Natural theology; or, Rational theism

Preface

rr^HIS volume presents the substance of lectures on the subject, given to students in the author's recent relation as President of Pennsylvania College. He was led to this method of instruction by the absence of any suitable text-book covering the various forms of the theistic evidences. Thouo^h the matter is here somewhat rearranared and reshaped, the general discussion has been determined by the needs of the College class room and the purpose of furnishing a reasoned and correct view of the truth on this incomparably important subject. The aim of the book, therefore, is, not to offer any new or original view of the theistic question, but to bring together the various approved evidences and furnish a compendious statement of them as they now stand in the best accredited thought and knowledge of our times. It is didactic, rather than polemical. The difficulty of the undertaking has been fully appreciated. No subject could be named, the discussion of which would lead through such a mass of conflicting metaphysics or traverse more varied and antagonistic speculation. The scientific theories and hypotheses of the recent years have greatly tended to

IV PREFACE.

make the basis of theism the focal point of the thought of the age. Though adverse speculation, it is believed, has not overthrown any of the old evidences in Natural Theology, it has yet made desirable such changes as shall harmonize the statement of them with the advanced knowledge now possessed. Such adjustive modification has been here attempted, as far as the necessary brevity of presentation has allowed. In consideration of the general purpose of the discussion, the author has felt at liberty to draw freely from the immense amount of literature that has been accumulated about the subject. He has at the same time endeavored to make proper acknowledgments. Though it is vain to imagine that the statement of the evidences here given will satisfy all, it is, nevertheless, hoped that its publication, in response to the frequently expressed wish of former pupils, will in some humble measure serve the great cause of truth, in supplying to students and other intellio-ent readers a brief view of the theistic evidences as considered apart from special revelation.

COJ^TEI^TS.

' INTRODUCTION.

1. Definition and General View of the Subject - 1-9

2. The Idea of God — Its Content, Genesis,

and Original Form . - - - 9-20

Part I. Evidences Op The Divine Existence

Preliminary Statements and Division - - 21-25

CHAPTER I. Presumptive Evidence

1. The Universality of the Idea of God - 26-30

2. The Religious Instinct of the Race - - 30-36

3. The Benign Influence of Belief in God - 36-40

4. The Doctrine of God Affords the Best

Explanation of the Phenomena of Nature 40-43

CHAPTER 11.

The Ontological Evidence.

1. The Germs of It in Plato ... 45

2. Anselm's Argument ----- 46

3. Descartes' View . . - - . 47

4. Bishop Butler's Statement - - . . 47

5. Cousin's Account of It - - - - 47 vi CONTENTS.

6. Various References ----- 48

7. Summary of the Import and Value of This

Evidence 48-58

CHAPTER III. The Cosmological Evidence

1. Based on the Principle and Laic of Causa-

tion — Origin of the Idea of Cause — Definition of Cause — The Law of Causation — The Law Known Intuitively — Assumed in All Processes of Knowledge — Not Simply from an Impossibility of Transcending Experience — Not Merely a Subjective Necessity — Recognized by All Science 59-65

2. The Universe Finite and Dependent - 65, 66

3. Attempts to Invalidate the Conclusion — The

Law of Causation Alleged to Have Onh' Subjective Value — The Supposition of an Eternal Universe . - . - 66—72

4. The Force and. Reach of the Cosmological

Evidence - 72, 73

CHAPTER IV. The Teleological Evidexce

General Account and Discussion of the Teleological Evidence ------ 74-76

Section I. Explanation And Funda:mental Principles

1. Definition of Final Cause or Design - 76-79

2. The Relation of Final to Efficient Cause - 79-82

3. The Alternative to Final Cause is Chance 82, 83

CONTEKTS. Vll

4. The Validity of Final Cause here regarded as

Resting on Experience and Induction - 83-86

5. The Reasoning Employed Analogical and

Inductive 86-92

6. The Phenomena of the World Viewed as

Effects 92-94

7. The Two Points to be Proved — the Reality

of Final Causes in Nature, and that This

Final Cause must be Referred to Mind 94-96

Section II. The Reality Of Final Causes In Nature

3. General Constitution of the World - - 131-141

4. Chemistry 141-154

Section III. Final Cause In Nature Demands Intelligence And Will

1. Intelligence the Natural Explanation of

Adaptation of Means to Ends, and the

Only Cause of It that We Know' - - 179-183

2. The Immanence of Finality Fails to Vacate

the Need of an Intelligent Cause - 183-186

3. A Denial of an Intelligent Cause Throws Us

back on Chance ----- 186-194

4. The Leading Explanations of the Hypothesis,

of Evolution Concede the Necessity of an Originating and Ordaining Intelligence 194-199

