Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws

J >> James Buchanan >> Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws

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But when driven to this last resort, and before taking up the position
which it is concerned to defend, Secularism puts forth certain
preliminary pleas, partly in the way of self-defence, and partly with
the view of exciting prejudice against the cause of Theism.[268] "I make
no pretence," says Mr. Holyoake, "to account for everything. I do not
pretend to account for what I find in Nature. I do not feel called upon
to account for it. I do not know that I am required to account for it."
... "A man will come to me and say, Can you account for this? Can you
account for that? Now he expects me to tell him all about everything,
just as though I was present at the beginning of Nature, and knew all
its manifestations. If I cannot do it, he will not admit my plea of
ignorance;--he will not admit the propriety of my saying, I do not
know." He is not bound to explain either the past or the future: "What
went before and what will follow me I regard as two black impenetrable
curtains, which hang down at the two extremities of human life, and
which no living man has yet drawn aside.... A deep silence reigns behind
this curtain; no one once within will answer those he has left without;
all you can hear is a hollow echo of your question, as if you shouted
into a chasm."[269] And can a mind that is capable of writing thus be
content to discard Religion from his thoughts on the sorry pretext that
he is not bound to account for the phenomena of Nature? One would expect
at least a thoughtful, serious, and earnest spirit, even were it a
spirit of doubt, in one surrounded with such solemn mysteries, gazing on
these black impenetrable curtains, listening to the hollow echo from
that awful chasm: nay, that seriousness might be expected to deepen into
sadness, too intensely real to be soothed by the plea of ignorance, or
assuaged otherwise than by the light of truth. But to say, "I do not
pretend to account for what I find in Nature," what is this but to
discard the whole question, to give it up as one insoluble, at least _by
him_, and to leave to others the problems which have ever exercised the
noblest and most gifted minds? Mr. Holyoake is not bound, indeed, to
explain everything, and he mistakes if he supposes that any one expects
this at his hand. There are many subjects on which even a man of science
must ingenuously confess his ignorance, and many more so little
connected with the interests and duties of life as to have only a very
slight claim on his interest and attention. But Religion is not one of
these: it is so closely related to the welfare and the duty of men, and
has such a direct bearing on the conscience, that it demands and
deserves the serious attention of all; and no one who undertakes to
instruct his fellow-men, and especially when he attempts to overthrow
their most sacred convictions, is entitled to turn round and say, "I do
not pretend to account for what I find in Nature." He is bound to give
some intelligible answer to the question, What is the cause of these
marvellous phenomena which I behold? and what is the ground of that
religious belief which has always prevailed in the world?

