Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

ON THE CONSENT OF CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY IN THE EXPLANATION OF THIS SAME DOCTRINE.

The Fathers agree that from the manifestation of God in creatures it is possible, by the light of reason, to arrive at the first notion, and at the more refined knowledge, of the existence of God.

« The doctrine handed down in the Scriptures, that the existence of the true God is to be known by the light of reason implanted in us, the Fathers and Doctors of Christian antiquity cultivated with the greatest consensus; for from their documents it is plain that this is their common opinion: 1° that from this visible universe the manifestation of God shines forth to human reason; 2° that this manifestation and the implanted power of reason are so constituted that in the minds of all who have the free use of reason some confused knowledge of God arises, as it were of its own accord, from the very obvious consideration of the universe; 3° that, for cultivating this primitive knowledge so that it becomes fuller and more distinct, there is no lack, on the one hand, of objective traces of God in creatures, nor, on the other, of the subjective light of reason. »

I. As long as the doctrine about the manifestation of God through this visible universe is considered only in general, it is so constant among all the Fathers, and adorned with so many most eloquent disputations, that there can be no room for doubt. For they repeat and inculcate on every suitable occasion, from the Apologists Justin, Athenagoras and Tatian down to Pope Gregory the Great, John Damascene and Bernard, that the knowledge of God is universal among all nations, because the works of God, set before all, demonstrate to human reason that God, invisible in himself, exists; and thus in the works themselves a teaching and a certain instruction about God is contained, which all men understand. « Perhaps, says Clement of Alexandria, one ought not even to undertake a demonstration (of the existence of God), since the providence of God is manifest from the very aspect of all the works which are constructed with art and wisdom, and which in one way come to be in order and in another are manifested in order; and he who has given us being and life has also bestowed reason, wishing us to live reasonably and well. » After a longer disputation he adds: « the Parent and Creator of all things, all things from all things perceive by inborn power and without teaching (ἐμφύτως καὶ ἀδιδάκτως ἀντιλαμβάνεται)… all men, Greeks and barbarians¹ No race at all, whether of farmers, or of nomads, or of those who inhabit cities, can live which is not already preoccupied by the persuasion of a higher nature (μὴ προκατειλημμένον τῇ τοῦ κρείττονος πίστει). Therefore all peoples, to east and to west, to north and to south, have one and the same anticipation concerning him who established this rule, since his most universal operations have pervaded all things equally² Strom. V. p. 547. 612. The same things are demonstrated before Clement by Athenagoras (Legat. pro christ. n. 4. 5. 7.), and after him by Athanasius (orat. c. gentes n. 34. 35.); of whom the former says that the state of this world, its order, its perpetual harmony, its greatness, splendour, beauty and arrangement are all so many « pledges of the worship of God (ἐνέχυρα τῆς θεοσεβείας); for the invisible things are understood from the visible. » Athanasius, however, says: « created things, by their arrangement and order, as if in letters, indicate and proclaim their Lord and Creator… for since God, according to his own nature, is invisible and incomprehensible, therefore he arranged creation by his word in such a way that at least from the works he might be known by men; for often the artificer, even when he himself is not seen, is known from his works. Just as they also tell of the sculptor Phidias, that his works, from the mutual proportion and arrangement of the parts, presented Phidias, though absent, to those who beheld them: so one must understand from the arrangement of the world that God is its Creator and Maker. » Very similar things are repeated by Iustinus de Monarchia n. 1. coll. Apolog. II. n. 6; Tatianus cont. Graec. or. n. 4; Iren. l. II. c. 6. 9; III. c. 25; Theophilus Antioch. ad Autolyc. l. I. n. 1-7; Tertullian. cont. Marcion. l. I. cc. 10. 11; Apologet. c. 17; de testimonio anim. cc. 1. 2. 5; de anima cc. 2. 18. 20; Origines in Rom. I; cont. Celsum l. VII. n. 36; Minutius Felix in Octavio n. 18; Cyprianus de idolorum vanitate n. 5; Constitutiones Apost. l. VIII. c. 12; Basilius cont. Eunom. l. I. n. 14; epp. 234. et 235. ad Amphilochium; Gregor. Nazianz. or. 28. al. 34. n. 5-21; or. 34. al. 24. n. 10; Gregor. Nyss. de beatitudin. or. 6. T. I. p. 813. sqq.; contr. Eunom. l. XII. p. 320. seqq.; Chrysost. in Rom. hom. 3; ad popul. Antioch. hom. 9; in homiliis de Incomprehensibili; Hieronym. in Gal. c. I. et III. T. VII. pp. 391. 419. ed. Vallarsi; August. de Genes. ad litt. l. IV. n. 49; Serm. 141. al. 55. de verbis Domini; Cyrill. Alexandr. in Io. I. Opp. T. IV. p. 74-76; contr. Iulian. l. II. T. VI. P. II. p. 52; Gregor. M. Moral. l. XXVII. c. 5; Damasc. Fid. orthod. l. I. cc. 1. 3.