5. Demanded by the Existence and Supremacy

of the Human Mind - - - . 199-204

6. The Whole Body of the Inductive Sciences

Rests on This Assumption - - - 204, 205 vm COXTEIfTS.

CHAPTER Y.

The Moral Evidence.

1. Directly from the Existence and Action of

Conscience 206-213

2. From the Fact of a Moral Administration

over the World '^3-210

3. From the Relation between the Moral Law

and Happiness ----- 216, 217

Resume of All the Evidences _ . - 217-222

Goodness ------

231-251

CHAPTER IL The Relation oe God to the L'xiterse.

I. Whether Transcendent, or Immanent, or Both 252-259 II. The Supreme or Ultimate End in Creation 259-269

Introduction

I. DEFINITION AND GENERAL VIEW OF THE SUBJECT.

1. Natural Theology treats of the existence and character of God, as these may be known from reason and nature. It investigates the evidences of His being, and seeks to determine His attributes and relation to the world. The conclusions reached through this investigation, and established as valid on just principles of evidence, form what may be accepted as Rational Theism, or the doctrine of God as ascertainable apart from supernatural revelation.

2. The fundamental idea upon which Natural Theology proceeds is that, if there be a God as the Creator or First Cause of the universe. His existence and character may and must be found impressed upon it and discoverable from it. To some degree, at least, the author of a work is necessarily revealed in the work he has done. With respect to simply human affairs this principle holds fully. In every product of thought and skill we read the existence and mind of the producer. From the rudest mechanism to the highest and most complex products of invention and the fine arts, from the roughly shaped arrowhead of savagery to the steam-engine or chronometer of science, the thing made contains and reflects the thougiit and purpose of the maker. The idea is fixed and legible in the product. Whatever a man in the creative energy

2 IXTRODUCTIOIS^.

of his will, under the guidance of his intelligence, does in the world, not only bears witness to his existence, but expresses his mind, skill, and character. The works of men reveal them even more surely than their words.

This principle has a twofold application in the investigations of Natural Tlieology. It is applied, first, with respect to the world of miiid, or conscious human intelligence. If man is a creature of God, if his existence and nature have been given him by a Supreme First Cause, it is not only reasonable to expect, but absurd to doubt, that there is to be found in his mind some impress or reflection of His being, some mark of the workman on his work. It is fair to suppose that the human soul, or the rational nature of man, would mirror, possibly even to the soul's own consciousness, the existence of its author. To say the least, it is fair to raise the question whether this may not be so, and to settle it by its appropriate evidences. The principle is applicable, secondly, with respect to the material universe. This, not only as a whole, but in all its parts and particulars, is justly viewed as entitled to bear testimony when the question of the being and character of a Maker is investigated. Not only according to the common understanding of men, but according to the fundamental conception and basis of science, the material cosmos holds and presents in its constitution and order some records of its origin and history, legible to the reason of those w^ho honestly study it. If anyone should allege that this is only an assumption, incapable of absolute proof, it is enough to recall the fact that it is the necessary postulate upon which all the great structures of scientific explanation of the universe are founded and built. Should it be said, as it often is, that nature conceals rather than reveals God, forming a veil behind which He is hidden as the action of physical causes goes ceaselessly on, it is freely admitted that the eye of sense cannot behold Him. But the vision of reason, interpreting these physical causes, can penetrate the veil and see the reality and glory of the Power that operates through them.

