It would be easy to show that all those writers on "Natural Theology" who have made the least concession in regard to this fundamental question have involved themselves in entanglements and difficulties from which they could not logically extricate themselves.
Dr. Chalmers contends that the mere existence of matter with its properties and laws would not involve the affirmation of an Absolute First Cause. The proof, he says, lies solely in the disposition, collocation, and arrangement of these properties and laws in their relation to each other, so as to secure harmonious and beneficial results. So far as the argument for the existence of God is concerned, he provisionally concedes that matter, with all its laws, may be eternal.[114] True, he says that he grants the eternity of matter simply for the purposes of his argument. But what right has he to grant it for the purposes of his argument, and then to deny it in obedience to the decisive affirmation of a "well-accredited revelation?" If Divine revelation teaches the non-eternity of matter, this is for the Christian a truth—a fundamental truth; and whoever surrenders or compromises a fundamental position must finally fail in his management of the Theistic argument. The intuitions of reason and the doctrines of revelation are but separate rays from the one eternal fountain of light; and if we ignore or compromise the fundamental truths of revelation, reason will refuse to place her imprimatur upon and give her indorsement to our lame and halting proofs. This is strikingly illustrated by Chalmers's failure to "construct an argument for a God" that satisfies the reason, after he has affirmed "the eternity of matter for the purpose of bringing out his conclusion" (p. 79). But Dr. Chalmers can not stop with the simple concession that matter is eternal. Only grant its necessary existence, and "it is impossible to imagine that along with existence it should not have properties ... and laws" (p. 75). Now, if the admission that a finite, composite, divisible substance may be self-existent, and have eternal properties and laws, is not logically inconsistent, how can he show that these properties and laws in their eternal action and reaction are not adequate to the production of a series of phenomena which to our understanding may appear harmonious? Can eternal laws produce any thing but order? The existing order of things is the only possible order that could arise from the necessary operation of eternal laws, and there can be no choice, design, or purpose in the universe. Collocation, arrangement, adaptation, are only subjective anthropomorphic conceptions we impose upon nature. If matter and its laws are eternal, how will Chalmers extricate himself from this dilemma? By this admission he places a weapon in the hands of the anti-Theist, by which the latter may cut the teleological argument to pieces.
My esteemed friend, Dr. Mahan, in his zeal to overthrow the ontological proof of the being of God, and to vindicate for the etiological proof the sole claim to validity, has been betrayed into a similar inconsistency. That there is any à priori proof of the being of God is in his estimation a "wild chimera." "Formation from pre-existing materials" constitutes "the exclusive basis" of Natural Theology.[115] Matter, then, may be eternal, and an infinite series of events existing in a state of order is conceivable and possible. At page 85 of his "Natural Theology" he writes: "Mr. Hume has undeniably announced the truth as it is upon this subject, to wit, that the idea of a nature eternally existing in a state of order without a cause other than the eternally inhering laws of nature, is no more self-contradictory than the idea of an eternally existing and infinite mind who originated this order—a mind existing without a cause." After several pages disfigured by a labored effort to prove the possibility and logical consistency of an "infinite series of events existing in an orderly succession," he sums up with the imperious assertion that "the argument against the possibility of an infinite series of events stands revealed as a logical absurdity" (p. 88).
It is our deliberate conclusion, however, that the "logical absurdity" lies in the position of Dr. Mahan. "The idea of order in the Finite without a cause is no more self-contradictory than the idea of order in the Infinite without a cause." Mark the two points which stand out clearly in this strange assertion. First, the Finite here is nature—that is, matter and its laws. Secondly, the Infinite is the Supreme Mind. Dr. Mahan asserts that this finite may be conceived as eternally existing—that is, as existing through infinite time; in other words, the finite may be infinite. For a thing or being, or for a series of things or beings, to be at once "finite" and "infinite" Dr. Mahan says "is not self-contradictory." This is on a par with the logic of Hegel—"Contradictory opposites are identical." Again, we ask, Is there no difference between "finite matter" and "Infinite Mind?" Is not matter composite, extended, divisible, and limited? Is not Infinite Mind unextended, incomposite, indivisible, and illimitable? The mere existence of matter does not necessarily involve the idea of Order. There are nebulæ existing in the universe "utterly devoid of all symmetry of form, ... irregular and capricious in their shapes and convolutions to a most extraordinary degree."[116] Wherever order is presented, we instinctively and infallibly ascribe it to mind. Mind for all of us, and forever, is the analogon and exponent of Order in every sphere, irrespective of all knowledge on our part as to when or how it had a beginning.