But Mr. Holyoake is deterred from any attempt to answer such questions
by its amazing presumption: "The assumption is,--we may look through
Nature up to Nature's God. That seems to me to imply a power, a
capacity, an endowment, which repels me at the outset. If we are to deal
with the common sense of probability, I say I am repelled by the amazing
probability which is against me if I am to deal with the assumption of
distinctness,--that I can look from Nature up to Nature's God. Why, in
the presence of this shadowy form of things, before which all men stand
in awe and dread, in the presence of so many mysteries and marvels which
art is unable to unravel, which philosophy is unable to explain, it
seems to me an immense endowment when a man can say with confidence, I
look through Nature, and beyond Nature, up to Nature's God. I say the
presumption of the thing does repel me."--"Let the profound sense of our
own littleness, which here creeps in upon us, check the dogmatic spirit
and arrest the presumptuous world; we stand in the great presence of
Nature, whose inspiration should be that of modesty, humility, and
love."--"When my friend talks so much about matter, ... his reasoning
proceeds upon this very great hypothesis, namely, that _he knows_ all
that matter can do, and all that it cannot do. If he does not know that,
I wonder by what right he says so plainly that the wonders he observes
in Nature are not the work of Nature, but of some Being above Nature.
That which repels me from that aspect of the argument is its amazing
presumption, the amount of knowledge it implies."[270] Foster's argument
against Dogmatic Atheism seems to have made some impression on Mr.
Holyoake, since he makes the important admission that "the denial of a
God implies infinite knowledge as the ground of disproof," but it is
here retorted against Dogmatic Theism; and Unbelief, at other times so
arrogant in its pretensions, so confident in the powers of reason, and
so proud of the prerogatives of man, borrows the cloak of modesty from
the wardrobe of true science, and assumes an attitude of deep humility.
At other times Mr. Holyoake does not scruple to sit in judgment on what
God,--supposing such a Being to exist,--could or could not do; on what
He could or could not permit to be done;--He could not create a moral
and responsible agent, and leave him to fall; He could not require or
receive any satisfaction for sin; He could not hear or answer the
prayers of his people; He could not inflict penal suffering, or allow it
to be permanent. There is no presumption, it would seem, in determining
what God could or could not do; but "when we stand in the great presence
of Nature," her inspiration should be "that of modesty and humility."
But presumption does not consist in looking at what we can see, or
aiming to know what may be known; and it is a bastard humility, not the
true modesty of science, which would turn away from the contemplation of
any truth, however sublime, that is exhibited in the light of its
appropriate evidence. We are not concerned to deny that it is "a great
endowment" which enables men to discern in Nature a manifestation of
God; it is a great endowment, but not too great for the mind of man, if
he was made in "the image and likeness of God;" a small mirror may
reflect the sun. Is it presumptuous in the mind of man to scale the
heavens, and trace the planets in their course, and calculate their
distances, their orbits, and their motions in the illimitable fields of
space? And if the sublime truths of Astronomy are not interdicted to our
faculties, simply because there is a natural evidence in the light of
which they may be clearly discerned, why should it be presumptuous to
look from Nature up to Nature's God, if in Nature we behold a mirror in
which His perfections are displayed? If there be presumption on either
side, does it not lie rather with those who virtually deny _the power of
God to make Himself known_,--His power to create a world capable of
exhibiting His perfections, and a mind adapted to that world capable of
discerning the perfections which are therein displayed? There might be
modesty, there might be humility in the ingenuous confession of
ignorance, saying, "I do not know;" but there can be neither in the
confidence which affirms that "no imaginable order would be sufficient"
to prove the existence of God, for what is this but to say that "he
knows all that matter _can_ do, and all that it _cannot_ do," or be made
to do?

2. Secularism admits the existence of a self-existent and eternal
Being, and thereby recognizes the fundamental law of _Causality_ on
which the Theistic proof depends, while it forces upon us the question
whether these attributes should be ascribed to Nature or to God.

"I am driven," says Mr. Holyoake, "to the conclusion that the great
aggregate of matter which we call 'nature' is eternal, because we are
unable to conceive a state of things when nothing was. There must always
have been something, or there could be nothing now. This the dullest
feel. Hence we arrive at the idea of the eternity of matter. And in the
_eternity_ of matter we are assured of the self-existence of matter, and
self-existence is the most _majestic of attributes_, and _includes all
others_."[271] "If Natural Theologians were content to stop where they
prove a _superior something_ to exist, Atheists might be content to stop
there too, and allow Theologians to dream in quiet over their barren
foundling."[272] "If I supposed that the Christian meant no more than
that something exists independently of Nature, that it may be boundless,
that it may be limited, that it may be one, that it may be many beings,
if I supposed nothing more than that was meant, then surely I would not
occupy your time or my own in discussing a question so barren of
practical consequences."--"If we reason about it, unless we take refuge
in the idea of a creation which we cannot understand, we must come to
the conclusion that _Nature is self-existent_, and that attribute is so
majestic,--the power of being independent of any ruler,--the power of
being independent of the law of other beings,--seems so majestic as
fairly to be supposed to _include all others_; for that which has power
_to be_ has power _to act_, for the power to be is the most majestic of
all forms of action."[273]

It is here admitted that there must be a self-existent, independent,
and eternal Being, that self-existence is an attribute so majestic that
it may be fairly said to include all others, that the Being to whom it
belongs is exempt from the conditions of other beings, and that the
power _to act_ is involved in the power _to be_. It is assumed, indeed,
that these attributes may belong to Nature, and that Nature is mere
matter; but, reserving this point for the present, are we not warranted
in saying that his doctrine, as stated by himself, involves the same
profound mysteries, and is embarrassed by the same difficulties, which
are often urged as objections to the theory of Religion, and that it is,
at the very least, as _incomprehensible_, as the doctrine which affirms
the existence of God? Suppose there were simply an equality in this
respect between the Theistic and Atheistic hypothesis, that both were
alike incomprehensible and incapable of an adequate explanation, still
the former might be more credible and more satisfactory to reason than
the latter, since in the one we have an intelligent and designing Cause,
such as accounts for the existence of other minds and the manifold marks
of design in Nature, whereas in the other all the phenomena of thought,
and feeling, and volition, as well as all the instances of skilful
adjustment and adaptation, must be resolved into the power of
self-existent, but unintelligent and unconscious matter.