Let Gregorius Naz. or. 28. al. 34. n. 5. 6. be heard in the name of all: « The nature of God is in itself unapprehensible and incomprehensible; I say not that it is, but what it is; for these differ greatly… For that God is, and is the creating and conserving cause of all things, both the eyes themselves and the natural law teach; the eyes indeed, while they turn their gaze upon visible things, beautifully composed and advancing, and, so to speak, moved and acting without motion; the natural law, while by reasoning through visible and ordered things it concludes to their author. For how else would this universe ever have stood and been established, unless God were creating and conserving all things? For no one, seeing a lyre most finely wrought and its harmony and craft, or hearing its harmonious sounds, will think in his mind of anything other than the maker of the lyre and the player of the lyre, and will be carried in thought to him, even if he does not know him by face; so also to us the efficient and moving and conserving cause of the things made is manifest, even though it is not comprehended by the mind. But he is too dull who does not advance thus far of his own accord, and who, following the natural demonstrations, does not at the same time grasp that God is not what we have conceived or formed in the mind by some image, or what reason has sketched »³. The same thing, in a brief sentence, Basil in Hexaem. hom. I. n. 6. and Cyrillus Alex. contr. Iulian. l. II. p. 73. have also set down, of whom the former calls this visible world « a school and gymnasium of rational souls for the knowledge of God, while through visible and sensible things it offers the mind a guidance to the understanding of invisible things, as the Apostle says: for his invisible things etc.»⁴ Cyril, to the question how the heavens declare the glory of God, answers: « splendid and outstanding works, though destitute of voice, nevertheless in some manner proclaim the knowledge of the artificer, which they reflect in themselves as it were in rays » ⁵.

That the manifestation of God to human reason is contained in this whole universe, so that God, existing, can be known from this existing universe of things, is the consensus of all Christian antiquity. Since, however, the question is not so much in general terms about the knowledge of God from creatures, whether there is any; but rather about the mode in which it stands: we proceed to consider this very mode more distinctly according to the teaching of the Fathers, although what the Fathers handed down about it can be understood without obscurity from the testimonies already cited.

II. We have seen in the preceding thesis that in the Scriptures themselves a double, as it were, degree of knowledge of God from the consideration of created things is distinguished: the first still obscure and confused, which in some way arises of its own accord and awakens the rational man to seek God by deliberate attention and reflective study, by which one arrives at the second degree, of knowledge now clearer and more distinct. We have this distinction explained more fully by the holy Fathers and Christian Doctors.

The Fathers teach with great agreement that, besides and before the knowledge of God, which is the fruit of scientific and philosophical meditation and demonstration, there is already present in all men who have not suppressed the light of reason some common knowledge. They describe this primitive knowledge of God, as an anticipation of the mind, with roughly these characteristics:

1° It arises of its own accord from the innate principles of the rational nature, and is not learned by teaching and discipline; but the rational man himself conceives it through himself. In express words it is said: « a conception and an innate judgment; a naturally implanted knowledge; a natural anticipation of the mind; that which a man conceives from an innate nature and without instruction; which is not learned by instruction, but which a man learns from himself; a reason congenital to all and the first law in us, leading us to God from visible creatures ⁶; a knowledge which nature itself suggests, as it were from common sense; a doctrine entrusted tacitly to a congenital nature and to innate conscience » etc. Iustin. Apol. II. n. 6; Clem. Alex. Strom. V. p. 612; Orig. in Rom. l. I. n. 16; Tertull. de anima c. 2; de testim. animae c. 5; Euseb. Praep. Ev. l. II. c. 9; Naz. or. 28. al. 34. n. 6.16; 34. al. 24. n. 10; Nyss. de beatitud. or. 5. T. I. p. 801; Cyrill. Alex. contr. Iulian. l. II. p. 52; Damasc. Fid. orthod. l. I. c. 13.

