Guide to the knowledge of God, a study of the chief theodicies

Front matter

Poo ctutatal ehh

Hrom the Library of

Bequeathed by him to — the Library of Princeton Thenlogiral Seminary BT 98 .G72713 1892 Gratry, A. 1805-1872.

Part First. CHAPTER Il

EXPLANATORY.

A summary of the whole work. Why philosophy begins with a treatise on the knowledge of God, with the knowledge whereby the mind of man rises to God.—I. Is it possible and necessary to prove the existence of God? Are there atheists? —II. General character of the genuine proof of the existence of God. —III. Precise nature of that proof: it is the principal application of one of the two essential processes of reason; it is the act and fundamental process of the rational and moral life. The study of this proof is the study of philosophy in its principle: studied historically, it is the basis of the history of philosophy; studied speculatively, it places the mind at the point where the roots of ontology, psychology, logic, and morals TS ogee teeta red E rt eA VAS Ste nahi 2S Mt Re A a ee ARR RS 25)

CHAPTER ILE.

PLATO'S THEODICY.

I. Why it belonged to the school of Socrates to give to the antique world the laws of the chief process of reason, and to attain to the true philosophical proof of the existence of God. —II. Platonic dialectic: the condition for its exercise; its point of support, its movement, its term. —JIII. Discussion of texts from Plato concerning the nature of the dialectic process. —1V. Use which man should vil CONTENTS.

PAGE make of this divine gift, — to conquer the obstacle, develop the sense of the immortal and the divine. — V. Starting-point of the dialectic process in the spectacle of visible objects. — VI. Full description of the process. — VII. Term of the process (reAos rs mopeias). ‘T'wo degrees of the divine intelligible: shadows of that which ts, or divine phantasms: the Divine Being himself. — VII. The idea of the true God as found in Plato. —IX. Plato combats the false application of the chief process of reason, sophistry. — X. Summary of Plato’s Theodicy. — XI. What Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Bossuet, and Thomassin think of the Platonic doctrme . . . 26-61

CHAPTER “II.

ARISTOTLE’S THEODICY.

L. Relations between Plato and Aristotle. — II. Proof of the existence of God given by Aristotle and summed up by Saint Thomas Aquinas. TIL. Discussion of that proof. Its logical value is doubtful in the form in which it is given. —IV. The result of Aristotle's Theodicy : an immutable essence; a principle whose essence is very act; God pure act; how the motionless motor moves; attraction of the desirable and intelligible; God is an eternal and perfect living being, Goodness, Thought, and Life. — That which is in us is finite, in God exists infinitely. — V. Aristotle’s ervor in regard to the eternity of the universe. —VI. God’s relation to the world, according to Aristotle. — VII. Summary of Aristotle’s Theodicy.— VIII. Distinction between the two degrees of the divine intelligible. — IX. Aristotle’s proof of the existence of God is at bottom precisely the same as that of Descartes. Decision in regard to Aristotle . . . ..- - 62-94

CHAPTER IV.

SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY.

I. Saint Augustine’s opinion of philosophy. — II. Analogy and difference between Plato and Saint Augustine: Quidguid a Platone dicitur, vivit in Augustino.— II. What Saint Augustine sees in Plato; what he adds to him. —1IV. Theory of the method which lifts us to God and the truth, according to Saint Augustine (yradus ad immortalia faciendus). —V. Hlaboration of what precedes. Saint Augustine more exact than Plato in regard to the theory of the philosophical method which proves God. — VI. Great superiority of Saint Augustine over Plato concerning the theory of the divine sense, principle of the moral and intellectual impulse towards God. — VII. The is

CONTENTS. vil

PAGE final term attained by reason, when God lifts it to himself (Audio perveniens ad finem suum).— VIII. Results of Saint Augustine’s philosophical method. Idea of the infinite; doctrine of the creation. —I1X. Journey of reason towards God, according to Saint Augustine: two degrees of the divine intelligible. — X. Conclusion: the

Temple; two ways of regarding it. . . . . . . . . . 95-142

CHAPTER V.

SAINT ANSELM’S THEODICY.

General sense of Saint Anselm’s philosophical works. — II. What is Saint Anselm’s argument ?—III. Fuller analysis of that argument. —IV. How far reason can go, according to Saint Anselm 143-157

CHAPTER VI.

SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS’ THEODICY.

Relations between Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine. — LI. Literal translation of a Question by Saint Thomas Aquinas, which is an abridged treatise on the existence of God: De Deo an Deus sit (Sum. Theol. 1%. q, 11).— IIL. Discussion of this chapter from Saint Thomas. —IV. Theory of the method which lifts our mind to God, according to Saint Thomas: 1. The starting-point in the spec-» tacle of created beings; 2. The process, which takes three names : via causalitatis, via eminenti@e vel excellentia, via negationis vel remotionis ; 3. The moral obstacle: veritatem Det in injustitia detinent. —Y. Distinction between the two degrees of the divine intelligible : visio specularis, visio per essentiam. Distinction in the higher of the two degrees: light of grace, in via videntium ; light of glory, in patria videntium.— VI. Conclusion . . . . ~. « «-- - 158-184

CHAPTER VII.

THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

Philosophie character of the seventeenth century: unity of mind of its great men}; unity of process.

DESCARTES.

I. His philosophical character.— II. His starting-point to prove the existence of God: unity of his two proofs. —III. Double character of the true proof, both rational and experimental. —IV. Odjective

Vili CONTENTS.

A

Ae reality of the idea of God, according to Descartes : this idea is a certain vision of God. ‘This vision is indirect: I possess it by the same faculty by which I know myself. It is the Imace of a genuine and immutable nature. ‘Chat image is only that which we see when the mind conceives, judges, or reasons. —V. How Descartes’ two proofs are inseparable and form but one. — VI. The process of Descartes does not differ from the dialectic of Plato. — VII. Hiatus in the ideas of Descartes, or at least in his work. Danger of Cartesianism ill understood. — Conclusion. To distinguish between, but not to separate, the two orders of the divine intelligible.

PASCAL.

Part played by Pascal considered as a philosopher. — II. His scepticism is not genuine scepticism, any more than is Descartes’ doubt. He is especially averse to ¢solated reason. — III. Pascal’s doctrine concerning the rational knowledge of God. Pascal’s deficiency. — Conclusion.

MALEBRANCHE.

Merit of Malebranche. Solid side of his doctrine. —II. Malebranche’s practical and habitual method. — III. How he proves the

- existence of God. —IV. Malebranche confounds the two orders of

Ae

Ll the divine intelligible. This is his error.

FENELON.

Fénelon’s philosophical character. His superiority. — IT. Fénelon corrects the exclusive points of view of Pascal and Malebranche. His analysis of reason, the best that has been made, is at the same time the most beautiful of the proofs of the existence of God. — III. Profound comparison by which Fénelon explains the nature of ideas and reason: his superiority over Malebranche. —IV. His theory of the process by which our reason rises to God. — Conclusion.

PETAU AND THOMASSIN,

. Analysis of an important chapter by Petau, in which he explains

PAGE his method of demonstrative theology. —II. Philosophical character - of Thomassin. —II]. Starting-point of the process which proves God, according to Thomassin. —1V. Profoundly original theory given by Thomassin in regard to what has heen called the exnate idea of God. —V. Continuation of that theory. — VI. Remarks on the starting-point of the process which lifts our mind to God. — VII. Theory of that process. Thomassin’s excess of tolerance in regard to Neo-Platonism.— VIII. Clear distinction between the two regions of the divine intelligible.

CONTENTS. ix

BOSSUET.

PAGE I. Bossuet’s philosophical character. — II. Relations between the question of Quietism and the philosophic proof of the existence of God.— III. God proved by the spectacle of nature and by his operations in us.—IV. God proved by his idea taken in itself, — V. Description of the practical process which lifts us to God. THE HIDDEN SPRING. The other light.

LEIBNITZ.

I. Philosophical character of Leibnitz. His chief title to glory. — If, Did Leibnitz understand the relation between the infinitesimal process and the corresponding logical process? —III. Leibnitz regards as good almost all the means which have been employed to prove the existence of God. He thinks he has reduced the proof of the existence of God ¢o mathematic precision. He remoulds Saint Anselm’s proof.—IV. Summary of the Theodicy of Leibnitz. — V. Analogy between his Theodicy and his geometry. Conclusion 185-303

CHAPTER VIII.

