Catholicity And Pantheism.
Number Three.
The Problem Of Multiplicity.
In the development of the Catholic idea of God, which we have given in the previous number, we have met with no opposition from pantheism.
Here, however, it raises the most difficult as well as the most sublime and profound question which can be proposed to human intelligence—the problem of multiplicity. We shall let a pantheist propose it in his own words.
It will be remembered that the last of the attributes which we vindicated as belonging to the infinite was that of absolute unity. This attribute gives rise to the problem.
"What is unity," says Cousin, "taken by itself? A unity indivisible, a dead unity, a unity which, resting in the depths of its absolute existence, and never developing itself, is, for itself, as if it were not. In the same manner, what is variety without unity? A variety which, not being referable to a unity, can never form a totality, or any collection whatever, is a series of indefinite quantities, of each of which one cannot say that it is itself and not another, for this would suppose that it is one; that is, it would suppose the idea of unity; so that, without unity, variety also is as if it were not. Behold what variety or unity isolated would produce; the one is necessary to the other in order to exist with true existence; with that existence, which is neither multiple, various, mobile, or negative existence; nor that absolute, eternal, infinite existence, which is, as it were, the negation of existence. Every true existence, every reality, is in the union of these two elements; although, essentially, the one may be superior and anterior to the other. You cannot separate variety from unity, nor unity from variety; they necessarily coexist. But how do they coexist? Unity is anterior to multiplicity; how then has unity been able to admit multiplicity?" [Footnote 162]
[Footnote 162: Cousin's History of Modern Philosophy.]
Again: "Reason, in whatever way it may occupy itself, can conceive nothing, except under the condition of two ideas, which preside over the exercise of its activity; the idea of the unit, and the idea of the multiple; of the finite and the infinite; of being and of appearing; of substance and of phenomenon; of absolute cause and of secondary causes; of the absolute and of the relative; of the necessary and of the contingent; of immensity and of space, of eternity and of time.
"Analysis, in bringing together all these propositions, in bringing together, for example, all their first terms, identifies them; it equally identifies all the second terms, so that, of all these propositions compared and combined, it forms a single proposition, a single formula, which is the formula itself of thought, and which you can express, according to the case, by the unit and by the multiple, the absolute being and the relative being, unity and variety, etc. Finally, the two terms of this formula, so comprehensive, do not constitute a dualism in which the first term is on one side, the second on the other, without any other relation than that of being perceived at the same time by reason. The relation concerning them is quite otherwise essential, unity being eternity, etc.; the first term of the formula is cause also, and absolute cause; and, so far as absolute cause, it cannot avoid developing itself in the second term, multiplicity, the finite and the relative.
"The result of all this is, that the two terms, as well as the relation of generation which draws the second from the first, and which, without cessation, refers to it, are the three integral elements of reason. It is not in the power of reason, in its boldest abstractions, to separate any one of these three terms from the others. Try to take away unity, and variety alone is no longer susceptible of addition—it is even no longer comprehensible; or, try to take away variety, and you have an immovable unity—a unity which does not make itself manifest, and which, of itself, is not a thought; all thought expressing itself in a proposition, and a single term not sufficing for a proposition; in short, take away the relation which intimately connects variety and unity, and you destroy the necessary tie of the two terms of every proposition. We may then regard it as an incontestable point, that these three terms are distinct but inseparable, and that they constitute at the same time a triplicity and an indivisible unity." [Footnote 163]
[Footnote 163: Lecture Fifth.]
As the reader may have observed, Cousin raises the problem of multiplicity. He expresses it under a logical form, but the problem is a metaphysical one, and hence applicable to all orders, logical as well as ontological. It is raised by all pantheists, whose words we abstain from quoting for brevity's sake; and so far as the problem itself is concerned, it is a legitimate one; and every one, who has thought deeply on these matters, and is not satisfied with merely looking at the surface of things, must accept it.
Let us put it in its clearest light. The infinite, considered merely as unity, actuality, (all words which mean the same thing,) can be known neither to itself nor to any other intelligence. It cannot be known to itself. For to know implies thought, and thought is absolutely impossible without a duality of knowing and of being known, of subject and of object. It implies an intelligence, an object, and a relation between the two. If, then, there is no multiplicity in the infinite, it cannot know itself. It is, for itself, as if it were not; for what is a being which cannot know itself?
Nor can it be known to any other intelligence; for mere existence, pure unity does not convey any idea necessary to satisfy the intelligence.
Moreover, the mere existence and unity of an object does not make it, on that account, intelligible. For an object to be intelligible, it is required that it should be able to act on the intelligence, such being the condition of intelligibility. [Footnote 164] Now, action implies already a multiplicity, a subject and the action. Therefore, if the infinite were mere pure unity, it could not be intelligible to any intelligence. But in the supposition that there is a kind of multiplicity in the infinite, how would multiplicity be reconciled with unity? How would these two terms agree?
