The Catholic World, Vol. 03, April to September, 1866

by Various

Let us now examine more particularly some of the so-called à priori arguments.

One is an argument from the conceptions, or, as they are commonly called, the ideas, of space and time. It proceeds thus: We have an idea of infinite space, and of infinite time, as necessary in the eternal nature of things. Do what we will, we cannot banish these ideas, or avoid thinking of space and time as necessary and eternal. Therefore, there is an infinite, eternal being, of whose existence space and time are the necessary effects.

This argument dazzles the mind by a certain splendor and overwhelms it by a certain profundity and vastness of conception, but yet leaves it confused and overpowered rather than convinced. It will not bear analysis, as Leibnitz has successfully proved in his letters to Adam Clarke, who defended it with all the acuteness and ingenuity which his subtle and penetrating intellect could bring to bear on the question.

Nothing is, or can be, which is not either God or the creation of God. Space and time, therefore, are either attributes of God, or created entities, if they have any being or existence in themselves at all. They are either identical with the essence of God, or they are included within the creation and only coeval and co-extensive with it; that is, bounded by finite and precise limits of succession and extension. If the former, in perceiving them we perceive God directly. This is not affirmed by the argument, which asserts that they are effects of God's being and external to it. If the second, they are not infinite; the idea of their infinity and necessity is an illusion, and no argument can be derived from it. It is, beside, impossible to conceive of space and time as entities, or existing things, distinct and separate from other existences, and having certain defined limits. The language used by those who distinguish them both from God and creation, and call them necessary effects of the being of God, is simply unintelligible. Their conception of infinite space and time is, as Leibnitz calls it, a mere idol of the fancy, a phantasm representing nothing real. There is no intelligible conception of space and time as distinct both from God and creation. There is no such thing in the order of reality or of thought as a necessary effect of God's being, or any effect except that produced by his free creative act. Into the idea of God nothing enters except God himself. Supposing that God exists alone without having created, when we think of God we think of all that can be thought as actual. His being fills up his own intelligence, of which it is the only and complete object. Into a true conception of that being our notions of space and time cannot enter. Nevertheless, in apprehending space and time there must be some real and intelligible idea which is apprehended. This idea is the possibility of creation, which in God is necessary and infinite. By his very essence, God has the power to create, and this power is unlimited. The idea of a created universe necessarily includes the idea of its existence in space and time. The possibility of space and time are, therefore, included in the possibility of creation, and as no limits can be placed to [{296}] the one, so none can be placed to the other. Our apprehension of infinite space and time is an apprehension of the infinite possibility of creation in God. We apprehend God under the intuition of the infinite, the necessary, and the eternal. This intuition of the infinite enters into all our thoughts. And therefore, however much we may extend our conception of actual duration or extension in regard to the created universe, we must always think the possibility of that duration and extension being increased even to infinity. Ideal space and time is that which we apprehend of real space and time, with the thought of their possible extension to infinity included. Real space and time are not entities distinct in themselves, but relations of succession and co-existence among created things. As in God alone, as distinct from creation, there is nothing intelligible but the divine being, so in the creation there is nothing intelligible but that which God has created. God and the existences which God has made are all that the mind can think. Take away God and finite, real things; nothing remains. Think of God as not creating, and God is the sole object of thought. Add to this the thought of God creating, and you have finite created entities. But you have nothing more; and if you fancy there is anything more, such as space and time in the abstract, you have a phantasm or idol of the imagination, which is nothing. Real space and time must be relations of existing things, and ideal space and time the possibility of relations among things which might be; or they are nothing. Destroy real entities, and you destroy all real relations. Deny the possibility of real entities, and you destroy all ideal relations. This answers the puzzling question sometimes asked, "Can God annihilate space?" He can annihilate real space by annihilating the real universe from which it is inseparable. He cannot annihilate ideal space, because it is in himself, as included in his eternal idea of the possible creation, or of his own infinite power to create. Our apprehensions of space and time are in the intelligible and not in the sensible world. The sensible form which they have results from the universal law that all intelligible conceptions come to us through the sensible, and represented to us through sensible signs. They must ultimately terminate in the idea of God as pure spirit, without extension or successive duration. When we think of extension in space we imagine a material figure, or an atmosphere whose circumference we extend further and further in all directions. When we think of duration in time, we think of a succession of material or intellectual actions, whose series we extend backward into the past or forward into the future. But, no matter how far we carry these processes, a definite and limited extension and duration is all that we reach. It is impossible that the idea of infinite space and duration should be actually realized in the order of finite and created things. The impossibility of placing any limit to them which shall be final must, therefore, be referred to an idea beyond all relations of space and time, and truly infinite, which we imperfectly apprehend by analogy through these relations. This is the idea of God as having an infinite power to create which is inexhaustible by any actual creation, however vast. Only in this way is the idea intelligible, and we must affirm God as real and infinite being before we can correctly apprehend it.