ON THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.

I. The true proof of the existence of God also gives us the attributes of God. Deduction of all God’s metaphysical attributes from any one of those attributes. — II. Intellectual and moral attributes. — Ill. Ipsum intelligere Dei est ejus substantia. The various ideas in God.—IV. God’s providence. Creation. Death. —V. To what the triple distinction between the attributes of God GOFIESPORUS, terran mebeear! ef) Noa omy at lc ky! «S04 e396

CHAPTER IX.

INFINITESIMAL PROCESS.

I. How the proof of the existence of God is, as Descartes and Leibnitz assert, mathematically exact. It is the highest application of the general infinitesimal method, of which the geometrical infinitesimal process is merely a special application. — II. Why many minds reverse the process which lifts our mind to God, and direct it in a contrary course. The scientific process of modern atheism is only the infinitesimal process inversely applied. Its result is an exact proof, ad absurdum, of the existence of God. — III. Conclusion of first part of the Treatise on the Knowledge of God . . . 327-348 xX CONTENTS.

Part Deconvd.

Chapter I. The Two Degrees Of The Divine Intelligible

I. Three states of reason. —II. Description of these different states of reason. —III. Causes of these different states. —IV. Continuation. How reason attains to its highest term: Ratzo perveniens ad finem SOP Be A oP Oe ge eNO SCT NIEMAN Ug) Ov Oe RM eR Ra ray Ati CN 4

Chapter II. Relations Between Reason And Faith

L. Distinction between the two degrees of the divine intelligible, — that to which reason attains, and that which, of itself, it cannot grasp, according to Saint Thomas.— II. Comparison between reason and faith, according to Saint Thomas, Thomassin, and Saint Augustine. —JII. Analogy to this distinction in Saint Paul.—IV. What can reason do without faith? —V. Parallel between the two forms of wisdom, natural and supernatural, by Cornelius a Lapide. Reason and faith compared by the Council of Trent.— VI. Evident limits of reason. — VII. What is natural reason? Analogy between the evolution of reason and that of faith. — VIII. What is sound reason and what perverted reason? Reason conjoined to its principle ; reason doubting its principle . . . . . + + * + + + 363-392

CHAPTER. IIL.

RELATIONS BETWEEN REASON AND FAITH (Continued).

I. What is sound reason (continued)? Natural faith. —1. Natural faith, divine sense, according to the Holy Scripture. —III. Natural faith according to Aristotle, the Alexandrians, and Kant. — IV. Natural faith, according to Thomassin. — V. Reason supported by its principle, by natural faith.— VI. Is there, actually, no supernatural gift mingled with sound natural reason? . . . . . 393-410

CONTENTS. x1

Chapter IV

RELATIONS BETWEEN REASON AND FAITH (Continued). PAGE I. What can sound reason do? It may recognize its limitations, and regret that which it lacks: this is its highest capability. —II. Exact precision of theological formulas on this subject. The perfection of the rational creature depends upon a certain gift superior to the nature of the created being. Geometrical analogy.— III. Natural desire to see God, according to Saint Thomas. . . . . . 411-431

CHA PEE Rie Vs RELATIONS BETWEEN REASON AND FAITH (Continued).

I. Transition from reason to‘ faith. — JI. Evening light and morning light. — III. Genesis of light according to the Gospel. . . 432-447

Chapter VI

RELATIONS BETWEEN REASON AND FAITH (Continued). SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.

I. Two degrees of light: Sound reason. Perverted reason. Sluggish reason. Comparison.—II. Theological Summary.— III. We must advance, with the help of God, to the higher of the two degrees

Introduction To The Translation

By WiLiiAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER.

I

|i its original language the work here translated has passed through many editions, and has attained the rank of an authoritative classic. It is characterized by such comprehensiveness of scope, such force and beauty of style, such amplitude of learning, such ripeness and pr¢- cision of thought, such depth of experience, and such catholicity of spirit that no one can fitly read it without being instructed, stimulated, and edified. The author sweeps with the ease of a consummate mastery through the wisdom of twenty-five centuries, gathers up the chief treasures deposited there by the kings of insight, and presents them constructed into one harmonious whole. The question with which he grapples as strenuously as any one ever has done, is whether the human mind is able to attain to a real knowledge of God. To the examination of this sublime theme he brings both an intense earnestness and an unfailing sobriety; while adding to these high qualities all that historic erudition and training can yield from without, or personal acumen and consecration furnish from within. The result, as embodied in the present volume, is one with which, in point of attractiveness and solid value, no work on the same subject within the entire compass of English literature can for a moment stand a comparison.

