(Scripture Reading Exercise.)

TYPICAL MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD.

SPECIAL TEXT: For these philosophers one might say: "Oh that I might know where I might find Him! That I might come even to His seat * * * * * Behold I go forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him; on the left hand, where He doth work, but I cannot behold Him. He hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him." Job xxiii.

NOTES.

1. Spinoza—Pantheist: Born in Amsterdam 1632, of Jewish parents, who were refuges from the Spanish persecution of that period. He states his conceptions of God in the following passages:

"By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite—that is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality.

"Explanation: I say absolutely infinite, not infinite after its kind; for, of a thing infinite only after its kind, infinite attributes may be denied; but that which is absolutely infinite, contains in its essence whatever expresses reality, and involves no negation. * * * * * * "God is a being absolutely infinite, of whom no attribute that expresses the essence of substance can be denied, and he necessarily exists: If any substance besides God were granted, it would have to be explained by some attribute of God, and thus two substances with the same attribute would exist, which is absurd; therefore, besides God, no substance can be granted or consequently, be conceived. If it could be conceived, it would necessarily have to be conceived as existent; but this (by the first part of this proof) is absurd. Therefore, besides God, no substance can be granted or conceived.

"Some assert that God, like a man, consists of body and mind, and is susceptible of passions. How far such persons have strayed from the truth, is sufficiently evident from what has been said. But these I pass over. For all who have in anywise reflected on the divine nature, deny that God has a body. Of this they find excellent proof in the fact, that we understand by body a definite quantity, so long, so broad, so deep, bounded by a certain shape, and it is the height of absurdity to predicate such a thing of God, a being absolutely infinite. But, meanwhile, by the other reasons with which they try to prove a point, they show that they think corporeal or extended substance wholly apart from the divine nature, and say it was created by God. Wherefrom the divine nature can have been created, they are wholly ignorant; thus they clearly show, that they do not know the meaning of their own words. I, myself, have proved sufficiently clearly, at any rate in my own judgment (Coroll. Prop. 6, and note 2, Prop. 8), that no substance can be produced or created by anything other than itself. Further, I showed (in Prop. 14) that besides God no substance can be granted or conceived. Hence, we drew the conclusion that extended substance is one of the infinite attributes of God."

2. Locke's View of God and Spirit: Locke regards God as an infinite, immaterial spirit, present in all duration and as filling immensity. Men derive their best knowledge of God, not by reason of innate ideas of Him, but by thought and meditation. "It seems to me plainly to prove the truest and best notions men had of God were not imprinted, but acquired by thought and meditation, and a right use of their faculties; since the wise and considerate men of the world, by a right and careful employment of their thoughts and reason, attained true notions in this, as well as other things; whilst the lazy and inconsiderate part of men, making far the greater number, took up their notions by chance, from common tradition and vulgar conceptions, without much beating their heads about them." * * * * "God, every one easily allows, fills eternity; and it is hard to find a reason why anyone should doubt that he likewise fills immensity. His infinite being is certainly as boundless one way as the other; and methinks it ascribes a little too much to matter to say, where there is no body there is nothing." * * * * "Motion cannot be attributed to God; not because he is an immaterial, but because he is an infinite spirit." (Locke's Works, Vol. I, pp. 195, 319.)

In discussing the nature of man's spirit, Locke had not excluded the idea of its being a thinking, material substance. Whereupon the Bishop of Worcester took him to task about it; to which Locke said in his own defense—and in his reply something further may be learned in relation to his idea of God:

