other words, it is included in the idea of God. And as every man has the idea of God, he must admit his actual existence ; for what is necessary is of course actual. It does not follow from our idea of a man, that he actually exists, because man is not necessarily existent. But it is absurd to say that a necessarily existing Being, does not exist. If this argument has any validity, it is unimpor- tant. It is only saying that what must be actually is. If the idea of God as it exists in every man's mind includes that of actual existence, then so far as the idea goes, he who has the one has the other. But the argument does not show how the ideal implies the real.^
Des Garte% Argument. 2. Des Cartes' argument was in this form. We have the idea of an infinitely perfect Being. As we are finite, that idea could not have originated with us. As we are conversant only with the finite, it could not have originated from anything around us. It must, therefore, have come from God, whose existence is thus a necessary assumption. " Habemus ideam Dei, hujusque ideae real- itas objectiva nee formaliter nee eminenter in nobis continetur, nee in ullo alio prseterquam in ipso Deo potest contineri ; ergo haec idea Dei, quae in nobis est, requirit Deum proeausa ; Deusque proinde existit." 2 It is true we have many ideas or conceptions to Avhich there is no answering existence. But in such cases the ideas are arbitrary, or voluntary creations of our own minds. But the idea of God is necessary ; we cannot help having it. And having it, there must be a Being who answers to it. Des Cartes 'illustrates his argument by saying, that as it is included in our idea of a tri- angle, that its angles are equal to two right angles, it is so in fact. Tiie cases, however, are not parallel. It is only saying that a tri- angle is what it is, namely, a three-sided figure, whose angles are equal to two right angles. But the existence of God as a fact is not included in the definition of Him. Kant expresses this in phil- osophical language, saying that if the predicate be removed, the subject is removed ; because an analytic judgment is a mere anal- ysis, or full statement of what is in the subject. The judgment that the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, is only an analysis of the subject. -It is a simple statement of what a tri- angle is ; and therefore, if you take away the equality of the angles, you take away the triangle. But in a synthetic judgment,
1 On this argument see Hitter's Gesckichte dcr ChristUchen Phihsophie, vol. iii. pp. 334- 840. Shedd's History of Doctrine, i. pp. 229-237. Baur's Dreieinigkeitslehre, ii.'374. • Mediiaiiones de Prima Philosophia, prop. ii. p. 89, edit. Amsterdam, 1685.
206 PART L — THEOLOGY. [Ch. II. - Theism.
there is a synthesis, a putting together. Something is added in the judgment which is not in the subject. In this case that something is actual existence. We may infer from the idea of a perfect being, tliat he is wise and good ; but not that he actually is ; because reality is something added to the mere idea.
The only difference between the argument of Des Cartes and that of Anselm, appears to be merely formal. The one infers the existence of God, in order to account for the idea ; the other argues that actual existence is included in the idea. The same illus- tration, therefore, is employed by the advocates of both. The argument of Anselm is the same as that derived from the defini- tion of a triangle. You cannot think of a triangle without think- ing of it as having three angles ; so. you cannot think of God without thinking of Him as actually existent ; because actual exist- ence enters as essentially into the idea of God, as " triangularity " enters into that of a triangle. There are, doubtless, minds which are affected by this kind of reasoning; but it has no power over the generality of men.
Br. Samuel Clarke's Argument.
3. Dr. Samuel Clarke, equally distinguished as a mathematician, as a linguist, and as a metaphysician, published in 1705, his cele- brated " Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God." So far as the Being of God is concerned his argument is d priori. Nothing, he says, is necessarily existent, the non-existence of which is conceivable. We can conceive of the non-existence of the world ; therefore the world is not necessarily existing and eternal. We cannot, however, conceive of the non-existence of space and dura- tion ; therefore space and duration are necessary and infinite. Space and duration, however, are not. substances ; therefore, there must be an eternal and necessary substance (i. e., God), of which they are the accidents. This argument at best gives us only the idea of a necessary and infinite something ; which no class of anti- theists are disposed to deny. To determine what this eternal sub- stance is, what attributes belong to it, reference must be made to the ])henomenal w^orld, and the argument becomes a posteriori. It has been objected to Dr. Clarke's argument that it is not properly a priori. It infers from the existence of time and space the exist ence of a substantial Being.
Jl.] THE COSMOLOGICAL- ARGUMENT. 207
Cousin s Argument.
4. Cousin, in his " Elements of Psychology," repeats continually the same argument in a somewhat diflPerent form. The iilea of the infinite, he says, is given in that of the finite. We canrot have the one without having the other. " Tliese two ideas are logical correlatives ; and in the order of their acquisition, that of the finite and imperfect precedes the other ; but it scarcely precedes it. It is not possible for the reason, as soon as consciousness furnislies the mind with the idea of the finite and imperfect, not to conceive the idea of the infinite and perfect. Now, the infinite and perfect is God." ^ Here again the argument is, that that is real of which we have an idea. This is not indeed assumed as a general propo- sition. We can imagine, says Cousin, a gorgon, or centaur, and we can imagine them not to exist ; but it is not in our power, when the finite and imperfect are given, not to conceive of the infinite and perfect. This is not a chimera, he says, it is the necessary product of reason ; and, therefore, it is a legitimate product. The idea of the finite and imperfect is a primitive idea, given in the con- sciousness; and therefore, the correlative idea of the infinite and perfect given by necessity and by the reason, must also be primi- tive.2 At other times he presents this subject in a different light. He teaches that, as the mind in perception takes cognizance of the object as a real existence, distinct from itself, so the reason has an apprehension, or immediate cognition of the Infinite, with a neces- sary conviction of its reality as distinguished (in one sense) from itself. Self, nature, and God are alike and equally involved in the intuitive apprehension of the mind ; and they are inseparable. This is very different from the common doctrine of the knowledge • of God as innate, or intuitive. The latter doctrine only assumes that such is the nature of the human soul that it is intuitively con- vinced of its dependence on, and responsibility to a Being other than, and higher than itself. The former assumes, with the Ger- man philosophers, especially Schelling, the immediate cognition of the Infinite by the reason.
Admitting with Cousin that the ideas of the finite and infinite are correlative; that we cannot have the one without having the other; and that the mind by a rational necessity is convinced that if there be a finite, there must be an infinite ; it remains to be asked, What that Infinite is ? With Cousin, the Infinite is the All. The- ism" thei'efore gains nothing from these metaphysical arguments.
1 Elements of Psychobgy, p. 375. Translated by Prof. Henry, New York, 1856. a Page 376.
208 PART L — THEOLOGY. [Ch. U. - Theism.
§ 2. The Cosmological Argument. This is founded on the principle of a sufficient cause. Syllogisti- cally stated, the argument stands thus : Every effect must have an adequate cause. The world is an effect. Therefore the world must have had a cause outside of itself and adequate to account for its existence.
A. Causation.
The validity and the meaning of this argument, depend on the sense given to the words effect and cause. If an effect be correctly defined to be an event, or product, not due to anything in itself, but produced by something out of itself; and if by cause be under- stood, an antecedent to whose efficiency the effect is due ; then the conclusion is inevitable, that the existence of the world supposes the existence of a cause adequate to its production, provided it can be proved that the world is an effect, i. e., that it is not self-caused or eternal.