Lectures on the Proofs of the Existence of God/Lecture 6
All questions and investigations regarding the formal element in knowledge we for the present consider as settled or as put on one side. We at the same time escape the necessity of putting in a merely negative form the exposition of what is known as the metaphysical proofs of the existence of God. Criticism which leads to a negative result is not merely a sorry business, but, in confining itself to the task of showing that a certain content is vain, it is itself a vain exercise, an exertion of vanity. In defining those proofs as the grasping in thought of what we have called the elevation of the soul to God, we declared that in criticism we must directly reach an affirmative content.
And so, too, our treatment of the subject is not to be historical. Since time will not permit of me doing otherwise, I must partly refer you to histories of philosophy for the literary portion of the subject, and, indeed, the range of the historical element in these proofs may be held to be of the greatest possible extent, to be universal in fact, since every philosophy has a close connection with the primary question or with subjects which are most intimately related to it. There have, however, been times when this question was treated of in the express form of these proofs, and the interest which was felt in refuting atheism directed attention to them in a supreme degree and secured for them thorough treatment—times when the insight of thought was considered indispensable even in theology in connection with those of its parts which were capable of being known in a rational way. Besides, the historical element in anything which is a substantial content for itself, can and should have an interest for us when we are clear about the thing itself, and that thing which we have got to consider here deserves above anything else to be taken up for itself, apart from any interest which might otherwise attach to it by its being connected with material lying outside of it. To occupy ourselves too exclusively with the historical element in subjects which are in themselves eternal truths for Spirit, is a proceeding rather to be disapproved of, for it is only too frequently an illusion which deceives us as to what is of real interest. Historical study of this kind has the appearance of dealing with the Thing or actual reality; while, on the contrary, we are as a matter of fact dealing with the ideas and opinions of others, with external circumstances, with what, so far as the actual reality is concerned, is past, transitory, and vain. We may certainly meet with historically learned persons who are what is called thoroughly conversant with all the details of what has been advanced by celebrated men, Fathers of the Church, philosophers, and such like, regarding the fundamental principles of religion, but who, on the other hand, are strangers to the true object or Thing itself. If such people were to be asked what they considered to be the reality and the grounds of their conviction regarding the truth they possessed, they would very likely be astonished at such a question as something which did not concern them here, their real concern being, on the contrary, with others, with theories and opinions, and with the knowledge not of something actual but of theories and opinions.
It is the metaphysical proofs which we are considering here. I make this further remark inasmuch as it has been the custom to deduce a proof of the existence of God, ex consensu gentium, a popular category over which Cicero long ago waxed eloquent. The knowledge that all men have imagined, believed, known this, carries with it a tremendous authority. How could any man resist it and say, I alone contradict all that all men picture to themselves as true, what many of them have perceived to be the truth by means of thought, and what all feel and believe to be the truth. If, to start with, we leave out of account the force of such a proof, and look at the dry substance of it which is supposed to rest on an empirical and historical basis, it will be seen to be both uncertain and vague. All that about all nations, all men who are supposed to believe in God, is on a level with similar appeals to all generally; they are usually made in a very thoughtless fashion. A statement, which is necessarily an empirical statement, is made regarding all men, and which covers all individuals, and consequently all times and places; future ones, too, if strictly taken, for we are supposed to be dealing with all men. But it is not possible to get historical evidence regarding all nations. Such statements regarding all men are in themselves absurd, and are to be explained only by the habit people have of not treating seriously such meaningless and trite ways of speaking. But apart from this, nations, or if you choose to call them tribes, have been discovered, whose dull minds, being limited to the few objects connected with their outward needs, had not risen to a consciousness of anything higher which might be called God. What is supposed to be the historical element in the religion of many peoples rests principally on uncertain explanations of sensuous expressions, outward actions, and the like. Of a great many nations, even such as are otherwise highly civilised, and with whose religion we have a more definite and thorough acquaintance, it may be said that what they call God is of such a character that we may well hesitate to recognise it as God. A dispute of the most bitter kind has been carried on between two Roman Catholic monastic orders as to whether the names Thian and Chang-ti, which occur in the Chinese State-religion, the former meaning heaven, and the latter lord, might be used to designate the Christian God, that is to say, as to whether these names did not express ideas which are utterly opposed to our ideas of God, so opposed that they contain nothing in common with ours, not even the common abstract idea of God. The Bible makes use of the expression, “the heathen who know not God,” although these heathen were idolaters, i.e., as it is well put, although they had a religion. Here, all the same, we draw a distinction between God and an idol, and spite of the broad meaning attached in modern times to the name religion, we would perhaps shrink from giving the name God to an idol. Are we to call the Apis of the Egyptians, the monkey, the cow, &c., of the Hindus and other nations, God? Even if we were to speak of the religion of these peoples, and consequently allow that they had something more than a superstition, still we might hesitate to speak of their having belief in God. Otherwise God would be represented by the purely indeterminate idea of something higher of an entirely general character, and not even of something invisible and above sense. One may take up the position that even a bad or false religion should still be called a religion, and that it is better that the various nations should have a false religion rather than none at all, which reminds us of the story of the woman who, to the complaint that it was bad weather, replied that such weather was at least better than no weather at all. Closely connected with this position is the thought that the value of religion is to be found only in the subjective element, in the fact of having a religion, it being a matter of indifference what idea of God is contained in it. Thus belief in idols, just because such a belief can be included under the abstract idea of God in general, is regarded as sufficient, just as the abstract idea of God in general is considered satisfactory. This is certainly the reason, too, why such names as idols and heathen are regarded as something antiquated, and are considered as objectionable because of their invidious meaning. As a matter of fact, however, this abstract antithesis of truth and falsehood demands a very different solution from that given in the abstract idea of God in general, or, what comes to the same thing, in the purely subjective view of religion.