Furthermore, on the main issue we affirm briefly—if matter is extended, it is measurable; if it is measurable, it must have definite limits; if it has definite limits, it can not be infinite. Now that which is finite, limited, quantitive, conditioned, can not be self-existent, can not be infinite. Infinitude is illimitation by kind, quantity, or degree—illimitation by temporal, spatial, or numerical relations. An "infinite series" is therefore a contradiction in adjecto. "As every number, although immeasurably and inconceivably great, is impossible without unity as its basis, so every series, being itself a number, is impossible unless a first term is given as its commencement.... Even if it should be allowed that the series has no first term, but has originated ab æterno, it must always at each instant have a last term; the series as a whole can not be infinite."[117] If one thing more can be added to the number of existing things in the universe, then it is not infinite in number or in extent. In short, a series implies a succession of terms, or members, or links; if there is a last term, there must be a first term; if there is a last link, there must be a first. Through an Unconditioned First Cause, originating and conditioning all the members thereof, is a series conceivable or possible. To apply to number or quantity the designation of infinitude is surely the "absurdity" in presence of which all others pale. We grant that the term "infinite series" is employed by mathematicians in a loose manner, to denote that which exceeds our powers of mensuration or conception, but which nevertheless has bounds or limits—the indefinite, but not the infinite;[118] such loose use of terms in philosophy, however, is inadmissible. The final reply of Dr. Mahan, "that the series under consideration is one which by hypothesis has no first," is the extreme of absurdity. It is as though a man should talk of a "round square" or a "bilinear figure," and when remonstrated with as to the contradictory character of these phrases, should reply, "Yes, but the 'square' under consideration is one which by hypothesis is 'round,' and the 'figure' is one which by hypothesis is formed by 'two lines!'" Men may make all kinds of strange hypotheses, but the strangest of all is that of an infinite-finite.
These incautious writers of "Natural Theology" all assert, as a fundamental doctrine, that God is the Absolute and Unconditioned Cause. We might ask, Whence do they derive this fundamental truth that God is "absolute and unconditioned," if not by an à priori rational intuition? We let that pass, however, to press the more pertinent question—How can God be "the absolute cause," if matter is coeval with and independent of Him? And how can He be the "unconditioned cause," if space, time, number, and matter necessarily exist as the conditions of the Divine agency and manifestation? If matter, with its essential properties and laws, exist independent of the Deity, do not these impose conditions upon the action of the Deity, and determine it to certain necessary modes? If so, God can not be the unconditioned Cause. Instead of one supreme, sole First Principle, there are at least two principles, God and Necessity, and may be more. No system of Natural Theology can maintain its integrity and consistency except by holding fast to the fundamental postulate—God is the Absolute and Unconditioned Cause of all things, of matter and form, quality and relation, purpose and law.
And now, in conclusion, we may properly ask, Whence arises the necessity for assuming the coeval and co-eternal existence of matter besides and independent of God? Why should the theologian feel himself under the necessity of prejudicing the Biblical conception of Creation by any such concession? The only reasons we have seen assigned are, first, that "creation out of nothing is discredited by the discoveries of modern science;"[119] secondly, that "an absolute origination is inconceivable and self-destructive."[120] In attempting an estimate of the weight of these reasons, we would first suggest that the question of absolute creation has been prejudiced by the persistent employment of the old formula of "creation out of nothing," as though "nothing" contained the cause of existence, and the universe was developed out of nothing. The Christian Fathers, who first employed the phrase κτίσις ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος, never indulged in such representations. The idea they sought to express was that the production of "otherness," the awarding of existence to something besides Himself, was an absolutely free act of God which was not conditioned by any thing external to Himself—in a word, that God is the positive original ground of all existence.
But who shall decide that this doctrine has been discredited by the progress of science? What special discovery of modern science has so revealed to us the ultimate constitution of matter, that we can affirm its absolute reality and its eternal existence? Nay, are the most advanced physicists and physiologists agreed as to whether, apart from our subjective, ideal conceptions, matter has any reality? If we are not utterly mistaken, the entire tendency of science is to reduce matter from the rank of entities to the rank of phenomena. "The old speculations of Philosophy, which cut the ground from Materialism by showing how little we know of matter, are now being daily reinforced by the subtle analysis of the physiologist, the chemist, and the electrician. Under that analysis matter dissolves and disappears, surviving only as the phenomena of Force."[121] We offer no opinion as to the validity of this new doctrine, but are sure it is the doctrine of modern science as represented by Faraday, Owen, McVicar, Bayma, Exley, Wallace, Poisson, Poyntong, Laycock, and, we think, Huxley. If modern science has resolved all our external sensations, even the feeling of resistance, into "phenomena of Force," then, according to the doctrine of Mr. Martineau, it had a beginning—"phenomena demand causation.... Supreme Entity needs no cause." "The universe resolves itself into a perpetual genesis," and "the Theist is perfectly justified in treating it as disqualified for self-existence."[122]
Sir William Hamilton contends that "an absolute commencement" is inconceivable. All the conception we can possibly form of Creation is "merely as the evolution of new forms of existence by the fiat of the Deity." "Let us suppose the very crisis of creation. Can we realize it to ourselves in thought, that the moment after the universe came into manifested being there was a larger complement of existence in the universe and its Author together than there was the moment before in the Deity himself alone? This we can not imagine."[123]