Lesson XXIX. TYPICAL MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD
LESSON XXIX.
(Scripture Reading Exercise.)
TYPICAL MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD. ANALYSIS. REFERENCES.
I. Typical Views of God-PhiloSO- LeSo^nsTxw! and'SvlS ■nVi pucx prc a. ^^^^ ^® available in this lesson; also the works quoted in the notes. The 1. Spinoza ■^ ; notes of this lesson aim to convey in condensed c, T 1 form the generalized Z. Locke; view of each Philosopher quoted. They make ^o. RarlrAlAv^ , xjeiKcit? • difficult reading, but — ^gjj^ master them. 4. Fichte; 5. Kant.
SPECIAL TEXT: For these philosophers one might say : "Oh that I might know where I might find Him! That I might come even to His seat. ***** Behold I go forward, but He is not there; and hachivard, hut I cannot perceive Him; on the left hand, where He doth work, hut I cannot hehold Him. He hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him." J oh xxiii.
NOTES.
- Spinoza — Pantheist: Born in Amsterdam 1632, of Jewish parents, who were refuges from the Spanish persecution of that period. He states his conceptions of God in the following passages:
"By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite — that is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality. "Explanation: I say absolutely infinite, not infinite after its kind; for, of a thing infinite only after its kind, infinite attributes may be denied; but that which is absolutely infinite, contains in its essence whatever expresses reality, and involves no negation. ****** "God Is a being absolutely infinite, of whom no attribute that expresses the essence of substance can be denied, and he necessarily exists: If any substance besides God were granted, it would have to be explained by some attribute of God, and thus two substances with the same attribute would exist,
which is absurd; therefore, besides God, no substance can be granted, or consequently, be conceived. If it could be conceived, ;t would necessarily have to be conceived as ex'stent; but this (by the first part of this proof) is absurd. Therefore, besides God, no substance can be granted or conceived. "Some assert that God, like a man, consists of body and mind, and is susceptible of passions. How far such persons have strayed from the truth, is sufficiently evident from what has been said. But these I pass over. For all who have in anywise reflected on the divine nature, deny that God has a body. Of this they find excellent proof in the fact, that we understand by body a definite quantity, so long, so broad, so deep, bounded by a certain shape, and it is the height of absurdity to predicate such a thing of God, a being absolutely infinite. But, meanwhile, by the other reasons with which they try to prove a point, they show that they think corporeal or extended substance wholly apart from the divine nature, and say it was created by God. Wherefrom the divine nature can have been created, they are wholly ignorant; thus they clearly show, that they do not know the meaning of their own words. I, myself, have proved sufficiently clearly, at any rate in my own judgment (Coroll. Prop. 6, and note 2, Prop. 8), that no substance can be produced or created by anything other than itself. Further, I showed (in Prop. 14) that besides God no substance can be granted or conceived. Hence, we drew the conclusion that extended substance is one of the infinite attributes of God." 2. Locke's View of God and Spirit: Locke regards God as an infinite, immaterial spirit, present in all duration and as filling immensity. Men derive their best knowledge of God, not by reason of innate ideas of Him, but by thought and meditation. "It seems to me plainly to prove the truest and best notions men had of God were not imprinted, but acquired by thought and meditation, and a right use of their faculties; since the wise and considerate men of the world, by a right and careful employment of their thoughts and reason, attained true notions in this, as well as other things; whilst the lazy and inconsiderate part of men, making far the greater number, took up their notions by chance, from common tradition and vulgar conceptions, without much beating their heads about them." * * * * "God, every one easily allows, fills eternity; and it is hard to find a reason why anyone should doubt that he likewise fills immensity. His infinite being is certainly as boundless one way as the other; and methinks it ascribes a little too much to matter to say, where there is no body there is nothing." * * * * "Motion cannot be attributed to God; not because he is an immaterial, but because he is an infinite spirit." (Locke's Works, Vol. I, pp. 195, 319.) In discussing the nature of man's spirit, Locke had not excluded the idea of its being a thinking, material substance. Whereupon the Bishop of Worcester took him to task about it; to which Locke said in his own defense — and in his reply something further may be learned in relation to his idea of God:
"Perhaps my using the word spirit for a thinking substance, without excluding materiality out of it, will be thought too great a liberty, and such as deserves censure, because I leave immateriality out of the idea I make it a sign of. I readily own, that words should be sparingly ventured on in a sense wholly new, and nothing but absolute necessity can excuse the boldness of using any term in a sense whereof we can produce no example. But in the present case, I think I jiave great authorities to justify me. The soul is agreed, on all hands, to be that in us which thinks. And he that will look into the first book of Cicero's 'Tusculan Questions,' and into the sixth book of Virgil's 'Aeneid,' will find that these two great men, who, of all the Romans, best understood philosophy, thought, or at least did not deny, the soul to be a subtle matter, which might come under the name of aura, or ignis, or ether, and this soul they both of them called spiritus; in the notion of which, it is plain, they included only thought and active motion, without the total exclusion of matter. Whether they thought right in this I do not say — that is not the question; but whether they spoke properly, when they called an active, thinking, subtle substance, out of which they excluded only gross and palpable matter, spiritus, spirit? ***** "i would not be thought hereby to say, that spirit never does signify a purely immaterial substance. In that sense the Scripture, I take it, speaks, when it says 'God is a spirit'; and in that sense I have used it, and in that sense I have proved from my principles that there is a spiritual substance, and am certain that there is a spiritual, immaterial substance; which is, I humbly conceive, a direct answer to your lordship's question in the beginning of this argument, viz: 'How we come to be certain that there are spiritual substances supposing this principle to be true, that the simple ideas, by sensation and reflection, are the soul-matter and foundation of all our reasoning?' But this hinders not, but that if God, that infinite, omnipotent, and perfectly immaterial spirit, should please to give a system of very subtle matter, sense and motion, it might with propriety of speech be called spirit, though materiality were not excluded out of its complex idea. Your lordship proceeds: 'It is said, indeed, elsewhere, that it is repugnant to the idea of senseless matter,' that it would put into itself sense, perception, and knowledge.' But this doth not reach the present case, which is not what matter can: do of itself, but what matter prepared by an Omnipotent hand can do. And what certainty can we have that He hath not done it? We can have none from the ideas, for those are given up in this case, and consequently we can have no certainty, tii)on these principles, whether we have any spiritual substance within us 6r not.^' Ili'pii. 388-9). e.- — - - ...... ..^Ou o.u „. .x. (Works, •■^:i'. an ^ Vol. oc ■■ .;fj:)''d ^.J.1 .fniiaJsmrai as si ed oau£oed Joa ;f)oO c' .:jio ,'51 -q:: .' .'."^ '_.■■" -::.' .r:^ ■ ".- 3. Berkley's Views df the Doctrine of Deity: George Berkley was born at Killkrin, Ireland, 1684; died at Oxford, 1753. I follow Locke with Berkley because he stands somewhat in contrast with iiim, although he was, like Locke, an experimentalist in method; but he regarded Locke -as
a na^tfeTtalM, aiid ii6 runs to the Opposite extreitie, £ts *in iapj>iear' In-'l^tiftt '
