The problems of theism, and other essays

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1. The General Nature op Reality 1

2. The Problem of Theism 18

II The Peoblem Of Theism

In that poem of blended shade and hght, Bishop Blougram's Apology, there are -^ve lines well suited to stand at the head of any theological discussion :

It is the idea, the feeling and the love

God means mankind should strive for and show forth,

Whatever be the process to that end —

And not historic knowledge, logic sound,

And metaphysical acumen.

With that sentiment as a judgment of values I am in entire accord, and I should not care to put together a discussion such as this without at the outset urging that even the most fundamental problems of theology are of the second and not of the first importance. For, after all, theology represents merely one aspect of the great whole of religion. It holds apart, in abstraction from the rest, the purely intellectual element ; and that element is not the primary one. Does not Harnack even say,-*- " How often does it happen in history that theology is only the instrument by which religion is discarded ? "

^ What is Christianit ij ? p. 48. 18

N"o doubt, many persons would judge that to hold true opinions is by itself in some degree good.'^ But, I do not think that, abstracted from the whole of its effects and abstracted from our emotional and volitional attitude in regard to those opinions, they would judge it to be a great good. Certainly, for my own part, I am not attracted by the doctrine, or by any modernised counterpart of the doctrine, that a man's worth depends upon what he believes to be true in the most abstruse department of philosophy. And, therefore, I think that our speculative position in these matters, so far as it is regarded in isolation from life and conduct, is a thing of secondary import. It is the relation of will and feeling in which we stand to knowledge, and not the content of knowledge that is central and fundamental.

What think ye of Christ, friend ? When all's done and said,

Like you this Christianity or not *?

It may be false, but will you "wish it true ?

Has it your vote to be so if it can ?

If you desire faith, then you've faith enough :

What else seeks God — nay, what else seeks ourselves ?

But, though among things valuable as ends knowledge of matters of fact may not hold a great, or indeed, may not hold any, place, yet as a means — as a focus of emotion and an object of desire whose attainment yields satisfaction of a high order— its value may be great. Furthermore, as regards the degree of value in this sense that attaches to them, some kinds of knowledge seem to be more important than other kinds. What the most important kinds are would not,

1 But cf. Essay lY.

20 THE PROBLEM OE THEISM ii

of course, always be agreed, but I may perhaps, without fear of serious controversy, suggest that among them should be included knowledge about those three great problems which Kant distinguished — God, Freedom, and Immortality. It is with the first of these, the problem of Theism, that this essay has to do. To Pascal it was the most important of them all. " II n'y a que deux sortes d'hommes raisonnables,*'" he wrote, " ceux qui servent Dieu de tout le coeur parce qu'ils le connaissent, et ceux qui cherchent Dieu de tout le coeur parce qu'ils ne le connaissent pas."

At the outset, it is necessary to define our problem more precisely than is sometimes done. Eor it is obviously futile to inquire whether existence can be predicated of a particular subject until some content has been given to that subject. Or, in other words, there is no meaning in the question, " Does God exist ? " until we have some idea of what we intend to signify by "God." I do not mean, of course, that we must be able to form a conception in any degree adequate to the reality, if reality there be, but that we must have some positive conception, and not a mere word, in our minds before we can raise the question of existence at all.

What then shall we mean by the word God for the purpose of our present question ? I shall mean by it what Harnack tells us the Pounder of Christianity would have wished us to mean. There was for Him no question of elaborate metaphysic, no question of the essential unity of the Pather and the Son. Harnack is quite explicit when he writes : " The gospel, as Jesus proclaimed it, has to do with the Pather only, and not with the Son."^ Its object is a

^ What is Christianity? p. 144.

powerful spiritual Being who wills the good, and whom Jesus calls " Our Father which art in heaven." The world-view which declares such a Being to exist I call Christian Theism.

Now, of course, under that general head there fall several subdivisions according to the further definition that we give to this Being. He may be regarded as Omnipotent or as not Omnipotent, and, if not Omnipotent, as the creator or not the creator of the material in which he works. For my present purpose it is sufficient to choose between the Christian Theism of an Omnipotent God and of a God who is not defined as Omnipotent. I shall confine myself to the second form. It is true that many persons verbally assert their belief in a God who is Omnipotent, and that this belief, therefore, has the appearance of being predominant. But those who make such assertions often at the same time follow the example of Milton, and specify certain things which this Omnipotent God cannot do. Hence, despite their professions, it is perhaps not imreasonable to rank them as in reality followers of a God who is not necessarily Omnipotent/

^ The importance which some persons attach to the doctrine of Omnipotence appears to be due in great measure to the opinion that this doctrine affords a guarantee of human immortality, the ai'gument being that an Omnipotent and Good God Avould not permit the evil of death. Since, however, we know that, as a matter of fact, many evils are permitted, it seems difficult to make this argument cogent.

