Commentary on Romans; Systematic Theology

3. It also follows from these premises, that the Infinite cannot know. All knowledge is limitation and difference. It supposes a distinction between subject and object, between the knower and what is known, inconsistent with the idea of the Absolute.

4. It follows also that the Absolute cannot be conscious, for consciousness involves a distinction between the self and the not-self. It is knowledge of ourselves as distinct from what is not ourselves. Even if conscious only of itself; there is the same distinction between subject and object; the self as subject and a mode of the self as the object of consciousness. "The almost unanimous voice of philosophy," says Mansel, "in pronouncing that the Absolute is both one and simple must be accepted as the voice of reason also, so far as reason has any voice in the matter." "The conception of an absolute and infinite consciousness contradicts itself."¹

The Absolute cannot be Cause.

5. It is equally clear that the Absolute and Infinite cannot be cause. Causation implies relation; the relation of efficiency to the effect. It also implies change; change from inaction to activity. It moreover implies succession, and succession implies existence in time. "A thing existing absolutely (i.e., not under relation)," says Hamilton, "and a thing existing absolutely as a cause, are contradictory." He quotes Schelling² as saying, "He would deviate wide as the poles from the idea of the Absolute, who would think of defining its nature by the notion of activity." "But he who would define the Absolute by the notion of a cause," he adds, "would deviate still more widely from its nature, inasmuch as the notion of a cause involves not only the notion of a determination to activity, but of a determination to a particular, nay a dependent, kind of activity."³ "The three conceptions, the Cause, the Absolute, the Infinite, all equally indispensable, do they not," asks Mr. Mansel,⁴ "imply contradiction to each other, when viewed in conjunction, as attributes of one and the same Being? A cause cannot, as such, be absolute: the Absolute cannot, as such, be cause."

6. According to the laws of our reason and consciousness, there can be no duration without succession, but succession as implying change cannot be predicated of the Absolute and Infinite, and yet without succession there can be no thought or consciousness; and, therefore, to say that God is eternal is to deny that He has either thought or consciousness.

7. Again, "Benevolence, holiness, justice, wisdom," says Mansel, "can be conceived by us only as existing in a benevolent and holy and just and wise being, who is not identical with any one of his attributes, but the common subject of them all; in one word, in a person. But personality, as we conceive it, is essentially a limitation and a relation. — To speak of an absolute and infinite persons is simply to use language to which, however true it may be in a superhuman sense, no mode of human thought can possibly attach itself."⁵

The Conclusion to which Hamilton's Argument leads.

What then is the result of the whole matter? It is, that if the definitions of the Absolute and Infinite adopted by transcendentalists be admitted, the laws of reason lead us into a labyrinth of contradictions. If their idea of an infinite and absolute Being be correct, then it must include all being actual and possible; it can neither know nor be the object of knowledge; it cannot be conscious, or cause, or a person, or the subject of any moral attribute. Hamilton infers from all this, that a philosophy of the Absolute is a sheer impossibility; that the Absolute, from its nature and from the necessary limits of human thought, is unknowable, and consequently that the stupendous systems of pantheistic atheism which had been erected on the contrary assumption, must fall to the ground. Those systems have indeed already fallen by their own weight. Although only a few years ago they claimed the homage of the intellectual world and boasted of immutability, they have at the present time scarcely a living advocate.

Unhappily, however, Hamilton, like Samson, is involved in the ruin which he created. In overthrowing pantheism he overthrows Theism. All that he says of the Absolute as unknowable, he affirms to be true of God. All the contradictions which attend the assumption of an absolute and infinite being as the ground of philosophy, he says attend the assumption of an infinite God.

§ 3. Hamilton's Doctrine.

