of reason lead us into a labyrinth of
contradictions. If their idea of an infinite and absolute Being be correct,
then it must include all being actual and possible; it can neither know nor be
the object of knowledge; it cannot be conscious, or cause, or a person, or the
subject of any moral attribute. Hamilton infers from all this, that a
philosophy of the Absolute is a sheer impossibility; that the Absolute, from
its nature and from the necessary limits of human thought, is unknowable, and
consequently that the stupendous systems of pantheistic atheism which had been
erected on the contrary assumption, must fall to the ground. Those systems
have indeed already fallen by their own weight. Although only a few years ago
they claimed the homage of the intellectual world and boasted of immutability,
they have at the present time scarcely a living advocate.
Unhappily, however, Hamilton, like Samson, is involved
in the ruin which he created. In overthrowing pantheism he overthrows Theism.
All that he says of the Absolute as unknowable, he affirms to be true of God.
All the contradictions which attend the assumption of an absolute and infinite
being as the ground of philosophy, he says attend the assumption of an
infinite God.
§ 3. Hamilton's Doctrine.
A. God an Object of Faith, but not of
Knowledge.
The sense in which Hamilton and his followers represent
God as unknowable, has been a matter of dispute. When he says that we can know
that God is, but not what He is, he says only what had been said a hundred
times before. Plato had said that the search after God was difficult, and that
when He is found, it is impossible to declare his nature. Philo still more
explicitly teaches that the divine essence is without qualities or attributes,
and as we know nothing of any essence but by its distinguishing attributes.
God in his own nature is altogether unknowable.29
This is repeated continually by the Greek and Latin fathers; who, however, in
most cases at least, meant nothing more than that God is incomprehensible.
Others again, in asserting the incapacity of man to know God, refer to his
spiritual blindness occasioned by sin. Therefore, while they deny that God can
be known by the unregenerate, they affirm that He is known by those to whom
the Son has revealed Him. In like manner although the Apostle asserts that
even the heathen know God, he elsewhere speaks of a kind of knowledge due to
the saving illumination of the Holy Spirit. It is in the sense that God is
past finding out that the devout Pascal says,30"We
know there is an infinite, but we are ignorant of its nature. . . . We may
well know that there is a God, without knowing what He is." And even John Owen
says, "All the rational conceptions of the minds of men are swallowed up and
lost, when they would exercise themselves directly on that which is absolute,
immense, eternal, and infinite. When we say it is so, we know not what we say,
but only that it is not otherwise. What we deny of God we know in some measure
-- but what we affirm we know not; only we declare what we believe and adore."31
Professor Tyler adds, that while the philosophy of Hamilton "confines our
knowledge to the conditioned [the finite], it leaves faith free about the
unconditioned [the infinite]; indeed constrains us to believe in it by the
highest law of our intelligence."
Although Hamilton often uses the same language when
speaking of God as unknowable, as that employed by others, his meaning is very
different. He really teaches an ignorance of God destructive of all rational
religion, because inconsistent with the possibility of faith.
Different Kinds of Ignorance.
There are different kinds of ignorance. First, there is
the ignorance of the idiot, which is blank vacuity. In him the statement of a
proposition awakens no mental action whatever. Secondly, there is the
ignorance of a blind man, of colour. He does not know what colour is; but he
knows there is something which answers to that word and which produces a
certain effect on the eyes of those who see. He may even understand the laws
by which the production of colour is determined. A blind man has written a
treatise on optics. Thirdly, there is the ignorance under which the mind
labors when it can prove contradictory propositions concerning the same
object, as that the same figure is both square and round And fourthly, there
is the ignorance of imperfect knowledge. Paul speaks of knowing what passes
knowledge.
Our ignorance of God, according to Hamilton, is neither
the ignorance of the idiot nor of imperfect knowledge, but it is analogous to
the ignorance of a blind man of colours, and more definitely, the ignorance we
labor under with regard to any object of which we can prove contradictions.
Proof that Hamilton Denies that we can Know
God.