[Footnote 164: See Balmes's Fundamental Philosophy, on Intelligibility.]
Multiplicity seems to be a necessary condition of the infinite, without which it would not be intelligible either to itself or to others. Absolute unity seems also to be a necessary attribute of the infinite, and yet these two necessary conditions seem to exclude each other. How then must we bring them together?
This is the problem to be solved; the grandest and most sublime problem of philosophy; which has occupied every school of philosophy since man began to turn his mind to philosophical researches.
The two great antagonists, pantheism and catholicity, give an answer to the problem, and it is the province of this article to discuss the two solutions, and see which of them can stand the test of logic, and really answer the problem instead of destroying it. We shall enter upon the discussion, after premising a few remarks necessary to the right understanding of the discussion.
The first remark which we shall make is to call the attention of the reader to the absolute necessity for the existence of the problem.
It is not pantheism, nor Catholicity, which arbitrarily raises the problem; it exists in the very essence of being, in the very essence of intelligibility. Those philosophers who cannot see it may have taken a cursory glance over some pages of what purports to be philosophy, but they never understood a word of that which really deserves the name of that sublime science. We make this remark for two different reasons: First, in order to close the door to all the objections raised against the problem. For if it is demonstrated that a multiplicity is required in the infinite, then to raise objections against it only shows want of philosophic depth, but does not prove anything against the existence of the problem. We shall return to this subject. The second reason is a consequence of the first, to wit, that should we find that the answer to the problem is not as clear and evident as we might desire, we must not, on that account, reject the problem, but should be satisfied with the light that is afforded. This is but reasonable. Deny the problem we cannot. It follows then that we must be satisfied with an answer which, whilst it saves the problem, throws as much light on it as is possible, under the circumstances.
Pantheistic Solution Of The Problem
Of Multiplicity And Unity In The Infinite.
Pantheism arrives at infinite unity by eliminating from it all possible determination, definition, reality, ideality, thought, will, consciousness; and rising from abstraction to abstraction, from elimination to elimination, from a more limited indefiniteness to a higher and broader and less restricted one, up to mere simple, unalloyed abstraction and unity.
All pantheists follow the same process in order to arrive at unity. Cousin calls it dead, immovable, inconceivable; a thing existing as if it were not; the Being—Unreality of Hegel. But ascended to such a summit, all multiplicity eliminated, and pure unalloyed unity once found, how is multiplicity to be reconstructed? With the greatest ease in the world. Pantheists make this Being—nothing unfold and develop itself like a silkworm; alleging, as a reason for such development, an intrinsic necessity of nature, an imperative instinct which broods in its bosom.
Thus they reconstruct multiplicity by making the Infinite become finite, cosmos, matter, spirit, humanity, etc. Let us hear Cousin: "This is the fundamental vice of ancient and modern theories; they place unity on one side, and multiplicity on the other; the infinite and the finite in such an opposition that the passage from one to the other seems impossible."
And, after having remarked that this was the error of the school of Elea, he continues: "Immensity or unity of space, eternity or unity of time, unity of numbers, unity of perfection, the ideal of all beauty, the Infinite, the absolute substance, being itself, is a cause also, not a relative, contingent, finite cause, but an absolute cause. Now, being an absolute cause, it cannot avoid passing into action. If being, in itself alone, is given as absolute substance without causality, the world is impossible; but if being in itself is also a cause and an absolute cause, movement and the world naturally follow. The true absolute is not pure being in itself; it is power and cause taken absolutely, which consequently creates absolutely, and, in developing itself, produces all that you see around you."
We quote Cousin in preference to others on account of his lucidity of style and expressions; but every one acquainted with the systems of the German pantheists knows that their answer to the problem of multiplicity is substantially the same. We refer the reader, in confirmation of our assertion, to the excellent lectures on the systems of the German Pantheists, of Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus, professor at the University of Kiel.
Now, does the answer resolve the problem? Does it really conciliate unity with multiplicity in the Infinite? Does it really maintain intact the two terms of the problem? We think that it does not, and maintain that it destroys both terms of the problem. The leading idea and principle of Pantheism is that unity is becoming multiplicity.
It is an existence in a continual ex-sistere in an emergence and manifestation. [Footnote 165]
[Footnote 165: Chalybäus' Lectures, etc.]