A. God an Object of Faith, but not of Knowledge.

The sense in which Hamilton and his followers represent God as unknowable, has been a matter of dispute. When he says that we can know that God is, but not what He is, he says only what had been said a hundred times before. Plato had said that the search after God was difficult, and that when He is found, it is impossible to declare his nature. Philo still more explicitly teaches that the divine essence is without qualities or attributes, and as we know nothing of any essence but by its distinguishing attributes. God in his own nature is altogether unknowable.⁶ This is repeated continually by the Greek and Latin fathers; who, however, in most cases at least, meant nothing more than that God is incomprehensible. Others again, in asserting the incapacity of man to know God, refer to his spiritual blindness occasioned by sin. Therefore, while they deny that God can be known by the unregenerate, they affirm that He is known by those to whom the Son has revealed Him. In like manner although the Apostle asserts that even the heathen know God, he elsewhere speaks of a kind of knowledge due to the saving illumination of the Holy Spirit. It is in the sense that God is past finding out that the devout Pascal says,⁷ "We know there is an infinite, but we are ignorant of its nature..... We may well know that there is a God, without knowing what He is." And even John Owen says, "All the rational conceptions of the minds of men are swallowed up and lost, when they would exercise themselves directly on that which is absolute, immense, eternal, and infinite. When we say it is so, we know not what we say, but only that it is not otherwise. What we deny of God we know in some measure — but what we affirm we know not; only we declare what we believe and adore."⁸ Professor Tyler adds, that while the philosophy of Hamilton "confines our knowledge to the conditioned [the finite], it leaves faith free about the unconditioned [the infinite]; indeed constrains us to believe in it by the highest law of our intelligence."

Although Hamilton often uses the same language when speaking of God as unknowable, as that employed by others, his meaning is very different. He really teaches an ignorance of God destructive of all rational religion, because inconsistent with the possibility of faith.

There are different kinds of ignorance. First, there is the ignorance of the idiot, which is blank vacuity. In him the statement of a proposition awakens no mental action whatever. Secondly, there is the ignorance of a blind man, of colour. He does not know what colour is; but he knows there is something which answers to that word and which produces a certain effect on the eyes of those who see. He may even understand the laws by which the production of colour is determined. A blind man has written a treatise on optics. Thirdly, there is the ignorance under which the mind labors when it can prove contradictory propositions concerning the same object, as that the same figure is both square and round And fourthly, there is the ignorance of imperfect knowledge. Paul speaks of knowing what passes knowledge.

Our ignorance of God, according to Hamilton, is neither the ignorance of the idiot nor of imperfect knowledge, but it is analogous to the ignorance of a blind man of colours, and more definitely, the ignorance we labor under with regard to any object of which we can prove contradictions.

Proof that Hamilton Denies that we can Know God.

That this view of his doctrine is correct is proved, (1.) Because he asserts in such broad terms that God cannot be known; that He is not only inconceivable, but incogitable. (2.) Because, he says, that we know that God is not, and cannot be, what we think He is. It is not merely that we cannot determine with certainty that our idea of God is correct, but we know that it is not correct. "To think that God is, as we can think Him to be," he says, "is blasphemy. The last and highest consecration of all true religion, must be an altar, Agnosto Theo, To the unknown and unknowable God.'"⁹ (3.) Because both he and Mansel continually assert that the Infinite cannot be a person; cannot know; cannot be cause; cannot be conscious; cannot be the subject of any moral attributes. To think of God as infinite, and to think of Him as a person is an impossibility. (4.) The illustrations which these writers employ determine clearly their meaning. Our ignorance of God is compared to our incapacity to conceive of two straight lines inclosing a portion of space; or to think "a circular parallelogram." It is not merely that we cannot understand such a figure, but we see that, in the nature of things, any such figure is impossible. So we not only cannot understand how God can be absolute and yet a person, but we see that an absolute person is as much a contradiction as a square circle. (5.) Accordingly Herbert Spencer and others, in carrying out Hamilton's principles, come to the conclusion not only that we cannot know God, but that it is impossible that a personal God should exist. There can be no such being.

Hamilton's Doctrine of God as an object of Faith.

Hamilton and Mansel, however, are not only Theists, but Christians. They believe in God, and they believe in the Scriptures as a divine revelation. They endeavor to avoid what seem to be the inevitable consequences of their doctrine, by adopting two principles: first, that the unthinkable is possible, and, therefore, may be believed. By the unthinkable is meant that which the laws of reason force us to regard as self-contradictory. On this subject Mansel says: "It is our duty to think of God as personal, and it is our duty to believe that He is infinite. It is true that we cannot reconcile these two representations with each other; as our conception of personality involves attributes apparently contradictory to the notion of infinity. But it does not follow that this contradiction exists anywhere but in our own minds: it does not follow that it implies any impossibility in the absolute nature of God..... It proves that there are limits to man's power of thought; and it proves no more."¹⁰ The conclusion is, that as whatever is possible is credible, therefore, as it is possible that God though infinite may be a person, his personality may be rationally believed.