Therefore, 2° this knowledge of God is common to all, not only to the learned but also to the unlearned and to barbarians, because all have a rational soul and the works of God are constantly set before the consideration of all; and so this primitive and fundamental knowledge of God does not desert reason, even when a man, against reason, is trained to idolatry by public and private customs. See Clement of Alexandria in the place cited above: « the providence of God is manifest from the very aspect of all works… because God has imparted reason to us… whence there is no race of men which has not been preoccupied (προκατειλημμενον) by the persuasion of a higher nature… because the most universal operations of God have equally pervaded all things. » The same, Strom. V. p. 590: among all right-thinking men there was, he says, a natural manifestation of God, « who have not wholly cast off all shame before the truth » (ἃ καὶ μὴ τελέον ἀπηρυθριακοτες πρὸς τὴν ἀλήθειαν). We have seen the opinion of Gregory Nazianzen in the passage above: « that God is, the eyes themselves and the natural law of reason teach…. But he is too dull who does not advance of his own accord, and, obedient to the natural manifestations… » In the same sense speaks St Augustine in Io. tract. 106. n. 4: « this is the power of true divinity, that it cannot be wholly and altogether hidden from a rational creature already using reason; for, with a few exceptions, in whom nature is too greatly depraved, the whole human race confesses God to be the author of this world. » Chrysostom hom. IX. n. 2. ad popul. Antioch.: « through things God willed to teach human nature. What then is "through things"? Through the creature itself…. both the Scythian and the barbarian, and the Indian and the Egyptian, and every man walking upon the earth, will hear this voice; for it falls into our mind not through the ears but through the eyes; and the sharing of visible things is the same and not different, as with languages… the creature utters a voice easy to understand both to barbarians and to Greeks and to all men universally. » Tertullian holds very similar things, cont. Marc. I. c. 10. Hence the same Tertullian calls upon the soul of the gentiles themselves as a witness of God, « not that which, formed by the schools, belches forth wisdom, but simple, rough, unpolished and untutored, such as those have who have only it… Nature the teacher, the soul the disciple: whatever the one has taught or the other has learned has been handed down by God, namely to the teacher of the teacher herself » Tertull. de testim. animae c. 2.5.

3° In the knowing subject they declare this power and innate impulse, both to know truth in general and, above all, to know God from the very nature of the rational soul, in which is the image of the substantial truth, the fount and norm of all truth. For just as all created things that are, and that are and live, are, according to the diverse degree of perfection communicated to them, a kind of analogous adumbration and participation of God the Creator, inasmuch as he is Essence (ἡ αὐτοουσια), the principle and exemplar of all being, both possible and real, and inasmuch as he is life itself (ἡ αὐτοζωη), the principle and exemplar of all life; so man through reason is a participation and image of God, even inasmuch as God is wisdom itself (ἡ αὐτοσοφια) ⁷, and so (speaking by appropriation according to the proper characters of the divine persons) the image of the hypostatic Wisdom, which is God the Word. According to this participation, the intellectual faculty itself, reason itself, is called by us the innate seminal word (λογος σπερματικος) ⁸, of which speak Justin Apol. II. n. 8. 13; Tertull. l. de anima c. 20; Basil. in regul. fusior. interrog. 2; Severian. Gabalit. de sigillis n. 2. (inter Opp. Chrysost. T. XII. p. 404); Cyrill. in Io. Opp. T. IV. p. 74. 75. 76. « The Word, Cyril says, enlightens every man coming into this world, not by teaching as angels or men do, but rather by creating (οὐ διδασκαλικως ἀλλα μαλλον δημιουργικως) for each of those who have been called into existence he plants the seed of wisdom or knowledge of God, and inserts a root of understanding, and so makes him a rational animal, rendering him a sharer in his own nature. » Origen (de Princip. l. I. c. 3. n. 8.) calls it « a participation of the Word; » Clemens Al. (cohort. ad gent. p. 45.) « a divine effluence (ἀπόρροιαν θείκην) instilled into all men simply, but especially into those free from learning, through which even the unwilling confess that God is one. » In this same sense of the image of God, Gregor. Naz. or. 28. al. 34. n. 17. says that mind and reason are « something divine and god-like » (θεῖον τοῦτο καὶ θεοειδές). In the rational nature itself, as it is the image of God, is founded the soul's propensity (συμπάθεια) and impulse to seek God in the consideration of the universe. So Athenagoras, Legat. pro Christian. n. 7: « that God is one, most men confess, even unwillingly, when they come to the principles of all things… The poets and philosophers, indeed, as in other matters so also in concluding this, have touched upon it, each impelled by his own soul, according to the kinship of the breath received from God, to seek, if they could find and understand the truth » ⁹.