3. Natural Theology proceeds also upon the legitimacy and reliability of the so-called intuitional, a priori, or necessary truths, and of the laics of logical thought. It accepts as trustworthy, and as standing for objective reality, the ideas of Space, Time, Being and Relations, Substance and Attribute, and the Law of Causation. In doing so, there is no necessity of settling the dispute among philosophers as to the precise way in which they originate. For both intuitionalists and their opponents recognize that they are essential and fundamental in human thought, incapable of being shown to be invalid or misleading, and impossible to be denied without repudiating and overthrowing the foundations of science and knowledge. Though there is no good ground to doubt the substantial correctness of the view which explains these primary truths as "intuitions" of the reason, necessarily developed in connection with and on occasion of the action of the sense-perceptions and consciousness, ,we need not rest their validity upon any particular explanation of their origin or any special way of designating them. It is enough to know that their authority is invincible in the practical thinking and reasoning of the race, and that science or philosophy cannot impeach them without suicide. For they are necessarily assumed in all inductive and deductive reasoning, in all the research and the essential processes through which conclusions are everywhere

■i IXTKODUCTIOX.

established. Without them logic loses all its foundation principles, and moves in air. The arguments framed to overthrow them are themselves overthrown, making plain the impossibility of refuting their ruling authority.

■i. Natural Theology is a science. The investigation is conducted upon the accepted principles of scientific procedure. The method is that of exact observation of the realities of the mental and physical worlds, and a careful and logical interpretation of their indications under tlie application of the first principles and laws of thought. Nothing is to be claimed as established that is not sustained by the facts and the necessary demands of reason.

5. ' The relation of Natural to Christian Theology is that of part to the whole. Belief in the existence of God is presupposed in our acceptance of a revelation. Natural TheoloD'v, therefore, lies at the basis of Revealed Theology, proving the existence of a Supreme Being to reveal Himself. Revealed Theology accepts all that may be discovered and proved concerning God and His attributes from data in nature and consciousness, but adds immenselv to this knowledge, especially in disclosing the scheme of grace and redemption through Jesus Christ.

6. The beo-innings of effort to construct a Natural Theology appear very early. In estimating its beginning, liowever, we must leave out of view all the ages in which men believed in the existence of God or of some supreme power without attempts to establish it by systematic or logical proof. Natural Theology must be distinguished from natural religion, the latter appearing long before the truths it implies were regularly and distinctly formulated. Moreover, the Hebrew people, forming a circle illuminated by special revelation, must be excluded from view in this connection. Their religion was a revealed religion, and they constructed no Natural Theology. But the most ancient literatures of other nations present many of the truths of Natural Theology in more or less systematized form. The Vedas of the Hindus, the Zend-Avesta of the Persians, the Book of the Dead and other writings of the ancient Egyptians, contain illustrations of the earliest known efforts of the human mind toward a knowledge of God. Whatever theistic truth and faith are found among the Greeks and Romans must be counted as derived from reason and nature. Socrates and Plato, especially, among the Greeks, and Cicero and Seneca among the Romans, made earnest, and to some degree successful efforts to give rational account of men's spontaneous faith in the divine existence, and their necessary conception of His character.' In all ao-es of the Christian Church theologians have claimed that the works of nature exhibit the power, wisdom, and goodness of their Author, and that revelation assumes this fact. To construct the knowledge thus attainable into a definite system, however, seems not, for a long time, to have awakened any marked effort. The Theologia Natxiralis sive Liber Creatiirarum of the Spanish physician, Raymond de Sabunde, teacher in the University of Toulouse in the early part of the fifteenth century, is said to have been the first work that, on the assumption that two books have been given men, one of nature and the other of revelation, confined itself to a theological interpretation of the former. Faust us Socinus, however, maintained that a Natural Theology was impossible, as no knowledge of God was attainable except from

1 See Xe)>oi)hoirs Memorabilia, 1,4; IV, 3, 13; Plato's Timceus; Cicero's De Natura Deorwni, Lib. II; Coclver's Christianity and Greek Philosophy, pp. 377-379.