The Unthinkable, or Impossible, cannot be an object of Faith.

On this it may be remarked, —

1. That there is a great difference between the irreconcilable and the self-contradictory. In the one case the difficulty arises, or may arise, out of our ignorance or mental weakness; in the other, it arises out of the nature of the things themselves. Many things are irreconcilable to a child which are not so to a man. Many things are irreconcilable to one man and not to another; to men and not to angels. But the self-contradictory is impossible, and is seen to be so by all orders of mind. That two and two should make twenty, or that the same figure should be a square and a circle, is just as irreconcilable to an angel as to a child. What is self-contradictory cannot possibly be true. Now, according to Hamilton and Mansel, infinity and personality are not only irreconcilable, but contradictory. The one affirms what the other denies. According to their doctrine the Infinite cannot be a person, and a person cannot be infinite, any more than the Infinite can be finite, or the finite infinite. The one of necessity excludes the other. If you affirm the one, you deny the other. There is a great difference between not seeing how a thing is, and clearly seeing that it cannot be. Hamilton and Mansel constantly assert that an absolute person is a contradiction in terms. And so it is, if their definition of the absolute be correct; and if a contradiction, it is impossible.

2. If to our reason the personality of an infinite God be a contradiction, then it is impossible rationally to believe that He is a person. It is in vain to say that the contradiction is only in our mind. So is faith in our mind. It is impossible for one and the same mind to see a thing to be false, and believe it to be true. For the reason to see that a thing is a contradiction, is to see it to be false; and to see it to be false, and to believe it to be true, is a contradiction in terms. Even if to other and higher minds the contradiction does not exist, so long as it exists in the view of any particular mind, for that mind faith in its truth is an impossibility.

It may be said that a man's reason may convince him that the external world does not really exist, while his senses force him to believe in its reality. So reason may pronounce the personality of God a contradiction, and conscience force us to believe that He is a person. This is to confound consecutive with contemporaneous states of mind. It is possible for a man to be an idealist in his study, and a realist out of doors. But he cannot be an idealist and a realist at one and the same time. The mind is a unit. A man's reason is the man himself; so is his conscience, and so are all his other faculties. It is the one substantive self that thinks and believes. To assume, therefore, that by necessity he must think one way and believe another; that the laws of his reason force him to regard as false what his conscience or senses force him to regard as true, is to destroy his rationality. It is also to impugn the wisdom and goodness of our Creator, for it supposes Him to have put one part of our constitution in conflict with another; to have placed us under guides who alternately force us to move in opposite directions. It even places this contradiction in God himself. For what reason, in its legitimate exercise, says, God says; and what conscience, in its legitimate exercise, says, God says. If, therefore, reason says that God is not a person, and conscience says that He is, then — with reverence be it spoken — God contradicts Himself.

Knowledge essential to Faith.

It is one of the distinguishing doctrines of Protestants that knowledge is essential to faith. This is clearly the doctrine of Scripture. How can they believe on Him of whom they have not heard? is the pertinent and instructive query of the Apostle. Faith includes the affirmation of the mind that a thing is true and trustworthy. But it is impossible for the mind to affirm anything of that of which it knows nothing. Romanists indeed say that if a man believes that the Church teaches the truth, then he believes all the Church teaches, although ignorant of its doctrines. It might as well be said that because a child has confidence in his father, therefore he knows all his father knows. Truth must be communicated to the mind, and seen to be possible, before, on any evidence, it can be believed. If, therefore, we cannot know God, we cannot believe in Him.

The second principle which Hamilton and Mansel adopt to save themselves from scepticism is that of regulative knowledge. We are bound to believe that God is what the Scriptures and our moral nature declare Him to be. This revelation, however, does not teach us what God really is, but merely what He wills us to believe concerning Him. Our senses, they say, tell us that things around us are, but not what they are. We can, however, safely act on the assumption that they really are what they appear to be. Our senses, therefore, give only regulative knowledge; i.e., knowledge sufficient to regulate our active life. So we do not, and cannot, know what God really is; but the representations contained in the Scriptures are sufficient to regulate our moral and religious life. We can safely act on the assumption that He really is what we are thus led to think Him to be, although we know that such is not the fact.

