Christianity and Greek Philosophy Part 21

"Faith--belief--is the organ by which we apprehend what is beyond knowledge."[343] We heartily a.s.sent to the doctrine that the Infinite Being is the object of faith, but we earnestly deny that the Infinite Being is not an object of knowledge. May not knowledge be grounded upon faith, and does not faith imply knowledge? Can we not obtain knowledge through faith? Is not the belief in the Infinite Being implied in our knowledge of finite existence? If so, then G.o.d as the infinite and perfect, G.o.d as the unconditioned Cause, is not absolutely "the unknown."

[Footnote 340: Hamilton's "Logic," p. 73.]

[Footnote 341: North American Review, October, 1864, article "Conditioned and the Unconditioned," pp. 441, 442.]

[Footnote 342: Letter to Calderwood, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 530.]

[Footnote 343: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 374.]

A full exposition of Sir William Hamilton's views of _Faith_ in its connection with Philosophy would have been deeply interesting to us, and it would have filled up a gap in the interpretation of his system. The question naturally presents itself, how would he have discriminated between faith and knowledge, so as to a.s.sign to each its province? If our notion of the Infinite Being rests entirely upon faith, then upon what ultimate ground does faith itself rest? On the authority of Scripture, of the Church, or of reason? The only explicit statement of his view which has fallen in our way is a note in his edition of Reid.[344] "We _know_ what rests upon reason; we _believe_ what rests upon authority. But reason itself must rest at last upon authority; for the original data of reason do not rest upon reason, but are necessarily accepted by reason on the authority of what is beyond itself. These data are, therefore, in rigid propriety, Beliefs or Trusts. Thus it is that, in the last resort, we must, per force, philosophically admit that belief is the primary condition of reason, and not reason the ultimate ground of belief."

[Footnote 344: P. 760; also Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, p. 61.]

Here we have, first, an attempted distinction between faith and knowledge. "We _know_ what rests upon reason;" that is, whatever we obtain by deduction or induction, whatever is capable of explication and proof, is _knowledge_. "We _believe_ what rests upon authority;" that is, whatever we obtain by intellectual intuition or pure apperception, and is incapable of explication and of proof, is "a _belief or trust_."

These instinctive beliefs, which are, as it were, the first principles upon which all knowledge rests, are, however, indiscriminately called by Hamilton "cognitions," "beliefs," "judgments." He declares most explicitly "that the principles of our knowledge must themselves be _knowledges_;"[345] and these first principles, which are "the primary condition of reason," are elsewhere called "_a priori cognitions_;" also "native, pure, or transcendental _knowledge_," in contradistinction to "_a posteriori cognitions_," or that knowledge which is obtained in the exercise of reason.[346] All this confusion results from an attempt to put asunder what G.o.d has joined together. As Clemens of Alexandria has said, "Neither is faith without knowledge, nor knowledge without faith."

All faith implies knowledge, and all knowledge implies faith. They are mingled in the one operation of the human mind, by which we apprehend first principles or ultimate truths. These have their light and dark side, as Hamilton has remarked. They afford enough light to show _that_ they are and must be, and thus communicate knowledge; they furnish no light to show _how_ they are and _why_ they are, and under that aspect demand the exercise of faith. There must, therefore, first be something _known_ before there can be any _faith_.[347]

[Footnote 345: Ibid., p. 69.]

[Footnote 346: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 26.]

[Footnote 347: M'Cosh, "Intuitions," pp. 197, 198; Calderwood, "Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 24.]

And now we seem to have penetrated to the centre of Hamilton's philosophy, and the vital point may be touched by one crucial question, _Upon what ultimate ground does faith itself rest?_ Hamilton says, "we believe what rests upon _authority_." But what is that authority? I. It is not the authority of Divine Revelation, because beliefs are called "instinctive," "native," "innate," "common," "catholic,"[348] all which terms seem to indicate that this "authority" lies within the sphere of the human mind; at any rate, this faith does not rest on the authority of Scripture. Neither is it the authority of Reason. "The original data of reason [the first principles of knowledge] do not rest upon the authority of reason, but _on the authority of what is beyond itself_."

The question thus recurs, what is this ultimate ground beyond reason upon which faith rests? Does it rest upon any thing, or nothing?

[Footnote 348: Philosophy of Sir Wm. Hamilton, pp. 68, 69.]

