LECTURE VI.

Note I., p. 161.

See above, Lecture IV. p. 104 and Note 19.

Note II., p. 162.

Christliche Lehre von der Sünde, II. p. 156, third edition, (English Translation, II. p. 126.) The doctrine that the Divine Essence is speculatively made known through Christ, is a common ground on which theologians 317 of the most opposite schools have met, to diverge again into most adverse conclusions. It is substantially the opinion of Eunomius;²⁰⁵²⁰⁵   See Neander, vol. iv. p. 60, ed. Bohn. and it has been maintained in modern times by Hegel and his disciple Marheineke, in a sense very different from that which is adopted by Müller. See Hegel, Philosophie der Geschichte, Werke, IX. p. 19. Philosophie der Religion, Werke, XII. p. 204, and Marheineke, Grundlehren der Christlichen Dogmatik, § 69.

Note III., p. 162.

See L. Ancillon, in the Mémoires de l’Académie de Berlin, quoted by Bartholmèss, Histoire des Doctrines religieuses, I. p. 268. On the parallel between the mystery of Causation and those of Christian doctrines, compare Magee on the Atonement, Note XIX. See also Mozley, Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, p. 19, and the review of the same work, by Professor Fraser, Essays in Philosophy, p. 274.

Note IV., p. 162.

Seven different theories of the causal nexus, and of the mode of our apprehension of it, are enumerated and refuted by Sir W. Hamilton, Discussions, p. 611. His own, which is the eighth, can hardly be regarded as more satisfactory. For he resolves the causal judgment itself into the inability to conceive an absolute commencement of phenomena, and the consequent necessity of thinking that what appears to us under a new form had previously existed under others. But surely a cause is as much required to account for the change from an old form to a new, as to account for an absolute beginning. On the defects of this theory I have remarked elsewhere. See Encyclopædia Britannica, eighth edition, vol. XIV. p. 601. It has also been criticized by Dr. McCosh, Method of the Divine Government, p. 529, fourth edition; by Professor Fraser, Essays in Philosophy, p. 170 sqq.; and by Mr. Calderwood, Philosophy of the Infinite, p. 139 sqq.

Note V. p. 163.

That Causation implies something more than invariable sequence, though what that something is we are unable to determine, is maintained, among others, by M. Cousin, in his eloquent Lectures on the Philosophy of Locke. “Solely because one phenomenon succeeds another, and succeeds it constantly,—is it the cause of it? Is this the whole idea, which you form to yourself, of cause? When you say, when you think that the fire is the 318 cause of the fluid state of the wax, I ask you, if you do not believe, if the whole human race do not believe, that there is in the fire a certain something, an unknown property,—the determination of which is no point in question here,—to which you refer the production of the fluid state of the wax?” Histoire de la Philosophie au XVIII^e. siècle, Leçon xix. Engel speaks to the same effect in almost the same words. “In what we call, for example, force of attraction, of affinity, or of impulsion, the only thing known (that is to say, represented to the imagination and the senses) is the effect produced, namely, the bringing together of the two bodies attracted and attracting. No language has a word to express that certain something, (effort, conatius, nisus) which remains absolutely concealed, but which all minds necessarily conceive of as added to the phenomenal representation.”²⁰⁶²⁰⁶   Memoires de l’Académie de Berlin, quoted by Maine de Biran, Nouvelles Considérations, p. 23. Dr. McCosh (Method of the Divine Government, p. 525,) professes to discover this certain something, in a substance acting according to its powers or properties. But, apart from the conscious exercise of free will, we know nothing of power, or property, save as manifested in its effects. Compare Berkeley, Minute Philosopher, Dial. VII. § 9. Herder, Gott, Werke, VIII. p. 224.

Note VI., p. 163.

