§ 87. Theology, as a branch of philosophy, deals with the proof and the nature of God. Theology Deals with the Since "God" is not primarily a theoretical conception, the proof of God is not Proof of God. properly a philosophical problem. His-· torically, this task has been assumed as a legacy from Christian apologetics; and it has involved, at any rate so far as European philosophy is concerned, the definition of ultimate being in such spiritual terms as make possible the relation with man postulated in Christianity. For this it has been regarded as sufficient to ascribe to the world an underlying unity capable of bearing the predicates of perfection, omnipotence, and omniscience. Each proof of God has defined him pre-eminently in terms of some one of these his attributes. ical Proof of God. $88. The ontological proof of God held the foremost place in philosophy's contribution to The Ontolog Christianity up to the eighteenth century. This proof infers the existence from the ideal of God, and so approaches the nature of God through the attribute of perfection. It owes the form in which it was accepted in the Middle Ages and Renaissance to St. Anselm, matters, Cf. Descartes: Meditations, Dedication. Translation by Veitch, p. 81. Archbishop of Canterbury at the close of the eleventh century. He argued from the idea of a most perfect being to its existence, on the ground that non-existence, or existence only in idea, would contradict its perfection. It is evident that the force of this argument depends upon the necessity of the idea of God. The argument was accepted in Scholastic Philosophy15 largely because of the virtual acceptance of this necessity. Mediæval thought was under the dominance of the philosophical ideas of Plato and Aristotle, and through them rationalism had come to be the unquestioned starting-point for all thought. For Plato reality and rationality meant one and the same thing, so that the ultimate reality was the highest principle of rationality, which he conceived to be the idea of the good. In the case of Aristotle the ideal of rationality was conceived to determine the course of the cosmical evolution as its immanent final cause. But in itself it was beyond the world, or transcendent. For Plato perfection itself is reality, whereas for Aristotle perfection determines the hierarchical order of natural substances. The latter theory, more suitable to the uses of Chris 15 The school-philosophy that flourished from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, under the authority of the church. tianity, because it distinguished between God and the world, was incorporated into the great school systems. But both theories contain the essence of the ontological proof of God. In thought one seeks the perfect truth, and posits it as at once the culmination of insight and the meaning of life. The ideal of God is therefore a necessary idea, because implied in all the effort of thought as the object capable of finally satisfying it. St. Anselm adds little to the force of this argument, and does much to obscure its real significance. In stating the ontological argument the term perfection has been expressly emphasized, because it may be taken to embrace both truth and goodness. Owing to a habit of thought, due in the main to Plato, it was long customary to regard degrees of truth and goodness as interchangeable, and as equivalent to degrees of reality. The ens realissimum was in its completeness the highest object both of the faculty of cognition and of the moral will. But even in the scholastic period these two different aspects of the ideal were clearly recognized, and led to sharply divergent tendencies. More recently they have been divided and embodied in separate arguments. The epistemological argument defines God in terms of that abso lute truth which is referred to in every judgment. Under the influence of idealism this absolute truth has taken the form of a universal mind, or allembracing standard experience, called more briefly the absolute. The ethical argument, on the other hand, conceives God as the perfect goodness implied in the moral struggle, or the power through which goodness is made to triumph in the universe to the justification of moral faith. While the former of these arguments identifies God with being, the latter defines God in terms of the intent or outcome of being. Thus, while the epistemological argument does not distinguish God and the world, the latter does so, assuming that independent reality can be attributed to the stages of a process and to the purpose that dominates it. The Cosmological Proof of God. § 89. The cosmological proof of God approaches him through the attribute of creative omnipotence. The common principle of causal explanation refers the origin of natural events to similar antecedent events. But there must be some first cause from which the whole series is derived, a cause which is ultimate, sufficient to itself, and the responsible author of the world. Because God's function as creator was a part of the Christian teaching, and because expla nation by causes is habitual with common sense, this argument has had great vogue. But in philosophy it has declined in importance, chiefly be cause it has been absorbed in arguments which deal with the kind of causality proper to a first cause or world-ground. The argument that follows is a case in point. cal Proof of God. § 90. The teleological proof argues that the world can owe its origin only to an intelligent first The Teleologi- cause. The evidence for this is furnished by the cunning contrivances and beneficent adaptations of nature. These could not have come about through chance or the working of mechanical forces, but only through the foresight of a rational will. This argument originally infers God from the character of nature and history; and the extension of mechanical principles to organic and social phenomena, especially as stimulated by Darwin's principle of natural selection, has tended greatly to diminish its importance. When, on the other hand, for nature and history there are substituted the intellectual and moral activities themselves, and the inference is made to the ideal which they imply, the teleological argument merges into the ontological. But the oldfashioned statement of it remains in the form of |