The answer to this question is given in the so-called "Law of the Conditioned," which is thus laid down: "_All that is conceivable in thought lies between two extremes, which, as contradictory of each other, can not both be true, but of which, as mutual contradictories, one must_." For example, we conceive _s.p.a.ce_, but we can not conceive it as absolutely bounded or infinitely unbounded. We can conceive _time_, but we can not conceive it as having an absolute commencement or an infinite non-commencement. We can conceive of _degree_, but we can not conceive it as absolutely limited or as infinitely unlimited. We can conceive of _existence_, but not as an absolute part or an infinite whole. Therefore, "the Conditioned is that which is alone conceivable or cogitable; the Unconditioned, that which is inconceivable or incogitable. The conditioned, or the thinkable, lies between two extremes or poles; and each of these extremes or poles are unconditioned, each of them inconceivable, each of them exclusive or contradictory of the other. Of these two repugnant opposites, the one is that of Unconditional or Absolute Limitation; the other that of Unconditional or Infinite Illimitation, or, more simply, the Absolute and the Infinite; the term _absolute_ expressing that which is finished or complete, the term _infinite_ that which can not be terminated or concluded."[349]

"The conditioned is the mean between two extremes--two inconditionates, exclusive of each other, neither of which _can be conceived as possible_, but of which, on the principle of contradiction, and excluded middle, _one must be admitted as necessary_. We are thus warned from recognizing the domain of our knowledge as necessarily co-extensive with the horizon of our faith. And by a _wonderful revelation_, we are thus, in the very consciousness of our inability to conceive aught above the relative and the finite, _inspired with a belief in_ the existence of something unconditioned beyond the sphere of all comprehensible reality."[350] Here, then, we have found the ultimate ground of our faith in the Infinite G.o.d. It is built upon a "mental imbecility," and b.u.t.tressed up by "contradictions!"[351]

[Footnote 349: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. pp. 368, 374. With Hamilton, the Unconditioned is a genus, of which the Infinite and Absolute are species.]

[Footnote 350: "Discussions on Philosophy," p. 22.]

[Footnote 351: The warmest admirers of Sir William Hamilton hesitate to apply the doctrine of the unconditioned to Cause and Free-will. See "Mansel's Prolegom.," Note C, p. 265.]

Such a faith, however, is built upon the clouds, and the whole structure of this philosophy is "a castle in the air"--an attempt to organize Nescience into Science, and evoke something out of nothing. To pretend to believe in that respecting which I can form no notion is in reality not to believe at all. The nature which compels me to believe in the Infinite must supply me some object upon which my belief can take hold.

We can not believe in contradictions. Our faith must be a rational belief--a faith in the ultimate harmony and unity of all truth, in the veracity and integrity of human reason as the organ of truth; and, above all, a faith in the veracity of G.o.d, who is the author and illuminator of our mental const.i.tution. "We can not suppose that we are created capable of intelligence in order to be made victims of delusion--that G.o.d is a deceiver, and the root of our nature a lie."[352] We close our review of Hamilton by remarking:

[Footnote 352: Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, p. 21.]

1. "The Law of the Conditioned," as enounced by Hamilton, is contradictory. It predicates contradiction of two extremes, which are a.s.serted to be equally incomprehensible and incognizable. If they are utterly incognizable, how does Hamilton _know_ that they are contradictory? The mutual _relation_ of two objects is said to be known, but the objects themselves are absolutely unknown. But how can we know any relation except by an act of comparison, and how can we compare two objects so as to affirm their relation, if the objects are absolutely unknown? "The Infinite is defined as Unconditional Illimitation; the Absolute as Conditional Limitation. Yet almost in the same breath we are told that each is utterly inconceivable, each the mere negation of thought. On the one hand, we are told they _differ_; on the other, we are told they do _not differ_. Now which does Hamilton mean? If he insist upon the definitions as yielding a ground of conceivable difference, he must abandon the inconceivability; but if he insist upon the inconceivability, he must abandon the definition as sheer verbiage, devoid of all conceivable meaning. There is no possible escape from this dilemma. Further, two negations can never contradict; for contradiction is the a.s.serting and the denying of the same proposition; two denials can not conflict. If Illimitation is negative, Limitation, its contradictory, is positive, whether conditional or unconditional. In brief, if the Infinite and Absolute are wholly incomprehensible, they are not distinguishable; but if they are distinguishable, they are not wholly incomprehensible. If they are indistinguishable, they are to us identical; and ident.i.ty precludes contradiction. But if they are distinguishable, distinction is made by difference, which involves positive cognition; hence one, at least, must be conceivable. It follows, therefore, by inexorable logic, that either the contradiction or the inconceivability must be abandoned."[353]

[Footnote 353: North American Review, October, 1864, pp. 407, 408.]

2. "The Law of the Conditioned," as a ground of faith in the Infinite Being, is utterly void, meaningless, and ineffectual. Let us re-state it in Hamilton's own words: "The conditioned is the _mean_ between two extremes, two inconditionates exclusive of each other, neither of which _can be conceived as possible_, but of which, on the principle of Contradiction and Excluded Middle, _one must be admitted as necessary_."

