401 religious encyclopedia nationalism

6. Eclecti  do Dionysius in coupling Neoplatonism

cism. with Christianity took much from Proclus. In his " negative theology " God the nameless transcends both positive and negative predicates. In his " affirmative theology " God the all named embraces all realities. In addition a symbolic theology takes its nomenclature from the world of sense. Essential is the abstraction from all positive and negative attributes as God, a sort of mystical negation of knowledge combined with a transport to God and a " theosis," or deification, the final ideal of the Neoplatonists as well as of the Church Fathers, such as Clement, Origen, Hip­polytus, end Athanasius. Closely following him in identifying true philosophy with religion and in the distinction of negative and positive theology was Scotus Erigena (q.v.). The procession of in­dividual things from deity, which he conceives somewhat like the emanation theory of the Neo­platonists, he calls unfolding; the reunion of mul­tiplicity in God is effected by the Logos. Pure pantheism, represented by Amahic of Bena and David of Dinant (qq.v.), was doubtless related from Scotus and with him branded as heretical, but mys­tics like Bernard and Hugo and Richard of St. Victor (qq.v.) were tolerated, although they in­dulged transport and absolute submission to God as the highest aim not to be attained by human will and power, but by divine grace. Not specula­tion, but practical mysticism in the fullest form appears with Meister Eckhart (q.v.) and his fol­lowers, who were professed pantheists. The souls fall into ecstatic transport while the body is as dead; and upon their return, no expression of what tran­spired is possible in words. It claims to have been where it was before its creation, where God is and he alone.

The Christian Gnostics (see GrrosTicisM) may be said to have made the first attempt at a Christian philosophy of religion. Their system consisted not so much of speculative conceptions as

8. The of the presentation of a fantastic world, Church or Christian mythology, which was not Fathers. to be Acknowedgey the Church. Aloof from this kept Justin Martyr (q.v.) who, the first of the apologists, regarded himself a Christian and philosopher, and assumed all the true and ra­tional to be Christian also. Hellenic in speculation, he presents God as nameless and indescribable, yet one, eternal, unbegotten, and unmoved. He reigns over the heavens and first begat the Logos by whom he created the world. Less pronounced as Christian were Athanagoras and Minucius Felix. The former argues for monotheism on rational grounds. The gods are supposed to be localized, but this is impos­sible as God, who created the world, was in the space outside the world, where no other God could be; and, if localized there, could not concern those in the world; and he would, as circumscribed in his presence and operation, be no true God. The latter deduces the knowledge of God, though in 

complete, from the order of nature and organic adaptability, and monotheism from the unity of nature. The earliest originality of thought appears with the Alexandrine school, which entered a closer inquiry into the relation of believing and knowing; and employed philosophy to lift the former to the latter. According to Clement (q.v.) no positive knowledge of God is possible; knowable is the Logos, the mediator between God and the world, where­fore the order of the world is rational. Indebted to Philo, yet he exceeds him and the subsequent Neo­platonists in teaching that the real gnostic becomes not only like God but is incarnate god himself; and that he swathes divinity not only in special ecstatic hours but enjoys eternal rest in God. With Origen (q.v.) the conception of " restitution " takes the place of theosia; after being cleansed from sin, men are restored to the original state of happiness and goodness. His " First Principles " is an attempt to systematize Christian dogma, and presents much for the philosophy of religion; especially, in the be­ginning, where God is declared to be the eternal ground of all existence, and much that is Neoplar tonic appears. Dependent on him are the Greek Fathers of whom Gregory of Nyssa (q.v.) was the speculative representative and the precursor of medieval scholasticism by explaining that the name God stands for the essence of deity and not the per­sons (hypostases), so that the three divine persons constitute one deity. His superior speculative gifts are evidenced also in the attempt to prove the church doctrines by reason, in which the Scripture was in­cluded. Augustine (q.v.) was as much philosopher as theologian, so that he may well nigh rank as a Neoplatonist; but above speculation rises his strong religious feeling. The ground of all knowledge is in the consciousness of man's spiritual processes. The only eternal truth is God, who embraces all true being and is the supreme good. The Aristotelian categories can not be applied to him. He is " good without quality, great without quantity, a creator without want, reigning without position, upholding all things without condition, everywhere whole without place, eternal without time " (De trinitate, v. 2; Eng. transl., NPNF, 1st ser., iii. 88). He is the supreme essence, has given being, though not the highest, to things created in graded series, and upholds the world by incessant re creation, without which it would sink into primal nothing. Here be­side transcendence is immanence. The " City of God," which presents historical development from the religious point of view, at the conclusion car­ries the temporal over into the eternal, and marks a distinction for all time between the eternally blessed and the eternally damned.