That this view of his doctrine is correct is proved,
(1.) Because he asserts in such broad terms that God cannot be known; that He
is not only inconceivable, but incogitable. (2.) Because, he says, that we
know that God is not, and cannot be, what we think He is. It is not merely
that we cannot determine with certainty that our idea of God is correct, but
we know that it is not correct. "To think that God is, as we can think Him to
be," he says, "is blasphemy. The last and highest consecration of all true
religion, must be an altar, 'Agnw/stw| Qew/|, 'To
the unknown and unknowable God."32
(3.) Because both he and Mansel continually assert that the Infinite cannot be
a person; cannot know; cannot be cause; cannot be conscious; cannot be the
subject of any moral attributes. To think of God as infinite, and to think of
Him as a person is an impossibility. (4.) The illustrations which these
writers employ determine clearly their meaning. Our ignorance of God is
compared to our incapacity to conceive of two straight lines inclosing a
portion of space; or to think "a circular parallelogram." It is not merely
that we cannot understand such a figure, but we see that, in the nature of
things, any such figure is impossible. So we not only cannot understand how
God can be absolute and yet a person, but we see that an absolute person is as
much a contradiction as a square circle. (5.) Accordingly Herbert Spencer and
others, in carrying out Hamilton's principles, come to the conclusion not only
that we cannot know God, but that it is impossible that a personal God should
exist. There can be no such being.
Hamiltons Doctrine of God as an object of
Faith.
Hamilton and Mansel, however, are not only Theists, but
Christians. They believe in God, and they believe in the Scriptures as a
divine revelation. They endeavor to avoid what seem to be the inevitable
consequences of their doctrine, by adopting two principies: first, that the
unthinkable is possible, and, therefore, may be believed. By the unthinkable
is meant that which the laws of reason force us to regard as
self-contradictory. On this subject Mansel says: "It is our duty to think of
God as personal, and it is our duty to believe that He is infinite. It is true
that we cannot reconcile these two representations with each other; as our
conception of personality involves attributes apparently contradictory to the
notion of infinity. But it does not follow that this contradiction exists
anywhere but in our own minds: it does not follow that it implies any
impossibihity in the absolute nature of God. . . . It proves that there are
limits to man's power of thought; and it proves no more."33
The conclusion is, that as whatever is possible is credible, therefore, as it
is possible that God though infinite may be a person, his personality may be
rationally believed.
The Unthinkable, or Impossible, cannot be an
object of Faith.
On this it may be remarked, --
1. That there is a great difference between the
irreconcilable and the self-contradictory. In the one case the difficulty
arises, or may arise, out of our ignorance or mental weakness; in the other,
it arises out of the nature of the things themselves. Many things are
irreconcilable to a child which are not so to a man. Many things are
irreconcilable to one man and not to another; to men and not to angels. But
the self-contradictory is imnpossible, and is seen to be so by all orders of
mind. That two and two should make twenty, or that the same figure should be a
square and a circle, is just as irreconcilable to an angel as to a child. What
is self-contradictory cannot possibly be true. Now, according to Hamilton and
Mansel, infinity and personality are not only irreconcilable, but
contradictory. The one affirms what the other denies. According to their
doctrine the Infinite cannot be a person, and a person cannot be infinite, any
more than the Infinite can be finite, or the finite infinite. The one of
necessity excludes the other. If you affirm the one, you deny the other. There
is a great difference between not seeing how a thing is, and clearly seeing
that it cannot be. Hamilton and Mansel constantly assert that an absolute
person is a contradiction in terms. And so it is, if their definition of the
absolute be correct; and if a contradiction, it is impossible.
2. If to our reason the personality of an infinite God
be a contradiction, then it is impossible rationally to believe that He is a
person. It is in vain to say that the contradiction is only in our mind. So is
faith in our mind. It is impossible for one and the same mind to see a thing
to be false, and believe it to be true. For the reason to see that a thing is
a contradiction, is to see it to be false; and to see it to be false, and to
believe it to be true, is a contradiction in terms. Even if to other and
higher minds the contradiction does not exist, so long as it exists in the
view of any particular mind, for that mind faith in its truth is an
impossibility.
It may be said that a man's reason may convince him
that the external world does not really exist, while his senses force him to
believe in its reality. So reason may pronounce the personality of God a
contradiction, and conscience force us to believe that He is a person. This is
to confound consecutive with contemporaneous states of mind. It is possible
for a man to be an idealist in his study, and a realist out of doors. But he
cannot be an idealist and a realist at one and the same time. The mind is a
unit. A man's reason is the man himself; so is his conscience, and so are all
his other faculties. It is the one substantive self that thinks and believes.
To assume, therefore, that by necessity he must think one way and believe
another; that the laws of his reason force him to regard as false what his
conscience or senses force him to regard as true, is to destroy his
rationality. It is also to impugn the wisdom and goodness of our Creator, for
it supposes Him to have put one part of our constitution in conflict with
another; to have placed us under guides who alternately force us to move in
opposite directions. It even places this contradiction in God himself. For
what reason, in its legitimate exercise, says, God says; and what conscience,
in its legitimate exercise, says, God says. If, therefore, reason says that
God is not a person, and conscience says that He is, then -- with reverence be
it spoken -- God contradicts Himself.
