IS THERE A GOD?
Some of those who have heard me venture to examine the question of the existence of Deity viva voce, have desired to have my reasons for holding the Atheistic position briefly stated, and while I do not pretend to exhaust the subject in these few pages, I trust to say enough to provoke thought and inquiry. I do not say, "There is no God," and the scarcely polite rejoinder of those who quote the Psalmist can not, therefore, be applied with justice toward myself. I have never yet heard living man give me a clear, coherent definition of the word "God," and I have never read any definition from either dead or living man expressing a definite and comprehensible idea of Deity. In fact, it has always appeared to me that men use that word rather to hide their ignorance than to express their knowledge.*
* In Sir William Hamilton's Essay on Cousin, I find a note
quoting Mr. Piesse on Kant, in which the word God stands
as the equivalent for a phase of the unknowable.
Climatic conditions often, and diversity of human race always, govern and modify the meaning conveyed by the word. By "God" one nation or sect expresses love; another, vengeance; another, good; another, wisdom; another, fire; another, water; another, air; another, earth; and some even confound their notion of Deity with that of devil. Elihu Palmer well observes: "The Christian world worships three infinite gods, and one omniscient devil." I do not deny "God," because that word conveys to me no idea, and I can not deny that which presents to me no distinct affirmation, and of which the would-be affirmer has no conception. I can not war with a nonentity. If, however, God is affirmed to represent an existence which is distinct from the existence of which I am a mode, and which it is alleged is not the noumenon, of which the word "I" represents only a specialty of phenomena, then I deny "God," and affirm that it is impossible "God" can be. That is, I affirm that there is one existence, and deny that there can be more than one. Atheists are sometimes content to say to their opponents, your "proofs" are no proofs, your "evidences" are failures, you do not and can not prove the existence of Deity. This ground may be safe, but the conduct of its occupier is not daring. The swordsman who always guarded and parried, but never ventured cut or thrust, might himself escape unwounded, but he would thus make but little progress toward victory over his opponent.
It is well to show that the position of your antagonist is weak, but it is better to prove that you are strong.
In a paper as limited as the present, it is necessary to be brief both in answer to opponents and in the statements of my own opinions. This is rather intended as the challenging speech of a debate, not as a complete essay on the existence of Deity.
There are two modes in which Theists endeavor to prove the existence of God, and each of these modes is in its turn denounced by Theistic writers—1st, the a priori; 2d, the a posteriori. Of the former, Pearson, in his "Prize Essay on Infidelity," says: "The a priori mode of reasoning is the exclusive idol of many of the German logicians.... But in their hands this kind of reasoning has completely failed. It conducts the mind to no firm resting place; it bewilders instead of elucidating our notions of God, of man, and the universe. It gives us no divine personal existence, and leaves us floating in a region of mere vague abstractions. Such reasonings are either altogether vain or are not really what they profess to be. In our country the name of Dr. Clarke is chiefly associated with the a priori argument.... Clarke himself found it necessary to stoop to the argument a posteriori, and thereby acknowledged the fallacy of attempting to reason exclusively a priori.... The fate of Dr. Clarke's pretended demonstration, and the result, in so far as theology is concerned, of the transcendental reasoning of the continental philosophers, show the futility of attempting to rise up to the height of the great argument of the existence of God by the a priori method alone."
