A plain argument for God.

Preface

I have long been of the opinion that the argument for God, as it is usually presented, gives but little satisfaction to the vast mass of thoughtful men and women who approach the subject with an earnest desire to satisfy not only the demands of the intellect but also of the heart. The language used is so far removed from that of common life as to be not readily intelligible. Some of the arguments put forward seem to the plain man little better than metaphysical quibbles, and if he assents to them it is rather because he already agrees with their conclusion than because he sees their force. The one argument which does appeal to him as simple and natural is presented in such a way as to lead him to a God, not present and living, but of the past.

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This, however, is not at all what he has meant by the word God. To him the word has signified a Being- in a close personal relation to him, a Father of Spirits, " who is not far from every one of us." The reasoning does not assure him of the existence of the God in whom he has been accustomed to believe, and he has a torturing sense that either he has not grasped the arguments or the foundations of his belief will not bear too much investigation.

Now it is with a conviction that the argument for God's existence can be stated simply and plainly, and in a way to appeal to a thoughtful mind unaccustomed to following the reasonings of the schools, that this little book has been written. It has grown out of three lectures on the subject delivered before the Churchwoman's Institute in Philadelphia in the spring of 1888. The lectures, which many seemed to find helpful, were delivered to an intelligent but a popular audience; and in preparing my thoughts upon the subject for

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publication I have had such an audience in view. My endeavor throughout has been to make my thought clear to all persons of fair intelligence who read with any degree of attention and reflection.

As, however, I have to some degree left the beaten track in the endeavor to employ plain and simple language, where it is customary to use what maybe called technical terms, I have laid myself open to misunderstanding on the part of those who rest rather in words than in the thought they represent. In the interests of clearness and directness this was unavoidable. I ask, therefore, that my readers try to get a clear view of my thought itself before passing judgment on the argument that follows.

GEORGE STUART FULLERTON.

University of Pennsylvania, January, 1889.

Contents

Chapter

I. The Common Argument

II. The Search for Mind .

CHAPTER I. The Common Argument

If we take up what seems the simplest and most natural argument for the existence of God, as we find it presented in most books on the subject, we will see that it argues about as follows :

Things are constantly happening in the world about us. As I look from my window at the autumn landscape, the withered leaves on the trees are now moving and now at rest. In a moment the motion becomes more noticeable, and two or three loose their hold upon the twigs and fall to the ground. Now they are followed by many more, and those that have fallen flutter here and there, collecting in sheltered corners or whirling about each other in little eddies. Why has this happened ? From my window I have seen only the landscape and the leaves : the motion seems to have begun and ended without any reason at all.

But, if I ask even a child why the leaves moved, he answers at once, " Because the wind blew." If I ask him whether they could move if the wind did not blow, he answers without hesitation, " No." As to this particular event, the motion of the dead leaves, his mind is quite made up, — it could not have taken place without some cause. Very likely with this answer he stops thinking about the matter, but his answer has made me reflect. If the wind is the cause of the motion of the leaves, what is the cause of the wind ? Could the wind begin to blow without any reason any more than the leaves could move without any reason? And if there must be

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some cause why the wind began to blow, what was the cause of that cause ? and the cause of that one ? and of that one ? And if everything that happens must have some cause, must we not, to explain just why the leaves moved as I looked at them, go back and back either without end, or until we find some cause which differs from other things in being the very first, and in not needing a cause at all ?

Now, if we go to men of science, we find that they always assume that anything that happens must have some cause, even if they do not know what that cause is. In their examination into the secrets of nature they are always looking for causes of what they see, and until they find them they do not pretend to understand what they see. And they are not satisfied with tracing out the causes of things for a little way and then stopping, but they always hold that the last cause which they have found has its cause too, and that the search for causes should never be given up.

Some men, indeed, go so far as to say that this chain of causes is really endless, and that there can be no first cause, for that, like the motion of the leaves, would have to be explained by some cause before it.

Now the argument, which I am discussing, for the existence of God accepts all that is said about the necessity that whatever happens should have its cause, and that cause its cause, and so on ; but it insists that this chain of causes cannot be really endless, but must end in a First Cause, which is God ; and this it does on the ground that unless we assume a First Cause, we have really no cause at all, but only a series of effects or results, all of which are uncaused.