Further it is admitted, not only that we may, but that we _must_,
proceed on the principle of Causality, the fundamental axiom of
Theology; for "there _must_ always have been something, or there _could
be_ nothing now." This principle or law of human thought leads him up to
a region which far transcends his present sensible experience, and
guides him to the stupendous height of self-existent and eternal Being.
It is assumed and applied to prove the self-existence and eternity of
matter. But if it be a valid principle of reason, its application may be
equally legitimate when it is employed, in conjunction with the manifest
evidence of _moral_ as distinct from _physical_ causation, to prove the
self-existence and eternity of a supreme intelligent Cause. A principle
such as this cannot, from its very nature, be limited within the range
of our present sensible experience. We are told, indeed, that "if we
look over the nature of our own impressions, we find we always shall
begin with things which lie below reason, with things plainer than
reason, with things which need no demonstration. Such is the nature of
the human mind, that we all begin in this sphere of equal knowledge, we
begin under the dominion of the senses, and whatever comes within that
wants no demonstration, wants no proof, wants no logic; it is the
constant, it is the most indubitable, it is the most indisputable of all
our knowledge. And if the question of the being of a God came within
that sphere, if it was found amongst those indisputable truths, if it
was found to be a matter of sense, then there would be no occasion for
us to reason at all about it: it could not be a matter of controversy,
because it never would be a matter of dispute."[274] Certain first
principles of reason are admitted, but only, it would seem, with
reference to matters of sense; but why, if there be such a principle of
reason as compels the Atheist himself to acknowledge a Self-existent and
Eternal Being? Is this a matter of sense? Is it not a conclusion of
reason,--founded, no doubt, on present sensible experience, but far
transcending it,--and yet self-evident and irresistible as intuition
itself? And if reason may thus rise from the contingent and variable to
the conception and belief of the self-existent and eternal, why may it
not be equally valid as a proof of a supreme, intelligent First Cause?

Speaking of Nature as self-existent and eternal, Mr. Holyoake ascribes
such attributes to it as might seem to imply a leaning towards
Pantheism, rather than the colder form of mere material Atheism. "It
seems to me," he says, "that Nature and God are one; in other words,
that the God whom we seek is the Nature whom we know." But he afterwards
states, with clearness and precision, in what respects Secularism
accords with, and differs from, Pantheism: "The term, God, seems to me
inapplicable to Nature. In the mouth of the Theist, God signifies an
entity, spiritual and percipient, distinct from matter. With Pantheists,
the term God signifies the aggregate of Nature,--but Nature as _a being,
intelligent and conscious_. It is my inability to subscribe to either of
these views which constitutes me an Atheist. I cannot rank myself with
the Theists, because I can conceive of nothing beyond Nature, distinct
from it, and above it.... The Theist, therefore, I leave; but while I go
with the Pantheist so far as to accept the fact of Nature in the
plenitude of its diverse, illimitable, and transcendent manifestations,
I cannot go further and predicate with the Pantheist _the unity of its
intelligence and consciousness_!"[275] He holds, therefore, that
self-existence is an attribute of Nature, that this attribute is so
majestic that it may be fairly held to include _all others_, and that,
while intelligence and consciousness exist, he cannot affirm their
_unity_ in Nature, or regard "Nature as a being, intelligent and
conscious." Whence it follows that he can give no other account of the
living, intelligent, active, and responsible beings which inhabit the
world, than that they came into existence, he knows not how, and that
they have the ultimate ground of their existence in a necessary,
underived, and eternal being, which is neither intelligent nor
self-conscious!