There has been much controversy as to whether the existence of an Omnipotent and Good God is incompatible with the existence of evil. If Omnipotence he interpreted so as to include the power of violating logical laws and making a thing both to exist and not to exist at the same time, it clearly is thus incompatible. But, if Omnipotence be interpreted so as to exclude this power, " it may always be possible that the evil is an essential ingredient in goods of such value as to make it better that they and the evil should both exist than that neither

At the same time we must, I think, if we are to remain in accord with common usage, define the God of Christian Theism as at least sufficiently powerful to make good prevail over evil in the longrun. By abstaining from this we should run counter to the popular acceptation of words. For though, indeed, the ordinary Christian Theist may conceive himself as rowing against the stream, his eyes are fixed on the distant light. He assumes, as Mill has it, "the exalted character of a fellow -labourer with the Highest, a fellow-combatant in the great strife, contributing his little which, by the aggregation of many like himself, becomes much, towards that progressive ascendency, and ultimately complete triumph of good over evil which history points to, and which this doctrine teaches us to regard as planned by the Being to whom we owe all the benevolent contrivances we behold in Xature." "^

It is this sort of Christian Theism, and the arguments which lead towards or up to it, that I shall endeavour in this paper to investigate. These arguments have been numerous and have varied from time to time. At the present day, however, many old controversies are abandoned and the issue is reduced to a narrower compass than it used to occupy. I would

should " (Russell, Independent Revieio, 1906, p. 115). lu this case there is no incompatibility. Tiie possibility referred to is, however, a very bare one; for, as Lotze well observes in answer to Leibnitz, ''Of all imaginable assertions the most indemonstrable is that the evil of the world is due to the validity of eternal truth ; on the contrary, to any unprejudiced view of Nature, it appears to depend upon the definite arrangements of reality, beside which other arrangements are thinkable, also based upon the same eternal truth" {Microeosmos, English translation, vol. ii. p. 717).

^ Assays on lleligion^ p. 117.

11 THE PEOBLEM OE THEISM 23

even suggest that it is on two lines of approach only that the generality of educated persons are now accustomed to concentrate attention. Of these the first is the strictly philosophical approach, the argument to Theism as a presupposition of the possibility of experience at all. The second, less complex, and, for that reason perhaps, to most people more attractive, is the argument from certain particulars udtJiin the articulated whole of experience. In the course of the preceding essay, the basis of the broader philosophic argument for Theism — the contention, namely, that relations are inconceivable apart from a relating intelligence ^ — has already been rejected. I turn at once, therefore, to the second group of arguments. The discussion of these falls into two divisions according as the particulars of experience with which we are concerned relate to facts of the physical world or to facts of what is known as religious experience.

II

The argument from facts of the physical world is known as the physico-theological argument, or the argument from Design. Of this '* proof " of the existence of God, Kant wrote in the Critique of Pure Eeaso7i : " The physico-theological proof mnst always be mentioned with respect. It is the oldest and simplest proof of all, and never fails to commend itself

^ Cf. Essay I. p. 16. An argument on these lines in defence of Theism is developed by Dr. liashdall (following T. H. Green), in Oontcntio Veritatis, and in the Theory of Good and Evil. In my opinion Mr. Rashdall's argument is not cogent even if his basis is accepted. Since, however, I reject the basis I need not discuss the superstructure.

