Christianity and Greek Philosophy Part 48

The inevitable tendency of this effort of speculative thought, spread over ages, and of the intellectual culture which necessarily resulted, was to undermine the old polytheistic religion, and to purify and elevate the theistic conception. The school of Elea rejected the gross anthropomorphism of the Homeric theology. Xenophanes, the founder of the school, was a believer in

"_ One G.o.d_, of all beings divine and human the greatest, Neither in body alike unto mortals, neither in ideas."

And he repels with indignation the anthropomorphic representations of the Deity.

"But men foolishly think that G.o.ds are born as men are, And have, too, a dress like their own, and their voice, and their figure: But if oxen and lions had hands like ours, and fingers, Then would horses like unto horses, and oxen to oxen, Paint and fas.h.i.+on their G.o.d-forms, and give to them bodies Of like shape to their own, as they themselves too are fas.h.i.+oned."[877]

Empedocles also wages uncompromising war against all representations of the Deity in human form--

"For neither with head adjusted to limbs, like the human, Nor yet with two branches down from the shoulders outstretching, Neither with feet, nor swift-moving limbs,....

He is, wholly and perfectly, _mind_, ineffable, holy, With rapid and swift-glancing thought pervading the world."[878]

[Footnote 877: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.

431, 432.]

[Footnote 878: Ibid., vol. i. pp. 495, 496.]

When speaking of the mythology of the older Greeks, Socrates maintains a becoming prudence; he is evidently desirous to avoid every thing which would tend to loosen the popular reverence for divine things.[879] But he was opposed to all anthropomorphic conceptions of the Deity. His fundamental position was that the Deity is the Supreme Reason, which is to be honored by men as the source of all existence and the end of all human endeavor. Notwithstanding his recognition of a number of subordinate divinities, he held that the Divine is one, because Reason is one. He taught that the Supreme Being is the immaterial, infinite Governor of all;[880] that the world bears the stamp of his intelligence, and attests it by irrefragable evidence;[881] and that he is the author and vindicator of all moral laws.[882] So that, in reality, he did more to overthrow polytheism than any of his predecessors, and on that account was doomed to death.

[Footnote 879: Xenophon, "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iii. -- 3.]

[Footnote 880: Id., ib., bk. i. ch. iv. ---- 17, 18.]

[Footnote 881: Id., ib., bk. i. ch. i. -- 19.]

[Footnote 882: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 63; Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 359.]

It was, however, the matured dialectic of Plato which gave the death-blow to polytheism. "Plato, the poet-philosopher, sacrificed Homer himself to monotheism. We may measure the energy of his conviction by the greatness of the sacrifice. He could not pardon the syren whose songs had fascinated Greece, the fresh brilliant poetry that had inspired its religion. He crowned it with flowers, but banished it, because it had lowered the religious ideal of conscience." He was sensible of the beauty of the Homeric fables, but he was also keenly alive to their religious falsehood, and therefore he excluded the poets from his ideal republic. In the education of youth, he would forbid parents and teachers repeating "the stories which Hesiod and Homer and the other poets told us." And after instancing a number of these stories "which deserve the gravest condemnation," he enjoins that G.o.d must be represented as he is in reality. "G.o.d," says he, "is, beyond all else, good in reality, and therefore so to be represented;" "he can not do evil, or be the cause of evil;" "he is of simple essence, and can not change, or be the subject of change;" "there is no imperfection in the beauty or goodness of G.o.d;" "he is a G.o.d of truth, and can not lie;" "he is a being of perfect simplicity and truth in deed and word."[883] The reader can not fail to recognize the close resemblance between the language of Plato and the language of inspiration.

The theistic conception, in Plato, reaches the highest purity and spirituality. G.o.d is "_the Supreme Mind_," "incorporeal,"

"unchangeable," "infinite," "absolutely perfect," "essentially good,"

"unoriginated and eternal." He is "the Father and Maker of the world,"

"the efficient Cause of all things," "the Monarch and Ruler of the world," "the Sovereign Mind that orders all things," and "pervades all things." He is "the sole principle of all things," "the beginning of all truth," "the fountain of all law and justice," "the source of all order and beauty;" in short, He is "the beginning, middle, and end of all things."[884]

[Footnote 883: "Republic," bk. ii. ---- 18-21.]