Gratry answers the question, Can man know God? in the most effective way possible, by setting forth, in systematic 1 outline and with appropriate detail, the experimental and critical conclusions at which a large number of the most illustrious thinkers of our race, from Plato and Aristotle to Fénelon and Leibnitz, have actually arrived on that subject. He lays bare the methods they employed, the difficulties they encountered, the arguments they constructed, the aids they received, the results they conquered, and their fundamental agreement through all. He does this with an incisiveness of thought, a summarizing skill, a patience, an impartiality, and a lucidity most admirable and most delightful. It is true that as we pass on from name to name there seems to be a good deal of repetition. But there is ever a variety in the sameness, a progressive growth in the exposition, a cumulative gain through the repeatals, which fully reward the reader. As he goes over, in theodicy after theodicy, what appear to be quite identical statements, he will more and more find doubts dissolved, objections answered, obscurities illuminated, peace bestowed, assurance and satisfaction breaking in. There are very few, even among professional students of philosophy, who will not find themselves abundantly repaid for a patient perusal of ‘all the repetitions in these freighted pages, —so momentous are the themes treated, and so masterly is the treatment. One of the central traits of this work is the appeal the author makes for the action of human nature in its integrity as regulated by the sovereign unity of the rational principle. He protests against the division of the soul into a collection of abstracting faculties which operate separately and breed all sorts of error, fiction, and confusion. He quotes approvingly the bold remark of Fénelon, “Reason is even more wanting on earth than religion.” Having also cited the great saying of Saint Thomas, “In the moral order, crimes_against nature are worse than sacrilege,” he adds, “So in the intellectual order that crime against nature which

INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 3 attacks reason is worse than the sacrilege which attacks faith; for to ruin reason is to prostrate the religious edifice by undermining the ground.”

The vindication of the powers and rights of reason, so nobly illustrated in the whole body of the work, has been formally stated by Gratry in the following eloquent passage, which is no less timely than it is just and weighty:

«‘ What is the common and natural state of the reason among men? We see it all about us. God is still unknown to the majority of men, and almost all are profoundly ignorant of their destiny, their nature, and their duty. The majority still reject the unmistakable light thrown upon human questions by universal reason, aided by God, and they are unable to pass this first and natural initiatory step, and far from attaining to the higher initiation which God has prepared for all. Very few men even succeed in gaining complete mastery of their body ; nearly all live a fortuitous and turbulent life, conducive to premature old age and untimely death.

“How few reasonable beings there are who cultivate in themselves the sacred gift of reason! The greater number cultivate the earth; others cultivate nothing. Throughout humanity, with but rare exceptions, reason, that sacred talent intrusted by God to every man on his entrance into this world, remains sterile or buried.

“‘ Bossuet, speaking of reason hidden in the flesh, says: ‘ What efforts must we not make to distinguish our soul from our body! How many of us there are who never attain to the knowledge or slightest perception of this distinction!’ ‘How many are there who rise somewhat above this mass of flesh, and clear their soul from it?”

“Yes, there are but very few men in whom reason is distinct from the mass of instincts, sensations, and wants, constituting a free force and an independent power. With almost all it is a sorely oppressed force, a power subordinated, not only to the imagination, the senses, interests, and desires, but also to the current of the blood and the disposition, the influence of the matter which feeds our body, and the forces of physical nature. Reason, the logical varnish of a purely animal life, the blind and trivial bond of our passicns, desires, humors, and sensations, — reason, blended with the whole, and carried away by the general movement, obeys slavishly, instead of ruling.

“There are, among God’s creatures, animals belonging to the lower grades of life. Their body is but a uniform mass, without distinct organs. Each point represents as well as any other the essential centres of life, and exercises all its functions vapidly and indifferently. There is no distinct heart or brain; all is confounded in the sum total of the mass. Well, just such is the intellectual organization of the multitude at the present day. Reason is in the germ, but not developed; it is spread throughout the mass, but is destitute of distinct central organ. It does not form, let me repeat, a free force and an independent power. The minds of such men may be compared to those inferior organizations in the animal scale which have no distinct brain.