24 THE PROBLEM OF THEISM n

to the popular mind. It imparts life to the study of nature, as it was itself suggested by that study, and receives new vigour from it." ^

The process of the proof is from apparent adaptations of means to ends in nature to a Being by whom nature was designed. Contemplating the matter of the physical world, we find it arranged in various ways, and we call some of the arrangements works of man and others works of nature. In the works of man we do, in fact, agree to find finality or purpose. The argument from design suggests that purpose is also exhibited in the works of nature. Our problem is to determine whether that suggestion can be sustained ; or, to put the point as Mr. Carpenter puts it in his book. The Art of Creation : " If this world of civihsed life, with its great buildings and bridges and wonderful works of art, is the embodiment and materialisation of the thoughts of Man, how about that other world of the mountains and the trees and the mighty ocean and the sunset sky — the world of ]N"ature — is that also the embodiment and materialisation of the Thoughts of other Beings, or of one other Being ? " '

In order to discuss that problem satisfactorily, we need first to make explicit the basis of agreement from which we start. This Mr. Carpenter does in his interesting account of the development of the works of men. At the root of them all he finds a rudimentary desire or need, a purpose or quasi-purpose, which first enfoliates into clear thought, and then, may be, projects itself into those arrangements of matter which constitute a house or a printed book, or

n THE PEOBLEM OF THEISM 25

the expression of a human face or even the form of a human body. These rudimentary desires he calls, with Plato, ideas, — not concepts, but ideas, the essence of which is purpose, — and he shows how to the " idea " of rest there may be traced all the varied beds of the world — the four-poster, the hammock, the mat, according to the soil in which the idea is sown. So with the idea of justice, and the whole system of law courts and judicial institutions that spring therefrom. So also, according to him, with the great heroic ideas of Strength or of Gentleness or of Pity, from which the Gods of Paganism and of Christianity have sprung ; and so of Pear and Hate, with their brood of devils and idols. It is thus, he holds, that social institutions and the forms into which society has wrought the matter lying to its hand have been built up. Wherever the foot of Man has trod, it is the " ideal " that has lain behind and '' formed " the real.

So far, the theological side of the argument apart, we may anticipate agreement. Our problem is, first, to determine whether a similar finality can rightly be attributed to nature in view of the apparent adaptations of means to ends that are to be found there, and, secondly, if finality be established, to decide how far the recognition of its presence takes us on the road to Christian Theism. Before, however, that problem can be discussed on its merits, the ground must be cleared of certain illegitimate demurrers with which, in the popular mind, the argument for Design is apt to be confronted.

Pirst, it is often supposed that within the sphere of organisms, where, in the formative, reparative, and reproductive virtues, apparent adaptations of means to

26 THE PROBLEM OF THEISM n

end are most striking, appeals to Design are rendered futile by the presence of an adequate scientific explanation of the facts — an explanation thought to lie in the law of evolution working through natural selection. This demurrer must be pronounced invalid upon the ground that, in the opinion of biologists themselves, natural selection does not adequately account for the development of species. It does, indeed, play an important part. The struggle for existence " selects " variations favourable to survival in the environment. The selective process, however, can only operate upon variations which have already been produced, and cannot, therefore, account for the production of the variations themselves. This is the case whether, with Darwin, we hold that the variations which occur in nature are usually small, or, with more recent biologists, assign an important role to large mutations. On either theory the cause of the variation (or mutation) is still to seek. In De Vries' epigrammatic phrase, " Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest." ^ Or more broadly, as Professor Sorley writes: "Natural selection is not the sole agent in the development of organic life ; it cannot be too often enforced that natural selection produces nothing, that its operation is purely negative. It does not properly select at all, it only excludes. What it does is to cut off the unfit specimens of living beings which nature supplies. It would have no field of operation were it not for the variety of nature. ... It is this which makes possible the operation of natural selection." ^

^ Quoted by J. A. Thomson, Heredity^ p. 98. - Recent Tendencies in EthlcSj p. 49.

The first demurrer, therefore, that Design has been expelled from the field by explanation throngh scientific law, cannot be sustained.

But, secondly, it may be replied, and that rightly, that though as yet the region over which science has established the reign of law is narrow, that region is growing and will continue to grow. In this post- Baconian age a fortress for Design can no longer be built on the unstable sands of ignorance. Eather, we must grant the claim that some day the laws by which the occurrence of mutations is determined will be established as securely as those determining their manipulation after occurrence. To grant this, however, is by no means to admit Design disproved. For what in essence is the character and scope of scientific laws ? Is to bring phenomena under these laws really to offer a full explanation of them ? No authoritative writer would maintain anything of the kind. Laws of nature are a descriptive apparatus of what is and what becomes, not an explanation of it. I do not explain a clock when I discover that its hands, originally supposed to move by arbitrary jumps, in fact move with orderly regularity. I do not explain the industrial life of a people when I state its process in terms of the differential calculus. !N"or do I explain the present state of anything by describing its antecedent state, or the stages, regular or otherwise, by which it has advanced from then to now. In doing this I am not solving the given problem. I am merely stating a different one. The demand for an explanation, put to me about the product, is merely shifted to the process by which the product was made. In short, so soon as a law is given, we inevitably find ourselves demanding the cause of the consilience of phenomena which the law describes. It is possible, no doubt, that in any particular case there may he no cause, that, for instance. Omniscience could only say of biological evolution that variations happen to occur in accordance with the normal law of error, and that those of them that are " uniit " are cut off in the struggle for existence. If this is the case the descriptive law is, as a matter of fact, a complete account of the reality ; but, from the mere fact of knowing the descriptive law to be true, we can never know this. Hence, whether or not the real constitution of Nature is such as to exclude Design, it is impossible that any extension of the range of known law should prove it to be such. The argument for Design, therefore, however false it may in fact be, cannot be disproved by Science.

