THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
ascending series of the created things must presuppose a final self-existent being as first cause, Anselm definitely formulated the ontological argument, that the highest which is God must be not only in thought but in reality as well, otherwise a higher could be thinkable. In the history of the argument for the existence of God, Anselm's position is one of the most eminent; for it must be acknowledged that the being of God, as securely established for the religious consciousness, can never be omitted from the definition. His doctrine of the Trinity, that the speaker and the spoken word are two and yet one so that there occurs a " reflex," is somewhat artificial. In his atonement theory he conceives the guilt of mankind, because committed against the infinite God, to be infinitely great, to be atoned for by an infinite punishment or its equivalent. The whole human race, unable to give satisfaction would fail under total condemnation; hence, satisfaction could be only vicariously rendered, and by God himself, that is, by the second person of the Trinity, who must needs become incarnate. The death of Christ is a positive act, satisfying God's justice by virtue of his goodness, not by a penalty. Anselm had advanced so far in his rational proofs of even specific doctrines that the leading scholastic successors had to retrench. Albertus Magnus (q.v.) gave up the proof of the Trinity and introduced a distinction sharpened by his pupil Thomas Aquinas (q.v.), between such propositions as, given by revelation, were above, though not contrary to, reason; and such as were established by reason alone, the Trinity being among the former. In the proof of the unity of God, he rests on the monotheism of Aristotle, who is his philosophic basis throughout. Anselm's argument for the existence of God is, for him, not binding. Although it is a matter of faith, yet Aquinas offers a series of proofs partly Aristotelian. On the other hand, even before Anselm, there were among scholastics partizans of the reason. Berengar of Tours (q.v.) stated that contrary to truth is equivalent to contrary to reason, a sentence that could be readily inverted. Abelard (q.v.) went so far as to invert the axiom of Anselm into, " I understand that I may believe," to rationalize Christian verities, and to designate the persons of the Trinity as power, wisdom, and goodness. Raymond Lully (q.v.) declared that all Christian dogmas could be proved; while the nominalist William of Occam (q.v.) affirmed that whatever is beyond experience must be resigned to faith, and that the existence of God could not be shown either by experience or on rational grounds. Thus, the relation between believing and knowing, revelation and reason, philosophy and theology, occupied the place of prominence from Clement throughout the Middle Ages. The same problem continued in the Renaissance, in which an independent philosophy of religion was reawakened, in more or less indebtedness to antiquity. Without mentioning further the schools hitherto treated, which continued in their philosophical significance, among those contributing peculiar aspects of thought appears Nicholas of Cusa (q.v.), who was indebted to Neoplatonism, Meister Eckhart(q.v.), and, particularly, to scholasticism. Deriving with the nominalists that Christian
dogmas are to be demonstrated by reason, he teaches that God is the absolute maximum and absolute minimum, present in all things, resolving in himself irreconcilables, unknowable in his essence cognized by the negative of knowing (docta ignorantia), and immediately to be perceived, yea by ecstasy to be reached. The world of phenomena is the unfolding of what is contained in God, and each individual thing represents the infinity of God. The search for the truth constitutes religion, which is knowledge apprehending God, and its end is blessedness. On the whole he shows himself a pantheist and mystic in what is characteristic of his views, and his advance step is his inclination to the exact sciences; particularly, the infinity of space and time in the universe, taken up by his pupil Giordano Bruno (q.v.). To Bruno the universe is deity, and he scarcely distinguishes between God and nature. The three ideal principles of form, moving cause, and object he makes one in the organism with matter. Tomaso Campanella (q.v.) sought to prove that all religions were originally one and the same, namely, purely natural, and that all things strive for self-preservation, which is to return to their real principle, which is the deity. The four varieties of this process are the four kinds of religion: natural, animal, rational, and supernatural. Beside reason supplemented by revelation there is an " inner touch," united with the love of God. For God's existence, he adds to innate and supernatural knowledge another proof. Man as a finite being can not originate the representation of the infinite being which he possesses; therefore, the infinite which causes it necessarily exists.
3. Modern: The same argument was reproduced by Descartes (q.v.), who thought to prove the existence of God beyond a mathematical certainty. The above he develops into a particular 1. Descartes; cosmological argument: man, inas-
Spinoza. much as he possesses a realization of God, would not exist if God did not exist. Had he created himself he would have given himself all possible perfections; but sprung from his ancestry, there must be for the series of descent a first cause. The ontological argument is stated differently from Anselm. All perfections are to be predicated of the being or idea of God; existence is a perfection; therefore, God necessarily exists. God is the eternal, unchangeable, omniscient, omnipotent, self-existent substance, and this created the extended thinking substances. Matter is inert and all changes take place by cause and effect. God's control of nature is the mechanical; the sum of matter and movement is constant. Though he was lacking in religious inwardness, yet a concern for religion in putting up these arguments for the existence of God can not be denied to Descartes. Spinoza (q.v.) in his Tractatus theologico-politicus endeavors to point out the essential difference between religion and philosophy. Each has its own peculiar object; reason dealing with truth and wisdom, theology with piety and obedience. It is not necessary to reconcile them, and not possible, since the Bible deals with moral laws only. In the philosophy of the identity of spirit and matter he is wholly a pantheist (deity being equivalent to sub-