We must be "content," says Mansel,¹¹ "with those regulative ideas of the Deity, which are sufficient to guide our practice, but not to satisfy our intellect, — which tell us not what God is in Himself, but how He wills that we should think of Him." "Though this kind of knowledge," says Hampden,¹² "is abundantly instructive to us in point of sentiment and action; teaches us, that is, both how to feel, and how to act towards God; — for it is the language that we understand, the language formed by our own experience and practice; — it is altogether inadequate in point of science." Regulative knowledge, therefore, is that which is designed to regulate our character and practice. It need not be true. Nay, it may be, and is demonstrably false, for Hamilton says it is blasphemy to think that God really is what we take Him to be.

1. The first remark on this doctrine of regulative knowledge is, that it is self-contradictory. Regulative truth is truth designed to accomplish a given end. Design, however, is the intelligent and voluntary adaptation of means to an end; and the intelligent adaptation of means to an end, is a personal act. Unless, therefore, God be really a person, there can be no such thing as regulative knowledge. Mr. Mansel says, we cannot know what God is in Himself, "but only how He wills that we should think of Him." Here "will" is attributed to God; and the personal pronouns are used, and must be used in the very statement of the doctrine. That is, we must assume that God is really (and not merely in our subjective apprehensions) a person, in order to believe in regulative knowledge, which form of knowledge supposes that He is not, or may not be a person. This is a contradiction.

2. Regulative knowledge is, from the nature of the case, powerless, unless its subjects regard it as well founded. Some parents educate their children in the use of fictions and fairy tales; but belief in the truth of these is essential to their effect. So long as the world believed in ghosts and witches, the belief had power. As soon as men were satisfied that there were no such real existences, their power was gone. Had the philosophers convinced the Greeks that their gods were not real persons, there would have been an end to their mythology. And if Hamilton and his disciples can convince the world that the Infinite cannot be a person, the regulative influence of Theism is gone. Men cannot be influenced by representations which they know are not conformed to the truth.

3. This theory is highly derogatory to God. It supposes Him to propose to influence his creatures by false representations; revealing Himself as Father, Governor, and Judge, when there is no objective truth to answer to these representations. And worse than this, as remarked above, it supposes Him to have so constituted our nature as to force us to believe what is not true. We are constrained by the laws of our rational and moral being to think of God as having a nature like our own, and yet we are told it is blasphemy so to regard Him. The theory supposes a conflict between reason and conscience, — between our rational and moral nature. The latter forcing us to believe that God is a person, and the former declaring personality and deity to be contradictory ideas. We do not forget that Mr. Mansel says that the incogitable may be real, that the contradiction is in our own minds, and not necessarily in the nature of things. But this amounts to nothing; for he says continually that the Absolute cannot be a person, cannot be a cause, cannot be conscious, cannot either know or be known. He says, "A thing — an object — an attribute — a person — or any other term signifying one out of many possible objects of consciousness, is by that very relation necessarily declared to be finite."¹³ That is, if God be a person, He is of necessity finite. Here the personality of God is said not only to be incogitable, or inconceivable, but impossible. And this is the real doctrine of his book. It must be so. It is intuitively true that the whole cannot be a part of itself; and if the Infinite be "the All," then it cannot be one out of many. If men adopt the principles of pantheists, they cannot consistently avoid their conclusions. Hamilton teaches not merely that God may not be what we think Him to be, but that He cannot so be; that we are ignorant what He is; that He is to us an unknown God. If God, by the laws of our reason, thus forces us to deny his personality, and by the laws of our moral nature makes it not only a duty, but a necessity to believe in his personality, then our nature is chaotic. Man, in that case, is not the noble creature that was formed in the image of God.

4. This doctrine of regulative knowledge destroys the authority of the Scriptures. If all that the Bible teaches concerning the nature of God and concerning his relation to the world, reveals no objective truth, gives us no knowledge of what God really is, then what it teaches concerning the person, offices, and work of Christ, may all be unreal, and there may be no such person and no such Saviour.