That the first idea of Causation is derived from the consciousness of the exercise of power in our own volitions, is established, after a hint from Locke,²⁰⁷²⁰⁷   Essay, B. II. Ch. 21 §§ 4, 5. A similar view is taken by Jacobi, David Hume, oder Idealismus und Realismus, (Werke, II. p. 201.) by Maine de Biran, and accepted by M. Cousin.²⁰⁸²⁰⁸   See De Biran, Oeuvres Philosophiques, IV. p. 241, 273, Cousin, Cours de l’Histoire de la Philosophie, Deuxième Série, Leçon 19. Fragments Philosophiques, vol. IV.; Préface de la Premiere Edition. To explain the manner in which we transcend our own personal consciousness, and attribute a cause to all changes in the material world, the latter philosopher has recourse to the hypothesis of a necessary law of the reason, by virtue of which it disengages, in the fact of consciousness, the necessary element of causal relation from the contingent element of our personal production of this or that particular movement. This Law, the Principle of Causality, compels the reason to suppose a cause, whenever the senses present a new phenomenon. But this Principle of Causality, even granting it to be true as far as it goes, does not explain what the idea of a Cause, thus extended, contains as its constituent feature: it merely transcends personal causation, and substitutes an unknown something in its room. We do not attribute to the fire a consciousness of its power to melt the wax: 319 and in denying consciousness, we deny the only positive conception of power which can be added to the mere juxtaposition of phenomena. The cause, in all sensible changes, thus remains a certain something. On this subject I have treated more at length in another place. See Prolegomena Logica, pp. 135, 309.

And even within the sphere of our own volitions, though we are immediately conscious of the exercise of power, yet the analysis of the conception thus presented to us, carries us at once into the region of the incomprehensible. The finite power of man, as an originating cause within his own sphere, seems to come into collision with the infinite power of God, as the originating Cause of all things. Finite power is itself created by and dependent upon God; yet, at the same time, it seems to be manifested as originating and independent. Power itself acts only on the solicitation of motives; and this raises the question, which is prior? does the motive bring about the state of the will which inclines to it; or does the state of the will convert the coincident circumstances into motives? Am I moved to will, or do I will to be moved? Here we are involved in the mystery of endless succession. On this mystery there are some able remarks in Mr. Mozley’s Augustinian theory of Predestination, p. 2, and in Professor Fraser’s Essays in Philosophy, p. 275.

Note VII., p. 163.

De Ordine, II. 18. Compare Ibid. II. 16. “of that Supreme God, who is better known by not knowing.”

Note VIII., p. 163.

Enarratio in Psalmum LXXXV. 12. Compare De Trinitate, VIII. c. 2.

Note IX., p. 164.

F. Socinus, Tractatus de Deo, Christo, et Spiritu Sancto. (Opera, 1656, vol. I. p. 811). “But even from that alone, that God is openly taught to be one, it can justly be concluded, that he can be neither three nor two. For the One and the Three, or the One and the Two are opposed to each other. So that if God be three or two, he cannot be one.”—Priestley, Tracts in Controversy with Bishop Horsley, p. 78. “They are therefore both one and many in the same respect, viz., in each being perfect God. This is certainly as much a contradiction as to say that Peter, James, and John, having each of them every thing that is requisite to constitute a complete man, are yet, all together, not three men, but only one man.”—F. W. Newman, 320 Phases of Faith, p. 48. “If any one speaks of three men, all that he means is, ‘three objects of thought, of whom each separately may be called man.’ So also, all that could possibly be meant by three Gods, is ‘three objects of thought, of whom each separately may be called God.’ To avow the last statement, as the Creed does, and yet repudiate Three Gods, is to object to the phrase, yet confess to the only meaning which the phrase can convey.”

Note X., p. 164.

