Robert Flint - Theism

Man, say some, knows God by immediate intuition; he needs no argument for His existence, because he perceives Him directly – face to face – without any medium. It is easy to assert this, but obviously the assertion is the merest dogmatism. Not one man in a thousand who understands what he is affirming will dare to claim to have an immediate vision of God, and nothing can be more likely than that the man who makes such a claim is self-deluded. It is not difficult to see how he may be deluded. There is so much that is intuitive involved in the apprehension of God that the apprehension itself may readily be imagined to be intuitive. The intuitive nature of the conditions which it implies may arrest the attention, and the fact that they are simply conditions may be overlooked. The possibility, however, of analysing the apprehension into simpler elements – of showing that it is a complex act, and presupposes conditions that can be indicated – is a conclusive proof that it is no intuition, that our idea of God is no more or otherwise intuitive than our idea of a fellow-man. Besides, what seem intuitions are often really inferences, and not unfrequently erroneous inferences; what seem the immediate dictates of pure reason, or the direct and unclouded perceptions of a special spiritual faculty, may be the conceits of fancy or the products of habit and association, or the reflections of strong feeling. A man must prove to himself, and he must prove to others, that what he takes to be an intuition is an intuition. Is that proof in this case likely to be easier or more conclusive than the proof of the Divine existence? The so-called immediate perception of God must be shown to be a perception and to be immediate; it must be vindicated and verified: and how this is to be done, especially if there be no other reasons for believing in God than itself, it is difficult to conceive. The history of religion, which is what ought to yield the clearest confirmation of the alleged intuition, appears to be from beginning to end a conspicuous contradiction of it. If all men have the spiritual power of directly beholding their Creator – have an immediate vision of God – how happens it that whole nations believe in the most absurd and monstrous gods? that millions of men are ignorant whether there be one god or thousands? that even a people like the Greeks could suppose the highest of their deities to have been born, to have a body, and to have committed the vilest actions? A true power of intuition is little susceptible of growth, and its testimonies vary within narrow limits; any development of which it admits is only slightly due to external conditions, and mainly the necessary consequence of internal activity, of inherent expansibility. It is thus, for example, with the senses of sight and hearing, in so far as they are intuitive. But it is manifestly very different with the religious nature. Its growth is mainly dependent, not on the organic evolution of a particular faculty, but on the general state of the soul, on the one hand; and on the influence of external circumstances – education, example, law, &c. – on the other hand. It is this difference in the character of their development which explains why the deliverances of the senses are so uniform and nearly infallible, while the most cursory survey of the religious world shows us the greatest want of uniformity and truthfulness in religious judgments. The various phases of polytheism and pantheism are inexplicable, if an intuition of God be universally inherent in human nature. Theism is perfectly explicable without intuition, as the evidences for it are numerous, obvious, and strong.

The opinion that man has an intuition or immediate perception of God is untenable; the opinion that he has an immediate feeling of God is absurd. A man feels only in so far as he perceives and knows. Feeling is in consciousness essentially dependent on, and necessarily subsequent to, knowing. Mere feeling – feeling without knowing – is an utterly inconceivable and impossible experience. Admit, however, not only that there may be a mere feeling, but that there is a mere feeling of God. What worth can it have? By supposition – by definition – no knowledge of God underlies and explains it. But in that case, how can any man pretend to get a knowledge of God out of it? What right can any one have to represent it as a source of knowledge of God? I am not aware that these questions have ever been answered except by the merest verbal jugglery. The very men who tell us that we cannot know God, but that we feel Him, tell us also that the feeling of Him is an immediate consciousness of Him, and that immediate consciousness is its own self-evidence, is absolute certainty, or, in other words, the highest and surest knowledge. We do not know God, but we feel Him; however, to feel Him is to know Him, – such is their answer more or less distinctly expressed, or, I should rather say, more or less skilfully concealed. It is at once a Yes and a No, the affirmation of what is denied and the denial of what is affirmed. And it is this because it cannot be anything else – because mere feeling is an impossible experience – and because feeling, so far as it is uncaused and unenlightened by knowledge, testifies only to the folly or insanity of the being which feels. If theism have no other basis than feeling, it is a house which foolish men have built upon the sand. The first storm will cast it down, and no wise man will regret its fall. Whatever is founded on mere emotion – on emotion which is not itself explained and justified by reason – stands but by sufferance; has no right to stand; ought to be cast down and swept from the earth. But the storms which have already in the course of the ages spent their force against theism with no other effect than to make its strength more conspicuous, and to carry away what would have weakened or deformed it, are sufficient to show us that it has been built on eternal truth by the finite human reasons which have been enlightened by Infinite and Divine Reason.

The strangest of all theories as to the foundation of our belief in God is, that it has no foundation at all – that it is a belief which rests upon itself, an act of faith which is its own warrant. We are told that we can neither know that God is nor what God is, but that we can nevertheless believe in God, and ought to believe in Him, and can and ought to act as if we knew His existence and character. But surely belief without a reason must be arbitrary belief, and either to believe or act as if we knew what we do not know, can never be conduct to be justified, much less commended. Faith which is not rational is faith which ought to be rejected. We cannot believe what we do not know or think that we know. We have no right to believe more than we know. I know, for example, that the grass grows, and consequently I believe, and am justified in believing, that it grows. I do not know how the grass grows, and I do not believe how it grows; I can justify my believing about its growth nothing beyond what I know to be true. This law of belief is as binding for the highest as for the lowliest objects. If I have no reason for believing that there is a God, I have no right to believe that there is a God. If I do not know that God is infinite, I am bound not to believe that He is infinite. Belief is inseparable from knowledge, and ought to be precisely coextensive with knowledge. Those who deny this fundamental truth will always be found employing the words knowledge and belief in a capricious and misleading way. 13 13 See Appendix X .

When man apprehends God as powerful, wise, and good – as possessed of will, reason, and righteousness – obviously he thinks of Him as bearing some likeness to himself, as having in an infinite or perfect measure qualities which human creatures have in a finite and imperfect measure. This can be no stumbling-block to any one who believes that God made man in His image, after His likeness. If man be in some respects like God, God must, of course, be in some respects like man. Power and freedom, knowledge and wisdom, love, goodness, and justice, are, according to this view, finitely in man, because they are infinitely in God. But it is a view which excites in certain minds deep aversion. There are men who protest, in the name of religion, in the name of God, against this anthropomorphic theism, as they call it. According to them, to attribute to God any human qualities, even the highest and best, is to limit and degrade Him – is contrary to reason and contrary to piety – is idolatrous and profane. The Psalmist represents the Lord as reproaching the wicked for supposing that He was like them in their wickedness – "altogether such an one as themselves;" but the modern philosophers to whom I am referring are horrified at the thought that the most righteous man, even in his righteousness, has any likeness to God. According to them, to think of God as wise is to dishonour Him, and to declare Him holy is to calumniate Him. To think of Him as foolish, and to pronounce Him wicked, are, in their eyes, only a little more irreverent and no more irrational.