It is scarcely needful to explain to the intelligent reader the above logical principles; that they may, however, be clearly before the mind in this connection, we state that the principle of Contradiction is this: "A thing can not at the same time be and not be; _A is_, _A is not_, are propositions which can not both be true at once." The principle of Excluded Middle is this: "A thing either is or is not--_A either is or is not B_; there is no _medium_."[354] Now, to mention the law of Excluded Middle and two contradictories with a _mean_ between them, in the same sentence, is really astounding. "If the two contradictory extremes are equally incogitable, yet include a cogitable mean, why insist upon the necessity of accepting either extreme? This necessity of accepting one of the contradictories is wholly based upon the supposed impossibility of a _mean_; if a mean exists, _that_ may be true, and both contradictories together false. But if a mean between two contradictories be both impossible and absurd, Hamilton's 'conditioned'

entirely vanishes."[355] If both contradictories are equally unknown and equally unthinkable, we can not discover _why_, on his principles, we are bound to believe _either_.

[Footnote 354: Hamilton's "Logic," pp. 58, 59; "Metaphysics," vol. ii.

p. 368.]

[Footnote 355: North British Review, October, 1864, pp. 415, 416.]

3. The whole of this confusion in thought and expression results from the habit of confounding the sensuous imagination with the non-sensuous reason, and the consequent co-ordination of an imageable conception with an abstract idea. The objects of sense and the sensuous imagination may be characterized as extension, limitation, figure, position, etc.; the objects of the non-sensuous reason may be characterized as universality, eternity, infinity. I can form an _image_ of an extended and figured object, but I can not form an _image_ of s.p.a.ce, time, or G.o.d; neither, indeed, can I form an image of Goodness, Justice, or Truth. But I can have a clear and precise idea of s.p.a.ce, and time, and G.o.d, as I can of Justice, Goodness, and Truth. There are many things which I can most surely _know_ that I can not possibly _comprehend_, if to comprehend is to form a mental image of a thing. There is nothing which I more certainly know than that s.p.a.ce is infinite, and eternity unbeginning and endless; but I can not comprehend the infinity of s.p.a.ce or the illimitability of eternity. I know that G.o.d is, that he is a being of infinite perfection, but I can not throw my thoughts around and comprehend the infinity of G.o.d.

(iv.) We come, lastly, to consider the position of the _Dogmatic Theologians_.[356] In their zeal to demonstrate the necessity of Divine Revelation, and to vindicate for it the honor of supplying to us all our knowledge of G.o.d, they a.s.sail every fundamental principle of reason, often by the very weapons which are supplied by an Atheistical philosophy. As a succinct presentation of the views of this school, we select the "_Theological Inst.i.tutes_" of R. Watson.

[Footnote 356: Ellis, Leland, Locke, and Horsley, whose writings are extensively quoted in Watson's "Inst.i.tutes of Theology" (reprinted by Carlton & Lanahan, New York).]

1st. The invalidity of "_the principle of causality_" is a.s.serted by this author. "We allow that the argument which proves that the _effects_ with which we are surrounded have been _caused_, and thus leads us up through a chain of subordinate causes to one First Cause, has a simplicity, an obviousness, and a force which, when we are previously furnished with the idea of G.o.d, makes it, at first sight, difficult to conceive that men, under any degree of cultivation, should be inadequate to it; yet if ever the human mind commenced such an inquiry at all, it is highly probable that it would rest in the notion of an _eternal succession of causes and effects_, rather than acquire the ideas of creation, in the proper sense, and of a Supreme Creator."[357] "We feel that our reason rests with full satisfaction in the doctrine that all things are created by one eternal and self-existent Being; but the Greek philosophers held that matter was eternally co-existent with G.o.d. This was the opinion of Plato, who has been called the Moses of philosophy."[358]

For a defense of "the principle of causality" we must refer the reader to our remarks on the philosophy of Comte. We shall now only remark on one or two peculiarities in the above statement which betray an utter misapprehension of the nature of the argument. We need scarcely direct attention to the unfortunate and, indeed, absurd phrase, "an eternal succession of causes and effects." An "eternal succession" is a _contradictio in adjecto_, and as such inconceivable and unthinkable. No human mind can "rest" in any such thing, because an eternal succession is no rest at all. All "succession" is finite and temporal, capable of numeration, and therefore can not be eternal.[359] Again, in attaining the conception of a First Cause the human mind does not pa.s.s up "through a chain of subordinate causes," either definite or indefinite, "to one First Cause."

[Footnote 357: Watson's "Inst.i.tutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 273.]

[Footnote 358: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 21.]

