The early Christian writers, so far as they assumed any philosophical position, were invariably Eclectics. In this, as we have seen, they were the true children of their age, whose most striking characteristic was that it had deserted the older systems, while attempting to preserve out of their ruins the particular truth for which each of the schools had contended. But with the Christian philosophers it was not merely the negative influence of scepticism which drove them to Eclecticism. Their conviction of a sure knowledge of things divine—the final question for all philosophy—exerted a positive influence as well, which led them to formulate more or less explicitly a view of the function of philosophy as an organon of the truth, not merely with reference to the past history of Greek thought, as their contemporaries outside of the Christian Church were accustomed to do, but with a view to all possible speculation on the Deity. For this deposit of revealed truth, to which they gave assent as the most certain of all knowledge, they regarded as the whole truth, of which the various speculations of philosophy on the existence and attributes of God, were but "portions" and "fragments"—true and trustworthy so far as they went, and from their own particular standpoint, but, nevertheless, essentially and necessarily partial, and hence productive, not of certainty, but of mere opinion.

And this estimate of the function of philosophy with respect to theological truth, which the Fathers worked out on the basis of the concrete example of the course of Greek thought, though with a view to a much wider application, has its justification in the very nature and conditions of thought itself. For philosophy is essentially a process—its very life depends on its being in motion, in process of change and development. Each system is evolved out of its predecessors, and contains within itself the germs of its successors—it is the link which connects the past with the future. It expresses the "common-sense," the unconscious convictions and instinctive tendencies of the time, and the man who first gives voice to this unspoken message is the philosopher. He utters the truth which the times demand—that which satisfies the conditions. Thus with Professor Erdmann[92] the patristic writers would say that each statement of philosophical truth is "the final truth only for that time." It is the phase or aspect or particular statement of the truth which the times demand, which the situation calls forth, and which appeals most strongly to the minds that make up part of that situation. Changed conditions demand a different statement of the truth to satisfy them, and furnish the data upon which such a statement is based. Philosophy, like science, "does not really accumulate, but is entirely transformed by each fresh hypothesis. It is only the data that accumulate; and when we say that a new hypothesis is 'truer' than that which preceded it, we mean merely that it enables us to co-ordinate a larger number of these data."[93] And this transformation takes place, in reality, not only by addition, but by subtraction of data. For it is a phenomenon common to the thought of all ages, that each school not only calls attention to new data, ignored by its predecessor, but also shuts its eyes to more or less of the valid data set forth by the earlier system. In no period of the history of thought were men more commonly led into abstractions by being dazzled by the brilliancy and novelty of the latest idea than in the pioneer age represented by Greek philosophy, when men had not yet attained to a clear perspective, and the foot-hills often hid the lofty mountain peak.

It is this trait, so evident in the naÏve thought of the Greeks, that makes it possible for the early Christian thinkers to take the attitude, at once appreciative and critical with regard to the Hellenic theology. They borrowed much, not only from the form, but also from the results of the speculations of the philosophers, but always with a deep sense of the limitations which the conditions imposed upon them. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the rest had spoken the truth, but each only from one point of view, and on the basis of only one method of approach. The conclusions of each were the result of a process of more or less complete abstraction, and in abstractions the Fathers, true to the genius of Christian thought, could never rest content, but could only accord to them the appreciation which belongs to a temporary and preliminary stage in the search for the final unity.