Knowledge essential to Faith.
It is one of the distinguishing doctrines of
Protestants that knowledge is essential to faith. This is clearly the doctrine
of Scripture. How can they believe on Him of whom they have not heard? is the
pertinent and instructive query of the Apostle. Faith includes the affirmation
of the mind that a thing is true and trustworthy. But it is impossible for the
mind to affirm anything of that of which it knows nothing. Romanists indeed
say that if a man believes that the Church teaches the truth, then he believes
all the Church teaches, although ignorant of its doctrines. It might as well
be said that because a child has confidence in his father, therefore he knows
all his father knows. Truth must be commnunicated to the mind, and seen to be
possible, before, on any evidence, it can be believed. If, therefore, we
cannot know God, we cannot believe in Him.
B. Regulative Knowledge.
The second principle which Hamilton and Mansel adopt to
save themselves from scepticism is that of regulative knowledge. We are bound
to believe that God is what the Scriptures and our moral nature declare Him to
be. This revelation, however, does not teach us what God really is, but merely
what He wills us to believe concerning Him. Our senses, they say, tell us that
things around us are, but not what they are. We can, however, safely act on
the assumption that they really are what they appear to be. Our senses,
therefore, give only regulative knowledge; i e., knowledge sufficient
to regulate our active life. So we do not, and cannot, know what God really
is; but the representations contained in the Scriptures are sufficient to
regulate our moral and religious life. We can safely act on the assumption
that He really is what we are thus led to think Him to be, although we know
that such is not the fact.
We must be "content," says Mansel,34
"with those regulative ideas of the Deity, which are sufficient to guide our
practice, but not to satisfy our intellect, -- which tell us not what God is
in Himself, but how He wills that we should think of Him." "Though this kind
of knowledge," says Hampden,35
"is abundantly instructive to us in point of sentiment and action; teaches us,
that is, both how to feel, and how to act towards God; -- for it is the
language that we understand, the language formed by our own experience and
practice; -- it is altogether inadequate in point of science." Regulative
knowledge, therefore, is that which is designed to regulate our character and
practice. It need not be true. Nay, it may be, and is demonstrably false, for
Hamilton says it is blasphemy to think that God really is what we take Him to
be.
Objections to the Doctrine of Regulative
Knowledge.
1. The first remark on this doctrine of regulative
knowledge is, that it is self-contradictory. Regulative truth is truth
designed to accomuplish a given end. Design, however, is the intelligent and
voluntary adaptation of means to an end; and the intelligent adaptation of
means to an end, is a personal act. Unless, therefore, God be really a person,
there can be no such thing as regulative knowledge. Mr. Mansel says, we cannot
know what God is in Himself, "but only how He wills that we should think of
Him." Here "will" is attributed to God; and the personal pronouns are used,
and must be used in the very statement of the doctrine. That is, we must
assume that God is really (and not merely in our subjective apprehensions) a
person, in order to believe in regulative knowledge, which form of knowledge
supposes that He is not, or may not be a person. This is a contradiction.
2. Regulative knowledge is, from the nature of the
case, powerless, unless its subjects regard it as well founded. Some parents
educate their children in the use of fictions and fairy tales; but belief in
the truth of these is essential to their effect. So long as the world believed
in ghosts and witches, the belief had power. As soon as men were satisfied
that there were no such real existences, their power was gone. Had the
philosophers convinced the Greeks that their gods were not real persons, there
would have been an end to their mythology. And if Hamilton and his disciples
can convince the world that the Infinite cannot be a person, the regulative
influence of Theism is gone. Men cannot be influenced by representations which
they know are not conformed to the truth.
3. This theory is highly derogatory to God. It supposes
Him to propose to influence his creatures by false representations; revealing
Himself as Father, Governor, and Judge, when there is no objective truth to
answer to these representations. And worse than this, as remarked above, it
supposes Him to have so constituted our nature as to force us to believe what
is not true. We are constrained by the laws of our rational and moral being to
think of God as having a nature like our own, and yet we are told it is
blasphemy so to regard Him. The theory supposes a conflict between reason and
conscience, -- between our rational and moral nature. The latter forcing us to
believe that God is a person, and the former declaring personality and deity
to be contradictory ideas. We do not forget that Mr. Mansel says that the
incogitable may be real, that the contradiction is in our own minds, and not
necessarily in the nature of things. But this amounts to nothing; for he says
continually that the Absolute cannot be a person, cannot be a cause, cannot be
conscious, cannot either know or be known. He says, "A thing -- an object --
an attribute -- a person -- or any other term signifying one out of many
possible objects of consciousness, is by that very relation necessarily
declared to be finite."36
That is, if God be a person, He is of necessity finite. Here the personality
of God is said not only to be incogitable, or inconceivable, but impossible.
