The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 89

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[ ORIGINAL.]

PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.

IV.

THE REVELATION OF G.o.d IN THE CREED DEMONSTRATED IN THE CONSt.i.tUTIVE IDEA OF REASON.

As soon as we open the eye of reason we become spectators of the creation. The word creation in this proposition is to be understood not in a loose and popular sense, but in a strict and scientific one.

We intend to say, not merely that we behold certain existing objects, but that we behold them in their relation to their first and supreme cause. We are witnesses of the creative act by which the Creator and his work are simultaneously disclosed to the mind. This is the original const.i.tutive principle of reason, its primal light preceding all knowledge and thought, and being their condition. It is the idea which contains in itself, radically and in principle, all possible development of thought and knowledge, according to the law of growth connatural to the human intelligence. It includes--G.o.d with all his attributes: the work of G.o.d or the created universe; and the relation between the two, that is, the relation of G.o.d to the universe as first cause in the order of creation, and final cause in the order of the ultimate end and destination of things. The different portions of this idea are inseparable from each other. That is, our reason cannot affirm G.o.d separately from the affirmation of the creative act, or affirm the creative act separately from the affirmation of G.o.d. The being of G.o.d is disclosed to us only by the creation, and the creation is intelligible to us only in the light given by the idea of G.o.d.

[Footnote 89] G.o.d reveals himself to our reason as creator, and by means of the creative act. This is the limit of our natural light, and beyond it we cannot see anything by a natural mode, either in G.o.d, or in the universe.

[Footnote 89: A careful attention to the succeeding argument will show that by the idea of G.o.d given to intuition, is not meant the evolved idea, but the idea capable of evolution, or the idea of infinite, necessary being, which is shown to be the Idea of G.o.d by demonstration.]

The idea of G.o.d must not be confounded with that distinct and explicit conception which a philosopher or well-instructed Christian possesses.

If the human mind possessed this knowledge by an original intuition, every human being would have it, without instruction, from the very first moment of the complete use of reason, and could never lose it.

The idea of G.o.d is the affirmation of himself as pure, eternal, necessary being, the original and first principle of all existence, which he makes to the reason in creating it, and which const.i.tutes the rational light and life of the soul. This const.i.tutive, ideal principle of the soul's intelligence exists at first in a kind of embryonic state. The soul is more in a state of potentiality to intelligence, than intelligence in act. The idea of G.o.d is obscurely enwrapped and enfolded in the substance of the soul, imperfectly evolved in its most primitive acts of rational consciousness, and implicitly contained but not actually explicated in every thought that it thinks, even the most simple and rudimental. The intelligence must be educated, in order to bring out this obscure and implicit idea of G.o.d into a distinct conception in the reflective consciousness. This education begins with the action of the material, sensible world on the soul through the body, and specifically through the brain. The human soul was not created to exist and act under the simple conditions of pure spirit; but as is incorporated in a material body.

The body is not a temporary habitation, like the envelope of a larva, but an integral part of man. The {519} intelligence is awakened to activity through the senses, and all its perceptions of the intelligible are through the medium of the sensible. The sensible world is a grand system of outward and visible signs representing the spiritual and intelligible world. Language is the science and art of subsidiary signs, the equivalents of the phenomena of the sensible world and of all that we apprehend through them; and forming the medium for communicating thought among men. For this reason, all language so far as it represents the conceptions of men concerning the spiritual word is metaphorical; and even the word _spirit_ is a figure taken from the sensible world.

When the obscure idea is completely evolved, and the soul educated, through these outward and sensible media, the reflective consciousness attains to the distinct conception of G.o.d. This education may be imperfect, and the reflective consciousness may have but an incomplete conception expressed in language by an inadequate formula; but the idea is indestructible, and the mental conception of it can never be totally corrupted. This would be equivalent to the cessation of all thought, the annihilation of all conception of being and truth, and the extinction of all rational life in the soul. It is a mere negation of thought, which cannot be thought at all, and a mere non-ent.i.ty.

