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God cannot be a fact given us in our nature, for he makes it depend on the sense of dependence. His assertion is, that the sense of dependence implies it. He himself makes it a deduction from the sense of dependence. "The sense of dependence is a proof by implication," he says, "of something on which dependence rests. . . . . . A natural want in our constitution implies satisfaction in some quarter. . As the tendency to love implies something lovely for its object, so the religious sentiment implies its object." Now, admit, what is not true, that the sense of dependence is a fact, element, or principle of our nature,—the idea of God, which Mr. Parker defines to be "an idea of that on which we depend,' is only a deduction, a logical inference, from a fact of our nature. It is obtained only by analyzing the idea of dependence, and drawing forth from it what it logically contains. Consequently, the idea of God cannot be said to be given us outright in our nature, prior to, or independent of, all reasoning.

(c.) But, even admitting that the idea of that on which we depend is given us in the sense of dependence, explicitly, not merely implicitly, the idea of that, or of a somewhat, on which we depend is not equivalent to the idea of God. To the idea of this, Mr. Parker says, men give the name God. This is not true; for the idea of God, as the race entertains, and always has entertained it, is the idea of a Supreme Power from which we spring, to which we are subject, and for which · propter quem · we are bound to live, which is more than the mere idea of a somewhat on which we depend, which is merely the complement of ourselves. (d.) And, even passing over this, admitting that the idea of a somewhat on which we depend is equivalent to the idea of God, and that it is given immediately in the sense of dependence, it is, nevertheless, not a fact given us immediately in our nature, for the sense of dependence itself is not a fact of our nature, as we have already proved, but merely a deduction from certain facts of our experience. We find by experience that we are limited, that we cannot do what we will, that we are insufficient for ourselves, and therefore infer that we are not self-sustained, but are dependent beings, and therefore, again, that there must needs be something on which we depend, and which does not depend on us.

That this something on which we depend, and which does not depend on us, is God, we, of course, do not deny; but the

idea of something not dependent on us, and on which we depend, is yet, considered in se, far below the idea of God, and can only by a long chain of induction, to which only a few gifted minds are equal, be shown to imply it. The idea of God is not, we say, therefore, a fact given us in our nature, a primitive datum.

2. The same arguments we have used to prove that the idea of God is not a fact given us in our nature, or, at least, all but one of them, prove equally that it is not an intuition. Mr. Parker offers no evidence of its being an intuition, but the fact that it is implied in the sense of dependence, and that men have entertained it before they could have demonstrated it, either by the argument a priori or the argument a posteriori. Admit the first, and it proves nothing to his purpose; for an idea which is given only as implied in another is not given by intuition, even though that other idea be itself intuitive. An intuitive idea is not an implicit, but an explicit, idea. An implicit idea is merely an idea involved or contained in another, and is obtained through that other as its medium; but intuitive ideas are not given through the medium of other ideas. They are given immediately, or else they are discursive, not intuitive. Moreover, the sense of dependence, assumed to give implicitly the idea of God, is not even itself intuitive, as we have just seen, but a logical deduction from facts of experience. Even admitting, then, that an idea implied in another may be an intuitive idea, the idea of God is not intuitive, since the idea which implies it is not intuitive.

The second proof alleged begs the question. The human race may have entertained, and no doubt have entertained, the idea of God prior to having demonstrated the existence of God; but this does not prove the intuitive origin of the idea of God; for the idea may have been communicated, in the first instance, supernaturally, by God himself, as is alleged by the universal traditions of the race. Mr. Parker must prove that the idea could not have been communicated in this or in any way other than the one he assumes, before, from the fact that the human race has entertained the idea prior to having demonstrated it, he can conclude to its intuitive origin.

But it is unnecessary to dwell longer on this point; for it is evident from what we have already said, that man has, and can have, no intuitive perception of God. Indeed, Mr. Parker concedes this; for he says in a note, p. 24, that the idea of God may be called a judgment a priori. Now, if it is a

judgment a priori, it is not an intuitive perception; for the intuitive idea can never precede, either historically or logically, the actual perception of the object. Consequently, no intuitive idea is or can be a judgment a priori, that is, a judgment which logically precedes every real or possible fact of experience.

Nevertheless, we do not admit that the idea of God is a judgment a priori; for we do not admit the reality of any judgments a priori. A judgment is an act, and always implies an act of discrimination, and therefore, from its very nature, cannot precede intuition of the matter or matters discriminated. The Kantian doctrine on this subject is more specious than solid, and involves us in a new difficulty greater than that from which it proposes to extricate us. What Kant calls judgments or cognitions a priori are nothing but the properties, the essential qualities, so to speak, of the subjective faculty of intelligence,and therefore are not ideas, judgments, or cognitions, but, at best, the subjective ability to form ideas, judgments, or cognitions.