"Perhaps my using the word spirit for a thinking substance, without excluding materiality out of it, will be thought too great a liberty, and such as deserves censure, because I leave immateriality out of the idea I make it a sign of. I readily own, that words should be sparingly ventured on in a sense wholly new, and nothing but absolute necessity can excuse the boldness of using any term in a sense whereof we can produce no example. But in the present case, I think I have great authorities to justify me. The soul is agreed, on all hands, to be that in us which thinks. And he that will look into the first book of Cicero's 'Tusculan Questions,' and into the sixth book of Virgil's 'Aeneid,' will find that these two great men, who, of all the Romans, best understood philosophy, thought, or at least did not deny, the soul to be a subtle matter, which might come under the name of aura, or ignis, or ether, and this soul they both of them called spiritus; in the notion of which, it is plain, they included only thought and active motion, without the total exclusion of matter. Whether they thought right in this I do not say—that is not the question; but whether they spoke properly, when they called an active, thinking, subtle substance, out of which they excluded only gross and palpable matter, spiritus, spirit? * * * * * I would not be thought hereby to say, that spirit never does signify a purely immaterial substance. In that sense the Scripture, I take it, speaks, when it says 'God is a spirit'; and in that sense I have used it, and in that sense I have proved from my principles that there is a spiritual substance, and am certain that there is a spiritual, immaterial substance; which is, I humbly conceive, a direct answer to your lordship's question in the beginning of this argument, viz: 'How we come to be certain that there are spiritual substances supposing this principle to be true, that the simple ideas, by sensation and reflection, are the soul-matter and foundation of all our reasoning?' But this hinders not, but that if God, that infinite, omnipotent, and perfectly immaterial spirit, should please to give a system of very subtle matter, sense and motion, it might with propriety of speech be called spirit, though materiality were not excluded out of its complex idea. Your lordship proceeds: 'It is said, indeed, elsewhere, that it is repugnant to the idea of senseless matter, that it would put into itself sense, perception, and knowledge.' But this doth not reach the present case, which is not what matter can do of itself, but what matter prepared by an Omnipotent hand can do. And what certainty can we have that He hath not done it? We can have none from the ideas, for those are given up in this case, and consequently we can have no certainty, upon these principles, whether we have any spiritual substance within us or not." (Works, Vol. II, pp. 388-9).

3. Berkley's Views of the Doctrine of Diety: George Berkley was born at Killkrin, Ireland, 1684; died at Oxford, 1753. I follow Locke with Berkley because he stands somewhat in contrast with him, although he was, like Locke, an experimentalist in method; but he regarded Locke as a materialist, and he runs to the opposite extreme, as will appear in what follows:

"Locke had allowed to pass the hypothesis that matter can think. Berkley justly argued that if this were allowed, we could not affirm the immateriality and perpetuity of the thinking principle in man. For, with the disintegration of the matter there must be an end to the individual. If it be allowed that matter can think, then, as Locke offers no proof to the contrary, it might be inferred that our thinking principle, the substratum of our thoughts, is but matter. This, Berkeley undertook to combat. But how did he do so? By trying to establish that there is no matter, that we can not affirm its existence; and, hence, as something at least, is, as we do exist, that the thinking principle in us, the soul, must be immaterial." (Truth of Thought—Poland—pp. 24, 25).

"To counteract the influence of Locke's quasi-materialism, Berkley crossed to the other extreme, in the exaltation of spirit which, of course, he held to be immaterial. "The possibility that hereafter this exaltation of spirit might lead to a denial of any Being higher than man—that the universe might appear to him his own creation—scarcely presented itself to the mind of Berkley. It was not the peril of his time. A creator was not denied by any of the minute philosophers with whom Berkeley contended. What he desired to impress them with was, the belief that the Being who made the outward world was a Spirit, who took cognizance of the thoughts and intents of the heart; that the words to the poor woman who drew water at the well ascended above the philosophy of the eighteenth century; that they were real and scientific, that it was conversant with phantasies and shadows." (Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy—Maurice—Vol. II, p. 457).

4. Fichte's Conception of God—God as Will: Born 1762; died 1814. There seems to be something of a distinction between Fichte's earlier and later views. In his earlier writings he appears to hold to the doctrine that God was manifest in "Will" alone, which was the cause of the moral order. "The living and working moral order is God himself, and we can conceive no other." He quotes with approval a passage from Schiller, saying that it expressed his own views:

"And God is!—a holy Will that abides,
Though the human will may falter;
High over both Space and Time it rides,
The high Thought that will never alter;
And while all things in change eternal roll,
It endures, through change, a motionless soul."

