An Antidote Against Atheism/Appendix/Chapter VII
Chap. VII.
1. That that necessity of Existence that seems to be included in the Idea of Space is but the same that offers it self to our Mind in that more full and perfect Idea of God. 2. That there is the same reason of Eternal Duration, whose immediate subject is God, not Matter. 3 . That Space is but the possibility of Matter, measurable onely as so many several possible Species of things are numerable. 4. That Distance is no Physical affection of any thing, but onely Notional. 5. That Distance of Bodies is but privation of tactual union, measurable by parts, as other Privations of qualities by degrees. 6. That if distant Space after the removal of Matter be any real thing, it is that necessary Being represented by the Idea of God. 7. That Self-Existence and Contingency are terms inconsistent with one another.
1. Others there are that seem to come nearer the mark, while they alledge against the Antidote, Book 1. ch. 8. sect. 11.fourth posture of our Argument that necessary Existence is plainly involved in the Idea of Matter. For, say they, a man cannot possibly but imagine a Space running out in infinitum every way, whether there be a God or no. And this Space being extended thus, and measurable by Yards, Poles, or the like, it must needs be something, in that it is thus extended and measurable; for Non-entity can have no affection or property. And if it be an Entity, what can it be but corporeal Matter?
But I answer, If there were no Matter, but the Immensity of the Divine Essence only, occupying all by his Ubiquity, that the Replication, as I may so speak, of his indivisible substance, whereby he presents himself intirely every where, would be the Subject of that Diffusion and Mensurability. And I adde further. That the perpetual obversation of this infinite Amplitude and Mensurability, which we cannot disimagine in our Phansie but will necessarily be, may be a more rude and obscure Notion offered to our Mind of that necessary and self-Existent Essence which the Idea of God does with greater fulness and distinctness represent to us. For it is plain that not so much as our Imagination is engaged to an appropriation of this Idea of Space to corporeal Matter, in that it does not naturally conceive any impenetrability or tangibility in the Notion thereof; and therefore it may as well belong to a Spirit as a Body. Whence, as I said before, the Idea of God being such as it is, it will both justly and necessarily cast this ruder notion of Space upon that Infinite and Eternal Spirit which is God.
2. Now there is the same reason for Time (by Time I mean Duration) as for Space. For we cannot imagine but that there has been such a continued Duration as could have no beginning nor interruption. And any one will say, it is non-sense that there should be such a necessary duration, when there is no reall Essence that must of it self thus be always, and for ever so endure. What or who is it then that this eternal, uninterrupted and never-fading duration must belong to? No Philosopher can answer more appositely then the holy Psalmist, From everlasting to everlasting thou art God. Wherefore I say that those unavoidable imaginations of the necessity of an Infinite Space, as they call it, and Eternal duration are no proofs of a Self-existent Matter, but rather obscure sub-indications of the necessary Existence of God.
3. There is also another way of answering this Objection, which is this; That this Imagination of Space is not the imagination of any real thing, but onely of the large and immense capacity of the potentiality of the Matter, which we cannot free our Mindes from, but must necessarily acknowledge, that there is indeed such a possibility of Matter to be measured upward, downward, every way in infinitum, whether this corporeal Matter were actually there or no; and that though this potentiality of Matter or Space be measurable by furlongs, miles, or the like, that it implies no more any real Essence or Being, then when a man recounts so many orders or kindes of the Possibilities of things, the compute or number of them will infer the reality of their Existence.
4. But if they urge us further, That there will be a real distance even in Space devoid of Matter; as if, for Example, Three Balls of brass or steel were put together in this empty Space, it is utterly unimaginable but that there should be a Triangular distance in the midst of them: it may be answered. That Distance is no real or Physical property of a thing, but onely notional, because more or less of it may accrue to a thing, whenas yet there has been nothing at all done to that to which it does accrue. As suppose one of these Balls mentioned were first an inch distant from another; this distance betwixt them may be made many miles, and yet one of them not so much as touch'd or stirr'd, though it become as much distant as the other.
5. But if they urge us still further, and contend, That this distance must be some real thing, because it keeps off those Balls so one from another, that supposing two of them two miles distant in empty Space, and one of them to lie in the mid-way, if that two miles distant would come to the other so soon as that but one mile distant, it must have double celerity of motion to perform its race: I answer briefly, that Distance is nothing else but the privation of tactual union, and the greater distance the greater privation, and the greater privation the more to doe to regain the former positive condition; and that this privation of tactual union is maeasur'd by parts, as other privations of qualities are by degrees; and that parts and degrees, and such like notions, are not real things themselves any where, but our mode of conceiving them, and therefore we can bestow them upon Non-entities as well as Entities, as I have discovered elswhere more at large.
6. But if this will not satisfie, 'tis no detriment to our cause: For if after the removal of corporeal Matter out of the world, there will be still Space and Distance in which this very Matter, while it was there, was also conceived to lye, and this distant Space cannot but be something, and yet not corporeal, because neither impenetrable nor tangible, it must of necessity be a Substance Incorporeal necessarily and eternally existent of it self: which the clearer Idea of a Being absolutely perfect will more fully and punctually inform us to be the Self-subsisting God.
7. But that we may omit nothing that may seem at all worth the answering, There are that endeavour to decline the stroke of our Argument in the third and fourth posture thereof, by saying that Contingency is not incompetible to God or any thing else: for all things that exist in the world, happen so to do, though they might have done otherwise. But no man would answer thus, if he attended to what he answered, or to the light of his own reason, that would instruct him better. For, for example, if Matter did exist of it self, it is evident that it does necessarily exist, and could not have done otherwise: for Self-Existence prevents all impediments whatsoever, whereby a thing may seem to have been in danger possibly to have fallen short of actually existing.
And as for God, it is as evident, that it is either impossible for him to be, or else that he is of himself, and if of himself, his Existence is unpreventable and necessary; as any man must needs acknowledge that understands the terms he ventures to pronounce.