III. Although from the consideration of this universe common to all ¹⁰ the knowledge of God as existing, as some personal, wise, good, provident being, on whom all other things depend as on a beginning and an end, is poured in as it were of its own accord, and in this sense even necessarily, « for this is the highest wrong, not to acknowledge him whom you cannot fail to know » (Tertull. Apol. c.17; Cyprian. de idol. van. p. 227.): nevertheless this primitive knowledge is very imperfect, and of such a kind that the Greeks properly call it προλῆψιν, « a knowledge received beforehand, namely needing unfolding » ¹¹. Of this notion, however, both the confirmation and the rational unfolding now belong to science, which is called first philosophy. For the more perfectly the essential dependence of this whole universe on its threefold order is known through a reflective meditation undertaken, the more evidently reason will understand the existence of a necessary cause; and the more distinctly the perfection of the same universe, « greatness and beauty » (Sap. XIII.), unity in multiplicity, and the wonderful subordination of the smallest and the greatest to their proximate ends, through intermediate ones, up to the highest, is perceived, the more brilliantly will reason attain the perfections of the necessarily existing cause. Not only a posteriori, but also in some way mediately a priori. For once the existence of a being from itself has been demonstrated a posteriori, from the very intrinsic reason of the necessary Being, and so as it were a priori, its infinite perfection can be understood ¹².

Examples of this more refined demonstration, and the most magnificent of them, you will find in almost all the holy Fathers cited above, especially in Athenagoras, Athanasius, Lactantius, Gregory Nazianzen, John Damascene. Cf. Petav. de Deo l. I. c. 1. 2.

Most of the Fathers, who wrote either against the gentiles or against the Eunomians, consider God chiefly under the aspect of efficient cause, and so, ascending from the created effect to God the Creator, they cultivated above all the cosmological argument, and what is customarily called the physico-theological argument. But the genius of St Augustine, accustomed to the most sublime meditations, although he too commends the way of knowing God first from visible creatures as proper to the human mind (Genes. ad litt. l. IV. c. 32. n. 49; Serm. 141. 241. etc.), yet where he seeks, for the refinement of understanding, what God is, he is accustomed rather, from the known metaphysical order, to raise himself up to God as exemplary cause: namely from the eternal and immutable truth of reasons, both in numbers and in the contemplation of the disciplines, from the ideas of wisdom, justice, and of the true and the good, from metaphysical laws, to which not only whatever is, but whatever can be, lies under and is governed by absolute necessity; he strives by the sight of the mind to behold truth, wisdom, and substantial goodness, which is both the foundation of the whole intelligible metaphysical order and its subsisting exemplar, and the cause of the rational light by which we understand what is true. Thus you may see St Augustine arguing in l. II. de libero arbitrio (per totum); Confess. l. VII. c. 17; de vera relig. n. 52. 2. sqq.; Soliloquior. l. I. c. 5. 8; de Ordine l. II. c. 16. etc. Cf. Lessius de perfect. divin. l. VI. c. 4. n. 39. sqq.

Scholion. Just as we see the doctrine of the Scriptures declared in the very ample explanations of the holy Fathers, so that no doubt seems possible about the genuine Catholic understanding, so the School Doctors, by common consent, have vindicated the same doctrine of Scripture and of the Fathers in their disputations, lest anything be wanting; for they hand down, as it were the head of doctrine, to which it would be wrong to be opposed, that the existence of God can be demonstrated with certainty by reason. Among the innumerable ones who may be consulted are St Thomas (who did not hesitate to call the opposed opinion manifestly false de verit. q. 10. a. 12., and an error cont. gent. I. c. 12.); Alex. Hal. 1. P. Summae q. 2. m. 2. aa. 1-4; m. 3. aa. 1. 2; Albert. M. Summa theol. q. 14. m. 1. usque ad q. 17. Opp. T. XVII; S. Bonav. 1. dist. 3. a. 1. q. 2. 3. Among the more recent ones consult Gillius de Deo Tract. VIII. c. 5. n. 7; Bellarm. de grat. et lib. arbitr. l. IV. c. 2; Molina, Valentia, Suarez, Vasquez in 1. P. de Deo; Franc. de Lugo disp. XIV. c. 2. etc.