There is no such thing as absolute scepticism. Partial scepticism is possible. Revelation may be denied as to its complete conception, but the idea expressed in revelation cannot be utterly denied. The being of G.o.d may be denied, as to its complete conception, but not completely as to the idea itself. No sceptic or atheist can make any statement of his doubt or disbelief, which does not contain an affirmation of that ultimate idea under the conception of real and necessary being and truth. Much less can he enunciate any scientific formulas respecting philosophy, history, or any positive object, without doing so. Vast numbers of men are ignorant of the true and formed conception of G.o.d, but every one of them affirms the idea in every distinct thought which he thinks; and every human language, however rude, embodies and perpetuates it under forms and conceptions which are remotely derived from the original and infallible speech of the primitive revelation. Although the ma.s.s of mankind cannot evolve the idea of G.o.d into a distinct conception, and even gentile philosophy failed to enunciate this conception in an adequate form, yet when this conception is clearly and perfectly enunciated by pure theistic and Christian philosophy, reason is able to recognize it as the expression of its own primitive and ultimate idea. It perceives that the object which it has always beheld by an obscure intuition, is G.o.d, as proposed in the first article of the Christian formula. The Christian church, in instructing the uninstructed or partially instructed mind in pure theism, interprets to it, and explicates for it, its own obscure intuition. Thus it is able to see the truth of the being of G.o.d; not as a new, hitherto unknown idea, received on pure authority, or by a long deduction from more ultimate truths, or as the result of a number of probabilities; but as a truth which const.i.tutes the ultimate ground of its own rational existence, and is only unfolded and disclosed to it in its own consciousness by the word and teaching of the instructor, who gives distinct voice to its own inarticulate or defectively uttered affirmation of G.o.d. So it is, that G.o.d affirms himself to the reason originally by the creative act which is first apprehended by the reason through the medium of the sensible, and interpreted by the sensible signs of language to the uninstructed.

Thus we know G.o.d by creation, and the creation comes into the most immediate contact with us on its sensible side.

It has been said above, that we cannot separate the creative act from G.o.d in the primitive idea of reason. It is not meant by this that reason has {520} an intuition of G.o.d as necessarily a creator. What is meant is, that the idea of G.o.d present to an intelligent mind distinct from G.o.d, presupposes the creative act affirming to it an object distinct from itself, and itself as distinct from the object. When the subject is conscious of this truth, "G.o.d affirms himself to me," there are two terms in the formula, "G.o.d," and "Me;" involving the third uniting term of the creative act. The perception of other existences is simultaneous with the perception of himself, but logically prior to it; and his first rational act apprehends the existence of contingent, created substances, as well as the being of the absolute, uncreated essence. The elements of G.o.d and creation are in the most ultimate and primitive act of reason, and therefore in its const.i.tutive idea. The creation is the idea of finite essences in G.o.d externized by the Word who speaks them into existence. By the same Word, the intelligent, rational portion of creation is enlightened with the knowledge of this idea. It beholds G.o.d, as he expresses this idea in the creative act, and in no otherwise. It cannot see immediately, the necessity of his being, or, so to speak, the cause why G.o.d is and must be, but only the affirmation of this necessity in the creative act. But this affirmation is necessarily in conformity with the truth. It presents being as absolute, and creation as contingent, and therefore not necessary. False conceptions may not discriminate accurately between the two terms, being and existence; but when these false conceptions are corrected, and the idea brought fully into light, the very terms in which it is expressed clearly indicate G.o.d as alone necessary, creation as contingent, and the creative act as proceeding from the free will of the Creator.