Having arrived at this point the argument in question goes on to say that everything that happens must have some sufficient cause. We know that if we wish to produce anything we must go about it in the right way, and, if we see anything happen, we do not simply assume any cause at all, but some cause that we think would naturally produce such a result. When the leaves moved, I explained it by the blowing of the wind, because I knew that the blowing of the wind is a cause which would naturally make the leaves move. And if I see a house in process of building, I never suppose that the blowing of the wind is building the house, because, from all I know of the wind and the house, it seems to me absurd to suppose that the former could produce the latter. What shocks the mind of a grown person in reading such tales as the " Arabian Nights" is simply the disregard of this truth, that causes and effects should be properly proportioned to each other. How the rubbing of a lamp should compel a spirit to obey us we cannot see, nor how a few words pronounced by way of a charm should change a human being into a dog or an ape into a human being. When we say all this is improbable, we mean that the causes given do not naturally produce the effects ascribed to them, and the sense of unreality this brings into our minds spoils our pleasure in the reading. It is only the child, who has no clear notion of what is natural, and who cannot therefore have any clear notion of what is unnatural, that is not repelled by such improbabilities.

It is for this reason— that causes must be proportioned to effects — that I always assume a builder to explain the building of the house; and if the plan of the house is particularly original and ingenious, I naturally infer that this is due to unusual ability and ingenuity on the part of its author. Every one reasons in this way about common things ; and, to use a famous old illustration, no one, finding a watch in a desert place, would suppose that it had any other cause than the mind and hands of some watchmaker, — the only thing we know capable of making a watch. If everything that happens must have a sufficient cause, we say, then the cause assumed, when the thing in question shows plan, must be a reasonable one, a mind, as the only thing capable of planning. Otherwise, you fall into the absurdities of the " Arabian Nights ;" for is it more absurd to assume that a brazen horse can rise into the air through a man's mounting it, than to assume that a thing that shows plan can be brought about by a creature incapable of planning?

If, now, we look at the world about us, do we not find on every side evidences of adaptation and apparent purpose? Are not means fitted to ends through the whole domain of nature ? and can we open our eyes without having forced on our attention mechanisms of the most marvellous intricacy and complexity ? Which is the more remarkable in its structure and workings, a watch or a human body ? And if we find that a human body is not, considered in itself alone, a complete thing at all, but like a watch without its key, quite useless, unless we suppose it in relation to the other things in nature, — food, water, air, all of which it needs in order to subsist and be serviceable ; and if we then pass on to the reflection that everything in nature is in this way related to the whole of nature, as a part of it, so that we must look upon nature as a unit, a harmonious whole, full of meaning and plan and purpose ; — if we do this, and then go back to the cause of all this, must we not infer that there is but one First Cause, wise as well as powerful, who is the Author of this harmonious plan, and the source of all its workings?

But there is one further step in the argument. Suppose that in looking about in the world we find, not only that things seem very wisely adapted to attain their ends, but that they seem on the whole to work together for good : that the ends for which nature seems to strive appear to be good ends. And suppose that from such an observation of nature we turn away with the conviction that the system of things as a whole is good, and contains a certain moral order or plan. Now, if it is reasonable to argue that, when the things we see indicate a plan, we may infer as their cause a Mind, is it not reasonable to argue further that, when the things we see indicate not only a plan but a good plan, — I mean morally good, — we may infer as their author a Good Mind ? That is to say, may we not infer such a Being as we mean when we use the word God ?

With this ends the famous "Argument from Design," as it is called, to prove the existence of God.

You will notice that the argument thus stated has two main divisions. The one argues from what happens to a First Cause, without inquiring as to the character of that cause. The other passes from the nature of what is to be explained, the world, to the nature of the First Cause as intelligent and good, and so comes to a God. The argument is an old one, and has had the assent of many great minds. It should be carefully weighed by every one.

Nevertheless, I should like any fairminded man, who has already been a believer in God, and has felt His presence in the world, to ask himself whether this reasoning just satisfies the demands of his religious nature. Has it made God any more real to him, to have followed the argument? Quite apart from the fact that an important part of the argument, the inference to a First Cause on the ground that the series of causes cannot be conceived as endless, is not unhesitatingly admitted by every one, — quite apart from this fact, and supposing the argument faultless in every particular, does it not still set God at the end of a vista which puts Him out of the present religious experience of the man who is seeking Him ? Suppose some one to whom he should present this argument were to say, " I admit all that. I believe God created the world and set nature in motion, but I believe that there His contact with the world ceased. There is no evidence that He is now in personal relation with me. His action is of the past, and not of the present." How could our argument for God answer this? If our champion should try to answer it by pointing to God's goodness as seen in the world to-day, would not his opponent at once suggest that, according to his own arguments, to prove God the author of this goodness he must go back to a First Cause, and infer that this First Cause is good ? And would not this be in fact admitting that the only provable cause of anything is a God acting in the past? and a very distant past at that?