Schleiermacher (Christliche Glaube, § 171), has some objections against the Catholic Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, conceived in the thorough spirit of Rationalism. In the same spirit Strauss observes (Glaubenslehre, I. p. 460), “Whoever has sworn to the Symbolum Quicunque has forsworn the laws of human thought.” The sarcasm comes inconsistently enough from a disciple of Hegel, whose entire philosophy is based on an abjuration of the laws of thought. In one respect, indeed, Hegel is right; namely, in maintaining that the laws of thought are not applicable to the Infinite. But the true conclusion from this concession is not, as the Hegelians maintain, that a philosophy can be constructed independently of those laws; but that the Infinite is not an object of human philosophy at all.

Note XI., p. 165.

Paradise Lost, B. II. 667.

Note XII., p. 166.

Compare Anselm, De Fide Trinitatis, c. 7. “But if he denies that three can be predicated of one, and one of three, . . . . . let him allow that there is something in God, which his intellect cannot penetrate, and let him not compare the nature of God, which is above all things, free from all condition of place and time and composition of parts, with things, which are confined to place and time, or composed of parts; but let him believe that there is something, in that nature, which cannot be in those things, and let him acquiesce in christian authority, and not dispute against it.”

Note XIII., p. 166.

See the objections raised against this doctrine by Mr. F. W. Newman, Phases of Faith, p. 84. “The very form of our past participle (begotten),” he tells us, “is invented to indicate an event in the past time.” The true 321 difficulty is not grammatical, but metaphysical. If ordinary language is primarily accommodated to the ordinary laws of thought, it is a mere verbal quibble to press its literal application to the Infinite, which is above thought.

Note XIV., p. 166.

The parallel here pointed out may be exhibited more fully by consulting Bishop Pearson’s Exposition of this Doctrine, On the Creed, Art. I., and the authorities cited in his notes.

Note XV., p. 166.

On this ground is established a profound and decisive criticism of Hegel’s System, by Trendelenburg, Logische Untersuchungen, c. 2. “Pure being,” he says, “is quiescence; so also is the Nothing (das Nichts); how is the active Becoming (active reality) the result of the union of two quiescent conceptions?” M. Bartholmèss in like manner remarks, “In turning thus the abstraction to reality, this system tacitly ascribes to abstract being virtues and qualities which belong only to a concrete and individual being; that is, to a simple being capable of spontaneous and deliberate action, of intelligence and of will. It accords all this to it, at the same time that it represents it, and with reason, as an impersonal being. This abstract being produces concrete beings, this impersonal being produces persons; it produces the one and the other, because thus the system directs!” Histoire des Doctrines Religieuses, II p. 277.

Note XVI., p. 167.

Schelling, Bruno, p. 168. “In the Absolute, all is absolute; if, therefore, the perfection of His Nature appears in the real as infinite Being, and in the ideal as infinite Knowing, the Being in the absolute is, even as the Knowing, absolute; and each, being absolute, has not, out of itself, an opposite in the other, but the absolute Knowing is the absolute Nature, and the absolute Nature the absolute Knowing.”

Note XVII., p. 167.

Aquinas, Summa, P. I. Qu. XXXII. Art. 1. “It is impossible, by means of natural reason, to reach the knowledge of the Trinity of the Divine Persons. For it has been shown above, that a man can, by natural reason, 322 arrive at the knowledge of God, only from what is created. . . . . But the creative power of God is common to the whole Trinity; whence it pertains to the unity of the essence, not to the distinction of the Persons. By natural reason, therefore, only those things can be known concerning God, which belong to the Unity of the Divine essence, not to the distinction of the Divine Persons.” This wise and sound limitation should be borne in mind, as a testimony against that neoplatonizing spirit of modern times, which seeks to strengthen the evidence of the Christian Doctrine of the Trinity, by distorting it into conformity with the speculations of Heathen Philosophy. The Hegelian Theory of the Trinity is a remarkable instance of this kind. Indeed, Hegel himself expressly regards coincidence with neoplatonism as an evidence in favor of an idealist interpretation of Christian doctrines.²⁰⁹²⁰⁹   Philosophie der Geschichte, Werke, IX. p. 402. A similar spirit occasionally appears in influential writers among ourselves.