The ground thus cleared, we may turn to the merits of the argument itself. At the outset it must be remarked that its persuasiveness is often illegitimately enhanced by a certain inaccuracy in our thinking. There is a natural tendency to concentrate attention on those results of a means that do subserve the end for which we suppose the means to have been designed, and to neglect those results which do not subserve this end. We notice, for instance, that the pollen on the male variety of fir trees serves to fertilise the female variety, and is adapted to that end. But we do not notice that, if this fertilisation is really the end for which the pollen was designed, the design was, at best, wasteful. For, for the few pollen grains which accomplish fertilising work, there are vast quantities that are blown over the country and avail to fertilise nothing. The excellence of the adaptation is, in fact, exaggerated by neglect of the cases in which the adaptation fails.

Let it be granted, however, that this point is of minor importance, and that, when dne allowance has been made for it, there still remain many striking instances of real, and not merely apparent, adaptation. The argument for Design can then be stated in two forms that require separate discussion. The first of these is developed and, in a guarded manner, sanctioned by J, S. Mill in his posthumous Essays on Religion. His formulation of it is referred to the classical instance of the eye, and runs in this wise : — All the parts of an eye act together so as to enable an animal to see, and this is the only circumstance that they have in common. The concurrences are too numerous to be due to mere chance ; therefore, they must arise out of a common cause. This cause must be connected with the common effect, sight, to which they all conspire. But, the fact of sight is subsequent, and not precedent, to the collocation of operating elements. Therefore, it must have been the idea of sight, wherein is implied a purposing mind, by which the collocation was caused.^ The same reasoning is worked out by M. Janet in his elaborate treatise on Final Causes, and is generally admitted to be of importance. In my opinion, however, the reasoning is not valid. All that I can see in the so-called adaptation of means to an end is a convergence of many phenomena to a residt. The argument avers

1 Essays on Religion, pp. 171-2. Mill admits, it should be noticed, tliat the theory of natural selection damages the second stage in his arffument.

that the result must have been foreseen, and is thus rightly called an end, upon the ground that the chances against that particular result occurring by accident are an indefinite number of billions to one. But this reasoning omits to notice that some result must have occurred — that the particles of matter must have been arranged in some way, and that the chances against any specific arrangement — against a lump of mud no less than against an eye — are equally an indefinite number of billions to one. That Mill should have ignored this point is the more surprising since, in his Logic, he carefully distinguishes '' between (what we may call) improbability before the fact and improbability after it," and takes the very ground here relied upon to explain why we do not disbelieve the statement that, in the cast of a perfectly fair die, ace was thrown, though the chances are ^yq to one against throwing ace.-^ Nor is this all. He expressly censures D'Alembert and others for the conclusion " that Nature has greater difficulty in producing regular combinations than irregular ones ; or, in other words, that there is some general tendency of things, some law, which prevents regular combinations from occurring, or at least from occurring so often as others." '' It seems, then, that the fact that the actual existing arrangement is an eye proves nothing more than would be proved if it were anything else whatever. This argument for Design, therefore, is untenable. Quod nimium prohaf, nihil protat.