6 II^TRODUCTIOI^.

the Scriptures. In this he has had but a feeble following. During the seventeenth century, Natural Theology rose in increasing prominence, and flourished in a sort of golden age in the eighteenth. Deistical writers sought to exalt it at the expense of Christianity, representing it as the real truth, to which the Scriptures added nothing of value. They looked on Christianity as simply a " republication of natural religion." But both these extreme views, the deistical exaggerations of nature and reason on the one hand, and the denial of the possibility of Natural Theology on the other, have failed to secure or hold the confidence of well balanced thinkers. The numerous able works which followed in the eighteenth century and since, of Clarke, Newton, Derham, Neuwentyt, Paley, and the Bi^idgeloater Treatises by Chalmers, Whewell, Kidd, Roget, Buckland, and Sir Charles Bell, Lord Brougham's Discourse on Natural Theology^ the Burnett Prize Essays by Thompson and Tulloch, Cooke's Religion and Chemistry^ McCosh's Typical Forms, Chadbourne's Natural Theology, Cocker's Theistic Conception of the Wo7*ld, Flint's Theism and Anti-Theistical Theories, Borden P. Bowne's Studies in Theism, Di man's Theistic Argument as Affected by Recent Theories, Janet's Final Causes, Dr. S. Harris' Philosophical Pasis of Theism, and an immense number of review articles continually appearing, have given the subject great wealth of discussion. They have abundantly shown that while the Bible is to a large extent a republication of theistic truths and spiritual laws discernible by reason from nature and the conscience, and has, in the doctrines of redemption, given the materials of a distinctively revealed theology, there are, nevertheless, abundant sources, and a clear place, for a reliable Natural

INTRODUCTIOl^. 7

Theolog-y, and that this is necessary as laying the deep foundations for the Christian system.

7. The importance of Natural Theology becomes evident from its relation to all the great questions and interests of life.

(1) To religion. If religion is to vindicate its reasonableness and right to a place in human life, it must rest on an assured knowledge of the object of worship. This is true whether it be the Christian religion or any other. Christianity is a large phenomenon in the world. Other religions, also, all rest on belief in God. Unless the question of the existence and character of God be answered, and answered so as to satisfy the reason of mankind, religion must lose its very foundation truths and die out from among men. Religion cannot stand if belief in God cannot be sustained and justified in reason.

(2) To morality it is hardly less essential. If experience teaches anything plainly, it is that there is no effectual dynamic for a pure, reliable, healthy morality apart from belief in the existence of God and a conviction of responsibility to Him as a holy and righteous governor. To build up a sentiment of duty that can dominate the passions and hold steady sway against the temptations to vice, wrong doing, and destructive irregularities, without the quickening and. supporting power of belief in a supreme ruler, is impossible. Atheistic ethical systems are practically impotent. They may present the ethical distinctions plainly, but their sanctions are gone. Enforcing motive power disappears when faith in a personal God is abandoned. Even common morality, in the ordinary plane of relationship between man and man in daily life, loses tone and nerve, and falls into corruption whenever touched by the breath of skepticism on this point. But more is true. If there be a God, man must sustain moral relations, that is, relations of dut\', to Him; and the human virtue that takes no account of Him must be at best one-sided and defective. Thus all the high and unspeakable interests of morality are involved in the answer given to the question of the divine existence and government.

(3) To the state and civil prosperity Natural Theology is of equal importance. If theism is essential to both religion and morality, it is at once evident that it must be essential also to social order and national welfare. The testimony of history is emphatic, that a well ordered and prosperous state is an impossibility without it. So strongly has the experience of nations reflected this truth, that great statesmen have put it into the proposition that, were there no religion among a people one would have to be invented for state purposes. It is a very expressive fact in this connection, that in common law atheism is counted as disqualifying a witness in courts of justice. The truths of Natural Theoloo^v are therefore of vital moment to all the great interests of society and the state.

(4) They also concern philosophy and science. The theistic conception of the world is of necessity widely different from the atheistical conception of it. While the facts and phenomena of nature remain the same, the explanation of them, and their relations and significance, become greatly changed. If theism and atheism must necessarily bear different fruits in religion and morals, they must also produce different systems of science and philosophy. They cannot, and do not, solve the problems of nature, life, and mind in the same way. These will always

INTEODUCTTON. 9

be found to depend very greatly on the position the scientist takes toward the truths which theology considers. The whole scientific system will take color from the light which falls upou it. He who finds in reason and nature clear evidence of a supreme intelligent First Cause, and he who finds there no proof of such Being — he who believes material force to be the potency and only source of all things, and he who believes that the universe originated and is ordered by an intelligent and self-existent Will, must inevitably look upon the world, life, history, and upon themselves so very differently, that the truth or falsity of the conclusions of theology becomes a matter of indisputable and momentous importance.

ri. THE IDEA OF GOD — ITS CONTENT, GENESIS, AND ORIGINAL FORM.