And this is the real doctrine of his book. It must be so. It is intuitively
true that the whole cannot be a part of itself; and if the Infinite be "the
All," then it cannot be one out of many. If men adopt the principles of
pantheists, they cannot consistently avoid their conclusions. Hamilton teaches
not merely that God may not be what we think Him to be, but that He cannot so
be; that we are ignorant what He is; that He is to us an unknown God. If God,
by the laws of our reason, thus forces us to deny his personality, and by the
laws of our moral nature makes it not only a duty, but a necessity to believe
in his personality, then our nature is chaotic. Man, in that case, is not the
noble creature that was formed in the image of God.
4. This doctrine of regulative knowledge destroys the
authority of the Scriptures. If all that the Bible teaches concerning the
nature of God and concerning his relation to the world, reveals no objective
truth, gives us no knowledge of what God really is, then what it teaches
concerning the person, offices, and work of Christ, may all be unreal, and
there may be no such person and no such Saviour.
C. Objections to the whole Theory.
1. The first and most obvious fallacy in the theory of
Hamilton and Mansel, as it appears to us, lies in their definition of the
Absolute and Infinite, or in the language of Hamilton, the Unconditioned. By
the Absolute they mean that which exists in and of itself, and out of all
relation. The Infinite is that, than which nothing greater can be conceived or
is possible; which includes all actual and all possible modes of being. Mansel
subscribes to the dictum of Hegel that the Absolute must include all modes of
being, good as well as evil. In like manner the Infinite must be All. For if
any other being exists, the Infinite must of necessity be limited, and,
therefore, is no longer infinite.
These definitions determine everything. If the Absolute
be that which is incapable of all relation, then it must be alone; nothing but
the Absolute can be actual or possible. Then it can neither know nor be known.
And if the Infinite be all, then again there can be no finite. Then it is just
as certain that the Absolute and Infinite cannot be cause, or conscious, or a
person, as that a square cannot be a circle, or the whole a part of itself.
When a definition leads to contradictions and absurdities, when it leads to
conclusions which are inconsistent with the laws of our nature, and when it
subverts all that consciousness, common sense, and the Bible declare to be
true, the only rational inference is that the definition is wrong. This
inference we have the right to draw in the present case. The very fact that
the definitions of the Absolute and Infinite which Hamilton and Mansel have
adopted from the transcendentalists, lead to all the fearful conclusions which
they draw from them, is proof enough that they must be wrong. They are founded
upon purely speculative a priori grounds. They can have no authority.
For if, as these philosophers say, the Absolute and Infinite cannot be known,
how can it be defined? Neither the etymology nor the usage of the words in
question justifies the above given definitions of them. Absolute (ab
and solvo) means, free, unrestrained, independent; as when we speak of
an absolute monarch or absolute promise; or, unlimited, as when we speak of
absolute space. The word is also used in the sense of finished, or perfect. An
absolute being is one that is free, unlimited, independent, and perfect. God
is absolute, because He is not dependent for His existence, nature,
attributes, or acts, on any other being. He is unlimited, by anything out of
Himself or independent of his will. But this does not imply that He is the
only being; nor that in order to be absolute He must be dead, unconscious, or
without thought or will. Much less does the word infinite, as applied to God,
imply that He must include all forms of being. Space may be infinite without
being duration, and duration may be infinite without being space. An infinite
spirit does not include material forms of existence, any more than an infinite
line is an infinite surface or an infinite solid. When it is said that
anything is infinite, all that is properly meant is that no limit is
assignable or possible to it as such. An infinite line is that to which no
limit can be assigned as a line; infinite space is that to which no limit can
be assigned as space; an infinite spirit is a spirit which is unlimited in all
the attributes of a spirit. It is a great mistake to assume that the infinite
must be all. Infinite power is not all power, but simply power to whose
efficiency no limtation can be assigned; and infinite knowledge is not all
knowledge, but simply knowledge to the extent of which no limit is possible.
So too an infinite substance is not all substance, but a substance which is
not excluded from any portion of space by other substances, or limited in the
manifestation of any of its attributes or functions by anything out of itself.
God, therefore, may be a Spirit infinite, eternal, and immutable in his being
and perfections, without being matter, and sin, and misery.
It may be said that as infinite space must include all
space, so an infinite being must of necessity include all modes of being.