2. Xedieval: Augustine's influence upon seho­lasticism was considerable, especially by the Pla­tonic and Neoplatonic elements. The axiom of Anselm of Canterbury (q.v.), " I believe that I may

understand," was taken from him, and 1. Anselm from the Alexandrines preceding. Rea 

son is above faith like a superstructure

and

8nceeseors. above the foundation; not to dispute its right and content, but, assuming at the outset what is to be proved, to set it forth in a clearer light. Beside the cosmological argument that the

religion, Philosophy of

THE NEW SCHAFF HERZOG

ascending series of the created things must presup­pose a final self existent being as first cause, An­sehn definitely formulated the ontological argument, that the highest which is God moat be not only in thought but in reality as well, otherwise a higher could be thinkable. In the history of the argument for the existence of God, Anaehn a position is one of the moat eminent; for it must be acknowledged that the being of God, as securely established for the religious consciousness, can never be omitted from the definition. His doctrine of the Trinity, that the speaker and the spoken word are two and yet one so that there occurs a " reflex," is some­what artificial. In his atonement theory he con­ceives the guilt of mankind, because committed against the infinite God, to be infinitely great, to be atoned for by an infinite punishment or its equiva­lent. The whole human race, unable to give satisfac­tion would fall under total condemnation; hence, satisfaction could be only vicariously rendered, and by God himself, that is, by the second person of the Trinity, who must needs become incarnate. The death of Christ is a positive act, satisfying God's justice by virtue of his goodness, not by a penalty. Anselm had advanced so far in his rational proofs of even specific doctrines that the leading scholastic successors had to retrench. Albertus Magnus (q.v.) gave up the proof of the Trinity and introduced a distinction sharpened by his pupil Thomas Aquinas (q.v.), between such propositions as, given by reve­lation, were above, though not contrary to, reason; and such as were established by reason alone, the Trinity being among the former. In the proof of the unity of God, he rests on the monotheism of Aristotle, who is his philosophic basis throughout. Anaehn's argument for the existence of God is, for him, not binding. Although it is a matter of faith, yet Aquinas offers a series of proofs partly Aristo­telian. On the other hand, even before Anselm, there were among scholastics partizans of the rea­son. Berengar of Tours (q v.) stated that contrary to truth is equivalent to contrary to reason, a sen­tence that could be readily inverted. Abelard (q.v.) went so far as to invert the axiom of Anselm into, " I understand that I may believe," to rationalize Christian verities, and to designate the persons of the Trinity as power, wisdom, and goodness. Ray­mond Lolly (q.v.) declared that all Christian dog­mas could be proved; while the nominalist William of Occam (q.v.) affirmed that whatever is beyond experience must be resigned to faith, and that the existence of God could not be shown either by ex­perience or on rational grounds. Thus, the rela­tion between believing and knowing, revelation and reason, philosophy and theology, occupied the place of prominence from Clement throughout the Middle Ages. The same problem continued in the Renaissance, in which an independent philosophy of religion was reawakened, in more or less indebted­ness to antiquity. Without mentioning further the schools hitherto treated, which continued in their philosophical significance, among those contribu­ting peculiar aspects of thought appears Nicholas of Cuss, (q.v.), who was indebted to Neoplatonism, Meister Eckhart (qw.), and, particularly, to scholasti­cism. DenvinE with the nominalists that Christian

484

dogmas are to be demonstrated by reason, he teaches that God is the absolute maximum and ab­solute minimum, present in all things, resolving in himself irreconcilablea, unknowable in his essence, eognized by the negative of knowing (doctor ignoranr tia), and immediately to be perceived, yea by ec­stasy to be reached. The world of phenomena is the unfolding of what is contained in God, and each in­dividual thing represents the infinity of God. The search for the truth constitutes religion, which is knowledge apprehending God, and its end is blessed­ness. On the whole he shows himself a pantheist and mystic in what is characteristic of his views, and his advance step is his inclination to the exact sciences; particularly, the infinity of space and time in the universe, taken up by his pupil Gior­dano Bruno (q.v.). To Bruno the universe is deity, and he scarcely distinguishes between God and nature. The three ideal principles of form, moving cause, and object he makes one in the organism with matter. Tomaso Campanella (q.v.) sought to prove that all religions were originally one and the same, namely, purely natural, and that all things strive for self preservation, which is to return to their real principle, which is the deity. The four varieties of this process are the four kinds of re­ligion: natural, animal, rational, and supernatural. Beside reason supplemented by revelation there is an " inner touch," united with the love of God. For God's existence, he adds to innate and super­natural knowledge another proof. Man as a finite being can not originate the representation of the infinite being which he possesses; therefore, the infinite which causes it necessarily exists.