G.o.d, and creation, are thus simultaneously affirmed in the creative act const.i.tuting the soul; although G.o.d is affirmed as first and creation second, in the logical order: G.o.d as cause and creation as effect; and although creation may be first distinctly perceived and reflected on, as being more connatural to the reflecting subject himself, and more directly in contact with his senses and reflecting faculties. The knowledge of G.o.d is limited to that which he expresses by the similitude of himself exhibited in the creation. Our positive conceptions of G.o.d in the reflective order are therefore derived from the imitations, or representations of the divine attributes in the world of created existences. An infinite, and, to natural powers, impa.s.sable abyss, separates us from the immediate intuition of the Divine Essence. The highest contemplative cannot cross this chasm; and the ultimatum of mystic theology is no more than the confession that the essence of G.o.d is unseen and invisible to any merely human intuition, unknown and unknowable by the natural power of any finite intelligence. We know _ut Deus sit, sed non quid sit Deus--that _G.o.d is, but not _what_ he is. We know that G.o.d is, by the affirmation of his being to reason. [Footnote 90] We form conceptions that enable our reflective faculties to grasp this affirmation, by means of the created objects in which he manifests his attributes, and through which, as through signs and symbols, images and pictures, he represents his perfections.

[Footnote 90: That is, after we have demonstrated that which is involved in the idea of being.]

This is the doctrine of St. Paul, the great father of Christian theology.

"Quis enim hominum, scit quae sunt hominis, nisi spiritus hominis qui in ipso est? Ita, et quae Dei sunt, nemo cognovit, nisi Spiritus Dei."

"For what man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of man which is in him? So the things also that are of G.o.d, no one knoweth but the Spirit of G.o.d."

We understand this to mean, that G.o.d alone has naturally the immediate intuition of his own essence and of the interior life and activity of his own being within himself.

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"Quod notum est Dei manifestum est in illis, Deus enim illis manifestavit. Invisibilia enim ipsius, a creatura mundi, per ea quae facta sunt intellecta, conspiciuntar; sempiterna quoqne ejus virtus et divinitas." "That which is known of G.o.d is manifest in them. For G.o.d hath manifested it to them. For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also and divinity."

That is, G.o.d affirms himself distinctly to the reason by the creative act, and simultaneously with the showing which he makes of his works.

"Videmus nunc per speculum in enigmate."

"We see now through a gla.s.s in an obscure manner, or more literally, in a riddle, parable, or allegory." [Footnote 91]

[Footnote 91: 1 Cor. ii. 11; Rom. i. 19, 20; 1 Cor. xiii. 12.]

That is, we understand the attributes and interior relations of G.o.d as these are made intelligible to our minds by a.n.a.logies derived from created things, in which, as in a mirror, the image of G.o.d is reflected. The original and obscure idea of G.o.d given to reason in its const.i.tution--but given only on that side of it which faces creation, including therefore in itself creation and its relation to the creator--may be represented in various forms. It must be distinctly borne in mind that our natural intuition is not an intuition of the substance or essence of the divine being, or an intuition of G.o.d by that uncreated light in which he sees himself and his works. G.o.d presents himself to the natural reason as Idea, or the first principle of intelligence and the intelligible, by the intelligibility which he gives to the creation. He does not disclose himself in his personality to the intellectual vision, but affirms himself to reason by a divine judgment. Our natural knowledge of G.o.d is therefore exclusively in the ideal order. The intuition from which this knowledge is derived may be called the intuition of the infinite, the eternal, the absolute the necessary, the true, the beautiful, the good, the first cause, the ultimate reason of things, etc. Real and necessary being, considered as the ground of the contingent and as facing the created intellect, adequately embraces and represents all. This intuition enters into all thought and is inseparable from the activity of the intelligent mind.