This, however, is a mere play on words. Infinite is sometimes inclusive of
all, not from the meaning of the word, but from the nature of the subject of
which infinitude is predicated. Infinite space must include all space, because
space is in its nature one. But an infinite line does not include all lines,
because there may be any number of lines; and an infinite being is not all
being, because there may be any number of beings.
It must excite the wonder and indignation of ordinary
men to see the fundamental truths of religion and morality endangered or
subverted out of deference to the assumption that the Absolute must be
unrelated.
Wrong Definition of Knowledge.
2. The second fallacy involved in Hamilton's theory
concerns his idea of knowledge. When it is said that God is unknowable,
everything depends on what is meant by knowledge. With him to know is to
understand, to have a distinct conception, or mental image. This is evident
from his using interchangeably the words unthinkable, unknowable, and
inconceivable. Thus on a single page37
Mansel uses the phrases that of which "we do not and cannot think," that
"which we cannot conceive," and "that which we are unable to comprehend," as
meaning one and the same thing. This is also proved from the manner in which
other words and phrases are employed; for example, the Infinite, the Absolute,
an absolute beginning, an absolute whole, an absolute part, any increase or
diminution of the complement of being. The only sense, however, in which these
things are unthinkable, is, that we cannot form a mental image of them. A
distinguished German professor, when anything was said to which he could not
assent, was accustomed to spread out his hands and close his eyes and say, "Ich
kann gar keine Anschauung davon machen." I cannot see it with my minds eye,
I cannot make an image of it. This seems to be a materialistic way of
looking at things. The same may be said of cause, substance, and soul, of none
of which can we frame a mental image; yet they are not unthinkable. A thing is
unthinkable only when it is seen to be impossible, or when we can attach no
meaning to the words, or proposition, in which it is stated. This
impossibility of intelligent thought may arise from our weakness. The problems
of the higher mathematics are unthinkable to a child. Or, the impossibility
may arise from the nature of the thing itself. That a triangle should have
four sides, or a circle be a square, is absolutely unthinkable. But in neither
of these senses is the Infinite unthinkable. It is not impossible, for
Hamilton and Mansel both admit that God is in fact infinite; nor is that
proposition unintelligible. It conveys a perfectly clear and distinct idea to
the mind. When the mind affirms to itself that space is infinite, i. e.,
that it cannot be limited, it knows what it means just as well as when it
says that two and two are four. Neither is an absolute beginning unthinkable.
If, indeed, by absolute beginuing is meant uncaused beginning, the coming into
existence of something out of nothing, and produced by nothing, then it is
impossible and therefore incogitable. But the dictum is applied to a creation
ex nihilo, which is declared to be unthinkable. This, however, is
denied. We will to move a limb, and it moves. God said, Let there be light,
and light was. The one event is just as intelligible as the other. In neither
case can we comprehend the nexus between the antecedent and the
consequent, between the volition and the effect; but as facts they are equally
thinkable and knowable.
It is not possible to give the evidence scattered
through the writings of Hamilton and Mansel, that they use the word "to know"
in the sense of comprehending, or, forming a mental image of the object known.
Mansel38
quotes the following sentence from Dr. McCosh's work on the "Method of the
Divine Government," namely, "The mind seeks in vain to embrace the infinite in
a positive image, but is constrained to believe, when its efforts fail, that
there is a something to which no limits can be put." This sentence Mansel says
may be accepted "by the most uncompromising adherent" of Sir W. Hamilton's
doctrine, that the infinite is unthinkable and unknowable. To know, therefore,
according to Hamilton and Mansel, is to form a mental image of; and as we
cannot form such an image of God, God cannot be known. Mansel is disposed to
think that this reduces the controversy to a matter matter of words. And Dr.
Tyler, in his able exposition of Hamilton's philosophy, says,39
"So it be admitted, as it must, that all our intelligence of God is by
analogy, it matters but little, practically, whether the conviction be called
knowledge, belief, or faith." It is, however, very far from being a dispute
about words. For Hamilton constantly asserts that God is not, and cannot be,
what we think He is. Then we have no God. For what is God as infinite, if as
Mansel says, "The Infinite, if it is to be conceived at all, must be conceived
as potentially everything and actually nothing."40
What is meant by Knowledge.