C. Objections to the whole Theory.

1. The first and most obvious fallacy in the theory of Hamilton and Mansel, as it appears to us, lies in their definition of the Absolute and Infinite, or in the language of Hamilton, the Unconditioned. By the Absolute they mean that which exists in and of itself, and out of all relation. The Infinite is that, than which nothing greater can be conceived or is possible; which includes all actual and all possible modes of being. Mansel subscribes to the dictum of Hegel that the Absolute must include all modes of being, good as well as evil. In like manner the Infinite must be All. For if any other being exists, the Infinite must of necessity be limited, and, therefore, is no longer infinite.

These definitions determine everything. If the Absolute be that which is incapable of all relation, then it must be alone; nothing but the Absolute can be actual or possible. Then it can neither know nor be known. And if the Infinite be all, then again there can be no finite. Then it is just as certain that the Absolute and Infinite cannot be cause, or conscious, or a person, as that a square cannot be a circle, or the whole a part of itself. When a definition leads to contradictions and absurdities, when it leads to conclusions which are inconsistent with the laws of our nature, and when it subverts all that consciousness, common sense, and the Bible declare to be true, the only rational inference is that the definition is wrong. This inference we have the right to draw in the present case. The very fact that the definitions of the Absolute and Infinite which Hamilton and Mansel have adopted from the transcendentalists, lead to all the fearful conclusions which they draw from them, is proof enough that they must be wrong. They are founded upon purely speculative à priori grounds. They can have no authority. For if, as these philosophers say, the Absolute and Infinite cannot be known, how can it be defined? Neither the etymology nor the usage of the words in question justifies the above given definitions of them. Absolute (ab and solvo) means, free, unrestrained, independent; as when we speak of an absolute monarch or absolute promise; or, unlimited, as when we speak of absolute space. The word is also used in the sense of finished, or perfect. An absolute being is one that is free, unlimited, independent, and perfect. God is absolute, because He is not dependent for His existence, nature, attributes, or acts, on any other being. He is unlimited, by anything out of Himself or independent of his will. But this does not imply that He is the only being; nor that in order to be absolute He must be dead, unconscious, or without thought or will. Much less does the word infinite, as applied to God, imply that He must include all forms of being. Space may be infinite without being duration, and duration may be infinite without being space. An infinite spirit does not include material forms of existence, any more than an infinite line is an infinite surface or an infinite solid. When it is said that anything is infinite, all that is properly meant is that no limit is assignable or possible to it as such. An infinite line is that to which no limit can be assigned as a line; infinite space is that to which no limit can be assigned as space; an infinite spirit is a spirit which is unlimited in all the attributes of a spirit. It is a great mistake to assume that the infinite must be all. Infinite power is not all power, but simply power to whose efficiency no limitation can be assigned; and infinite knowledge is not all knowledge, but simply knowledge to the extent of which no limit is possible. So too an infinite substance is not all substance, but a substance which is not excluded from any portion of space by other substances, or limited in the manifestation of any of its attributes or functions by anything out of itself. God, therefore, may be a Spirit infinite, eternal, and immutable in his being and perfections, without being matter, and sin, and misery.

It may be said that as infinite space must include all space, so an infinite being must of necessity include all modes of being. This, however, is a mere play on words. Infinite is sometimes inclusive of all, not from the meaning of the word, but from the nature of the subject of which infinitude is predicated. Infinite space must include all space, because space is in its nature one. But an infinite line does not include all lines, because there may be any number of lines; and an infinite being is not all being, because there may be any number of beings.

It must excite the wonder and indignation of ordinary men to see the fundamental truths of religion and morality endangered or subverted out of deference to the assumption that the Absolute must be unrelated.