1. The idea of God lias been a variable conception, ranging from a very undefined impression of some Higher Power, as among barbarous tribes, to the distinct and developed conception of a Self-existent Personal Being, infinite in intelligence, power, and goodness, the First Cause, Maker, and Ruler of the universe, as found in the mind of the Christian philosopher and theologian. God is conceived of as the first principle, ground, and reason of all existence, not identical with the universe, but its Author, at once above and immanent in it.

Cudworth says : "The true and proper idea of God, in its most contracted form, is this : A being absolutely perfect." •

Descartes defines tlie idea : " By the name of God T

I Int. Sysfem, Chap. IV, § 8.

understand a substance infinite, eternal, immutable, inde- 23endent, omniscient, almighty, by which m^^self and all other things that are have been created and produced." '

Sir Isaac Newton : " The true God is a living, intelligent, powerful being, and from His other perfections it follows that He is supreme or most perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is. His duration reaches from eternity to eternity. His presence from infinity to infinity. He governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. He is not eternity and infinity, but eternal and infinite. He is not duration or space, but he endures and is present." ^

Dr. Henry N. Day, of New Haven: "God is an allperfect being — one; real; of essential energy which is characterized as rational; absolute as to the grounds of His existence and action ; infinite in duration, presence, and power; the source of all other being, and sovereign over all; and morally complete in holiness and blessedness." '

Dr. B. F. Cocker, Universit}' of Michigan : " An unconditioned will, or self-directive power, seeing its own way, and having the reason and law of its action in itself alone." *

These definitions will suffice to give the chief elements of the idea as it is now matured in Christian theism. How far it could have been developed by the mere light of nature it is impossible to determine. Perhaps Aristotle may be regarded as exhibiting the highest reach without revelation. But his statement: " God is a living being, eternal, most excellent, so that life and continuous

T'Med., III. "i Pnncijy'ia. ^Outlines of Otitological Science, p. 235. ^ Theistic Conception of the World, p. 33.

INTKODUCTIOIs". 11

and eternal duration of being belong to God," falls far short of the fulness of conception presented in Christian doctrine. But it is not necessary to settle this question here. For, while the idea, so filled and rounded out in consequence of the full light of revelation, has been developed into a form much beyond the possibilities of merely rational theology, the argument which Natural Theology proposes to conduct is equally valid upon a less complete conception. For its purposes the argument may, at the start, include in the idea of God no more than that of a Self-existent First Cause as the Creator and Ruler of the universe.

2. The genesis of the idea of God. How it first arose in the human mind, or fixed itself there, need not indeed be here settled. For it is not an essential point in the evidence of its truth. Yet it is of some importance, as certain theistic arguments gain or lose force according as one view or another is adopted on this point.

There is a class of explanations that may at once be justly set aside, both because of their intrinsic absurdity and because they are refuted in the end by the whole force of the theistic evidence. The explanations, often repeated, which assert, for instance, that the notion of deity is a phantom, born originally of ignorant human dread and fear in presence of the terrible and mysterious phenomena of nature^ ; that it began in a superstitious reverence for natural forces; that it is a crafty invention of designing priests and rulers; that it arose from reverence for dead ancestors whom respect and affection elevated to divine position, all fall to pieces the moment earnest and philosophic inquiry is turned upon the sub-

1 Lucretius: De Natura Rerum, Lib. VI, 50-70; Comte's Positive Philosophy.

ject. The atheistic theories of our day, with whatever learning and skill they have been elaborated, are found resolvable into reconstructions and modifications of these inadequate and futile hypotheses.' A sufficient refutation of them comes in the fact that they all derive religion from the lower human faculties, and represent its object of worship as only a creation of ignorance and mistaken fear. How then is its permanence to be accounted for ? What is due to trembling ignorance must die when ignorance dies. The spectres of night must vanish when the day comes. But the conception of God has grown clearer and stronger as man has advanced in knowledge and science. The full radiance of the highest civilization has had no effect but to bring it up into purer and bolder distinctness and strength. The idea, concerning the validity of which Natural Theology inquires, is one which, whatever be its genesis and explanation, thus maintains its place and authority, and has grown most positive under the fullest light of science and culture. The explanations which credit it to the gross ignorance and phantom fears of an early condition of human savagery are thoroughly overthrown by the simple fact that the strength of theism belongs to the present age and the highest civilization.