In any case the consensus gentium with regard to belief in God turns out to be a perfectly vague idea, both as regards the element of fact as such expressed in it, and also as regards the substantial element composing it. But neither is the force of this proof binding in itself, even if the historical basis had been of a firmer and more definite kind. A proof of this kind does not amount to being an individual inner conviction, since it is a matter of accident whether or not others agree with it. Conviction, whether in the form of faith or knowledge based on thought, certainly takes its start from something outside, from instruction, from what is learnt, from authority in fact; still it is essentially an inner act of self-remembrance on the part of Spirit. The fact that the individual himself is satisfied is what constitutes Man’s formal freedom, and is the one moment in presence of which authority of every kind entirely falls away; and the fact that he finds satisfaction in the Thing, in the actual reality, is what makes real freedom, and is the other factor in presence of which, in the very same manner, all authority sinks out of sight. They are truly inseparable. Even in the case of faith the one absolutely valid method of proof referred to in the Scriptures does not consist of miracles, credible accounts and the like, but of the witness of the Spirit. With regard to other subjects we may yield to authority, either from confidence or from fear; but the exercise of the right referred to is at the same time the higher duty laid upon us. In connection with the kind of conviction implied in religious belief in which the innermost nature of Spirit is directly involved, both as regards the certainty of itself (conscience) and because of its content, the individual, in consequence of this, has the absolute right to demand that his own witness and not that of outside minds should be what decides and gives confirmation.
The metaphysical method of proof which we are here considering, constitutes the witness of thinking Spirit in so far as this latter is thinking Spirit not merely potentially, but actually. The object with which it takes to do, exists essentially in thought, and even if, as was previously remarked, it is taken in the sense of something represented in feeling, still the substantial element in it belongs to thought, which is its pure self, just as feeling is the empirical self, the self which has become specialised or separate. In reference to this object an advance was made at an early period to the stage of thinking, witnessing, that is, proving, so soon, in fact, as thought emerged from its condition of absorption in sensuous and material conceptions and ideas of the sky, the sun, the stars, the sea, and so on, and disengaged itself, so to speak, from its wrapping of pictures of the imagination which were still permeated by the sensuous element—so that Man came to be conscious of God as essentially objectivity which was to be thought of, and which had been reached by thought. So, too, the subjective action of Spirit by a process of recollection brought itself back from feeling, picture-thought, and imagination, to its essence, namely, thought, and sought to have before it what belongs peculiarly to this sphere, and to have it in its pure form as it exists in this sphere. The elevation of the soul to God in feeling, intuition, imagination, and thought—and as being subjective it is so concrete that it has in it something of all these elements—is an inner experience. In regard to it we have likewise an inner experience of the fact that accidental and arbitrary elements enter into it. Consequently there arises on external grounds the necessity for analysing that elevation, and for bringing into clear consciousness the acts and characteristic qualities contained in it, in order that it may be purified from other contingent elements, and from the contingency which attaches to thought itself; and in accordance with the old belief that what is substantial and true can be reached only by reflection, we effect the purification of this act of elevation whereby it attains to substantiality and necessity, by explaining it in terms of thought, and give thought the satisfaction of realising that the absolute right possessed by it has a right to satisfaction totally different from that belonging to feeling and sense-perception or ordinary conception.