The truth, that all the faculties of man's being must co-operate in the formation of the idea of God, is well enforced and illustrated in an article on "The Origin of the Concept of God," by the Rev. George T. Ladd, in the 'Bibliotheca Sacra,' vol. xxxiv.; also in Principal M'Cosh's 'Method of the Divine Government,' B. i., c. i., sec. 1, and 'Intuitions of the Mind,' Pt. iii., B. ii., c. v., sec. 2. The following quotation from Mr Ladd's article is a statement of its central idea: "Nothing is more necessary, in the endeavour to understand how the concept under consideration originates, than to hold correct views of the entire relation of man to truth. The view which, if not held as a theory, is quite too frequently carried out in the practical search after knowledge, seems to be this one—that truth is a product of mind wrought out by the skilful use of the ratiocinative faculties. It follows, then, that the correct working of these faculties is almost the only important or necessary guarantee of truth. But it is not any lone faculty or set of faculties which is concerned in man's reception of truth. The truth becomes ours only as a gift from without. All truth is of the nature of a revelation, and demands that the organ through which the revelation is made should be properly adjusted. The organ for the reception of truth is symmetrically cultured manhood, rightly correlated action, and balanced capabilities of man's different powers. The attitude of him who would attain to truth is one of docility, of receptiveness, of control exercised upon all the powers of the soul,—so that none of them, by abnormal development or activity, interfere with the action of all the rest.... If the statements just made are true with regard to human knowledge in general, they are pre-eminently true with regard to such knowledge as is presented to the soul in the form of the concept of God. The pure in heart shall see God; they that obey shall know of the doctrine; the things of the spirit are spiritually judged of. These statements are as profound in their philosophic import as they are quickening in their practical tendencies. This concept comes as God's revelation of Himself within all the complex activities of the human soul. It is adapted to man as man in the totality of his being and energies. And the whole being of man must be co-operative in the reception of this self-revelation of God, as well as met and filled by the form which the revelation takes, in order that the highest truth concerning God may become known.... In his work on Mental Physiology, Dr Carpenter speaks of certain departments of science 'in which our conclusions rest, not on any one set of experiences, but upon our unconscious co-ordination of the whole aggregate of our experience; not on the conclusions of any one train of reasoning, but on the convergence of all our lines of thought toward one centre.' These words, italicised by that author himself, well represent the form in which the knowledge of God is given to the human soul. It is the convergence of these lines of thought that run together from so many quarters which makes a web of argument far stronger to bind men than any single thread could be. This is a form of proof which, while it is, when understood aright, overwhelmingly convincing, gives also to all the elements of our complex manhood their proper work to do in its reception. In its reception it makes far greater difference, whether the moral and religious sections of the whole channel through which the truth flows are open or not, than whether the faculty of the syllogism is comparatively large or not. Nor is there any effort to disparage any intellectual processes involved, in thus insisting upon the complete and co-ordinated activity of the soul, as furnishing the organon for the knowledge of God. All the strings of the harp must be in tune, or there will be discord, not harmony, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it."
That the power of apprehending God is conditioned by the character of man's nature as a whole, was clearly seen and beautifully expressed by the ancient Christian apologist, Theophilus. "If thou sayest, show me thy God, I answer, show me first thy man, and I will show thee my God. Show me first, whether the eyes of thy soul see, and the ears of thy heart hear. For as the eyes of the body perceive earthly things, light and darkness, white and black, beauty and deformity, &c., so the ears of the heart and the eyes of the soul can perceive divine things. God is seen by those who can see Him, when they open the eyes of their soul. All men have eyes, but the eyes of some are blinded that they cannot see the light of the sun. But the sun does not cease to shine because they are blind; they must ascribe it to their blindness that they cannot see. This is thy case, O man! The eyes of thy soul are darkened by sin, even by thy sinful actions. Like a bright mirror, man must have a pure soul. If there be any rust on the mirror, man cannot see the reflection of his countenance in it; likewise if there be any sin in man, he cannot see God."—Ad Autolycum, i. c. 2.
There is an improper use of the fact that the emotional capacities as well as the intellectual faculties are concerned in the apprehension of God. Some persons express themselves as if there was an evidence for God in the feelings not only as well as in the intellect, but distinct from, and independent of, the evidence on which the intellect has to decide. They reason as if although the latter were necessarily and in its own nature inconclusive, the former might still warrant belief, or as if at least feelings might so supplement weak arguments as to allow of their conclusions being firmly held. They virtually acknowledge that, although it were incontestably proved that the theistic inference was such as could not reasonably be deemed trustworthy or sufficient by the intellect, they would believe in the existence of God all the same in reliance on their feelings, because the heart is as trustworthy as the head and as well entitled to be heard. This is a very different doctrine from what I regard to be the true one—namely, that neither the head nor the heart is a competent witness in the case under consideration when the one is dissociated from the other. Purity of heart and obedience to the will of God enable us to see God and to know His character and doctrine, but they do not dispense with vision and knowledge, nor do they create a vision and knowledge which are distinct from, and independent of, reason. The heart must be appealed to and satisfied as well as the head, but not apart from or otherwise than through the head, or the appeal is sophistical and the satisfaction illegitimate. Our feelings largely determine whether we recognise and assent to reasons or not, but they ought not to be substituted for reasons, or even used to supplement reasons. The sentimentalism which pleads feelings in deprecation of the rigid criticism of reasons, or in order to retain a conviction which it cannot logically justify, necessarily tends to scepticism, and, indeed, is a kind of scepticism.
Note X., page [86].
Intuition, Feeling, Belief, and Knowledge in Religion.
There are few who hold in a consistent manner that God is known by immediate intuition. The great majority of those who profess to believe this, so explain it as to show that they believe nothing of the kind. Dr Charles Hodge (Systematic Theology, pt. i. ch. i.) may be indicated as an example. Professing to hold that the knowledge of God is innate and intuitive, he so explains and restricts these terms as would make our knowledge of our fellow-men as much innate and intuitive as our knowledge of God, or even more so; and even after all these qualifications finds that nothing more can be maintained than "that a sense of dependence and accountability to a being higher than themselves exists in all minds"—which is far from being equivalent to the conclusion that God is intuitively known. Cousin is sometimes represented as an advocate of the view in question, but erroneously. Discounting a few inaccurate phrases, his theory as to the nature of the theistic process is substantially identical with that expounded in the lecture. Its purport is not that reason directly and immediately contemplates the Absolute Being, but that it is enabled and necessitated by the essential conditions of cognition, the a priori ideas of causality, infinity, &c., to apprehend Him in His manifestations. To find intuitionists who in this connection really mean what they say, we must go to Hindu Yogi, Plotinus and the Alexandrian Mystics, Schelling, and a few of his followers—or, in other words, to those who have thought of God as a pantheistic unity or a Being without attributes.
Many German theologians, unduly influenced by the authority of Schleiermacher, and destitute of a sound knowledge of psychology, have rested religion on feeling—mere or pure feeling. Hegel opposed the attempt to do this, with considerable effect, although on erroneous principles. Krause exposed it, however, with far more thoroughness in his 'Absolute Religionsphilosophie.' It is on feeling that belief is rested by most of the advocates of what is called "the faith philosophy." With thinkers of this class a man like Cousin must not be confounded, although he maintained that religion begins with faith and not with reflection; or like Hamilton, although he denied that the infinite can be known while affirming that it "is, must, and ought to be, believed." Cousin meant by faith "nothing else than the consent of reason," and Hamilton meant by belief "assent to the original data of reason."
The words faith and belief are used in a bewildering variety of senses. A few remarks will make this apparent.