Note XVIII., p. 168.

For the objection, see Catech. Racov. De Persona Christi, Cap. 1. (Ed. 1609. p. 43.) “It is repugnant to sound reason. In the first place, because two substances, opposite in their properties, cannot unite so as to form one person; . . . . then, too, because two natures, each constituting a person, cannot come together so as to constitute one person.”—Spinoza, Epist. XXI. “As to the additional view, given by some churches, that God assumed human nature, I have expressly declared, that I know not what they say; nay, to confess the truth, they seem to me to talk no less absurdly than if any one should say that a circle has assumed the nature of a square.” Similar objections are urged by F. W. Newman, The Soul, p. 116, and by Theodore Parker, Critical and Miscellaneous Writings, p. 320, Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion, p. 234.

Note XIX., p. 169.

One half of this dilemma has been exhibited by Sir W. Hamilton, Discussions, p. 609. sqq. It is strange however that this great thinker should not have seen that the second alternative is equally inconceivable; that it is as impossible to conceive the creation as a process of evolution from the being of the Creator, as it is to conceive it as a production out of nothing. This double impossibility is much more in harmony with the philosophy of the conditioned, than the hypothesis which Sir W. Hamilton adopts. 323 Indeed, his admirable criticism of Cousin’s theory (Discussions, p. 36,) contains in substance the same dilemma as that exhibited in the text. For some additional remarks on this point, see above, Lecture II. Note 33.

Note XX., p. 169.

Pensées, Partie II. Art. I. § 1.

Note XXI., p. 171.

Greg, Creed of Christendom, p. 248. sqq. Compare the cognate passages from other Authors, quoted above, Lecture I. Note 21.

Note XXII., p. 172.

For some remarks connected with this and cognate theories, see above, Lecture I. notes 21, 22, 23, Lecture III. notes 16, 18.

Note XXIII., p. 173.

“For since in general it is one thing to understand the impossibility of a thing, and a far different thing not to understand its possibility; so especially in those matters of which we are utterly ignorant, such as those which are not exposed to sense, the things are by no means forthwith impossible, the possibility of which we do not thoroughly understand. Therefore it does not become the philosopher to deny universally Divine efficiency in the created world, or to maintain as certain, that God Himself contributes nothing (immediately) either to the consecutive order of natural things,—as for instance the keeping up of each part or species, embraced in a genus of animals or of plants,—or to moral changes,—as for instance, the improvement of the human soul,—or to assert that it is altogether impossible for a revelation or any other extraordinary event to be brought about by Divine agency.” Storr, Annotationes quædam Theologicæ, p. 5.

Note XXIV., p. 173.

“For since the force and power of nature, is the very force and power of God, and its laws and rules are the very decrees of God, it is in general a thing to be believed, that the power of nature is infinite, and that its laws are so made, as to extend to all things which are conceived by the 324 Divine mind. For, otherwise, what else is determined, than that God made nature so impotent, and appointed for it laws and rules so unproductive, that he is often to come anew to its aid, if He will have it so preserved that things may succeed according to wish; a thing which I conceive to be indeed most foreign to reason.” Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, cap. VI.—”The latter, indeed (Supernaturalists), assume that God governs human affairs in general by a natural order, and that when this natural order can no longer satisfy His will, He comes in with remedial aid by the working of miracles; the former (Rationalists) decide that God, from eternity, so wisely arranged that all things should follow in a continuous series, that the things which occurred many ages ago, prepared and brought about what is occurring now, and that there should be no need of certain miracles, as a kind of intercalations.” Wegscheider, Instit. Theol. § 12. From an opposite point of view to that of Spinoza, Herbart arrives at a similar conclusion. “Religion requires the view, that He who, as Father, has made provision for men, now in deepest silence leaves the race to itself, as having no part in it; without trace of any such feeling itas might be likened to human sympathy, and indeed to egotism.”²¹⁰²¹⁰   Lehrbuch zur Einleitung in die Philosophie, § 155 (Werke, I. p. 278). The simile of the calculating engine, acting by its own laws, is adduced by Mr. Babbage (Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, ch. 2), “to illustrate the distinction between a system to which the restoring hand of its contriver is applied, either frequently or at distant intervals, and one which had received at its first formation the impress of the will of its author, foreseeing the varied but yet necessary laws of its action throughout the whole of its existence; “and to show” that that for which, after its original adjustment, no superintendence is acquired, displays far greater ingenuity than that which demands, at every change in its law, the direct intervention of its contriver.” Mr. Jowett, though rejecting the analogy of the machine, uses similar language: “The directing power that is able to foresee all things, and provide against them by simple and general rules, is a worthier image of the Divine intelligence than the handicraftsman ‘putting his hand to the hammer,’ detaching and isolating portions of matter from the laws by which he has himself put them together.”²¹¹²¹¹   Epistles of St. Paul, vol. II. p. 412.