8. Modern: The same argument was reproduced by Descartes (q.v.), who thought to prove the exist­ence of God beyond a mathematical certainty. The

above he develops into a particular 1. Descartes: cosmological argument: man, inas 

Spinoza. much as he possesses a realization of

God, would not exist if God did not exist. Had he created himself he would have given himself all possible perfections; but sprung from his ancestry, there must be for the series of descent a first cause. The ontological argument is stated differently from Anselm. All perfections are to be predicated of the being or idea of God; existence is a perfection; therefore, God necessarily exists. God is the eternal, unchangeable, omniscient, om­nipotent, self existent substance, and this created the extended thinking substances. Matter is inert and all changes take place by cause and effect. God's control of nature is the mechanical; the sum of matter and movement is constant. Though he was lacking in religious inwardness, yet a concern for religion in putting up these arguments for the existence of God can not be denied to Descartes. Spinoza (q.v.) in his Tractatus theologico pditicus endeavors to point out the essential difference be­tween religioa and philosophy. Each has its own peculiar object; reason dealing with truth and wis­dom, theology with piety and obedience. It is not necessary to reconcile them, and not possible, since the Bible deals with moral laws only. In the phi­losophy of the identity of spirit and matter he is wholly a pantheist (deity being equivalent to sub 

stance or that which is) and a naturalist. He may be regarded as a strong religious personality, if ab­sorption in the universal, in love for the universal or God, which rests upon intuition, may be called religion; but irreligious if the counter relation of God and man be included. The personality of God is excluded since even will and reason are denied to him; and there can be no designing providence, since the process of becoming follows after mechanical, mathematical laws. All things proceed from the nature of God by inevitable ne­cessity, and his power and being are identical. The good is a conception of the human imagination, which obtains for man only; and there is no abso­lute good. God is both spirit and body. The es­sence of spirit is thought which issues in the intui­tion of God, bringing perfection, freedom, salvation from suffering, and joy, which is love, to its object.

In place of the dead mechanism of Spinoza, Leib­nitz offers his postulate of a development from within, toward distinct ends, by a scale of monads 2. Leibnitz. 'nstinct with life and power. With this

he attempts to combine the mechan­ism. On the antithesis of faith and reason, he maintained that some acceptable truths of revelar tion are incapable of rational proof; but they are valid, if only they be not contrary to reason. The latter he limits to what is contrary to the eternal and absolutely necessary truths; and thus he makes room to accept the church doctrines as possible, including that of the Trinity. God is the final ab­solute monad, the primal unity and highest good, yet present to all the individual monads. He ne­cessarily exists, as the cause common to all the finite monads; otherwise the mutual adaptability be­tween the monads and between body and soul would not be possible, whereas the universal har­mony among them must be a preestablished one. The first cause has so organized each monad that it reflects the whole more or less perfectly. The on­tological argument he deemed valid only if the idea of the perfect being be shown to be possible, which he regarded to mean as including no limits or nega­tion. The cosmological argument he construes so that, starting out with the contingency of finite things, a necessary absolute first cause must be presupposed. Inasmuch as every monad is a re­duced reflex of the highest, God's attributes may be deduced by exaggerating those of the soul to the utmost. The world composed of distinct monads rising in their scale according to the clearness of representation must be the best possible world; for, if not, God either would not or could not create a better. The first is contradicted by his goodness; the second by his omnipotence. In his theodicy he recognizes metaphysical, physical, and moral evil which he explains as a negative condition of the imperfection of the finite monads. In addition, without evil there would be no good; moreover, it multiplies the good, like Adam's sin, the occasion for Christ's redemption. On the ground that the being of all monads is representation, religion is based on the representation of the highest monad, that is, God. This knowledge of the perfect toward which the human monad strives originates love for it. Human souls have a sense of kinship to God, IX. 30

RELIGIOUS

ENCYCLOPEDIA Religion, Philosophy of

whose attitude toward them is not as to creatures but like that of sovereign to subject or father to children. Here is the point of departure for the antithesis of the kingdom of nature and the king­dom of grace. Inasmuch as love to God is depend­ent on correct representation or cognition, intel­lectualism is implanted upon the domain of relig­ion. Ascending degrees of illumination bear with them corresponding degrees of religion, morality, and happiness. The path is open to the Enlighten­ment of the eighteenth century.