The intellect always does and must apprehend, the real, which is identical with the ideal, in its thought; and when this reality or verity which it apprehends is reflected on, it always yields up two elements, the necessary and the contingent, the infinite and the finite, the absolute and the conditioned. In apprehending G.o.d, we necessarily apprehend that the soul which apprehends and the creation by which it apprehends him, must exists. In apprehending creation, we apprehend that G.o.d must be in order that the creation may have existence. If we could suppose reason to begin with the idea of G.o.d, pure and simple, we could not show how it could arrive at any idea of the creature. Neither could we, beginning with the exclusive idea of the conditioned, deduce the idea of the absolute and necessary. We can never arrive by discursive reasoning, by reflection, by logic, by deduction or induction, at any truth, not included in the principles or intuitions with which we start. Demonstration discovers no new truth, but only discloses what is contained in the intuitions of reason. It explicates, but does not create. All that we know therefore about being and existences is contained implicitly in our original intuition.

Real being is the immediate object apprehended by reason, as St.

Thomas teaches, after Aristotle. "Ens namque est objectum intellectus primum, c.u.m nihil sciri possit, nisi ipsum quod est ens in actu, ut dicitur in 9 Met. Unde nec oppositum ejus intelligere potest intellectus, non ens." "For being is the primary object of the intellect, since nothing can be known but that which is being in act, as it is said in the 9 Met. Wherefore the intellect cannot {522} apprehend its opposite or not being." [Footnote 92] This appears to be plain. Either the intelligible which the intelligence apprehends is real or unreal, actual being or not being, ent.i.ty or nonent.i.ty, something or nothing. If the intelligence apprehends the unreal, not being, not ent.i.ty, no thing; it is not intelligence, it does not apprehend. These very terms are unstatable except as negations of a positive idea. I must have the idea of the real, or of being in act, before I can deny it. I must have the idea of my own existence before I can deny I existed a century ago. If I deny or question my present existence, I must affirm it first, before I deny it, by making myself the subject of a certain predicate, non-existence, or dubious existence.

[Footnote 92: Opus. cxiii. c. 1.]

There is only one door of escape open, which is the affirmation of an intuition of possible being. But what is the intuition of the possible without the intuition of the actual? How can I affirm that being is possible, unless I have an intuition of a cause or reason situated in the very idea of being which makes it possible, and if possible necessary and actual? The very notion of absolute being which is possible only, that is, reducible to act but not reduced to act, is absurd. For it is not reducible to act except by a prior cause which is then itself actual, necessary being, and ultimate cause.

Potentiality or possibility belongs only to the contingent, and is mere creability [sic] or reducibility to act through an efficient cause. Wherefore we cannot apprehend possible existence except in the apprehension of an ultimate, creative cause. All that is intelligible is either necessary being, or contingent existence having its cause in necessary being. The abstract or logical world is only a shadow or reflection of the real in our own minds, and instead of preceding and conditioning intuition, it is its product.

The real object apprehended by reason has various aspects, but they are aspects of the same object. The intuition of one aspect of being is called the intuition of truth or of the true, including truth both in the absolute and the contingent order. Truth, in regard to finite things, is the correspondence of a conception to an objective reality.

This finite reality cannot be apprehended as true without a simultaneous apprehension of necessary and eternal truth as its ground and reason. The mathematical truths, for instance, in their application to existing things, express the relations of finite numbers and quant.i.ties. They are, however, apprehended as necessarily and eternally true in an order of being independent of time, s.p.a.ce, and all contingent existences; which order of being is absolute: the type of all existing things, the ultimate ground of truth, the intelligible _in se_.

The intuition of the beautiful, which is "the splendor of the true,"

is the intuition of a certain type and the conformity of existing things to it, causing a peculiar complacency in the intellect. This complacency is grounded on a judgment of the eternal fitness and harmony of things, that is, of an absolute and necessary reason of their order in eternal truth, that is, in absolute being.

The intuition of the good is an intuition of being considered as the necessary object of volition, and of existences as having in their essence a ground of desirableness or an apt.i.tude to terminate an act of the will. Hence good and being are convertible terms. The absolute good is absolute being, and created good is a created existence conformed to the type of the good which is necessary and eternal.