There have been men who have argued in just the spirit of this objection concerning God and His relation to the world. Their reasonings have not been regarded as satisfactory to the religious nature of man, nor have their results been widely accepted.. The teaching of the Church, taking that word in the broadest sense possible, has always been Theistic, while this view of things is Deistic. I had not intended to use in this discussion any of those words which belong more properly to the schools than to the language of common life, but it is convenient to use these two, as they mark an important distinction, and one which we will do well to keep in mind. I shall try to make their meaning quite plain. Both words have the same derivation from the word God, but one is from the Greek word and one from the Latin. Both words are used in somewhat varying senses, but one sense in which they have been used, and the sense in which I shall use them, distinguishes between them in this way. Both the Deist and the Theist are believers in a God in some sense of the term, but the Deist believes in a God only as First Cause, as source of things, while the Theist believes in a God as also preserver and governor of things, — a God now revealed in nature and now and always in personal relation to man. Of course it follows, that it is only upon the latter view, the Theistic, that religion, in any proper sense of the term, is possible. There can be no communion with God, if God is in no present relation with the world in which one lives.

Now, if you have followed with care the argument for God with which this chapter has been taken up, you must see that, standing as it does, it proves what the Deist holds, but it does not seem to go on to prove what the Theist wishes to believe. I hope you will not for a moment understand me to say that the writers who have brought it forward, and who still bring it forward, are not Theists, and perhaps very earnest Theists. But I am quite willing to say, and I think you will agree with me in saying, that they are Theists, not because of their argument, but in spite of it. They are Theists, I suppose, because the world in which we live is always offering to one whose eyes, like the wise man's, are in his head, a much more natural and simple argument for God, and one which does not go back for a sight of God to the creation of the world and the beginnings of time. Of this argument I will speak in the following chapters.

CHAPTER II. The Search for Mind

Before asking ourselves whether we can find God in nature, and, if so, how, it would be well to have a clear idea of what we are looking for when we seek Him there. If we do not, must not our search be a random one ? and may it not possibly turn out to be conducted on a quite false and fruitless method? If by the word God I do not mean a thing that can be seen with the eyes or touched with the fingers, — a material thing, — and if nevertheless I look through nature for God with the methods of physical science, which are adapted to finding material things, must not my search, however thorough, be necessarily fruitless ? And if, after searching for God in this way, I fail to find Him, does that give me the right to say that I am now certain He does not exist ? Until I have some notion of what it is that I mean by the word God, I am in no position to prove either that He exists or that He does not, for I have no idea in what direction to turn for my proofs.

Now, without going into disputed points, but confining ourselves to what all reasonable men will admit, we may safely say thus much: by the word God we at least signify a Mind, a Person ; and the question whether God can be found in nature is at bottom the question whether mind is revealed in nature, — a mind which is yet not your mind or mine, but something much greater and more comprehensive ; but, still, always a mind. If, then, the search for God is a search for mind, we must conduct it as we usually conduct the ^ search for minds, and in no other way. It is with the question of how we commonly conduct this search for minds, and what we mean when we say we have found one, that this chapter is concerned.

It is now admitted on all hands that the

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minds with which infants appear upon this mortal stage have been much overrated, not merely by their mothers, as is perhaps natural, but by the world at large. The little creature which blinks and stares with its face towards the light is commonly supposed to see objects much as we do ; and when it jerks about in its aimless way its small arms and legs, it is supposed to have a fair knowledge of what they are and of the fact that they belong to it. When it starts at hearing a sound, we are apt to imagine that the sensation has to it somewhat the same significance that it has to us, who have heard sounds and connected them with objects around us for many years. This reputation for intelligence would seem to have been gained somewhat as the stupid man gained his reputation for profound wisdom, by a policy of strict silence. The students of mind in children are beginning to find out that it is about as well founded as that, and that the mental furniture of a very young infant is scanty to a degree which we have not heretofore suspected. They are beginning, too, to give us some account of the growth of what, starting in such poverty, may end in the wealth of knowledge and wisdom of a Newton or a Kant.

It will not take a great deal of reflection to show any one that their statements are reasonable, and that a mind beginning to feel and to think must begin in a very small way. I will take an illustration and see if I cannot make this clear. As I write, there is lying on my desk before me an apple. I say this, although I have not touched it, or smelt it, or tasted it. I have only seen it. Moreover, I see it only from the one side, so that I only see a small part of what I could see if I were to turn it over and around and look at every part of it. And when I call it an apple, I have some notion that if I were to cut it in two I should see white instead of red, with a little black or brown in the centre where I believe the seeds to be. Just notice how

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j much more is in my mind about the apple than what I actually see. I actually see only a little patch of red color of a certain shape, and I supply from my past experience of apples all the rest, — the idea that if I were to turn it round I could see the other parts of it, the idea of the white flesh, the idea of the seeds. Is it reasonable to suppose that I could have supplied all this if I had not had any past experience of apples ? And when we go on to the touch qualities of the apple, its hardness and smoothness, its weight, and all the rest; and from these to the taste and the smell, — how is it that as soon as I see that little patch of red color on the table in front of me I think of all these, and connect them with the apple? Hardness is not anything like color, nor is weight, nor is taste, nor any of the rest. I certainly do not see them. Why do I believe them there? Is it not because, although these qualities are all unlike each other, yet I have always found in my past experience jo A Plain Argument for God.

