NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



adding on part to part. However much has been 

 added on, there will still be the possibility and the 

 necessity of adding on more and more in the 

 ceaseless march through infinity. But if the world 

 never had a beginning, then this impossible in- 

 finity of series has actually occurred. An impos- 

 sible eternity of world-history has, as matter of 

 fact, been finished. But as the realisation of the 

 impossible is absurd, the supposition that involves 

 it namely, the beginningless character of the 

 world, must also be absurd, and we must conclude 

 that at some time the material universe began 

 to be. 



If these considerations may be relied on, the 

 tontingentia mundi is sufficiently made out. The 

 universe is not eternal, and does not exist of neces- 

 sity. But it exists. Its existence, therefore, must 

 have been given to it. There must, accordingly, be 

 some Being (not material, otherwise it too would 

 be contingent, and need a necessary cause) existing 

 by necessity, and eternally, and capable of origin- 

 ating the universe. Who, or what, is this primal 

 Being? If we are driven to regard it as causing 

 the existence of matter, then must we not hold it 

 to be a will? Matter, in its beginning, comes 

 upon the scene as a novelty, a change, an effect. 

 According to principles already discussed under 

 the Teleological argument, we cannot resist inter- 

 preting the causation of such a change into the 

 act of a will. Is this primal and necessarily exist- 

 ing will different from or identical with that con- 

 triving and constructive will which the Teleological 

 argument disclosed to us at work in the order of 

 the universe ? The natural theologian holds that 

 there are not two wills, but one and the same will. 

 The matter and the arrangement of the universe 

 cannot be separated in fact, and, therefore, can- 

 not be separated in causation. We cannot have 

 arrangement without matter, but just as little can 

 we have matter except in some arrangement. 

 Matter and its form must be produced together, 

 and in an inseparable and mutually pervading 

 unity. Therefore, there must have been a corre- 

 sponding unity of will in their causation. The 

 creative and constructive fiat must have formed 

 one complex act, emanating from one volitional 

 centre. In some such way as this, the Cosmo- 

 logical argument is held to supplement the Tele- 

 ological. The latter reveals the world-artist, the 

 former shews him to be further the world-maker. 

 The ornatus mundi leads us to recognise design ; 

 the contingentia mundi compels us to infer crea- 

 tion ; the unity of both demands a creative design, 

 a designing Creator. 



3. The Ontological or A Priori Argument 



In this class of argument we are, or ought to 

 be, recalled from the sphere of outward experience 

 to that of inward thought ; we reason from ideas 

 to facts (d priori, deductively, from the first in 

 thought to the subsequent in fact), not from facts 

 to ideas (d posteriori) ; we argue realities of being 

 from our own thoughts of being {ontology, logos 

 iou ontos, theory of being as being). 



This mode of viewing the subject has been 

 presented in various forms by Clarke, Descartes, 

 and others. Perhaps the most purely ontological 

 argument is that propounded by Anselm. He 

 holds that the actual and necessary existence 

 of God is an essential part of our conception 

 of God, and that, therefore, He must exist, or, 



at all events, we must regard Him as existent 

 But neither of these conclusions fairly follows. 

 The first is justly open to the objection taken 

 by Kant against all assumption of the objective 

 reality of our d priori conceptions. Even grant- 

 ing that we cannot escape the notion of God's 

 necessary existence, it does not follow that He 

 exists merely because we cannot help thinking 

 that He does. But, further, is it the case that the 

 actual as well as the necessary existence of God 

 enters as an essential element into our idea or de- 

 finition of Him ? The actual existence of a thing 

 forms no part of its definition. The definition 

 of a hundred hypothetical crowns is the same 

 as the definition of a hundred real crowns. The 

 actual existence of them is an affirmation made, 

 on extraneous evidence, regarding the things 

 defined, but it is not derived from and does not 

 enter into that idea itself. Similarly, the mere con- 

 ception or definition of God cannot be allowed 

 to comprise the actuality of His existence. We 

 may be entitled to define that if He exists at 

 all, He exists necessarily, but this hypothetical 

 necessity of existence does not warrant the infer- 

 ence of real existence. That must be made good 

 by considerations external to the mere conception 

 or definition itself. Our thought of God, there- 

 fore, as necessarily existing, if He exists, which is 

 all that Anselm was entitled to assume in the 

 circumstances, does not compel us to a belief in 

 His actual existence. 



Of much the same nature and value is the argu- 

 ment of Cousin, that the finite implies the infinite, 

 that we cannot think the one except as in con- 

 trast, and therefore in contemplation of the other, 

 that along with our direct and explicit perception 

 of the finite, we have an indirect and implicit 

 knowledge of the infinite. It may be doubted 

 whether this is psychologically correct White is 

 the contrast and antithesis of black ; and it may 

 be said that in thinking black, we must also think 

 it as that which is not white ; but could any 

 person be said to have acquired the conception of 

 white, merely by negativing his conception of 

 black, and before he had directly perceived white? 

 But even granting that in this negative way we 

 obtain a conception and conviction of the infinite, 

 how does that prove that the infinite exists ? It 

 may prove that we cannot help having the idea, 

 but how are we, without any foundation in experi- 

 ence, to bridge over the chasm between our sub- 

 jective necessities and the realm of objective 

 reality ? 



Since the days of Kant, the Ontological argu- 

 ment, as well as that part of the Cosmological 

 argument which is really Ontological that is, 

 consisting merely of deductions from our own 

 ideas, unverifiable in experience has not been 

 put forward as conclusive by natural theologians, 

 and has only been employed by them as impart- 

 ing a measure of probability to considerations 

 derived from less questionable sources. Kant's 

 criticism was briefly to the effect, that we have no 

 warrant in reason to translate our own mere sub- 

 jective necessities into objective realities. While 

 this may be conceded, it must be observed that 

 practical religion is not rendered less obligatory 

 by the concession, inasmuch as we are bound 

 to act upon our irresistible convictions, in the 

 absence of more complete verification, and that 

 any inferences to the existence of God arising 



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