Christian Wolff (q.v.), chief representative of

this period, sets himself the task of providing a

clear, distinct knowledge, without which the aim of

mankind or happiness can not be

3. The En  reached. In his Theologia naturalis he lighten  treats extensively the proofs of God's meat: Eng  existence and attributes. He prefers

French lieh and the a posteriori argument that the con 

Deists. tingency of the world presupposes

necessarily a first cause, without which

it is not intelligible. But to be considered an

adequate ground for the world, reason and free

will must be ascribed to him, and he must

be infinite Spirit. To this, the a priori concept of

his predecessors is added. Revealed theology is

not disputed, and revelations transcending reason

are not contrary to reason. As God is omnipotent,

he can afford immediate revelation by miracle.

H. S. Reimarus (q.v.) is to be classed as a deist so

far as he denied all divine miracle save that of the

original creation. Any miracles in addition would

negate the wisdom and perfection of the Creator,

since they would imply later interference as neces­

sary. Most distinguished in the rationalistic En­

lightenment was Leasing (q.v.), who conceded to

historical revelation a temporary significance to be

superseded as soon as reason had deduced its truths

from its own ground. The early English philoso­

phers allow a minor appreciation for the religious.

Francis Bacon (q.v.) entertained the idea of paral­

lels; religion and science can not be merged. The

result of mixing science with religion is unbelief;

vice versa, fantasy. Thomas Hobbes (q.v.) finds

the motive of religion as well as of superstition to

be fear of the unseen powers. It is the former when

acknowledged by the State, otherwise the latter.

To oppose personal conviction to the faith enjoined

by the sovereign is tantamount to revolution. Her­

bert of Cherbury (see DEism, I., § 1) asserts the in­

dependence of reason in the domain of religion,

finding the " marks in common," and obtaining five

natural truths of religion, to which belong the exist­

ence of God, duty, and retribution. It is customary

to regard him as the first deist. His view that the

idea of God is innate is denied by Locke in his em­

piricism. The existence of a Supreme Being is more

certain, however, to him than the reality of the

external world, but by way of reflection, supported

by the cosmological argument. Divine revelation

is not denied, but must not contradict reason. John

Toland (q.v.), the first to be designated " free think­

er," claimed that Christianity did not necessarily

contain anything mysterious and that the Christian

doctrines presented nothing above or contrary to

reason. A chief work of English deism was William

Religion, Philosophy of THE NEW SCHAFF HERZOG 488

Tyndall's (q.v.) Christianity as Old as the Creation, in which it is taught that natural religion was per­fect from the beginning, and was restored by Christ. Radical opposition to rational dogmatism in relig­ion, as well as against deism and natural religion, appears with David Hume (q.v.) in his skeptical theory of knowledge. Religious principles can not be proved by reason, but must be accepted by faith. 7n his Natural History of Religion (1755) he laid the permanent foundation for a philosophy of re­ligion, the purpose of which is psychological analy­sis and the investigation of historical development. This method did not present monotheism but poly­theism as the primitive form. The roots of religion were passive, fear and hope, not the perception of nature and reflective thought. Pressed by natural necessities, and anxious and restive before the un­certain accidents of life and impending evil, par­ticularly death, men asked what the future would bring, and encountered with surprise traces of deity. To refer all to one being was not possible among the varying circumstances; and the tendency of comparison with self led to the anthropomorphic conception. Monotheism came not by reflection and the perception of a universe conformable to law, but from practical reasons beginning with the idea of God as Creator and Ruler. Oscillations be­tween monotheism and polytheism occur later, even in Christianity. As regards tolerance, monotheism is behind the other, which by nature may admit contemporary forms. The principles of English deism were transferred to French soil by Voltaire (q.v.), whose famous sentence was: " If God did not exist he would have to be invented, but all nature acclaims that he is." He attacked Christianity vio­lently as based on illusion, and spreading fanati­cism and superstition. [In justice to Voltaire it should be borne in mind that his antagonism was not to religion itself, but to degenerate religion as exemplified by the extremely corrupt forms and practises current in the France of his day.] Baron d'Holbach (q.v.), on the other hand, in his Systb&me de la nature (1770) taught radical atheism, claiming that the divine potencies were products of a de­ceived imagination, prompted by fear and ignorance, and that the idea of God was unnecessary and in­jurious, the cause of unrest instead of comfort.