Of the latter, William Gillespie, in his "Treatise on the Necessary Existence of Deity," writes that it "can never make it appear that infinity belongs in any way to God." It "can only entitle us to infer the existence of a being of finite extension, for, by what rule in philosophy can we deduce from the existence of an object finite in extent (and nothing is plainer than that the marks of design which we can discover must be finite in their extent) the existence of a cause of infinity of extension? What, then, becomes of the omnipresence of the Deity, according to those who are content to rest satisfied from the reasoning of experience?... It will be vain to talk of the Deity being present by his energy? although he may not be present by his substance, to the whole universe. For, 'tis natural to ask not so much how it is proved that God is virtually present, though not substantially present, in every part of nature, as what can be meant by being everywhere present by mere energy?" This reasoning can no more make out that the Deity is omnipresent by his virtue, than that he is omnipresent as to his substance.... And, from the inaptitude of the reasoning under consideration to show that immensity, or omnipresence, belongs to God, it will be found to follow, directly and immediately, that his wisdom and power can not be shown to be more than finite, and that he can never be proved to be a free agent.... Omnipresence (let it be only by energy) is absolutely necessary in a being of infinity of wisdom. And therefore, 'the design argument' is unable to evince that the Deity is in possession of this attribute. It likewise plainly follows, from the inaptitude of this argument to show that God is omnipresent, that thereby we can not prove infinity of power to belong to him. For, if the argument can not make out that the being it discovers is everywhere present, how can it ever make out that he is everywhere powerful? By careful reflection, too, we may perceive that omnipotence of another kind than power, winch can exert itself in all places, requires the existence of immensity. "The design argument" can never evince that God is a free agent....
If we can not prove the immensity or omnipresence of the Deity, we can for that reason never show that he is omniscient, that he is omnipotent, that he is entirely free.... If the Deity can not be proved to be of infinity in any given respect, it would be nothing less than absurd to suppose that he could be proved to be of infinity in any other respect. It "can do no more than prove that at the commencement of the phenomena which pass under its review, there existed a cause exactly sufficient to make the effects begin to be. That this cause existed from eternity, the reasonings from experience by no means show. Nay, for aught they make known, the designer himself may not have existed long before those marks of design which betoken his workmanship." This reasoning "can not prove that the God whom it reveals has existed from all eternity, therefore, for anything it intimates, God may at some time cease to be, and the workmanship may have an existence when the workman hath fallen into annihilation.... Such reasonings can never assure us of the unity of the Deity." Whether there be one God or not, the argument from experience doth by no means make clear. It discovers marks of design in the phenomena of nature, and infers the existence of at least one intelligent substance sufficient to produce them. Further, however, it advances not our knowledge. Whether the cause of the phenomena be one God or many Gods, it pretends not to determine past all doubt.... But did this designer create the matter in which the design appeared? Of this the argument can not convince us, for it does no more than infer a designing cause from certain appearances, in the same way we would infer from finding some well-contrived machine in a desert that a human being had left it there.... Now, because this reasoning can not convince us of such a creation, it can not convince us there is not a plurality of deities, or of the causes of things.... If we can not prove the eternity of God, it is not possible we can prove the unity of God. To say that, for anything we know to the contrary, he may have existed from all eternity, being much the same as saying that, for anything we know to the contrary, there may be another God or many Gods beside." Sir W. Hamilton considered that the only valid arguments for the existence of a God, and for the immortality of the human soul, rest on the ground of man's moral nature.
Dr. Lyman Beecher issued, some few years since, a series of lectures on Atheism, without merit or fairness, and which are here only alluded to as fairly illustrating a certain class of orthodox opposition. His statements of Atheistic opinions are monstrous perversions, and his answers are directed against the straw man built together by himself. The doctrine of "almighty chance" which Dr. Beecher attacks, is one which I never heard an educated Atheist teach, and the misrepresentation of Freethought objects is so obvious that it can only be effectual with those who have never freed themselves from the trammels which habit and fashion-faith bound upon them in their infancy, and which have strengthened with their growth. The Rev. J. Orr, in his "Treatise on Theism," says, "All inquiry about chance is, however, impertinent in the present day. The idea is an infantine one, possible of entertainment only in the initial state of human knowledge. Chance is not the position relied upon by modern Atheism. And when, therefore, the Theist expends the artillery of his argument upon this broken down and obsolete notion, he is intermeddling with the dead, and after accomplishing the destruction of the venerable fallacy, the modern Atheist will likely ask him to come down to the nineteenths century and meet him there."