“And with those who have developed the germ of reason to some slight degree, how is the development accomplished? ‘We seldom encounter anywhere other than warped intellects,’ said Arnaud in the seventeenth century. What would he say now?

‘‘What is a warped intellect? Bacon defines it very happily : ‘It is a mirror without symmetry, irregular, in the beams of the sun. Joubert uses the same figure in regard to one of our more excessive thinkers: ‘Thomas has a concave head; it exaggerates and enlarges everything which it reflects.’ Now, just as crooked mirrors deform every imagé, so a warped intellect distorts the data which might raise it to the heights of truth. This one-sided intelligence falsifies the truth which strikes it; it is addressed in words of truth, it hears falsehood ; beauty and sublimity are held up before it, it sees only deformity. This may be accounted for. Just as unsymmetrical surfaces are fantastic and distorted mirrors which falsify by their unevenly developed dimensions, so a warped intellect is a disproportionately developed intellect. For is not our weak understanding usually employed in the exclusive direction of one ruling passion, one fixed idea or supreme prejudice? Who is there whose intellectual mirror is a regular surface in every direction, spherical as the vault of heaven, or smooth as the mirror of the waters ?

“Certainly the majority of minds are strange and distorted reflectors.

Introduction To The Translation. 3)

“Being thus formed, they can derive only error from the spectacle of visible things and of the inner actions of the soul, and from that of human events. They gaze, and fancy that they see everything; they do see everything but the sum total and the proportions. It is thus that we observe the world, that we write history, and that we describe mankind. It is thus that, day by day, we retrace present facts visible to every eye; and the tale is false. We do not deliberately lie, but we give everything factitious dimensions, conformed to the desired effect. We enlarge what pleases us, and render imperceptible whatever offends. We are false, and we see things as we ourselves are.

“There is another natural infirmity of the reason, which is very apparent at the present time. Even those who think somewhat correctly, think but little and almost fruitlessly, because they are isolated, because each mind sees by itself alone; union and association of intellectual forces are yet to come. The confusion of tongues, the antagonism of sects, the subdivision of intellectual persons, and above all, the secret question at the bottom of every heart, ‘God or no god,’ the question which divides mankind into two camps, — is anything more than this needed to keep apart those who think? The sphere of the intellectual world is still inhabited on the exterior, not at the centre, where all rays meet, but only on the surface, where all are divided: so that there are, in the world of science and of thought, regions divided by space, subject to different heavens, speaking different languages, and much more foreign to one another than the various races of the earth. Each science is surrounded by a high wall, and so is every intellect. The unity of the human mind is less attained than that of the globe.

“If we would save religion, society, and civilization, the first work to undertake is the restoration of public reason. We must re-establish in the minds of men a knowledge of and respect for reason and its laws, and the practice of these laws, logic. It must be known, for it has been forgotten, that there are both error and truth in the world, and that the one may be distinguished from the other; that there is a true method of human thinking, — that is to say, there are fixed principles and legitimate processes ; that these principles and processes have been practised in all ages instinctively by many persons, and might have been so in a certain sense by all; that they were practised with some conscientiousness and with admirable results by philosophical minds in every century; but that they were ignored and violated by the blind criticism and lawless practice of sophists in all ages; that the true philosophical method, without being yet very completely defined, has nevertheless, in the course of ages, been determined and developed by the success of its applications and the even clearer sense of those great intellects who made use of it; but that there exists a false method and a sophistical process, which has never ceased to impede the advance of philosophy by its perturbing action, and that this power of contradiction, ever increasing, seems to borrow strength from the very progress of truth.

“This being thoroughly perceived, we must proceed to separate these shadows and this light; that is, we must at last learn to make a scientific distinction between sophistry and philosophy. We must give their true names, in history, to philosophers and sophists. Moving in a direction contrary to contemporary eclecticism, philosophy must at last proceed to the necessary excommunication of its domestic foes, instead of greeting and embracing them. The erroneous method, and that which leads to trath, must be exactly defined ; we must recognize, what is manifest enough, that the sophistical process is nothing but the philosophical method «verted.