3. Secularism seeks to invalidate the proof from _marks of design_ in
Nature by attempting to show, either that it is _merely analogical_, and
can, therefore, afford no certainty, or that, if it were certain, it
could prove nothing, because, by an extension of the same principle, it
must prove too much.

Such is the pith and substance of Mr. Holyoake's argument in his
singular pamphlet entitled, "Paley refuted in his own Words." He first
of all endeavors to invalidate the proof from design by assuming that it
is a mere argument from _analogy_, and that at the best analogy can
afford no ground of _certainty_, although it may possibly suggest a
_probable conjecture_: "It may be said that _analogy_ fails to find out
God, and this must be admitted, it being no more than was to be
expected. The God of Theology being infinite, it is no subject for
analogy.... No conceivable analogy can prove a creation. Creation is
without an analogy.... No analogy can prove creation, because no analogy
can prove what it does not contain, namely, an example of
creation."[276] "Analogy, the specious precursor of reason, would
suggest the personality of the powers which awed and cheered man. Reason
sends us to facts as the only positive grounds of positive conclusions;
but in the childhood of intellect and experience, _likelihood_ is
mistaken for _certainty_, and _probability_ for _fact_. In the disturbed
reflection of man's image on the wall, as it were, of the universe,
arose the idea of God." ... "I say, if that is all you mean by your
argument, that it is _merely a matter of analogy_, if it is only a
matter of partial resemblance, I say you can get from it no complete
proof; that if you merely found it upon partial resemblance, there is no
demonstration there whatever, and your cause is no better, no sounder
than I have before described it,--as being merely _your conjecture_
about a Being independent of Nature; it is merely a conjecture, merely a
suggestion, just like my own conjecture, just like my own suggestion
about Nature being that one great Being about which we are all
concerned."[277]

But not content with assailing _analogy_ as incapable of leading to any
_certain_ conclusion, he changes his tactics, and seems at least to do
homage to it, while he insists only on its _extension_. "The argument of
_design_," he says, "is unquestionably the most popular ever developed,
and the most seductive ever displayed. It has the rare merit of making
the existence of God, which is the most subtle of all problems, appear a
mere truism,--and the proofs of such existence, which have puzzled the
wisest of human heads, seem self-evident." This tribute, however, must
be read in the light of his chosen motto,--"The existence of a watch
proves the existence of a watch-maker; a picture indicates a painter; a
house announces an architect. See here are arguments of terrible force
for children."[278] "I took up," he says, "Dr. Paley's book, ... and I
agreed with myself to admit, as I read, whatever appeared plausible. I
did so, and my objection to my author was this: Upon the grounds of
analogy and experience I found Paley insisted that design implies a
designer, that this designer must be a person, and that this person is
God: but the analogy which had been the guide to his feet, and the
experience which had been a lamp to his path, were suddenly abandoned,
and at the very moment when their assistance seemed to promise curious
revelations."--"Two modes of refutation are open; to attack the
_principle_, or pursue the _analogy_. Geoffroy St. Hilaire has taken one
course. I take the other. If, in the investigation of this question, it
be legitimate to employ analogy in one part, it must be legitimate to
employ it in like respects in another.... Analogy was Paley's alpha, it
must be made also his omega."[279] In pursuing this course, he makes
large concessions, such as might seem at first sight to involve the very
principles on which the Theistic proof depends. "That design implies a
designer, I am disposed to allow; and that this designer must be a
person, I am quite inclined to admit. Thus far goes Paley, and thus far
I go with him.... His general position, that design proves a personal
designer, is so _natural_, so _easy_, and so _plausible_, that it
invites one to admit it, to see where it will lead, and what it will
prove."--"Paley tells us that God is a person. He insists upon it as a
legitimate inference from his premises, nor _would it be easy to disturb
his conclusion_.... From Paley's premises, it is the clearest of all
inferences. Design must have a designer, because whatever we know of
designers has taught us that a designer is a person. All analogy is in
favor of this inference. This is Paley's reasoning upon the subject, and
it is too _natural_, too _rigid_, and too _cogent_ to be escaped
from."[280] Here we have an _apparent_ admission of the principle on
which the argument of _design_ is based, but it is _apparent_ only, and
is afterwards withdrawn. It was used to serve a temporary purpose, and
as soon as that purpose was served, it was thrown aside, although it had
been described as "so natural, so easy, and so plausible, that it
invites one to admit it," as "too _natural_, too _rigid_, and too
_cogent_ to be escaped from." "When I made the admission, I was going in
the footsteps of Paley, and adopting his own phraseology: then I came to
the conclusion to see whether it was right, and then _I gave it up_;
when I found it led me to a contrary result, then I gave it up; what I
supposed to be _design_ in the opening of my argument is _no longer
design_. My reverend friend is wrong in supposing that _I admit design_,
and yet refuse to admit the force of the _design argument_."[281] And
what is the reason which now induces him to deny the existence of
_design_ in Nature, and to withdraw all the admissions he had previously
made? Why, simply because he conceives that, by a legitimate extension
of the same analogy, the design argument may be pushed to a _reductio ad
absurdum_, so as to prove first the existence of an _organized person_,
"an animal God," and, secondly, an infinite series of such organized
persons, since one such must necessarily presuppose another, and that
again another, and so on _in infinitum_. For there are two stages in his
extension of the analogy. In the first, it is extended so far as to show
that the person to whom design is ascribed must necessarily be an
organized Being: in the _second_, it is still further extended, so as to
show that, being organized, that person must also have had a designer or
maker, since organization is held to imply design, and design to imply a
designer. And thus the analogy, when extended, does not lead up to one
Supreme Mind, the Infinite and Eternal Creator of all things, but to an
organized being, himself exhibiting marks of design in his organization,
and requiring therefore, like every organism, a prior cause, and, by
parity of reason, an eternal succession or infinite series of such
causes.