It may be said that this is what is really meant by the argument from space and time. We are willing to admit that it is what these eminent writers really had in their minds. But it appears to us that they have expressed it without sufficient clearness and precision, by reason of the confusion which prevails in modern philosophy, and that it is not really an à priori argument, since it cannot be made [{297}] intelligible without affirming the idea of God as prior to all other ideas in the order of thought as well as in the order of being.

Another argument is derived from the possibility of conceiving that there is a being absolutely perfect. We can conceive that there is a being possessing all possible perfections. But actual existence is a perfection. Therefore if we conceive of a being possessing all perfection, we must conceive of him as having actual existence.

This amounts merely to saying that actual existence enters into our conception of God. Where is the proof that that conception is not merely in our mind? Does the fact that we are able to form a conception of God prove that God really exists? Some will answer. Yes. Because it is absurd to suppose that the mind can form an idea greater than itself, and conceive of a possible order of being greater than the real order. It is, indeed, absurd; but the absurdity cannot be shown without at the same time showing the impossibility of finding any principle of reason prior to the idea of God. Is that which the reason perceives real being? Then the idea of the infinite is the affirmation of an infinite being. It is impossible to conceive of a possible being greater than the real being, because the real being is directly affirmed as infinite in the idea of reason. The very idea we are seeking to prove real presents itself as real to the reason before we can even begin the process of proving it. It is itself prior to every principle we are looking for as the most ultimate and the most universal. There cannot be found anything from which we can reason à priori to that which is itself prior to all. We have began by affirming our conclusion as the basis of our proof. At the end of our argument we come back to our starting-point.

Is that which the reason perceives not real being? What, then, is it? It will be said that it is an a idea. If so, this à priori argument proves only that the actual existence of God is conceivable, and that it cannot be proved that there is no God. It may even make his real existence appear to be probable, taken in connection with the other arguments usually employed. At best, however, it leaves the idea of God always under the form of an hypothesis, and affords no protection against the corruption of the idea by pantheistic and materialistic notions. Where is the passage from the abstract to the concrete, from the mental conception to the objective reality? If our conceptions of God lie in the order of an abstract world, and it is not the reality which is the ultimate object of reason, how can we ever obtain certitude that there is a real world corresponding to that abstract world which exists in our own mind? Such is the reasoning of modern materialism which is conducting vast numbers as near to absolute atheism as the mind by its own nature is able to go. For the class of men alluded to there are no realities except those of the sensible world. The spiritual world of dogmatic truth, religious obligation, and supernatural hopes, is ignored and neglected as merely abstract, hypothetical, and having at best but a dubious claim on our attention; one which may with safety and prudence be practically set aside for the more obvious claims of the present life. The entire falsity of this whole philosophy of the abstract, and the nullity of all abstractions considered as self-subsisting objects of thought, will be more directly shown hereafter. For the present we say no more on this head, but proceed to consider another form in which the argument from abstract, à priori principles is presented.

We have an idea of the good, the beautiful, the true, as being necessary, universal, and eternal. Therefore there must be a being in whose mind these ideas exist, or of whom these qualities can be affirmed. This argument has been answered in answering [{298}] the foregoing one, with which it nearly coincides. Are these ideas abstract, independent of reality, antecedent to the idea of real, concrete being? Then they are forms of the mind, and leave it without a direct perception of the existence of a real, concrete being, infinitely good, beautiful, and true; or rather, the infinite goodness, beauty, and truth in himself. Are these ideas immediate affirmations of this real being? Then we have lost again our a priori principle, by finding that the conclusion is actually prior to it. Either we affirm the intuition of the concrete, real object, from which the abstract conception of the good, the beautiful, and the true is derived, or we can prove only the existence of these conceptions in the mind, and cannot argue from the conceptions to the reality, or in any way perceive clearly the existence of the reality in an order external to our own mind.

Let us pass now to the argument called à posteriori. This is a method of reasoning exactly the reverse of the former; in which we proceed from effects to their causes, and from particulars to the universal. We endeavor to prove the existence of God from certain facts which cannot be accounted for unless they are regarded as effects of an absolute first cause.