For these views Fichte was charged with atheism, which he resented: "He contends," says Leighton, "that his opponents regard God as a particular substance. Substance means with them 'a sensible being existing in time and space.' This God, extended in time and space, they deduce from the sense-world. Fitche claims that extension or corporeality cannot be predicated of the Diety. The sensuous world is only the reappearance of the supersensuous, or moral world, through our attempt to grasp the latter by means of our sensuous faculty of presentation. The sensuous, is mere appearance, and can furnish no ground for the existence of God. The Diety is not to be understood as the underlying ground of phenomena, for, so conceived, he is made a corporeal substrate. He is an order of events, not a substance. The sensuous predicate of existence is not to be applied to Him, for the supersensuous God alone is. He is not dead Being, but rather pure action, the life and principle of the supersensuous World-Order. * * * * * To characterize God as a spirit, is of negative value in distinguishing Him from things material. It gives us no positive information, for we know as little wherein the being of a spirit consists as wherein the being of God consists. Inasmuch as all our thinking is limited, God is inconceivable. To determine him is to make him finite. If personality and consciousness are to be denied of God, it is only in the sense in which we conceive ourselves as personal and conscious. God is wider consciousness than we are, a pure intelligence, spiritual life and actuality. He is neither one nor many, neither man nor spirit."

In his later views he seems to add "Intelligence" to his "will," or moral order. Leighton, summing up both the earlier and later views of the philosopher, says: "When we put together what Fichte said at different times and from various points of view, his doctrine becomes a unity, and his thought exhibits a consistent development. He always conceived God as immanent in the moral universe—the only universe which he recognized. He consistently held that the human mind could not conceive God in His transcendence. But he did not deny that transcendence; and, indeed, in his later writings he emphasized it by his doctrine of the 'Absolute Being.' While in his innermost nature he [God] is beyond the reach of thought, God manifests Himself eternally as active intelligence or Will, and by the free act of his own intelligence, man can rise to an intuitive knowledge of God and enter into union with Him. In the earlier form of the 'Science of Knowledge', the Absolute I is the expression of God. In the final form which his philosophy assumes, Fichte emphasizes the doctrine that God is more than the Absolute I. The idea of God is more fully defined. Beyond His manifestation of Himself, He exists as Absolute Being. He alone is. But this Being is not an abstract motionless One. Fichte says again and again, in the 'Way to the Blessed Life,' that the nature of Being is to manifest itself, that it is ever-active, ever-living and loving. 'Being and Life are one and the same.' 'The Divine is thinking and living in one organic unity.' Being becomes conscious of itself in Existence. The universal form in which the Divine Essence appears, is 'Knowing, the Concept, Freedom,' and these are all equivalent expressions. Knowing is the first image or scheme of the Divine Being. We have not yet reached self-consciousness. But free Knowing, or the Concept, understands or becomes conscious of itself in life, and Life appears in the Multiplicity of finite, self-conscious individuals." (Conceptions of God—Leighton—pp. 27-28).

5. Kant: Born at Konigsburg, 1724; died 1804. It is said that Kant's influence in the world of thought is second only, if second, to Aristotle's (Elmendorf).

"Kant's Organon—[a code of rules or principles for scientific investigation—Kant uses the term to denote the particular rules for acquiring the Knowledge of a given class of objects.—Cent. Dict.] is immeasurably more severe than Aristotle's or than Bacon's. At times, everything which we think we have gained when we entered upon this division of our subject, appears again to be slipping from us. God—Immortality, Freedom—these we find to be the ideas or postulates of the reason. We have them; they are with us. But what are they? Can we proceed to reason from them, to build any conclusions upon the fact that such ideas are? If we do, we at once involve ourselves in contradictions. They are ideas assuredly—fundamental principles; but they cannot be treated as realities external to the mind. They are only within it. If the Atheist, or the denier of immortality, begins to dispute with me, I can defy him to prove a negative. But I can go no further. I cannot make that into an object which exists in me, the subject. If I do, I shall invest it with some of the conditions and limitations of my own nature, or I shall call in experience to represent to me that which is above experience.