The above reasoning is, however, exposed to a plausible rejoinder. Eor, it may be replied : *' Does not the objection go farther than you intend ? If it

1 Logic, vol. ii. p. 169. 2 ji^d^ p jyj^

II THE PKOBLEM OF THEISM 31

is really adequate to rebut the argument for finality in Nature, must it not equally forbid us to credit finality to the works of man ; for is not our belief in that finality derived in an exactly similar manner from the apparent adaptation of means to ends ? "

To a portion of this reasoning I have no objection to make. I grant that, if a belief in human finality is based merely upon a contemplation of human works, the defence of it cannot be made more cogent than the defence of natural finality. As a machine for producing sight, it is obvious that an eye exhibits a co-ordination of means to ends not less, but more remarkable than the most intricate machine for the manufacture of sausages or screws. All this I freely grant. But, in doing that, I am not placing myself in a dilemma. For, in my view, belief in human finality does not depend upon evidence drawn from human works, and is not, therefore, injured by the failure of that evidence. It is built upon a different foundation. First, when we construct machines, we have direct experience of finality in ourselves ; secondly, we find in many respects a great similarity between other men and ourselves ; thirdly, we conclude from that that they are probably similar in respect of finality also. This conjecture is confirmed by their informing us that, as a matter of fact, it is a valid one. When, therefore, we see them engaged in machine-making, we have no doubt that their work is purposive. When, without seeing them at work, we find in the world a machine close in place and form to those which we know they sometimes construct, we infer that the machine in question is made by them — unless, indeed, we also know that Nature at times makes such machines. The argument, in short, is, " Since this object is man-made, it is made for a purpose," — not, " since it is adapted to an end, it is made with a view to that end." This is certainly the process in regard to the discovery of prehistoric stone implements — not, as Janet suggests, a direct inference to finality.-* Indeed, on his method, Nature being supposed itself to work by final causes, there would be no need to refer the implements to man at all. The simple fact is that we know from our own experience that men act by plan. AVhether Nature does the same is the question we have to answer ; and here direct evidence is lacking.

So far the case seems clear. Mill's Design argument can neither be sustained directly nor successfully buttressed by an appeal to our practice in regard to human works. Finality in Nature can, however, be defended in a second way. The old argument can be reconstructed by an inverse application of the rules of probability. The principle of this method is stated by Jevons in his Princiioles of Science thus : " If an event can be produced by any one of a certain number of different causes all equally probable a priori, the probabilities of the existence of these causes, as inferred from the event, are proportional to the probabilities of the event as derived from these causes. In other words, the most probable cause of an event which has happened is that which would most probably lead to the event supposing the cause to exist." ^ The application of this method is commonly

^ Janet, Final Causes, p. 31. Mill recognises by anticipation the weakness of Janet's position [Essays on Heligion, p. 168). 2 Principles of Science, p. 243. Cf. Sigwart, Logic, ii. 229.

illustrated by the case of white and black balls drawn from a bag, the problem being to determine from the relative numbers drawn the probable pro^^ortions before the drawing took place. Applied to the case of finality in Nature, the method works out as follows. The given event is an arrangement of means and ends complexly adapted to one another. If there is no finality, the probability of the given event would be unity divided by the total number of possible events. If there is finality, however, though it is not indeed certain to lead to adapted arrangements, — for, as has been well observed in the case of human action, we often infer design from breaches rather than from maintenance of order — it is more likely, we may perhaps say, to lead to these than to merely random arrangements. Consequently, on this supposition, the probability of the given event is greater than unity divided by all possible arrangements. It is — so at least the argument would assert — something between this and unity divided by all possible adapted arrangements. Hence, by the inverse method it follows that finality is a more probable source of the given event than chance. The argument in this form is open to four rejoinders. These I proceed to state in what appears to me an ascending order of importance.

First, it may be pointed out that the portion of the universe known to us is a very small part of the whole, and that we should expect order to appear by chance in some parts even of a completely chaotic universe. Hence, the order that we do in fact observe is not in the least incompatible with a universe sown by chance. This argument is advanced by Dr.

D

34 THE PROBLEM OF THEISM n

McTaggart with the aid of the following illustration : " If I cast a die ten times, and threw a six each time, I should have little doubt that it had been loaded. But, if I cast it sixty million times, and got only one run of ten sixes, I should find no difficulty in supposing that it came by chance. , . . The proportion of the amount of the universe which shows such traces (of order) to the amount which does not may be so small as to make the order which we see as explicable by chance as the run of ten sixes in sixty million throws." ^ I cannot admit the force of this reasoning. Of course it is probable that there will be order in some parts of a purely chaotic universe, but it is most improbable that we should happen to be able to observe just that part. The proper analogy is a case in which, of a great number of throws made, I observe twenty chosen at random and find ten successive sixes. In such a case, on Dr. McTaggart's own principles, it would be correct to infer design.