Now, who can fail to perceive that if unity is such, that is, unity when it is merely potential, when it has only the power of becoming, of passing into multiplicity, it is doubtless destroyed as soon as it passes from the power into the act; or, in other words, it is destroyed as unity when it becomes multiplicity? Strip this idea of a potential unity becoming actual multiplicity, strip it of all the logical phantasmagoria with which it has been adorned, especially by pantheists of the German school, which phantasmagoria can only impose upon the simple, and you can see, as clearly as that two and two make four, that the whole thing amounts to nothing but to this; that unity vanishes as soon as it becomes multiplicity. It is with a special intention that we have made use of the simile of the silkworm. This poor creature too, like the unity of the pantheists, has an instinct given it by God, of unfolding and developing itself, and the effect of its operation is the silk which serves to set off the beauty of man. But unfortunately, the process of development exhausts the little creature; for when it is completed, the poor creature dies, and its development is its death, and its production is its shroud; yet, it has this advantage over the unity of the pantheists, that its remains continue to exist, whereas their unity evaporates completely in multiplicity. To speak more seriously, it is perfectly evident to every mind, that the answer of the pantheists destroys the very problem it undertakes to solve. Unity is unity so long as it is a potency, a power of becoming; it vanishes as soon as it becomes multiplicity. Add to this, that their unity, to be infinite, must remain undefined, potential, and in the possibility of becoming; such being their idea of the Infinite. For which reason they eliminate from it every limitation, all individuality, all thought, all consciousness. The natural consequence of this principle must be that it remains infinite so long as it is wrapped up in its vagueness and indefiniteness. Let it come forth from its indefiniteness, let it become definite, limited, concrete, and its infinity together with its unity is gone. It evaporates in the finite forms it assumes. On the other hand, let it remain absorbed in its indefiniteness, in its abstractiveness, and consequently, in its infinity, and multiplicity can no longer be conceived. It is absurd then to speak of multiplicity in the Infinite of the Pantheists, since it is clear that, when it assumes multiplicity, it can no longer be either infinite or one; and when it remains infinite it cannot be conceived as multiple. All this we have said, conceding the premises of pantheism. But we have, in the first article, demonstrated the following principles:
1st. If the pantheists take their unity in the sense of a pure abstraction, a transient act, the elements of which do not last one single instant, it is in that case an absolute nonentity, an utter unreality, and then it is useless to speak of multiplicity, since ex nihilo nihil fit.
2d. Or, they suppose their unity as something really existing, having the power of gradual development, and in that case we have demonstrated that such a being could not develop itself without the aid of a foreign being.
The premises of pantheism then being false, the solution of the problem falls to the ground independently of its intrinsic value, if it have any, which we have shown it has not.
Pantheism cannot answer the problem of multiplicity. How can we then attain to its solution?
We answer: the Catholic Church resolves it, giving such an explanation of it as the finite and limited intellect of man may reasonably expect. For the Catholic Church does not pretend to give such a solution of the problem as to enable us thoroughly to understand it. She proceeds from two premises, to wit, that God is infinite, and that man, necessarily distinct from God, is finite, and therefore endowed only with finite intelligence. That these premises are true, appears evident from the demonstration we have already given, in which we have shown that the pantheistic idea of the infinite is the idea of finite being when it is not taken as meaning only an abstraction, a pure mathematical point. The ideas of the infinite and the finite exist, and therefore there must be also objects corresponding to these ideas. We shall return to this subject in a following number.
From these two ideas of the finite and the Infinite, it follows that man can never comprehend God; or, in other words, that the intelligence of man, with the relation to God as its object, must find mysteries or truths above and beyond its capacity. For, as it is absurd to shut up a body of large size in a body of much more limited size, supposing the present conditions of bodies not suspended, so it is absurd to suppose that the intellect of man, limited and finite, could grasp or take in God, who is infinite. We are aware of the opposition which is made by many to mysteries or super-intelligible truths; but we insist upon it, that all such opposition would vanish, if men would study philosophy more deeply and more assiduously. Why, a real philosopher, one who has sounded the depths of creation, and plunged into the profundity of the great ideas of being, of substance, of the absolute, of the infinite, the finite and the relative, into the ideas of eternity, of immensity, of immutability, of space and time, into the ideas of cause, of action, of movement; one who has entered into the labyrinth of his soul, and tried to catch the flying phenomena of its life, and to analyze all the fibres of its consciousness; such a one meets, at every step, with mysteries, and the more he digs into them, the profounder and the wider is the abyss lying at his feet. If we should meet with a man denying mysteries, and desirous to engage in a discussion, we would beg of him to go and first study the alphabet of philosophy.
The problem, then, proposing the reconciliation of unity with multiplicity in the Infinite, is held by the Catholic Church as a mystery, a truth which cannot be thoroughly understood by the human mind. But, notwithstanding all this, the solution which Catholic doctrine affords, though a mystery, is clear enough to be perceived, and distinct enough to make us see through the agreement of the two terms of the problem; so that, through the help of the Catholic Church, we shall have all the light thrown upon the problem in question which man may reasonably expect, seeing that the object of the problem is the Infinite, and the intellect apprehending it only limited and finite.