The intuition of the infinite reduces itself in like manner to the intuition of absolute being accompanied by the intuition of the finite or relative with which it is compared. The absolute is being in its plenitude, the intelligible as comprehended by intelligence in its ultimate act, neither admitting of any increase. The finite is that which can be thought as capable of increase, but, increased indefinitely, never reaches {523} the infinite. The term infinite, as Fenelon well observes, though negative in form--expressing the denial of limitation--is the expression of a positive idea. Herbert Spencer proves the same in a luminous and cogent manner, even from the admissions of philosophers of the sceptical school of Kant. [Footnote 93] The intuition of the infinite gives us that which is not referable to an idea of a higher order, but is itself that idea to which all others are referred as the ultimate of thought and being. This intuition of the infinite always presents itself behind every conception, and makes itself the first element of every thought.

[Footnote 93: First Principles of a New System of Philosophy.]

This is clearly seen in the conceptions, commonly called the ideas, of s.p.a.ce and time. The intuition of the infinite will never permit us to fix any definite, unpa.s.sable limits to these conceptions, but forces us to endeavor perpetually to grasp infinity and eternity under an adequate mental representation, which we cannot do. We must, however, if we are faithful to reason, recognize behind these conceptions of s.p.a.ce that cannot be bounded and time that cannot be terminated either by beginning or end, the idea of being infinite as regards both, the reason of the possibility of finite things bearing to each other the relations of co-existence and successive duration.

The same intuition is at the root of the conception of the impossibility of limiting the divisibility of mathematical quant.i.ty.

Whichever way we turn, the idea of the infinite presents itself. We can never reach the boundary of multiplicability, nor can we reach the boundary of divisibility, which is only another form of multiplicability. The conception of ideal s.p.a.ce and number is rooted in the idea of the infinite power of G.o.d to create existences which have mathematical relations to each other. The positive multiplication or division of lines and numbers must always have a limit, but the radical possibility must always remain infinite, because it is included in the idea of G.o.d, which transcends all categories of s.p.a.ce, time or limitation.

The intuition of cause is in the same order of thought. Necessary being and contingent existence cannot be apprehended in the same idea, without the connecting link of the principle of causation. It has been fully proved by Hume and Kant, that we cannot certainly conclude the principle of causation from any induction of particular facts. We always a.s.sume it, before we begin to make the induction. It is an _a priori_ judgment that everything which exists must have a cause, and that all finite causes, receive their causality from a first cause or _causa causarum_. For every finite cause has a beginning, which comes from a prior cause, and an infinite series of finite causes being absurd, the idea of causation necessarily includes first cause, and is incapable of being thought or stated without it. Existence is not intelligible in itself, but in its cause, absolute being. Absolute being, though intelligible in itself, is not intelligible to human reason, except by the causative act terminated in existences, and making them intelligible. That is, being and existence, in the relation of cause and effect, are presented, and affirmed to reason, as the one complex object of its original intuition, and its const.i.tutive idea.

This is the point of co-incidence of the _a priori_ and _a posteriori_ arguments, demonstrating the Christian theistic conception. They a.n.a.lyze the synthetic judgment of reason, and show its contents. The argument, _a priori_ a.n.a.lyzes it on the side of being, showing what is contained in being, or _ens_. The argument _a posteriori_ a.n.a.lyzes it on the side of existence, _existentia_. But either argument implicitly contains the other. It is impossible to reason on either the first or last term of the synthetic judgment, without taking in the middle term of causation, which implies the third term, existence, if you begin {524} with being, and the first term, being, if you begin with existence. The theistic conception is G.o.d Creator. The theologian who begins to prove the proposition, G.o.d creates the world, cannot deduce creation by showing what is contained in the pure and simple idea of necessary, self-existing being. The idea of G.o.d includes the creative power, but not the creative act, which is free, and cannot be deduced from the primitive intuition, unless G.o.d affirms it to the reason in that intuition; and even the creative power, or the possibility of creation, cannot be deduced by human reason from the idea of necessary being. Thus, the argument _a priori_ really does not conclude the effect, that is, creation, by demonstrating it from the nature of the cause alone, but a.s.sumes it as known from the beginning.