Note XXV., p. 174.

“The reason why, among men, an artificer is justly esteemed so much the more skilful, as the machine of his composing will continue longer to move regularly without any further interposition of the workman, is 325 because the skill of all human artificers consists only in composing, adjusting, or putting together certain movements, the principles of whose motion are altogether independent upon the artificer. . . . . But with regard to God, the case is quite different; because He not only composes or puts things together, but is himself the Author and continual Preserver of their original forces or moving powers. And consequently it is not a diminution, but the true glory of his workmanship, that nothing is done without his continual government and inspection.” Clarke, First Reply to Leibnitz, p. 15.

Note XXVI., p. 174.

“'I do not believe,” says Theodore Parlker, “there ever was a miracle, or ever will be; every where I find law,—the constant mode of operation of the infinite God.”—Some account of my Ministry, appended to Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology, p. 263. Compare the same work, pp. 113, 188; and Atkinson, Man’s Nature and Development, p. 241. The statement is not at present true, even as regards the material world: it is false as regards the world of mind- and were it true in both, it would prove nothing regarding the “infinite God.” For the conception of law is, to say the least, quite as finite as that of miraculous interposition. Professor Powell, in his latest work, though not absolutely rejecting miracles, yet adopts a tone which, compared with such passages as the above, is at least painfully suggestive. “It is now perceived by all inquiring minds, that the advance of true scientific principles, and the grand inductive conclusions of universal and eternal law and order, are at once the basis of all rational theology, and give the death-blow to superstition.” Christianity without Judaism, p. 11.

Note XXVII., p. 174.

This point has been treated by the author at greater length in the Prolegomena Logica, p. 135, and in the article Metaphysics, in the eighth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. XIV. p. 600.

Note XXVIII., p. 176.

See McCosh, Method of the Divine Government, pp. 162, 166. The quotations which the author brings forward in support of this remark, from Humboldt and Comte, are valuable as showing the concurrence of the highest scientific authorities as to the facts stated. The religious application 326 of these facts is Dr. McCosh’s own, and constitutes one of the most instructive portions of his valuable work. The fact itself has been noticed and commented on with his usual sagacity by Bishop Butler, Analogy, Part II. c. 3. “Would it not have been thought highly improbable, that men should’ have been so much more capable of discovering, even to certainty, the general laws of matter, and the magnitudes, paths, and revolutions of the heavenly bodies, than the occasions and cures of distempers, and many other things, in which human life seems so much more nearly concerned, than in astronomy?”

Note XXIX., p. 176.