To this partial, temporary, "relatively final," and constantly changing content, the revealed doctrine of God, manifested in due relations, unity and completeness by the Incarnate Word, stands with the Fathers as the principle to the particular rule or application—as the whole to the part. As the revelation of God it came to them, not as the result of man's investigation and speculation, colored by every change of time, place and environment, a mere momentary phase of a process; but as eternal verity, viewed, so far as man's powers would allow, in its entirety and unity. Dorner expresses their position well when he says that in Christianity "as the organism of the truth, the elements of truth, elsewhere here and there to be met with in a scattered form or a disfigured guise, come together in unity—a unity which, as it personally appeared in the God-Man, so in the course of history ever more and more rises upon the consciousness of mankind." The Fathers think that in the Christian doctrine of God they find all the true elements contributed by previous thought, and besides these an infinite depth of truth unthought of by the Greeks, all unified and harmonized in a way that makes it a sharp contrast to the fragmentary and abstract character of the Hellenic theology. Christian doctrine represents to them the stable, absolute truth, so far as it was revealed by the Incarnate Word, the eternal verities in their completeness and unity, so far as man is able to comprehend them. Philosophy represents the phase or aspect of the truth which the conditions of thought at the time demands and emphasizes, which will co-ordinate the data at present in the foreground of consciousness. Thus they conceive of the facts of Christian Theology as the goal towards which philosophy is (often unconsciously) striving, but at which it can never arrive without the "leap of faith." Once this leap is taken, however, these theological verities become the major factors in the data to be co-ordinated, and philosophy and theology come into that union and harmony which, in the eyes of the Christian philosophers, is their normal relation.

This Eclectic attitude of the Fathers, and their deprecation of any abstraction or partial statement usurping the place of the truth, explains to some extent their treatment of the theistic argument.

In the first place it led them to distrust and reject any argument for the existence of God which proceeded on the basis of reason alone, apart from any content furnished by sensibility. While the Fathers do not make any explicit and scientific distinction between Epistemology and Ontology, such as has in modern times been the bane of any attempted natural theology, yet they seem to have made a pretty constant practical separation between the two. St. Clement of Alexandria, as we have seen, holds that by a method of abstraction of specific characteristics we can arrive only at an "Unknown," to which meaning can be given only by combining with this rational process some content furnished directly by the senses or, indirectly, by testimony, and he further states that God is not a subject for demonstration—i.e., the science that depends on primary and better known principles—for "first principles are incapable of demonstration."[94] This position seems to be tacitly assumed by the patristic writers throughout, and even where they speak of Plato with gratitude and admiration they never seem to be at all inclined to make any use of his "Idealogical" argument or anything related thereto. They seem to take a common-sense stand for the testimony of the whole man, as well as for the whole truth, and to instinctively distrust any rational concept in the formation of which sensuous content had been ignored.

The Eclectic character of the patristic thought is seen also in the frequency with which they use the different forms of the theistic argument in conjunction, or present it in mixed forms. The Greek philosophers, as we have seen, each selected some one of the forms of the argument, and by means of it, attempted to establish the sort of an ????, to which such a course of reasoning would lead, ignoring, or attacking the forms in use by their rival school. Thus early, however, as in modern times, Christian theology, in contrast with the attempts of rational theology, began to emphasize the interdependence of these different forms of the theistic argument, and the cumulative character of their evidence. Each one of itself could bring no conviction, nor even high degree of probability, and furthermore, even if all its claims be admitted, would lead to a result far short of theism—a mere indefinite first cause, an Architect of the universe, etc. Each one, however, adds its quota to a great cumulative argument, which, taken in its entirety, raises an exceedingly high presumption, which amounts to "moral" though possibly not intellectual proof. And, after all, "probability is the guide of life."

And this is all that the Fathers, or Christian apologists, generally, would claim for the theistic argument. It is a practical, not a theoretical proof, and it is in this way that the early Christian writers seem to regard it. They resort to it most frequently to show that the Christian doctrine of God is not contrary to reason nor inconsistent with the nature of things, and to demonstrate that such a conception is demanded by man's very nature. In a word, their use of the argument is confirmatory and explanatory rather than by way of absolute proof and demonstration.

This attitude towards and use of the theistic argument, so radically different from that of the Greek philosophers, perpetuated itself in the post-Nicene literature of the Christian Church, and, in its main features, remained unaltered, until the time when men who had abandoned the faith in the Word which had been the main stay of the ante-Nicene writers, and who yet were unwilling to abandon the great theistic idea for which the world was indebted to Christianity alone, sought to justify this idea on the basis of reason. It took the scepticism of a Hume and the criticism of a Kant, and the re-adjustment of all their followers to bring us back at the close of this nineteenth century into substantial agreement with the common-sense estimate placed upon the theistic argument by the ante-Nicene Fathers.

[92] History of Philosophy, Vol. I, § 4.