Finally, as to the value of rational demonstration, let the judgments delivered on this matter be compared. By the Sorbonne faculty, by apostolic mandate, in 1348, among other theses of Nicholas of Autrecourt, the following also were condemned: « Likewise (he said) that no demonstration can be drawn from the existence of one thing to an effect, or from an effect to a cause, or conversely. » « Likewise that we do not evidently know that God is, understanding by God the most noble being » (Du Plessis d'Argentree Collectio Iudiciorum etc. T. I. p. 355.). The professor of Strasbourg, approved by his Bishop, Gregory XVI approving (apostolic letters, 20 Dec. 1834.), was ordered to subscribe (8 Sept. 1840.) to this thesis: « Reasoning can prove the existence of God with certainty. » Two propositions akin to these, at the command of the S. Congregation of the Index, 12 Dec. 1855, D. Bonetty undertook: Prop. 2.

« Reasoning can prove with certainty the existence of God, the spirituality of the soul, and human liberty. » Prop. 4. « The method used by D. Thomas, D. Bonaventura and the other Scholastics after them does not lead to rationalism, nor was it the cause why, in today's schools, philosophy should run into naturalism and pantheism. »

On the sense in which the Fathers call the notion of God innate to human nature.

« The primitive and still confused notion of God is called by the holy Fathers innate to nature, not in the sense in which some more recent writers speak of innate ideas. For the Fathers say that this knowledge of God is bound together with the rational nature itself, in that by the innate light of nature it is conceived, as it were of its own accord, from the obvious consideration of worldly things, without philosophical inquiry and without instruction by positive revelation; and so they distinguish innate knowledge not merely from acquired knowledge simply, but both from the more cultivated knowledge through more diligent and subtler meditations, and above all from the more perfect knowledge which is owed to revelation. »

That some knowledge of God, common to all men who use reason (« with the exception of a few in whom nature is too greatly depraved »), and arising as it were of its own accord, is asserted by the Fathers with great agreement, and that the same is called innate to nature, is sufficiently clear from the preceding thesis. From this and from other expressions and descriptions akin to these, certain learned men, Thomasinus, Henricus Klee, and after them Staudenmair, have undertaken to demonstrate that their opinion concerning the idea of God, innate and concreated in the rational nature, is genuine and is almost the common doctrine of the Fathers. We indeed think that this opinion, considered philosophically, can be demonstrated to be supported by no solid foundation whatever; but now we speak only of the sentiment of the Fathers, who on this matter often speak in connection with the doctrine of the Scriptures, and indeed theologically.

Having therefore examined the contexts of the Fathers throughout, it is wholly established that this very knowledge, which by their words is asserted to be innate and congenital to nature, is taught to arise from the inspection of the works of God, though obvious and presenting itself of its own accord; the names and descriptions which are put forward do not mean that the idea and knowledge of God is concreated in the soul, but that the rational soul was made an image of God so as to know God, such that by an undeliberate exercise of the innate rational faculty, and so by a natural movement, it attains to some knowledge of God; which, therefore, innate and conjoined with nature, is opposed not indeed to knowledge simply acquired, but to a more cultivated knowledge, which flourishes from studies undertaken with meditation, and above all to that which is owed to instruction or to positive revelation. Wherefore, if that ruder and primitive knowledge of God is compared with this other, subsequent and more polished one, it can also be called immediate, although it is not immediate in the sense that we know God with no intervening means. For the holy Fathers and the ancient Doctors knew no immediate knowledge of God of this kind, in himself and from himself, except the beatific vision, about which there will be occasion to speak in what follows. Now it must be shown that the origin of the innate knowledge which we have declared is taught by the Fathers.

1°. The very Fathers who speak of innate knowledge of God first lay down the general principle that the soul, so long as it composes one nature with this mortal body, can progress from knowledge of sensible things to knowledge of intellectual things, and specifically of God himself, only in such a way that the former is necessarily presupposed to the latter, and the latter rests upon the former as on a certain step of ascent; these are the words of Clement of Alexandria¹. Among the Fathers whom the cited authors Thomasinus, Klee, Staudenmair have brought forward as undoubted champions of the idea and knowledge of God concreated in human minds, there are scarcely any who have not expressly taught the theory of human knowledge which we have indicated: Clemens Alex. Strom. II. p. 364; Tertull. de anima c. 18; Origen. contr. Celsum l. VII. n. 37; de principiis l. IV. n. 37; Athanas. contr. gent. n. 35. (to which may be compared Cyrillus Alex. thesaur. assert. 31. T. V. P. 1. p. 264. 267; Damascene de fid. orthod. l. I. c. 4; Dionysius de divin. nom. c. 1. §. 4.); Gregor. Nazianz. or. 28. al. 34. n. 5-21²; Basil epp. 234. 235; Gregor. Nyss. contr. Eunom. l. I. p. 82. (in appendice Opp. edita a Gretzero); l. XII. T. II. p. 920-931³; August. de Genes. ad litter. l. IV. c. 32. n. 49; Ioannes Damasc. de imag. or. I. n. 11.