''L^cke-^'ad'kif'owe^ te 'i)^Ss Ihe hyp'othe¥is hxa.Fina.het'cW^iAiM. Berkley justly argued that if this were allowed, we could not affirm the immateriality and perpetuity of the thinking principle in man. For, with the disintegration of the matter there must be an end to the individual. If it be allowed that matter can think, then, as Locke offers no proof to the contrary, it might be inferred that our thinking principle, the substratum of our thoughts, is but matter. This, Berkeley undertook to combat! But how did he do so? By trying to establish that there is no matter, {hilt We can' not affirm its existence; and, hence, as something sti^ least, Is, as we do exist, that the thinking principle in us, the soul, niu'^i^ be immaterial." (Truth of Thought— Poland— pp. 24, 25K' ' '^-s"oo jrnq.. "To, counteract the influence of Locke's quasi-materialism, Berkley crossed to the other extreme, in the exaltation of spirit which, of course, he held to be immaterial. "The possibility that hereafter this exaltation of spirit might lead to a denial of any Being higher than man — that the universe might appear to him his own creation — scarcely presented itself, to the mind of Berkley. It was not the peril of his time. A creator was not- denied by any of the minute philosophers with whom Berkeley contended What he desired to impress them with was, the belief that the Being who made the outward : world was a Spirit, who took cognizance of the thoughts and intent^ of the heart; that the words to the poor woman who drew, water at the wellvascended above the; ;PhiJqsophy of the eighteenth century; that they, were real and scientific, tha-t it was conversant with phantasies and shadaws,j^.^, j(Mo^lvgfl,d^M^^^ ice— Vol. II, p. 457),.^ ^.j, o;i ^--e .^oiTibn-^OBna-ii aiH ni hoM ■•rf^oiKO ion )(jb aiu xi-i -Ji .w.-\i-;,i'lqir:o •lI /s;i;tii-y ■!■-.'/,; atrf n; J^'-Cilvr. .; :: ;■:;■:.,;:•;:. rS;nfichtc'« Conception of Gdd-^GQct^as WiH^aBorn 1762; died 1814 There seems to be something of a distinction between Fichte's earlier a.nd later views. In his eai'lier writings he appears to. hold to the doctrine that God was manifest in "Will" alone, which was the cause of the moral order. "The living and working moral order is God himself, and ^e can conceive no other." He quotes with approval a passage from Schiller, saying that it expressed his,, own views: ij^D i;;a: oiiriJoci> oiij nanlds^dqai'j "And God is! — a holy Will that apides,. „ r x* the i ThoughX, XT. .„dr. nf!,3c _^ -11 human will alter;'f^^^ may f li , ._oJuIoscfA . aiPA'/o as, . High over both Space and Time it rides, ,^ ^ ,^ , .„ .„. . Th.e high Thought that will never alter: , , ... And while all things m change eternal roU, . . ,^. . It endures, through change, a motionless souL ,,.
' > 'For these views Piohte' was charged withifttheism,. Which he' resented : "He contends," says Leighton, "that his opponents regard God as a particular substance. Substance means with them 'a sensible being existing in time and space.' This God, extended in time and space, they deduce
from the sense-world. Fitche claims that extensipn or corporeality cannot be predicated of the Deity. The sensuous world is only the reappearance of the supersensuous, or moral world, through our attempt to grasp the latter by means of our sensuous faculty of presentation. The sensuous is mere appearance, and can furnish no ground for the existence of God. The Deity is not to be understood as the underlying ground of phenomena, for, so conceived, he is made a corporeal substrate. He is an order of events, not a substance. The sensuous predicate of existence is not to be applied to Him, for the supersensuous God alone is. He is not dead Being, but rather pure action, the life and principle of the supersensuous World-Order. ***** '"po characterize God as a spirit, is of negative value in distinguishing Him from things material. It gives us no positive information, for we know as little wherein the being of a spirit consists as wherein the being of God consists. Inasmuch as all our thinking is limited, God is inconceivable. To determine him is to make him finite. If personality and consciousness are to be denied of God, it is only in the sense in which we conceive ourselves as personal and conscious. God is wider consciousness than we are, a pure intelligence, spiritual life and actuality. He is neither one nor many, neither man nor
spirit." In his later views he seems to add "Intelligence" to his "will," or moral order. Leighton, summing up both the earlier and later views of the philosopher, says: "When we put together what Pichte said at different times and from various points of view, his doctrine becomes a unity, and his thought exhibits a consistent development. He always conceived God as immanent in the moral universe — the only universe which he recognized. He consistently held that the human mind could not conceive God in His transcendence. But he did not deny that transcendence; and, indeed, in his later writings he emphasized it by his doctrine of the 'Absolute Being.' While in his innermost nature he [God] is beyond the reach of thought, God manifests Himself eternally as active intelligence or Will, and by the free act of his own intelligence, man can rise to an intuitive knowledge of God and enter into union with Him. In the earlier form of the 'Science of Knowledge', the Absolute I is the expression of God. In the final form which his philosophy assumes, Fichte emphasizes the doctrine that God is more than the Absolute I. The idea of God is more fully defined. Beyond His manifestation of Himself, He exists as Absolute Being. He alone is. But this Being is not an abstract motionless One. Fichte says again and again, in the 'Way to the Blessed Life,' that the nature of Being is to manifest itself, that it is ever-active, ever-living and loving. 'Being and Life are one and the same.' 'The Divine is thinking and living in one organic unity.' Being becomes conscious of itself in Existence. The universal form in which the Divine Essence appears, is 'Knowing, the Concept, Freedom,' and these are all equivalent expressions. Knowing is the first image or scheme of the Divine Being. We have not yet reached self-consciousness. But free Knowing, or the
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idea of God prevail The idea of immortality combines itself with this mind interfe res with the full accomp lishment o The limitations of our the success of the right His purpose. We demand an unlimited range for is implie d in our freedo m and in our will.for the attainment of what law.' God stands out before us as the eternal and absolutely sense of of that The happiness of man must consist in the pursuit good Being in the confor mity to it. Happin ess in any sense but this, in any goodness, od luck or good sense which it is merely identical with eudaemonism*-go the end of any creatur e constit uted as man is con- fortune-never can be .-..'. . . ,^ ctitiit- p<l3iiirijvi9v9 .g'jtaij JA .a'auO«iii aa>iJ fo d.6*vuJ3;;j-^ .i^rsj suiuLtju. :..,., .... ., ,,. r.c.^r.trro '-r n^rr-v ^<^t'b^ ?vnri avr 5(g!fi^ o"/^ beyona those "We have thus been driven— f airly driven— to a ground dge, our acts and our condiUons which appear to limit all our knowle has been led to trans- hopes Let the reader observe carefully how Kant defined as himself, gress those bounda ries which no one had so rigorou sly f his function as which it was part-this should always be kept in mind-o endent al philos opher to define. It is not from any passion for a transc any wearin ess of the restraint the excesses of the reason; it is not from He is in the act of prohibi ting the excesse s of the reason when of laws accepts it. because the discovery of this necessity bursts upon him. He no laws that are adequa te to hold fast human creatures, ,:f he can find trations of. He has listened to the discus sions and demons he does not they can establi sh the existen ce of a Creato r of nature those who think factory; to him feeble and unsatis from the facts of nature. They appear strong, such a Creator , so setting in motion the but, were they ever so ed the him. He has examin machinery of the universe, could not satisfy ion, or which are metaphysics .reasonings, which lead to the same conclus in support of the immort ality of the soul. He can make nothing of urged they establish? them- but if he could, what God. what immorta lity, would conduc t these controversies, Leaving, then, dogmatists and skeptics to ly that any results they can— being convin ced inward and to arrive at enough to make the they will arrive at no result, that each can say just this, other untena ble-he falls back upon this moral law. conclusions of the recog^ law for free creatures. Once admitting that, he can, nay, he must, ous Being; he must contem - nize all nature as subject to the same Righte world, the univer se as design ed for a good plate the worl^^ as a moral , end^ ,(3Ipral'and jvietaphysical Philosophy, Yol.,11. pp. 631^633.) ..^.-.v^ sta-nds: "God fite The doctrine of Kant, summed up by Elmendorf. that barmoral ruler of nature, and reconciler of it with reason, giving This mony to happiness and morali ty which nature does not provide. These postula tes are given by pracpostulate also necessary to morality. tical reas(^,^not as gogfiitibns; ;nbt ftrthe relaticms^ pbenorhemjn and
5'!- «'.'TheVtype of utilitarjau ethica,l th^ry that make.a the. i^mrsijit.;ieB-i end in moral condaet,',' —joyment Dictionary.) of happiness the supreme and production (Standard
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