What has just been said is applicable to every subject treated in these essays. In relation to the special subject now under consideration, we are very anxious not to seem captious or rash in criticising the common methods of argument employed by theologians. We recognize the substantial solidity of the doctrine of God contained in the best philosophers of all ages, so far as it agrees with revelation; and the perfect soundness and completeness of the doctrine as taught by Christian theologians. It is only the form and method that we intend to criticise, so far as theological doctrine is concerned; and, so far as relates to the purely human and rational element of philosophy, only that which is peculiar to individuals, schools, or periods, and not that which is common and universal. Let us remember that we are not reasoning as sceptics, and, beginning from a principle of philosophic doubt, ignoring all knowledge and belief, and striving to work our way upward to something positive and certain. Whether we are positively Christian in our belief or not, we are taking the viewing-point of Christian faith, and making a survey of the prospect visible to the eye from that point. It presents to us the completely developed idea of God as always known and always believed with certitude. What we are to do, then, is to find the most adequate expression of that which faith has believed and reason been able to understand during all time respecting God. We stand not alone, in the ignorance of our isolated, individual minds, to create by a slow and laborious task the truth and the belief of which our souls feel the need. We stand in union with the human race, always in possession of at least the elements of truth. We stand in union with that favored portion of the human race which has always clearly and distinctly believed in the absolute truth of the being and infinite perfection of God, and in a distinct revelation from him. We are about to examine this universal belief, and these intelligent judgments of cultivated universal human reason, and to compare them with the principles and judgments of our own reason. To ascertain what Christian Catholic faith is, and how it is radicated in an intelligent indubitable certitude of reason--this is what we are about to attempt; and the first part of our task is to examine the Christian conception of God, as expressed in theistic philosophy and Catholic theology. We intend to prove that it is the original, permits have, constitutive idea of human reason, brought, into distinct, reflective consciousness; made intelligible to the understanding, so far as it is not immediately intelligible in itself, by analogy; and correctly expressed by the sensible signs of language.
IV.
DIFFERENT METHODS OF PROVING THE BEING OF GOD.
It is evident that we have no direct intellectual vision or beholding of God. The goal is separated from him by an infinite and impassable abyss. We cannot now take into account the person of Jesus Christ, or of any who have been elevated to an intellectual condition different from that which is proper to our present state on earth. Apart from such exceptions, the soul even of the highest contemplative never directly beholds God himself. In the words of St. Augustine; "Videri autem divinitas humano visu nullo modo potest; sed eo visu videtur, quo jam qui vident, non homines sed ultra homines sunt." "The divinity can in no way be seen by human vision: but it is seen by a vision of such a kind that they who see by it are not men, but are more than men." [Footnote 48] Neither have we the power to comprehend the intrinsic necessity of God's being and the intimate reason and nature of his self-existence. If we had a natural power of seeing God immediately, we would be naturally beatified, and all error or sin would be impossible. Moreover, we have not even a formed and developed conception of God innate to our reason, such as that which the instructed and educated reason can acquire. For, if we had, it would be in all minds alike without exception; everywhere and under all circumstances the same, without any need of previous reflection or instruction. What, then, is the genesis of our rational conception and belief of the divine being and attributes? How is it evident that God really is?
[Footnote 48: De Trin. lib. ii. c. ii.]
The arguments employed by philosophers are usually divided into two classes, those called à priori, and those called à posteriori.
An argument à priori is one which deduces a truth from another truth of a prior and more universal order. Therefore, to prove the being of God à priori we must go back to a truth either really and in itself antecedent to his being, or antecedent in the primitive idea of reason. That is to say, there must be an ideal world of truth logically antecedent to God, and independent of him; an eternal nature of things which is in itself necessary, and intelligible to our reason, before it has any idea of God. Or else, the primitive, constitutive idea of our reason must be an idea of some abstract being of this nature which is not God, and which in the real order is not antecedent to God, but only antecedent to him in the order of human thought and knowledge. If the first is true, God is not the first cause, the first principle, the infinite and eternal truth in himself, the absolute essence, and the immediate object of his own intelligence. The very conception of God which is sought to be proved is destroyed and rendered unintelligible. This will appear more clearly when we come to develop more fully hereafter the idea of God and his attributes. In the order of real being there is and can be nothing before God. There is no cause, no principle, no truth, no intelligible idea more universal than God, and prior to him, from which his being can be deduced as a consequence. In this sense, then, an à priori argument for the being of God is impossible.
If the second alternative is true, that we have a primitive idea of something in our minds which is before the idea of God, the order of ideas, of reason, of human thought, is not in harmony with the real order. We apprehend the unreal and not the real. We see things as they are not, and not as they are. The reason apprehends the abstract, ideal universe, the eternal nature of things, the world of necessary truth, as antecedent to God and independent of him, when it is not so. If this were so, we could never attain to the true idea of God as before all things and the principle of all. For reason most develop [{295}] according to its primary and constitutive idea and its necessary law of thought. If in this constitutive idea there is something before God from which, as a prior principle, a more universal truth, the being of God is deduced as a consequence and a secondary truth, we must always look at things in this way, and can never directly behold the real order of being as it is. Thus we can never attain the true idea of God while we apprehend any intelligible object of thought as prior to him who is really prior to all, and must be apprehended as prior or else falsely apprehended.
An à priori argument in this sense is, therefore, as impossible as in the other.