“There are domains of nature in which man’s foresight is considerably extended and accurate, and other domains in which it is very limited, or very dim and confused. Again, there are departments of nature in which man’s influence is considerable, and others which lie altogether beyond his control, directly or indirectly. Now, on comparing these classes of objects, we find them to have a cross or converse relation to one another. Where man’s foreknowledge is extensive, either he has no power, or his power is limited; and where his power might be exerted, his foresight is contracted. . . . . . He can tell in what position a satellite of Saturn will be a hundred years after this present time, but he cannot say in what state his bodily health may be an hour hence. . . . . We are now in circumstances to discover the advantages arising from the mixture of uniformity and uncertainty in the operations of nature. Both serve most important ends in the government of God. The one renders nature steady and stable, the other active and accommodating. Without the certainty, man would waver as in a dream, and wander as in a trackless desert; without the unexpected changes, he would make his rounds like the gin-horse in its circuit, or the prisoner on his wheel. Were nature altogether capricious, man would likewise become altogether capricious, for he could have no motive to steadfast action: again, were nature altogether fixed, it would make man’s character as cold and formal as itself.” McCosh, Method of the Divine Government, pp. 172, 174 (fourth edition).

Note XXX., p. 177.

The solution usually given by Christian writers of the difficulty of reconciling the efficacy of prayer with the infinite power and wisdom of God, I cannot help regarding, while thoroughly sympathizing with the purpose of its advocates, as unsatisfactory. That solution may be given 327 in the language of Euler. “When a christian addresses to God, at this present moment, a prayer worthy of being granted, we must not imagine that this prayer reaches now, for the first time, the knowledge of God. He has already heard that prayer from all eternity; and since this compassionate Father has judged it worthy of being granted, He has arranged the world expressly in favor of this prayer in such manner, that its accomplishment may be a consequence of the natural course of events.”²¹²²¹²   Lettres à une Princesse d’ Allemagne, vol. I. p. 357, ed. Cournot. Compare McCosh, Method of the Divine Government, p 222. In other words, the prayer is foreseen and foreordained, as well as the answer. This solution appears to assume that the conception of law and necessity adequately represents the absolute nature of God, while that of contingence and special interposition is to be subordinated to it. The arrangements of God in the government of the world are fixed from all eternity, and if the prayer is part of those arrangements, it becomes a necessary act likewise. It is surely a more reverent, and probably a truer solution, to say that the conception of general law and that of special interposition are equally human. Neither probably represents, as a speculative truth, the absolute manner in which God works in His Providence; both are equally necessary, as regulative truths, to govern man’s conduct in this life. In neither aspect are we warranted in making the one conception subordinate to the other. A similar objection may be urged against the theory which represents a miracle as the possible manifestation of a higher and unknown law. There is nothing in the conception of law which entitles it to this preeminence over other human modes of representation.

Note XXXI., p. 177.

Kant, though he attaches no value to miracles as evidences of a moral religion, yet distinctly allows that there is no sufficient reason for denying their possibility as facts or their utility at certain periods of the history of religion.²¹³²¹³   Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, p. 99, edit. Rosenkranz. This moderation is not imitated by his disciple, Wegscheider, who says: “The belief in a supernatural and miraculous, and that too, an immediate revelation of God seems not well reconcilable with the ideas of a God eternal, always constant to Himself, omnipotent, omniscient and most wise.”²¹⁴²¹⁴   Instit. Theol. § 12. Strauss, in like manner, assumes that the absolute cause never disturbs the chain of secondary causes by arbitrary acts of interposition; and therefore lays it down as a canon, that whatever is miraculous is unhistorical.²¹⁵²¹⁵   Leben Jesu, § 16.

Note XXXII., p. 178.

See, on the one side, Babbage, Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, ch. 8; Hitchcock, Religion of Geology, p. 290. The same view is also suggested as probable by Butler, Analogy, Part II. ch. 4. On the other side, as regards the limitations within which the idea of law should be applied to the course of God’s Providence, see McCosh, Method of Divine Government, p. 155. Kant, Religion innerhalb, u. s. w. p. 102, maintains, with reason, that from a human point of view, a law of miracles is unattainable.

Note XXXIII., p. 180.

Sir William Hamilton, Discussions, p. 625.