In like manner, the theologian, who argues from the creation up to the creator, or from effect to cause, a.s.sumes that the creation is really created, and the effect of a cause exterior to itself; otherwise, the term existence could never conduct him to the term being.

We cannot demonstrate beyond what is given us in intuition, for all demonstration is a simple unfolding of the intuitive idea. The idea presents to us the creative act. If we reflect the causative or creative principle, whatever we logically explicate from it is indubitably true, because in conformity with the idea of first cause.

If we reflect the terminus of the causative act, or creation, whatever we logically explicate from it respecting the nature of eminent cause is indubitably true, for the same reason. In both cases we reason validly, and demonstrate all that is demonstrable in the case. In the first instance, we demonstrate what is really contained in the idea of necessary being, and bring this idea--under the form of a distinct conception--face to face with the reflective reason. In the second instance, we demonstrate the order of the universe, and the manifestation in it of divine power, wisdom and goodness. We demonstrate that the theistic conception, or the conception of G.o.d and his attributes, contained in Christian Theology, is that which we know intuitively in the light of the primitive idea, logically explicated and represented by a.n.a.logy in language. What we do not demonstrate, is the objective reality of the idea; for this is indemonstrable, as being the first principle of all demonstration. The idea is intelligible in itself, and illuminates the reason with intelligence.

The office of logic and reasoning is to inspect and scrutinize the idea, to represent in reflection that which is intelligible. By this process the idea of necessary being evolves itself, necessarily, into the complete theistic conception of G.o.d, as is shown most amply in the treatises of theologians and religious writers. [Footnote 94] We will endeavor to sum up their results in as brief and universal a synopsis as possible.

[Footnote 94: It will be seen, therefore, that the arguments _a priori_ and _a posteriori_ demonstrating the Christian doctrine of G.o.d, as stated by the great Catholic Theologians, have not been impugned, but, on the contrary, vindicated from the misrepresentation of a more modern and less profound school of philosophers.]

Beginning at this point, real necessary being is in itself the intelligible; we lay down first that which is most radical and ultimate in the conception of the living, personal G.o.d and Creator; namely, absolute, infinite _intelligence_.

The absolute intelligible being must be absolute intelligent being.

The intelligible is only intelligible to intelligence. What is the idea, or ideal truth or being, without an intelligent subject? What is infinite idea, or infinite object of thought, without infinite intelligent subject? That which is intelligible in itself necessarily, absolutely, and infinitely, must necessarily be the terminating object of intelligence equal to itself, that is infinite. This intelligence cannot be created, for then it would be finite. It must be included in absolute being. {525} Being includes in itself all that is. It therefore includes intelligence. It contains in itself all that is necessary to its own perfection. Its perfection as intelligible requires its perfection as intelligent. Absolute being is therefore infinitely intelligible and intelligent in its own nature and idea. It is the intelligible being which is intelligent being, and only intelligent spirit, which is in its very essence intelligence, can be necessarily and infinitely intelligible; for only self-existent infinite spirit has the absolute infinite activity necessary to irradiate the light of the intelligible. The light of the intelligible irradiates our created intelligence by an act which const.i.tutes it rational spirit. This act must be the act of supreme, absolute, infinite intelligence. Whatever is in the creature, must be infinite in the creator. The world of finite, intelligent spirits can only proceed from an infinite, intelligent spirit, as first and eminent cause. The sensible and physical world also is apprehended by our reason as intelligible, and is intelligible, only in intelligent cause; which throws open the vast and magnificent field of demonstration from the order and harmony of nature. The intelligible in the order of the finite, is a reflection of the intelligible in the order of the infinite. The intelligible in the order of the infinite, is the adequate object of infinite intelligence. The intelligible _in se_ is identical with being in its plenitude; and being in plenitude is necessarily infinite, intelligent spirit. [Footnote 95]