2. The second fallacy involved in Hamilton's theory concerns his idea of knowledge. When it is said that God is unknowable, everything depends on what is meant by knowledge. With him to know is to understand, to have a distinct conception, or mental image. This is evident from his using interchangeably the words unthinkable, unknowable, and inconceivable. Thus on a single page¹⁴ Mansel uses the phrases that of which "we do not and cannot think," that "which we cannot conceive," and "that which we are unable to comprehend," as meaning one and the same thing. This is also proved from the manner in which other words and phrases are employed; for example, the Infinite, the Absolute, an absolute beginning, an absolute whole, an absolute part, any increase or diminution of the complement of being. The only sense, however, in which these things are unthinkable, is, that we cannot form a mental image of them. A distinguished German professor, when anything was said to which he could not assent, was accustomed to spread out his hands and close his eyes and say, "Ich kann gar keine Anschauung davon machen." I cannot see it with my minds eye, I cannot make an image of it. This seems to be a materialistic way of looking at things. The same may be said of cause, substance, and soul, of none of which can we frame a mental image; yet they are not unthinkable. A thing is unthinkable only when it is seen to be impossible, or when we can attach no meaning to the words, or proposition, in which it is stated. This impossibility of intelligent thought may arise from our weakness. The problems of the higher mathematics are unthinkable to a child. Or, the impossibility may arise from the nature of the thing itself. That a triangle should have four sides, or a circle be a square, is absolutely unthinkable. But in neither of these senses is the Infinite unthinkable. It is not impossible, for Hamilton and Mansel both admit that God is in fact infinite; nor is that proposition unintelligible. It conveys a perfectly clear and distinct idea to the mind. When the mind affirms to itself that space is infinite, i.e., that it cannot be limited, it knows what it means just as well as when it says that two and two are four. Neither is an absolute beginning unthinkable. If, indeed, by absolute beginning is meant uncaused beginning, the coming into existence of something out of nothing, and produced by nothing, then it is impossible and therefore incogitable. But the dictum is applied to a creation ex nihilo, which is declared to be unthinkable. This, however, is denied. We will to move a limb, and it moves. God said, Let there be light, and light was. The one event is just as intelligible as the other. In neither case can we comprehend the nexus between the antecedent and the consequent, between the volition and the effect; but as facts they are equally thinkable and knowable.

It is not possible to give the evidence scattered through the writings of Hamilton and Mansel, that they use the word "to know" in the sense of comprehending, or, forming a mental image of the object known. Mansel¹⁵ quotes the following sentence from Dr. McCosh's work on the "Method of the Divine Government," namely, "The mind seeks in vain to embrace the infinite in a positive image, but is constrained to believe, when its efforts fail, that there is a something to which no limits can be put." This sentence Mansel says may be accepted "by the most uncompromising adherent" of Sir W. Hamilton's doctrine, that the infinite is unthinkable and unknowable. To know, therefore, according to Hamilton and Mansel, is to form a mental image of; and as we cannot form such an image of God, God cannot be known. Mansel is disposed to think that this reduces the controversy to a matter of words. And Dr. Tyler, in his able exposition of Hamilton's philosophy, says,¹⁶ "So it be admitted, as it must, that all our intelligence of God is by analogy, it matters but little, practically, whether the conviction be called knowledge, belief, or faith." It is, however, very far from being a dispute about words. For Hamilton constantly asserts that God is not, and cannot be, what we think He is. Then we have no God. For what is God as infinite, if as Mansel says, "The Infinite, if it is to be conceived at all, must be conceived as potentially everything and actually nothing."¹⁷

What is meant by Knowledge.

Knowledge is the perception of truth. Whatever the mind perceives, whether intuitively or discursively, to be true, that it knows. We have immediate knowledge of all the facts of consciousness; and with regard to other matters, some we can demonstrate, some we can prove analogically, some we must admit or involve ourselves in contradictions and absurdities. Whatever process the mind may institute, if it arrives at a clear perception that a thing is, then that thing is an objects of knowledge. It is thus we know the object with which heaven and earth are crowded. It is thus we know our fellow men. With regard to anything without us, when our ideas, or convictions concerning it, correspond to what the thing really is, then we know it. How do we know that our nearest friend has a soul, and that that soul has intelligence, moral excellence, and power? We cannot see or feel it. We cannot form a mental image of it. It is mysterious and incomprehensible. Yet we know that it is, and what it is, just as certainly as we know that we ourselves are, and what we are. In the same way we know that God is, and what He is. We know that He is a spirit, that He has intelligence, moral excellence, and power to an infinite degree. We know that He can love, pity, and pardon; that He can hear and answer prayer. We know God in the same sense and just as certainly as we know our father or mother. And no man can take this knowledge from us, or persuade us that it is not knowledge, but a mere irrational belief.