that they are grouped in nature, and that when I can see the color I can if I choose feel the hardness or weight, or smell or taste the apple ? If all my life I had only seen objects and never touched them, would I have any reason to believe that in addition to the sensation of color I now experience I could also have experiences of touch and taste and smell ? And if the idea of an apple is made up of all these experiences together, could I, in the case I have supposed, get any true idea of an apple at all by just seeing one before me?

Now suppose an infant in its nurse's arms brought close up to my desk, and placed in front of the apple so that it cannot help seeing its color. Suppose that it is still so young that it has not had much experience of the fact that when certain sensations of color enter its small mind, certain sensations of touch can be made to enter too, — that is, that things seen can also be touched. Will not in such a case

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the sensation of color stand quite by itself and disconnected from any thought of any further experience ? And if the child is to have any notion of an apple as we know apples, with all their different qualities, must not this knowledge grow up gradually, from an experience in which one sensation accompanies another again and again until the mind learns to connect them, and learns to expect to find them always together? This reasoning is applied also to the child's knowledge of its own body, and it is held that it is unreasonable to suppose that an infant knows that the little white object that it sees in front of its face when it waves its hand about, is its hand, — that is, a thing that can be touched as well as seen, and can touch as well as be touched. As soon as we see a hand we of course think of all this, but we do this because we have had a long experience of hands, and this experience the infant has not had.

From all this it is evident that when sensations first come to the mind of an infant they do not mean much. It does not know what they signify. And it is evident, too, that the growth of its mind means not only the having of more and more sensations, but also a discovery of their meaning, — that is, a discovery of the fact that they are connected in certain fixed ways which will allow the mind to make inferences from sensations now present to sensations which are not now present. A burnt child, it is said, dreads the fire, and this simply means that a child which has once seen the fire and felt it knows when it sees it another time, and without having to feel it again, that this particular sensation of color and form may be followed by a sensation of quite a different kind, which it is particularly anxious not to have. The sensation, you see, has gained a meaning, because it has become connected with another sensation. It is now known that the fire which is seen can burn. So it is that the child connects feel-

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ing with feeling, until what was at first a mere string of disconnected and unmeaning sensations grows into an orderly and meaning-full world of things.

Suppose further that the child has by this time gained some acquaintance with its own body and with the things about it. It knows its own hand now when it sees it : it knows that this is a thing that can be touched as well as seen, and that can touch other things w r hich can be seen. Now it discovers that the hand is a thing of a different kind from the apple. Both can be seen and touched, but when the apple is touched by anything the result is not just the same as when the hand is. One may cut into the apple or crush the apple, and it makes little difference, but if one cut into the hand or crush the hand it matters very much. The one object is by no means so important to the child's mind, nor so closely connected with its mind, as is the other. When the apple is cut there is no pain, and when the hand is cut there jj. A Plain Argument for God.

is pain. When the apple is seen to roll against some other object and touch it, the child only sees it, — that is, it has only a sensation of sight; but when its hand is seen to touch another object, the child not only sees it but feels it; it has an added sensation of touch. By remembering such experiences and comparing them the child gradually learns that this particular object, its own body, is an object with which are somehow connected pleasure and pain, and even the possibility of knowing about other objects and of acting upon them by its will, as all these things are not connected with other objects. Though it is quite unable to put the information into words, it is finding out that its body is an object with which is somehow connected a mind.

But in the world about the child are a number of objects which are more or less like its own body. Its nurse and its mother have bodies like its own, and these it can see as it sees its own. As it comes

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to know more and more about things, it learns to distinguish these from the other things about it and to class them as things of a kind with its own body. And as it finds in its own experience that certain states of mind, say pains or pleasures, are always present when its body goes through certain motions or is affected in certain ways, and learns to connect these states of mind with these bodily actions or conditions ; so, when it sees the same actions or conditions in the bodies of its nurse and mother, it at once calls up in memory these states of mind and connects them in thought with these other bodies too. The child first observes, you see, that when its own body is injured there is a feeling of pain, and then goes on to the belief that when certain other bodies which are like its own are similarly injured, here, too, the injury is not like an injury done to a chair or table, but results in pain, — that is, it affects a mind. Not that the child sees or feels the pain itself, or can by any possibility be made to see or feel directly this other mind ; but it interprets what it does see, and the most natural interpretation of what it sees is, that there is revealed by these other bodies a something like what it experiences in connection with its own body, a mind with its sensations.