"Are, then, senses, understanding, reason, all equally at fault? Are they, all alike, prone to deception, all alike, unproductive? If that is the case, let no one dream that he can help out our weakness by speaking of a divine communication—a revelation from above. We have nothing which can receive such a communication; nothing which can turn it to any account. The voice may speak, there is no ear which can take it in. But Kant does not leave us in this utter desolation of heart and hope. No results can follow from trying to speculate with those ideas of the reason. They will only turn round and round upon us; we can never get them outside of us to act upon us. But let us look at them practically. I have the idea of freedom, and I want a law over me—over me, this being who has this demand for freedom. A law; that is, something which commands me—something which I did not make for myself. If it is not imperative, it is nothing; if I may alter it according to some taste or fancies of mine, it is nothing. Yet, it must be the law of a free being; this idea of freedom, if it is only negative, affirms so much. And the law must tell me what is right—what I, with my freedom, ought to do. The freedom calls for the law, the law respects the freedom. Now contemplate those other ideas of God and Immortality in this light, and see whether they remain ineffectual and barren. The idea of God becomes that of the lawgiver; the lawgiver who commands what is right. But such an idea involves an actual Being—one who is right—one who is not under our limitations in the exercise of right—one who will make right prevail. The idea of immortality combines itself with this idea of God. The limitations of our mind interferes with the full accomplishment of His purpose. We demand an unlimited range for the success of the right will, for the attainment of what is implied in our freedom and in our sense of law. God stands out before us as the eternal and absolutely good Being. The happiness of man must consist in the pursuit of that goodness, in the conformity to it. Happiness in any sense but this, in any sense which it is merely identical with eudaemonism^[1]—good luck or good fortune—never can be the end of any creature constituted as man is constituted.

"We have thus been driven—fairly driven—to a ground beyond those conditions which appear to limit all our knowledge, our acts, and our hopes. Let the reader observe carefully how Kant has been led to transgress those boundaries which no one had so rigorously defined as himself, which it was part—this should always be kept in mind—of his function as a transcendental philosopher to define. It is not from any passion for the excesses of the reason; it is not from any weariness of the restraint of laws. He is in the act of prohibiting the excesses of the reason when the discovery of this necessity bursts upon him. He accepts it, because he can find no laws that are adequate to hold fast human creatures, if he does not. He has listened to the discussions and demonstrations of those who think they can establish the existence of a Creator of nature from the facts of nature. They appear to him feeble and unsatisfactory; but, were they ever so strong, such a Creator, so setting in motion the machinery of the universe, could not satisfy him. He has examined the metaphysical reasonings which lead to the same conclusion, or which are urged in support of the immortality of the soul. He can make nothing of them; but if he could, what God, what immortality, would they establish? Leaving, then, dogmatists and skeptics to conduct these controversies, and to arrive at any results they can—being convinced inwardly that they will arrive at no result, that each can say just enough to make the conclusions of the other untenable—he falls back upon this moral law, this law for free creatures. Once admitting that, he can, nay, he must, recognize all nature as subject to the same Righteous Being; he must contemplate the world as a moral world, the universe as designed for a good end." (Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy, Vol. II, pp. 631-633.)

The doctrine of Kant, summed up by Elmendorf, stands: "God the moral ruler of nature, and reconciler of it with reason, giving that harmony to happiness and morality which nature does not provide. This postulate also necessary to morality. These postulates are given by practical reason, not as cognitions, not in the relations of phenomenon and noumenon, but as realities serving practical ends. Rational faith is a necessity of man's nature."

From all which, it appears that according to Kant, and especially according to his treatise, "Critique of Practical Reason"—1788—the ideas of "God, Human Liberty and Immortality, are postulates of practical reason."

Footnotes

1. "The type of utilitarian ethical theory that makes the pursuit enjoyment and production of happiness the supreme end in moral conduct."—(Standard Dictionary.)