[Footnote 359: See _ante_, pp. 181, 182, ch. v.]

Let us re-state the principle of causality as a universal and necessary law of thought. "_All phenomena present themselves to us as the expression of_ POWER, and refer us to a causal ground whence they issue." That "power" is intuitively and spontaneously apprehended by the human mind as Supreme and Ultimate--"the causal ground" is a personal G.o.d. All the phenomena of nature present themselves to us as "effects,"

and we know nothing of "subordinate causes" except as modes of the Divine Efficiency.[360] The principle of causality compels us to think causation behind nature, and under causation to think of Volition.

"Other forces we have no sort of ground for believing; or, except by artifices of abstraction, even power of conceiving. The dynamic idea is either this or nothing; and the logical alternative a.s.suredly is that nature is either a mere Time-march of phenomena or an expression of Mind."[361] The true doctrine of philosophy, of science, and of revelation is not simply that G.o.d did create "in the beginning," but that he still creates. All the operations of Nature are the operations of the Divine Mind. "Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the earth."[362]

[Footnote 360: The modern doctrine of the Correlation and h.o.m.ogenity of all Forces clearly proves that they are not many, but _one_--"a dynamic self-ident.i.ty masked by transmigration."--Martineau's "Essays," pp.

134-144.]

[Footnote 361: Martineau's "Essays," pp. 140, 141.]

[Footnote 362: Psalm civ.]

The a.s.sertion that Plato taught "the eternity of matter," and that consequently he did not arrive at the idea of a Supreme and Ultimate Cause, is incapable of proof. The term ???=matter does not occur in the writings of Plato, or, indeed, of any of his predecessors, and is peculiarly Aristotelian. The ground of the world of sense is called by Plato "the receptacle" (?p?d???), "the nurse" (t?????) of all that is produced, and was apparently identified, in his mind, with _pure s.p.a.ce_--a logical rather than a physical ent.i.ty--the mere negative condition and medium of Divine manifestation. He never regards it as a "cause," or ascribes to it any efficiency. We grant that he places this very indefinite something (?p??????? t?) out of the sphere of temporal origination; but it must be borne in mind that he speaks of "creation in eternity" as well as of "creation in time;" and of time itself, though created, as "an eternal image of the generating Father."[363] This one thing, at any rate, can not be denied, that Plato recognizes creation in its fullest sense as the act of G.o.d.

The admission that something has always existed besides the Deity, as a mere logical condition of the exercise of divine power (_e.g._, s.p.a.ce), would not invalidate the argument for the existence of G.o.d. The proof of the Divine Existence, as Chalmers has shown, does not rest on the existence of matter, but on the orderly arrangement of matter; and the grand question of Theism is not whether the _matter of the world_, but whether the _present order of the world_ had a commencement.[364]

2d. Doubt is cast by our author upon the validity of "_the principle of the Unconditioned or the Infinite_." "Supposing it were conceded that some faint glimmering of this great truth [the existence of a First Cause] might, by induction, have been discovered by contemplative minds, by what means could they have _demonstrated_ to themselves that he is eternal, self-existent, immortal, and independent?"[365] "Between things visible and invisible, time and eternity, beings finite and beings infinite, objects of sense and objects of faith, _the connection is not perceptible_ to human observation. Though we push our researches, therefore, to the extreme point whither the light of nature can carry us, they will in the end be abruptly terminated, and we must stop short at an immeasurable distance between the creature and the Creator."[366]

[Footnote 363: Plato, "Timaeus," -- xiv.]

[Footnote 364: Chalmers's "Natural Theology," bk. i. ch. v.; also Mahan's "Natural Theology," pp. 21-23.]

[Footnote 365: Watson's "Inst.i.tutes of Theol.," vol. i. p. 274.]

[Footnote 366: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 273.]

To this a.s.sertion that the connection of things visible and things invisible, finite and infinite, objects of sense and objects of faith, is utterly imperceptible to human thought, we might reply by quoting the words of that Sacred Book whose supreme authority our author is seeking, by this argument, to establish. "The _invisible_ things of G.o.d, even his eternal power and G.o.d-head, from the creation, are clearly _seen_, being _understood by the things which are made_." We may also point to the fact that in every age and in every land the human mind has spontaneously and instinctively recognized the existence of an invisible Power and Presence pervading nature and controlling the destinies of man, and that religious wors.h.i.+p--prayer, and praise, and sacrifice--offered to that unseen yet omnipresent Power is an universal fact of human nature. The recognition of an _immediate_ and a _necessary_ "connection" between the visible and the invisible, the objects of sense and the objects of faith, is one of the most obvious facts of consciousness--of universal consciousness as revealed in history, and of individual consciousness as developed in every rational mind.