But all this reasoning is unnecessary, for Mr. Parker concedes the whole question in debate. "We can know God only in part, from the manifestations of his divinity, seen in nature, felt in man."-p. 160. Even he will not, we think, after this, dare maintain that the idea of God is an intuitive perception; for the existence of a being knowable only through the medium of his manifestations, that is, of his works, is not and cannot be an object of intuitive perception.

The idea of God, Mr. Parker tells us, "is the logical condition of all our other ideas; without this as an element of our consciousness, lying latent, as it were, unrecognized in us, we could have no ideas at all." Consciousness is the state or condition of being conscious. An element of consciousness must be a fact of which we are always and invariably conscious, when we are conscious at all. To be conscious is to know, to recognize. If the idea of God be an element or fact of consciousness, it must be a fact of which we are always and invariably conscious when we are conscious at all, and, therefore, cannot lie latent or unrecognized in us.

The idea is either subjective or objective. It is not in this case objective, as before proved, and as is evident from the fact that Mr. Parker makes it synonymous with belief or knowledge. It is, then, subjective. Then it is the notion or conception of the existence of God. Then it is not latent or un

recognized; for no notion or conception exists when not recognized, since its very being is in its recognition. The power to form the notion, but not the notion itself, may lie latent, unrecognized in us; and this is all that Descartes teaches, when he calls the idea of God innate, that is, that we have the innate power to rise to a conception of God's existence.

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But we must tell Mr. Parker that he not only fails to prove that the idea of God is a fact given us in our nature, that it is a judgment a priori, that it is an intuitive perception, but he does not even show that the existence of God is demonstrable. On his principles of reasoning, from the facts he alleges, we cannot logically even conclude to the existence of God.. "A natural want in our constitution," he says, "implies satisfaction in some quarter. If our constitution be assumed to be the work of an all-wise, powerful, and good creator, we grant the conclusion, otherwise we deny it; for, till it is known that the author of our nature would not or could not implant in us a want for which he makes no provision, the existence of the want is no evidence of satisfaction. It implies the need of satisfaction, but not that there is satisfaction. "The tendency to love implies something lovely as its object." If it is to be satisfied, otherwise not. But how do you know that it is to be satisfied?"So the religious sentiment implies its object." If it is to be satisfied, not otherwise. In itself considered, taken independently of the assumption of a God who has implanted it, and who would not have implanted it without providing satisfaction for it, it merely proves the need of some object, not that the object really exists. The argument, then, on which Mr. Parker relies is without validity, and is no demonstration of the existence of God.

But we do not stop here. Granting the religious sentiment and the idea of God, that is, the sense of dependence and idea of its object, are facts, elements, or principles of human nature, we deny that religion is a fact or principle of human nature, or that even then there is any thing in our nature in which religion can be assumed to originate.

Mr. Parker's thesis is not, that the principles of religion may be deduced, by reasoning, from the facts of human nature, but that religion originates spontaneously in those facts, independently of our will or foresight. It is, so to speak, a natural production of the essential facts or elements of human nature. This is his thesis, and to this we hold him.

Now, the two facts, sense of dependence and idea of its object, do not authorize, but impugn, Mr. Parker's own definition of religion. Absolute, that is, perfect religion, he tells us (p. 46), is "voluntary obedience to the law of God, inward and outward obedience to the law he has written on our nature." Here is an element very essential, namely, voluntary obedience, not included in the sense of dependence and idea of its object, and which they do not and cannot generate. Doubtless, a man, by reasoning upon all the facts of his nature, by ascertaining that he is a dependent being, and that that on which he depends is God, and that God is his rightful lawgiver, his sovereign, may come very legitimately to the conclusion that he ought to obey God; but this is nothing to the purpose. There can be, according to Mr. Parker's thesis, nothing in religion not spontaneously generated by the two facts of human nature assumed. These operate naturally, independently of will and foresight, from their own inherent force. Voluntary obedience, if essential to religion, must be their spontaneous production, to which volition and reasoning are not necessary,

from which they are excluded. But this is impossible; for there is and can be no voluntary obedience, where will and foresight are excluded.

If religion be voluntary obedience, it is not and cannot be a fact of human nature, nor the spontaneous product of a fact of human nature, for it must be a free creation of the human will. If not, the obedience would not be voluntary, but necessary. How, then, obtain the idea of religion as voluntary obedience from the two facts of human nature assumed? But if it is to be regarded as the sense of dependence and idea of its object, or as growing spontaneously out of them, it cannot be voluntary, but must be necessary. By what right, then, does Mr. Parker define religion to be voluntary obedience ? And wherefore does he labor to prove that religion is all included in the sense of dependence and idea of its object, when he finds himself obliged to include in its definition an element not even implied by them, and repugnant to them as the essential elements of religion?

But this definition, all too broad as it is for Mr. Parker's thesis, is altogether defective. It has the merit of recognizing the province of the will. In making religion voluntary obedience, Mr. Parker makes it a virtue, and therefore rejects the Transcendental theory, according to which religion is not a virtue, since it recognizes, as essential to it, no actus

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