GOD
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OOD
finitely perfect Being such as God. (v) The wonder-
ful order or evidence of intelligent design which the
universe exhibits implies the existence of a supra-
mundane Designer, who is no other than God Him-
self. To these many Theists add other arguments,
drawn, e. g. (vi) from the common consent of man-
kind (usually described by Catholic writers as the
moral argument), (vii) from the internal witness of
conscience to the supremacy of the moral law, and,
therefore, to the existence of a supreme Lawgiver (this
may be called the ethical argument, or (viii) from the
existence and perception of beauty in the imiverse
(the cesthelical argument). One might go on, indeed,
almost indefinitely multiplying and distinguishing
arguments ; but to do so would only lead to confusion.
The various arguments mentioned — and the same is
true of others that might be added — are not in reality
distinct and independent arguments, but only so
many partial statements of one and the same general
argument, which is perhaps best described as the
cosmological. This argument assumes the validity of
the principle of causality or sufRcient reason and,
stated in its most comprehensive form, amounts to
this: that it is impossible according to the laws of
human thought to give any ultimate rational explana-
tion of the phenomena of external experience and of
internal consciousness — in other words to synthesize
the data which the actual universe as a whole supplies
(and this is the recognized aim of philosophy) — unless
by admitting the existence of a self-sufficient and
self-explanatory cause or ground of being and activity,
to which all these phenomena may be ultimately re-
ferred. It is, therefore, mainly a Cjuestion of method
and expediency what particular points one may select
from the multitude available to illustrate and enforce
the general a posteriori argument. For our purpose
it will suffice to state as briefly as possible (i) the gen-
eral argument proving the self-existence of a First
Cause, (ii) the special arguments proving the existence
of an intelligent Designer and (iii) of a Supreme Moral
Ruler, and (iv) the confirmatory argument from the
general consent of mankind.
(i) We must start by assuming the objective cer- tainty and validity of the principle of causality or sufficient reason — an assumption upon which the value of the physical sciences and of human knowledge generally is based. To question its objective cer- tainty, as did Kant, and represent it as a mere mental a priori, or possessing only subjective validity, would open the door to subjectivism and universal scepticism. It is impossible to prove the principle of causality, just as it is impossible to prove the principle of contradic- tion ; but it is not difficult to see that if the former is denied the latter may also be denied and the whole process of human reasoning declared fallacious. The principle states that whatever exists or happens must have a sufficient reason for its existence or occurrence either in itself or in something else; in other words that whatever does not exist of absolute necessity — whatever is not self-existent — cannot exist without a proportionate cause external to itself; and if this principle is valid when employed by the scientist to explain the phenomena of physics it must be equally valid when employed by the philosopher for the ulti- mate explanation of the universe as a whole. In the universe we observe that certain things are effects, i. e. they depend for their existence on other things, and these again on others ; but, however far back we may extend this series of effects and dependent causes, we must, if human reason is to be satisfied, come ulti- mately to a cause that is not itself an effect, in other words to an uncaused cause or self-e-xistent being which is the ground and cause of all being. And this conclusion, as thus stated, is virtually admitted by Agnostics and Pantheists, all of whom are obliged to speak of an eternal something underlying the phe- nomenal universe, whether this something be the
"Unknown", or the "Absolute", or the "Uncon-
scious", or "Matter" itself, or the "Ego", or the
"Idea" of being, or the "Will"; these are so many
substitutes for the uncaused cause or self-existent
being of Theism. What anti-Theists refuse to admit
is not the existence of a First Cause in an indetermi-
nate sense, but the existence of an intelligent and free
First Cause, a personal God, distinct from the material
universe and the human mind. But the very same
reason that compels us to postulate a First Cause at
all requires that this cause should be a free and intelli-
gent being. The spiritual world of intellect and free
will must be recognized by the sane philosopher to be
as real as the world of matter; man knows that he has
a spiritual nature and performs spiritual acts as
clearly and as certainly as he knows that he has eyes
to see with and ears to hear with ; and the phenomena
of man's spiritual nature can only be explained in one
way — by attributing spirituality, i. e. intelligenoe and
free will, to the First Cause, in other words by recog-
nizing a personal God. For the cause in all cases
must be proportionate to the effect, i. e. must contain
somehow in itself every perfection of being that is
realized in the effect.
The cogency of this argument becomes more appar- ent if account be taken of the fact, recognized by modern scientists, that the human species had its origin at a comparatively late period in the history of tlie actual universe. There was a time when neither man nor any other living thing inhabited this globe of ours ; and without pressing the point regarding the origin of life itself from inanimate matter or the evolu- tion of man's body from lower organic types, it may be maintained with absolute confidence that no ex- planation of the origin of man's soul can be made out on evolutionary lines, and that recourse must be had to the creative power of a spiritual or personal First Cause. It might also be urged, as an inference from the physical theories commonly accepted by present- day scientists, that the actual organization of the material imiverse had a definite beginning in time. If it be true that the goal towards which physical e\'olu- tion is tending is the uniform distribution of heat and other forms of energy, it would follow clearly that the existing process has not been going on from eternity; else the goal would have been reached long ago. And if the process had a beginning how did it originate? If the primal mass was inert and uniform, it is im- possible to conceive how motion and differentiation were introduced except from without, while if these are held to be coeval with matter, the cosmic process, which ex hypothec is temporal, would be eternal, unless it be granted that matter itself had a definite beginning in time.
But the argument, strictly speaking, is conclusive even if it be granted that the world may have existed from eternity, in the sense, that is, that, no matter how far back one may go, no point of time can be reached at which created being was not already in existence. In this sense Aristotle held matter to be eternal and St. Thomas, while denying the fact, ad- mitted the possibility of its being so. But such relative eternity is nothing more in reality than in- finite or indefinite temporal duration and is altogether different from the eternity we attribute to God. Hence to admit that the world "might possibly be eternal in this sense implies no denial of the essentially finite and contingent char.acter of its existence. On the contrary it helps to emphasize this truth, for the same relation of dependence upon a self-existingcause which is implied in the contingency of any single being is implied a fortiori in the existence of an infinite series of such beings, supposing such a series to be possible.
Nor can it be maintained with Pantheists that the world, whether of matter or of mind or of both, con- tains within itself the sufficient reason of its own existence. A self-existing world would exist of ab-