Kant (q.v.) revolutionized the status of religion in shifting the basis to morality, though he belongs to the Enlightenment. In his earlier Allgemeine Naturgeschiehte and Theorie des Himmels (1755) he

4. Kant postulates a first cause upon the pur­posive operations of the powers of Criticism. nature. In his Der tinzig mogliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daaeins Gottes (1763), a skepticism about proofs for the existence already appears. He states that Providence did not leave the views necessary to happiness dependent upon subtle deductions, but to the immediate perceptions of natural common sense. Yet he reasons a priori that it is impossible that nothing exists; for that would mean that all that is requisite for the possible was made void; but that whereby all possibility is removed is itself impossible. In the statement at this place, that it is necessary that one convince himself of the exist 

ence of God but not necessary that he demonstrate it, he anticipates the foremost conclusion of his critical work; that, where knowing ends faith be­gins, which has a sure foundation on the moral. Significant is it that intellectualism for religion was here dethroned. In the " Critique of Pure Reason " the proofs for the existence of God are subjected to severe criticism. The ontological argument is void because existence can not belong to the real predi­cates of the most perfect being along with the others, but is rather a judgment of the object to­gether with all its predicates. The cosmological and physico theological arguments require the on­tological for their completion, and are therefore not conclusive. Even if the cosmological were conclu­sive, it would yet fall short of proving. the perfect. ness of the final cause, which the idea of God calls for; and if the teleological argument would show a supermundane being, such would not be an om­nipotent Creator but the cosmic architect, in view of universally manifest design. Proceeding to posi­tive theology in the search for the certainty of the existence of God, Kant does not dismiss rational belief from philosophy, as was formerly done in the absolute separation of knowledge and faith, but he does not admit it as knowledge. The existence of God obtains as a practical postulate alongside of freedom and immortality. The combination of virtue and happiness is an a priori synthetic judg­ment and thus necessary, but does not become actual on account of the non agreement of the nat­ural and moral laws. Hence a supernatural being is postulated holy and just, who effects this recon­ciliation by reason and will. This is known as the moral argument, the central point in the moral theology in the " Critique of the Practical Reason." Again, belief in God's existence is based on the conscience, as the consciousness of the inner court in man, which appears in dual personality of ac­cuser and judge. The accuser must conceive him­self under another being, almighty but moral, God. The fact remains undetermined whether this is a real or an ideal person invented by reason. The keyword of Kant's ethics is duty, the categorical imperative in man, whereby he legislates for his own choice and conduct. All duties are divine com­mands; wherefore God and the legislator in man would coincide. This might point td a form of pantheism, which Kant, however, could never have confessed. The moral ground or moral conscious­ness of " religion within the limits of reason alone " is emphasized by the omission of other motives of religion; he would mark the limits against whatever of revealed religion is not rationally apprehended. All religious practise or conduct which issues not from ethical law is sham. The moral order is in­verted by the ceremonial element in religion, which is fetish worship. Such also is prayer considered as an inner formal act of service, as a means of grace. The spirit of prayer is the consciousness with every act, of doing it in the service of God. In the " Cri­tique of Judgment," with reference to the existence of God, all things are to be explained, of course, by mechanical laws, but this does not exclude the re­flection, with reference to forms of nature or even to nature as a whole, upon the fundamental princi 

487 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA tReligion. Philosophy of

ple of their objective causes. Not to be able to escape the idea of purpose argues for the depend­ence of the world upon, and origin from, a being existing beyond the world, and this is rational be­cause of design. God's existence, however, is not proven but here merely rests upon reflection upon design in nature.

J. G. Fichte (q.v.) in his Versuck einer Kritik alley Ofenbarung (1792) at first adopted Kant's moral view of rational faith; but, in addition, as­sumed that, where there is a state of moral deprav­ity, miracle and revelation may serve