[Footnote 884: See _ante_, ch. xi. pp. 377, 378, where the references to Plato's writings are given.]

Aristotle continued the work of undermining polytheism. He defines G.o.d as "the Eternal Reason"--the Supreme Mind. "He is the immovable cause of all movement in the universe, the all-perfect principle. This principle or essence pervades all things. It eternally possesses perfect happiness, and its happiness consists in energy. This primeval mover is immaterial, for its essence is energy--it is pure thought, thought thinking itself--the thought of thought."[885] Polytheism is thus swept away from the higher regions of the intelligence. "For several to command," says he, "is not good, there should be but one chief. A tradition, handed down from the remotest antiguity, and transmitted under the veil of fable, says that all the stars are G.o.ds, and that the Divinity embraces the whole of nature. And round this idea other mythical statements have been agglomerated, with a view to influencing the vulgar, and for political and moral expediency; as for instance, they feigned that these G.o.ds have human shape, and are like certain of the animals; and other stories of the kind are added on. Now, if any one will separate from all this the first point alone, namely, that they thought the first and deepest grounds of existence to be Divine, he may consider it a divine utterance."[886] The popular polytheism, then, was but a perverted fragment of a deeper and purer "Theology." This pa.s.sage is a sort of obituary of polytheism. The ancient glory of paganism had pa.s.sed away. Philosophy had exploded the old theology. Man had learned enough to make him renounce the ancient religion, but not enough to found a new faith that could satisfy both the intellect and the heart.

"Wherefore we are not to be surprised that the grand philosophic period should be followed by one of incredulity and moral collapse, inaugurating the long and universal _decadence_ which was, perhaps, as necessary to the work of preparation, as was the period of religious and philosophic development."

[Footnote 885: "Metaphysics," bk. xii.]

[Footnote 886: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. viii. -- 19.]

The preparatory office of Greek philosophy in the region of speculative thought is seen--

2. _In the development of the Theistic argument in a logical form._--Every form of the theistic proof which is now employed by writers on natural theology to demonstrate the being of G.o.d was apprehended, and logically presented, by one or other of the ancient philosophers, excepting, perhaps, the "moral argument" drawn from the facts of conscience.

(I.) _The_ aeTIOLOGICAL _proof_, or the argument based upon the principle of causality, which may be presented in the following form:

All genesis or becoming supposes a permanent and uncaused Being, adequate to the production of all phenomena.

The sensible universe is a perpetual genesis, a succession of appearances: it is "always becoming, and never really is."

Therefore, it must have its cause and origin in a permanent and unoriginated Being, adequate to its production.

The major premise of this syllogism is a fundamental principle of reason--a self-evident truth, an axiom of common sense, and as such has been recognized from the very dawn of philosophy. [Greek: ?d??at??

???es?a? t? ?? ?de??? p???p?????t??]--_Ex nihilo nihil_--_Nothing which once was not, could ever of itself come into being_. Nothing can be made or produced without an efficient cause, is the oldest maxim of philosophy. It is true that this maxim was abusively employed by Democritus and Epicurus to disprove a Divine creation of any thing out of nothing, yet the great body of ancient philosophers, as Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Plato, and Aristotle, regarded it as the announcement of an universal conviction, that nothing can be produced without an efficient cause;--order can not be generated out of chaos, life out of dead matter, consciousness out of unconsciousness, reason out of unreason. A first principle of life, of order, of reason, must have existed anterior to all manifestions of order, of life, of intelligence, in the visible universe. It was clearly in this sense that Cicero understood this great maxim of the ancient philosophers of Greece. With him "_De nihilo nihil fit"_ is equivalent to "_Nihil sine causa_"--nothing exists without a cause. This is unquestionably the form in which that fundamental law of thought is stated by Plato: "Whatever is generated is necessarily generated from a certain cause, for it is wholly impossible that any thing should be generated without a cause."[887] And the efficient cause is defined as "a power whereby that which did not previously exist was afterwards made to be."[888] It is scarcely needful to remark that Aristotle, the scholar of Plato, frequently lays it down as a postulate of reason, "that we admit nothing without a cause."[889] By an irresistible law of thought, "_all phenomena present themselves to us as the expression of power_, and refer us to a causal ground whence they issue."