“The division once accomplished, and the sophists set apart, we must restore the legitimate rule of reason and philosophy among us by the study of genuine philosophers, by the practice and knowledge of their method, as well as by a study of the sophists, considered asa counter proof and demonstration through the absurd.

‘Philosophy, a universal science, must come forth from its isolation and look face to face at the special branches of science which regard philosophy with contempt. Philosophy, as a wise writer expresses it, must cross the boundary-line, enter the domain of science, and take possession of it. It is right that all these branches of science which philosophy created should be subject to it ; or rather, it is right that the human mind should cease to be divided into regions unknown each to the other, and that the various sciences should resume their natural relations in the unity of philosophy.

“Still more must be done, if we are to re-establish the serious education of reason among Us.

“Tt is not enough that science should exist, — it must become a

INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. fi part of human intelligence ; and reason must be actually developed in every man, or at least in the majority of those who desire to think, and believe that they do so.

‘Now, so long as we blindly refuse to recognize that the solid and healthy growth of thought proceeds from the growth of the entire soul and will, there can be no mental change. There can be no advance of reason without a corresponding advance in moral strength and freedom. Intellect and will, reason and freedom, are the two wings of the soul, upon which it rises to its only object, which is goodness, and at the same time truth.

“ Farther yet, —and this is the supreme question in the life of the human mind and its history, a vital question for the human intellect, — is our reason conjvined to that of God, or is it wholly separate? Is reason destined to become holy, or to sink into degradation? At which extreme is it to stop? For it will not remain at this sterile and changeable intermediate, which is the end of nothing; it must either fall or rise.

‘‘Reason is a force that seeks for its beginning and end. Now, the truth is, that the beginning and the end of reason is God. The human heart seeks God no more unceasingly than reason does. Only in this pursuit the mind, as well as the heart, is subject to change. When the human heart changes, we have moral perversion. When the human mind changes, we have intellectual perversion, — the vice of sophists. ‘Truth,’ says Saint Augustine, ‘lies in placing in God these three things, — the cause of the world, the supreme good, the fulcrum of reason.’ Nothing more profound could be said. Very certainly the whole history of philosophy and sophistry is contained in that sentence. Only Saint Augustine makes no mention here of the final abyss into which the sophist plunges when, setting God apart from reason, he undermines the latter to discover its origin.

‘¢But what happens when, far from dividing it from God, we conjoin the two, and reason follows its research to the end? ‘Reason,’ says Saint Augustine, — ‘reason, attaining its end, becomes virtue.’ But what virtue? Let us see.

“There is a height, according to Saint Augustine, where reason stops. This is its end. This is plain to every true philosopher. ‘The science of the human mind,’ said Royer-Collard, ‘ will have been carried to the highest degree of perfection which it can attain when it can derive ignorance from its primary source.’

“There is, therefore, let us say with Saint Augustine, a height where reason stops: this is its end. But there it goes on in something which is not itself; as one river flows into another, or is borne to the ocean. This is the point where the mind of man is continued in the mind of God himself, and is subject to it. This subjection, or rather this high degree of elevation of the human reason, subject to the mind of God, is faith. Faith, — that is the virtue to which reason soars when it attains its end. ‘Faith is indeed,’ says Pascal, ‘the last step of reason.’ Only we must of course agree as to this capital truth whose admission or rejection decides the destinies of the world and the human mind.

‘We affirm that this subjection of the human mind to the Spirit of God is not the destruction of reason, but its final perfection. Reason, said Saint Thomas Aquinas, the most exact of philosophers as well as the greatest of theologians, — reason is capable of a twofold perfection ; namely, its proper and natural perfection, resulting from its own principles and its own powers, and the perfection which it borrows from its union and subjection to the Spirit of God himself, —a principle higher and greater than it. This is its final and supernatural perfection ; it is the human mind engrafted upon the Divine mind, if we may so express it. Reason then bears fruits which it could not bear; and as the poet says, repeating the words of Nature herself, —

‘6 ¢ Admires those fruits which are not hers.’

“‘ These fruits are those of the Spirit of God become the directly fertilizing principle of human reason, which none the less retains its individual principles.