The following extracts will place the progressive steps of his argument
in a clear, if not convincing light: "By reasoning from analogy, Paley
infers that there is a personal, intelligent being, the author of all
design, whom he christens Deity. But what kind of a person is a Deity?
If a person, is it organized like a person? Whence came it? How did it
originate? Was it formed, as it is said to have formed us?... I ask, has
the person of Deity an organization? because, if it be unreasonable to
suppose design without a designer, it is surely as unreasonable to
suppose a person without an organization, to the full contradiction of
all analogy and all experience." ... "Every person is organized. No
person was ever known without an organization. The term person implies
it. All analogy, all experience are in favor of this truth. This is so
plain as to be admitted almost before it is stated.... No person ever
knew of consciousness separate from an organization in which it was
produced. No man ever knew of thought distinct from an organization in
which it was generated.... Shelley says that 'Intelligence is only
known to us as a mode of _animal being_.' ... We have great
authority,--the authority of universal and uncontradicted
experience,--for limiting the properties of mind to organization.... If
intelligence is without an organization, design may be without a
designer; because there are the same experience and analogy to support
the organization, as there are to support the design argument."[282]

But "organization proves _contrivance_.... If, then, every known
organization is redolent with contrivance, and teems with marks of
design, by what analogy can we conclude that _Deity's organization_ is
devoid of these properties?"--"Shelley thus states the case,--'From the
fitness of the universe to its end, you infer the necessity of an
intelligent Creator. But if the fitness of the universe to produce
certain effects be thus conspicuous and evident, how much more exquisite
fitness to this end must exist in the author of this universe!... how
much more clearly must we perceive the necessity of this very Creator's
creation, whose perfections comprehend an _arrangement_ far more
accurate and just! The belief of an infinity of creative and created
gods, each more eminently requiring an intelligent author of his being
than the foregoing, is a direct consequence of the premises.'"--"Hence
from design, designers, and persons, we have stepped to organization and
contrivance, and arrive at a contriver again."[283]

Such is the outline of his argument. He seems to think that if there be
any flaw in it, the only assailable point must be his _extension of the
analogy_: "In the chain of analogies which Paley commenced, and which I
have continued, I believe there is no defective link. The principle of
assailment, if any, is the _extension_ of the analogies beyond the Paley
point.... With the extension commences my responsibility. He who proves
an irrelevancy in it answers my book." This is, no doubt, a vulnerable
point, but we venture to think that it is not the only one. His whole
reasoning seems to proceed on an unsound view of the nature and
conditions of the argument, and is radically defective in at least
_three_ respects.

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