All men have some knowledge of God. That is, they have the conviction that there is a Being on whom they are dependent, and to whom they are responsible. What is the source of this convic- tion ? In other words, what is the origin of the idea of God ? To this question three answers have been given. First, that it is in- nate. Second, that is a deduction of reason ; a conclusion arrived at by a process of generalization. Third, that it is to be referred to a supernatural revelation, preserved by tradition.
§ 1. The Knowledge of Crod is Innate.
A. What is meant hy Innate Knowledge.
By innate knowledge is meant that which is due to our constitu- tion, as sentient, rational, and moral beings. It is opposed to knowledge founded on experience ; to that obtained by ah extra instruction; and to that acquired by a process of research and reasoning.
It cannot be doubted that there is such knowledge, i. e., that the soul is so constituted that it sees certain things to be true immedi- ately in their own light. They need no proof. Men need not be told or taught that the things thus perceived are true. These im- mediate perceptions are called intuitions, primary truths, laws of belief, innate knowledge, or ideas. Provided we understand what is meant, the designation is of minor importance. The doctrine of innate knowledge, or intuitive truths, does not imply that the child is born with kno;vledge in conscious exercise in the mind. As knowledge is a form or state of the intelligence, and as that is a state of consciousness, knowledge, in the sense of the act of knowing, must be a matter of consciousness ; and, therefore, it is said, cannot be innate. The new-born child has no conscious con^ viction of the existence of God. But the word knowledge is some- / times used in a passive sense. A man knows what lies dormant in' his mind. Most of our knowledge is in that state. All the facts
192 PART I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. I. - Orig. of Idea of God.
of history stored in the memory, are out of the domain of conscious- ness, until the mind is turned to them. It is not inconceivable, therefore, that the soul as it comes into the world may be stored with these primary truths which lie dormant in the mind, until roused by the due occasion. This, however, is not what is meant by innate knowledge. The word innate simply indicates the source of the knowledge. That source is our nature ; .that which is born with us. Nor does the doctrine of innate knowledge imply that the mind is born with ideas, in the sense of " patterns, phantasms, or notions," as Locke calls them ; nor that it is furnished by nature with a set of abstract principles, or general truths. All that is meant is, that the mind is so constituted that it perceives certain things to be true without proof and without instruction.
These intuitive truths belong to the several departments of the senses, the understanding, and our moral nature. In the first place, all our sense perceptions are intuitions. We apprehend their ob- jects immediately, and have an irresistible conviction of their reality and truth. We may draw erroneous conclusions fi'om our sensations ; but our sensations, as far as they go, tell us the truth. When a man feels pain, he may refer it to the wrong place, or to a wrong cause ; but he knows that it is pain. If he sees an object, he may be mistaken as to its nature ; but he knows that he sees, and tliat Avhat he sees is the cause of the sensation which he ex- periences. These are intuitions, because they are immediate per- ceptions of what is true. The conviction which attends our sensa- tions is due not to instruction but to the constitution of our nature.
In the second place, there are intuitions of the intellect. That is, there are certain truths which the mind perceives to be true immediately, without proof or testimony. Such are the axioms of geometry. No man needs to have it proved to him that the part of a thing is less than the whole ; or that a straight line is the shortest distance between two given points. It is an intuitive truth that "nothing" cannot be a cause ; that every eifect must have a cause. This conviction is not founded on expei'ience, because experience is of necessity limited. And the conviction is not merely that every effect which we or other men have observed has had a cause ; but that in the nature of things there can be no effect without an adequate cause. This conviction is said to be an innate truth, not because the child is born with it so that it is included in its infant consciousness, nor because the abstract principle is laid up in the mind, but simply because such is the nature of the mind,