Knowledge is the perception of truth. Whatever the mind
perceives, whether intuitively or discursively, to be true, that it knows. We
have immediate knowledge of all the facts of consciousness; and with regard to
other matters, some we can demonstrate, some we can prove analogicallv, some
we must admit or involve ourselves in contradictions and absurdities. Whatever
process the mind may institute, if it arrives at a clear perception that a
thing is, then that thing is an objects of knowledge. It is thus we know the
object with which heaven and earth are crowded. It is thus we know our fellow
men. With regard to anything without us, when our ideas, or convictions
concerning it, correspond to what the thing really is, then we know it. How do
we know that our nearest friend has a soul, and that that soul has
intelligence, moral excellence, and power? We cannot see or feel it. We cannot
form a mental image of it. It is mysterious and imcomprehensible. Yet we know
that it is, and what it is, just as certainly as we know that we ourselves
are, and what we are. In the same way we know that God is, and what He is. We
know that He is a spirit, that He has intelligence, moral excellence, and
power to an infinite degree. We know that He can love, pity, and pardon; that
He can hear and answer prayer. We know God in the same sense and just as
certainly as we know our father or mother. And no man can take this knowledge
from us, or persuade us that it is not knowledge, but a mere irrational
belief.
Hamilton's Doctrine Leads to Scepticism.
3. The principles on which Hamilton and Mansel deny
that God can be known, logically lead to scepticism. Hamilton has indeed
rendered invaluable service to the cause of truth by his defence of what is,
perhaps, infelicitously called the "Philosophy of Common Sense." The
principles of that philosophy are: (1.) That what is given in consciousness is
undoubtedly true. (2.) That whatever the laws of our nature force us to
believe, must be accepted as true. (3.) That this principle applies to all the
elements of our nature, to the senses, the reason, and the conscience. We
cannot rationally or consistently with our allegiance to God, deny what our
senses, reason, or conscience pronounce to be true. (4.) Neither the
individual man, nor the cause of truth, however, is to be left to the mercy of
what any one may choose to say reason or conscience teaches. Nothing is to be
accepted as the authoritative judgment of either reason or conscience, which
does not bear the criteria of universality and necessity.
Hamilton has drawn from the stores of his erudition, in
this department perhaps unexampled, proof that these principles have been
recognized by the leading philosophic minds in all ages. He himself sustains
them with earnestness as the safeguards of truth. He impressively asserts that
if consciousness once be convicted of falsehood, all is lost; we have then no
resting place for either science or religion; that absolute scepticism
follows, if it be denied that necessity and universality of belief are not
decisive proof of the truth of what is thus believed. Even Stuart Mill admnits
that "whatever is known to us by consciousness, is known beyond possibility of
question."41
Mr. Mansel tells us that it is from consciousness we get our idea of
substance, of personality, of cause, of right and wrong, in short of
everything which lies at the foundation of knowledge and religion; and
therefore if consciousness deceive us we have nothing to depend upon. Mansel
thus expounds the famous aphorism of Des Cartes, "Cogito ergo sum," i. e.,
"I, who see, and hear, and think, and feel, am the one continuous self,
whose existence gives unity and connection to the whole. Personality comprises
all that we know of that which exists; relation to personality comprises all
that we know of that which seems to exist."42
"Consciousness," he says, "gives us the knowledge of substance. We are a
substantive existence."43
"I exist as I am conscious of existing; and conscious self is itself the
Ding an sich, the standard by which all representations of personality
must be judged, and from which our notion of reality, as distinguished from
appearance, is originally derived."44
Hamilton and Mansel therefore teach that the veracity of consciousness is the
foundation of all knowledge, and that the denial of that veracity inevitably
leads to absolute scepticism. Nevertheless they teach that our senses deceive
us; that reason deceives us; that conscience deceives us; that is, that our
sensuous, rational, and moral consciousness are alike deceptive and
unreliable.
Our senses give us the knowledge of the external world.
They teach us that things are, and what they are. It is admitted that the
universal and irresistible belief of men, as that belief is determined by
their sense and consciousness, is that things really are what to our senses
they appear to be. Philosophers tell us this is a delusion. Kant says that
they certainly are not what we take them to be. Mansel says this is going
rather too far. We cannot know, indeed, what they are, but it is possible that
they are in fact what they appear to be. In either case they are to us all
unknown quantity, and the senses deceive us. They assume to teach more than
they have a right to teach, and we are bound to believe them.