But apart from these explanations, necessarily rejected by their utter insufficiency, there are three views that have been and may be held as to the origin of the idea.

First, that it originated through a primitive revelation. The first man or first men are supposed to have received a knowledge of God by direct supernatural disclosures of Himself and His will ; and the various notions

1 Strauss, Biichner, Bleek, Herbert Spencer, etc.

IKTRODUCTION". 13

of a divine being, as found throughout the world, are looked upon as the broken and scattered rays of original revelation. The idea, thus given by special and immediate divine instruction, has been continued by tradition through all the ages and in all the branchings of the worldfilling race. This view has been losing ground through the recent investigations and discussions of ethnology, philology, and comparative mythology/ The discrediting of this explanation, however, is not necessarily a denial of a primitive revelation. It may readily be allowed that important supernatural instruction was given to the first human pair, furnishing the essential truths of religion, and that this knowledge was enlarged by repeated later communications. It is reasonable to believe that some rays of light thus given have reached into remotest places and may linger among many nations. But tradition has shown itself to be too uncertain an instrument to justify the belief that it has carried this truth into every tribe in which it is found, and has preserved it through all the darkness. The explanation seems insufficient to cover all the wide range of facts concerned. Moreover, it is not certain that though such revelation was given, the idea of God was entirely due to it or originated by it. It is doubtful whether it could have been more than the occasion of developing it; since in a divine manifestation at any time the human mind, it would seem, must at least identify as God the being who so reveals himself. Whatever may be the occasion of the birth of the idea, the idea of God must have its genesis within the mind, rising there in recognition of the Revealer. If there be a God as the

1 Flint's Theism, pp. 22, 338; Fairbainf s Studies in Philosophy and Religion^ p. 21; Cocker's Christiaidbj and Greek Philosophy, pp. 8G-%.

14 INTRODUCTIOK.

author of the universe, nature itself becomes a revelation of Him. Probably, therefore, we dare not credit supernatural revelation, any more than natural, with being more than the occasion of the subjective genesis of the concept of God.

Secondly^ that it has arisen naturally and spontaneously in the human soul. This explanation branches into two forms. One is that the idea of God is given to consciousness purely from what is within the mind — not simply an a priori necessary conviction, but one whose basis and developing force are wholly internal. It occurs when the soul looks down into the depths and contents of its own consciousness. This theory is illustrated in the view which traces it to a feeling of dependence and obligation, bringing the soul face to face with the divine. That to which the consciousness of dependence points is called God. Man, it is said, learns to pray before he learns to reason. " He feels within him," says Dean Mansel, "the consciousness of a Supreme Being, and the instinct of worship, before he can argue from effects to causes or estimate the traces of wisdom and benevolence scattered through the creation." ^ Some have claimed that "there is a connection between God and the soul, as between light and the eye, sound and the ear, food and the palate."^ The other form of this explanation represents the idea as springing up in the mind under the suggestive power of the external universe. It is awakened, as an inference, through the mind's contemplation of nature, under the play of thought in the necessary action and reaction between reason and the external world. In the first of these forms, it is suggested by what the mind I Limits of Religious Thought^ p. 115. "^ Ibid, p. 249.

lisfTRODUCTIOK. 15

finds in itself; in the second, by what is external to it — from the revealing power of the great universe, speaking to us of its author. Whether the human soul, in its purely subjective data, would ever attain this so-called consciousness of God, is questionable. At least, no verification of the claim is possible, since no human consciousness can ever be found wholly destitute of knowledge of external objects, to report the possibilities of this inner source alone. Indeed, the consciousness itself awakes only under the stimulation of the sense-perceptions, and the intuitions become possible only in connection with knowledge of the material world. But there can hardly be the least doubt that there is something in the existence, order, structures, forces, and movements of the grand universe in which we are placed, and their kindling action on the rational faculties of intuition and inference, that tends to originate and develop the idea of God in the human soul when its faculties are mature and in normal healthy action.