From this contingency we infer, by the help of transcendental conceptions alone, the existence of something absolutely necessary;and, still advancing, proceed from the conception of the absolute necessity of the first cause to the completely determined or determining conception thereof- the conception of an all-embracing reality.Thus the physico-theological, failing in its undertaking, recurs in its embarrassment to the cosmological argument; and, as this is merely the ontological argument in disguise, it executes its design solely by the aid of pure reason, although it at first professed to have no connection with this faculty and to base its entire procedure upon experience alone.
The physico-theologians have therefore no reason to regard with such contempt the transcendental mode of argument, and to look down upon it, with the conceit of clear-sighted observers of nature, as the brain-cobweb of obscure speculatists.For, if they reflect upon and examine their own arguments, they will find that, after following for some time the path of nature and experience, and discovering themselves no nearer their object, they suddenly leave this path and pass into the region of pure possibility, where they hope to reach upon the wings of ideas what had eluded all their empirical investigations.Gaining, as they think, a firm footing after this immense leap, they extend their determinate conception- into the possession of which they have come, they know not how- over the whole sphere of creation, and explain their ideal, which is entirely a product of pure reason, by illustrations drawn from experience- though in a degree miserably unworthy of the grandeur of the object, while they refuse to acknowledge that they have arrived at this cognition or hypothesis by a very different road from that of experience.
Thus the physico-theological is based upon the cosmological, and this upon the ontological proof of the existence of a Supreme Being;and as besides these three there is no other path open to speculative reason, the ontological proof, on the ground of pure conceptions of reason, is the only possible one, if any proof of a proposition so far transcending the empirical exercise of the understanding is possible at all.
SECTION VII.Critique of all Theology based upon Speculative Principles of Reason.
If by the term theology I understand the cognition of a primal being, that cognition is based either upon reason alone (theologia rationalis) or upon revelation (theologia revelata).The former cogitates its object either by means of pure transcendental conceptions, as an ens originarium, realissimum, ens entium, and is termed transcendental theology; or, by means of a conception derived from the nature of our own mind, as a supreme intelligence, and must then be entitled natural theology.The person who believes in a transcendental theology alone, is termed a deist; he who acknowledges the possibility of a natural theology also, a theist.The former admits that we can cognize by pure reason alone the existence of a Supreme Being, but at the same time maintains that our conception of this being is purely transcendental, and that all we can say of it is that it possesses all reality, without being able to define it more closely.The second asserts that reason is capable of presenting us, from the analogy with nature, with a more definite conception of this being, and that its operations, as the cause of all things, are the results of intelligence and free will.The former regards the Supreme Being as the cause of the world- whether by the necessity of his nature, or as a free agent, is left undetermined; the latter considers this being as the author of the world.
Transcendental theology aims either at inferring the existence of a Supreme Being from a general experience, without any closer reference to the world to which this experience belongs, and in this case it is called cosmotheology; or it endeavours to cognize the existence of such a being, through mere conceptions, without the aid of experience, and is then termed ontotheology.
Natural theology infers the attributes and the existence of an author of the world, from the constitution of, the order and unity observable in, the world, in which two modes of causality must be admitted to exist- those of nature and *******.Thus it rises from this world to a supreme intelligence, either as the principle of all natural, or of all moral order and perfection.In the former case it is termed physico-theology, in the latter, ethical or moral-theology.**Not theological ethics; for this science contains ethical laws, which presuppose the existence of a Supreme Governor of the world;while moral-theology, on the contrary, is the expression of a conviction of the existence of a Supreme Being, founded upon ethical laws.
As we are wont to understand by the term God not merely an eternal nature, the operations of which are insensate and blind, but a Supreme Being, who is the free and intelligent author of all things, and as it is this latter view alone that can be of interest to humanity, we might, in strict rigour, deny to the deist any belief in God at all, and regard him merely as a maintainer of the existence of a primal being or thing- the supreme cause of all other things.But, as no one ought to be blamed, merely because he does not feel himself justified in maintaining a certain opinion, as if he altogether denied its truth and asserted the opposite, it is more correct- as it is less harsh- to say, the deist believes in a God, the theist in a living God (summa intelligentia).We shall now proceed to investigate the sources of all these attempts of reason to establish the existence of a Supreme Being.