Kant teaches that our reason, that the necessary laws
of thought which govern our mental operations, lead to absolute
contradictions. In this Hamilton and Mansel fully agree with him. They tell us
that reason teaches that the Absolute must be all things actual and possible;
that there cannot be an absolute or infinite person, or cause; that being and
not-being are identical; that the infinite is "potentially all things and
actually nothing." These and similar contradictions are said to be inevitable
results of all attempts to know God as an Absolute and Infinite Being. "The
conception of the Absolute and Infinite, from whatever side we view it,
appears encompassed with contradictions. There is a contradiction in supposing
such an object to exist, whether alone or in conjunction with others; and
there is a contradiction in supposing it not to exist. There is a
contradiction in conceiving it as one, and there is a contradiction in
conceiving it as many. There is a contradiction in conceiving it as personal;
and there is a contradiction in conceiving it as impersonal. It cannot without
contradiction be represented as active; nor, without equal contradiction, be
represented as inactive. It cannot be conceived as the sum of all existence;
nor yet can it be conceived of as a part only of that sum."45
Yet all this we are called upon to believe; for it is our duty, he says, to
believe that God is infinite and absolute. That is, we are bound to believe
what our rational consciousness pronounces to be contradictory and impossible.
Conscience, or our moral consciousness, is no less
deceptive. Mr. Mansel admits that we are conscious of dependence and of moral
obligation; that this involves what he calls "the consciousness of God," i.
e., that we stand in the relation to God of one spirit to another spirit,
of one person to another person; a person so superior to us as to have
rightfully supreme authority over us, and who has all the power and all the
moral perfections which enter into our idea of God. But all this is a
delusion. It is a delusion, because what our moral consciousness thus teaches
involves all the contradictions and absurdities above mentioned; because it is
said to teach not what God is, but only what it is desirable that we should
think He is; and because we are told that it is blasphemy to think that He is
what we take Him to be.
The theory, therefore, of Hamilton and Mansel as to the
knowledge of God is suicidal. It is inconsistent with the veracity of
consciousness, which is the fundamental principle of their philosophy. The
theory is an incongruous combination of sceptical principles with orthodox
faith, the anti-theistic principles of Kant with Theism. One or the other must
be given up. We cannot believe in a personal God, if an infinite person be a
contradiction and absurdity.
God has not so constituted our nature as to make it of
necessity deceptive. The senses, reason, and conscience, within their
appropriate spheres, and in their normal exercise, are trustworthy guides.
They teach us real, and not umerely apparent or regulative truth. Their
combined spheres comprehend all the relations in which we, as rational
creatures, stand to the external world, to our fellow-men, and to God. Were it
not for the disturbing element of sin, we know not that man, in full communion
with his Maker, whose Favour is light and life, would have needed any other
guides. But man is not in his original and normal state. In apostatizing from
God, man fell into a state of darkness and confusion. Reason and conscience
are no longer adequate guides as to "the things of God." Of fallen men, the
Apostle says: "That when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither
were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart
was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools; and changed
the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man,
and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things" (Rom. i. 21-23);
or, worse yet, into an absolute and infinite being, without consciousness,
intelligence, or moral character; a being which is not potentially all things,
and actually nothing. It is true, therefore, as the same. Apostle tells us,
that the world by wisdom knows not God. It is true in a still higher sense, as
the Lord himself says, that no man "knoweth the Father, save the Son, and he
to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." (Matt. xi. 27.)
Necessity of a Supernatural Revelation.
We need, therefore, a divine supernatural revelation.
Of this revelation, it is to be remarked, first, that it gives us real
knowledge. It teaches us what God really is; what sin is; what the law is;
what Christ and the plan of salvation through Him are; and what is to be the
state of the soul after death. The knowledge thus communicated is real, in the
sense that the ideas which we are thus led to form of the things revealed
conform to what those things really are. God and Christ, holiness and sin,
heaven and hell, really are what the Bible declares them to be. Sir William
Hamilton46
divides the objects of knowledge into two classes: those derived from within,
from the intelligence; and those derived from experience. The latter are of
two kinds: what we know from our own experience, and what we know from the
experience of others, authenticated to us by adequate testimony. In the
generally received sense of the word this is true knowledge. No man hesitates
to say that he knows that there was such a man as Washington, or such an event
as the American Revolution. If the testimony of men can give us clear and
certain knowledge of facts beyond our experience, surely the testimony of God
is greater. What He reveals is made known. We apprehend it as it truly is. The
conviction that what God reveals is made known in its true nature, is the very
essence of faith in the divine testimony. We are certain, therefore, that our
ideas of God, founded on the testimony of his Word, correspond to what He
really is, and constitute true knowledge. It is also to be remembered that
while the testimony of men is to the mind, the testimony of God is not only
to, but also within the mind. It illuminates and informs; so that the
testimony of God is called the demonstration of the Spirit.