[Footnote 887: "Timaeus," ch. ix.; also "Philebus," -- 45.]

[Footnote 888: "Sophist," -- 109.]

[Footnote 889: "Post. a.n.a.lytic," bk. ii. ch. xvi.; "Metaphysics," bk. i.

ch. i. -- 3.]

The major premise of this syllogism is a fact of observation.

To the eye of sense and sensible observation, to scientific induction even in its highest generalizations, the visible universe presents nothing but a history and aggregation of phenomena--a succession of appearances or effects having more or less resemblance. It is a ceaseless flow and change, "a generation and corruption," "a becoming, but never really _is_;" it is never in two successive moments the _same_.[890] All our cognitions of sameness, uniformity, causal connection, permanent Being, real Power, are purely rational conceptions _given in thought_, supplied by the spontaneous intuition of reason as the correlative prefix to the phenomena observed.[891]

[Footnote 890: "Timaeus," ch. ix.]

[Footnote 891: Ibid.]

Therefore the ancient philosophers concluded justly, there must be something [Greek: ??????t??]--something which was never generated, something [Greek: a?t?????] and [Greek: a???p?stat??]--self-originated and self-existing, something [Greek: ta?t??] and [Greek: a??????]--immutable and eternal, the object of rational apperception--which is the real ground and efficient cause of all that appears.

(2.) The COSMOLOGICAL proof, or the argument based upon the principle of order, and thus presented:

Order, proportion, harmony, are the product and expression of Mind.

The created universe reveals order, proportion, and harmony.

Therefore, the created universe is the product of Mind.

The fundamental law of thought which underlies this mode of proof was clearly recognized by Pythagoras. All harmony and proportion and symmetry is the result of _unity_ evolving itself in and pervading _multiplicity_. Mind or reason is unity and indivisibility; matter is diverse and multiple. Mind is the determinating principle; matter is indeterminate and indefinite. Confused matter receives form, and proportion, and order, and symmetry, by the action and interpenetration of the spiritual and indivisible element. In presence of facts of order, the human reason instinctively and necessarily affirms the presence and action of Mind.

"Pythagoras had long devoted his intellectual adoration to the lofty idea of Order. To his mind it seemed as the presiding genius of the serene and silent world. He had from his youth dwelt with delight upon the eternal relations of s.p.a.ce and number, in which the very idea of proportion seems to find its first and immediate development, until at length it seemed as if the whole secret of the universe was hidden in these mysterious correspondences. The world, in all its departments, moral and material, is a living arithmetic in its development, a realized geometry in its repose; it is a '_cosmos_' (for the word is Pythagorean), the expression of harmony, the manifestation to sense of everlasting order; and the science of _numbers_ is the truest representation of its eternal laws." Therefore, argued Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, as the reason of man can perceive the relations of an eternal order in the proportions of extension and number, the laws of proportion, and symmetry, and harmony must inhere in a Divine reason, an intelligent soul, which moves and animates the universe. The harmonies of the world which address themselves to the human mind must be the product of a Divine mind. The world, in its real structure, must be the image and copy of that divine proportion which the mind of man adores.

It is the sensible type of the Divinity, the outward and multiple development of the Eternal Unity, the Eternal One--that is, G.o.d.

The same argument is elaborated by Plato in his philosophy of beauty.

G.o.d is with him the last reason, the ultimate foundation, the perfect ideal of all beauty--of all the order, proportion, harmony, sublimity, and excellence which reigns in the physical, the intellectual, and the moral world. He is the "Eternal Beauty, unbegotten and imperishable, exempt from all decay as well as increase--the perfect--the Divine Beauty"[892] which is beheld by the pure mind in the celestial world.

[Footnote 892: "Banquet," -- 35.]

(3.) The Teleological proof, or the argument based upon the principle of intentionality or Final Cause, and is presented in the following form:

The choice and adaptation of means to the accomplishment of special ends supposes an intelligent purpose, a Designing Mind.