The second remark concerning the revelation contained
in the Scriptures is, that while it makes known truths far above the reach of
sense or reason, it reveals nothing which contradicts either. It harmonizes
with our whole nature. It supplements all our other knowledge, and
authenticates itself by harmonizing the testimony of enlightened consciousness
with the testimony of God in his Word.
The conclusion, therefore, of the whole matter is, that
we know God in the same sense in which we know ourselves and things out of
ourselves. We have the same conviction that God is, and that He is, in
Himself, and independently of our thought of Him, what we take Him to be. Our
subjective idea corresponds to the Objective reality. This knowledge of God is
the foundation of all religion; and therefore to deny that God can be known,
is really to deny that rational religion is possible. In other words, it makes
religion a mere sentiment, or blind feeling, instead of its being what the
Apostle declares it to be, a logikh. latrei,a, a
rational service; the homage of the reason as well as of the heart and
life. "Our knowledge of God," says Hase, "developed and enlightened by the
Scriptures, answers to what God really is, for He cannot deceive us as to his
own nature."47
Endnotes
1. Ethices, ii. prop. xlvi. edit. Jena, 1803, vol.
ii. p. 119.
2. See Mansel's Limits of Religious Thought, Boston, 1859, p. 301.
3. Sir William Hamilton's Discussions, p. 16. Princeton Review on
Cousin's Philosophy, 1856.
4. Werke, xii. p. 496, edit. Berlin, 1840.
5. Prolegomena Logica, edit. Boston, 1860, p. 34.
6. Epistolae, I., cx., edit. Amsterdam, 1682.
7. Epistolae, lx., vol. i. p. 659, edit. Jena, 1802.
8. "Von den gottlichen Dingen," Werke, iii. pp. 422, 423, edit.
Leipzig, 1816.
9. Philosophy, edit. Wight, New York, 1854, p. 233.
10. Ibid. p. 226.
11. Ibid. p. 234.
12. Limits of Religious Thought, edit. Boston, 1859, pp. 56, 57.
13. Limits of Religious Thought, etc., p. 120.
14. Ibid. p. 121.
15. Ibid. p. 122.
16. Limits of Religious Thought, etc., p. 127.
17. Limits of Religious Thought, etc., p. 261.
18. "Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft." Works, edit. Rosenkranz, vol.
viii. p. 282.
19. Discussions, p. 23.
20. Progress of Philosophy, by S. Taylor. LL.D., p. 200.
21. Mansel, p. 75.
22. Mansel, p. 76.
23. Hamilton's Discussions, p. 35.
24. Mansel, pp. 78, 79.
25. Bruno, p. 171.
26. Discussions, p. 40.
27. Mansel, p. 77.
28. Mansel, pp. 102, 103.
29. Strauss, Dogmatik, i. p. 527.
30. Pensees, partio II. art. iii. 5
31. Tyler's Progress of Philosophy, second edit. p. 147.
32. Discussions, p. 22.
33. Limits of Religious Thought, p. 106.
34. Limits of Religious Thought, p. 132.
35. Bampton Lectures, 1832, p. 54.
36. Limits of Religious Thought, p. 107.
37. Page 110.
38. Page 280.
39. See Progress of Philosophy, by Samuel Tyler, LL.D., p. 207.
40. Limits of Religious Thought, p. 94.
41. Logic, Introduction, p. 4, edit. N.Y. 1846.
42. Limits of Religious Thought, p. 105.
43. Ibid. p. 288.
44. Ibid. p. 291.
45. Limits of Religious Thought, p. 85.
46. Lectures on Logic. Lecture 32d.
47. See on this subject, Sir William Hamilton's Discussions on Philosophy
and Literature, Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic,
edited by Rev. Henry L. Mansel and John Veitch, M.A.; Philosophy of Sir
William Hamilton, arranged and edited by O. W. Wight, translator of
Cousin's History of Modern Philosophy; The Limits ofReligious
Thought, eight lectures on the Bampton Foundation, by Henry Longueville
Mansel, B. D.; Calderwood's Philosophy of the Infinite; Dr. McCosh's
works on the Method of the Divine Government; The Intuitions of the
Mind; Defence of Fundamental Truths; Princeton Review,
April, 1862, Philosophy of the Absolute, an article by Dr. Charles W.
Shields; October, 1861, Review of Dr. Hickok's Rational Psychology, by
Dr. Stephen Alexander; and A Philosophical Confession of Faith, by the
same writer, a very able and concise statement of fundamental principles, in
the number for July, 1867, of the same journal. See also Mill's Review of
Hamilton's Philosophy, and the admirable work of Professor Noah
Porter, of New Haven, on the Human Intellect, part fourth, chap. viii.