« Reason takes us up, says Gregory Nazianzen l. c. n. 16, desiring God (reason, therefore, is naturally carried toward God, but hear how): and not enduring anything to be without author and ruler (from the law, namely, of causality and of sufficient reason there continually arises in us, upon observing this universe, some knowledge of its author, and from this a desire for further knowledge); whence, considering visible things and dwelling upon them, which have existed from the beginning, it does not cling to them (as happens to many who do not use reason rightly, of whom he had spoken at n. 14. 15.): for it was not the business of reason to give primacy to these things, which in respect of sense are of equal condition with us; and through these it rises to the things above these, and to him from whom they have that they are............ Thus reason, given by God and congenital to all, and the first law in us, and joined to all (namely the law by which reason is governed in thinking), has led us to God from visible things »⁴. How necessarily the process of reason must run in our present condition, Gregory declares at n. 12: « it is clear to us, as no reasoning can bring it about that anyone, however much he hastens his step, outruns his own shadow, or that the eye is joined to visible things without intervening light and air, or that fish swim out of water: so it is also impossible for those who are in bodies to be joined altogether to intellectual things without corporeal things; for something of our own (sensible) things always falls in » (because by this means we arrive at intellectual things)⁵. For, as he adds at n. 21: « as if with a small instrument we undertake great things, while human wisdom hunts the knowledge of beings and summons intelligible things by the senses, or not without the senses, by which we are carried about and led into error (which indeed would not exist if we saw the essences of things immediately in themselves), and we cannot, with the naked mind (for we are a composite nature), coming upon bare things, approach nearer to the truth, or shape the mind by conceptions⁶. » The holy Father argues all these things, and many others twin to them, in that oration, to show against the Eunomians that we have no other natural knowledge of God than that acquired from consideration of the works of God, and that God's own revelation of himself can be understood by us only analogically, through ideas derived from creatures: « for although by revelation we are raised to know something which otherwise would have been unknown to us, says St Thomas (in Boët. de Trin. lect. II. q. 2. a. 3.), yet it is not so that we may know it in any other way than through sensible things. »

Tertullian holds this order of sensible and intellectual knowledge as most certain, not only on the opinion of the philosophers but on the very authority of the Apostle, and rests upon it as upon a foundation, to demonstrate more clearly the unity of the nature of man, which is the subject of both kinds of knowledge, sensible and intellectual. « For how is the intellect preferred to the sense, by which it is informed for the knowledge of truths? For if truths are apprehended through images, i. e. invisible things are known through visible ones, since the Apostle also writes to us: invisibilia enim eius a conditione mundi de factitamentis intellecta visuntur;…. the intellect seems to use the sense as its guide, its author and its principal foundation, and that truths cannot be touched without it; how then will it be greater than that through which it is, which it needs, to which it owes all that it attains? » etc. l. c.

Origen likewise draws the same doctrine from the testimony of the Apostle, contr. Celsum VII. n. 37. From those words of Paul, he says, « one may know that although in this life men must begin from the senses and from sensible things, so that thence they may ascend to the nature of intelligible things, yet one must not remain among sensible things⁷. »

The reason why our process of knowledge must necessarily be as it is here, Athanasius, Cyril, Dionysius, Damascene ll. cc. and others declare to be this: that the proper object of human knowledge is the essences of sensible things, and therefore God, who is above all beings, transcendentally diverse and eminent, is not knowable to us in his own nature, nor through it; whence it comes about that he can be known by us only in a certain measure from his effects. « God, says Athanasius l. c., is invisible and incomprehensible in his nature, as one who transcends every created essence; and therefore the human race would be deprived of the knowledge of him, because these things (all created things) are from things that did not exist, but he is uncreated. Wherefore God so arranged the creation by his own Word that at least from the works it might be known by men⁸. » The other Fathers mentioned express the same thing more clearly still. « Since all our cognitions are of beings and terminate in beings (namely, our most universal concept is proper to being in common, which we first received from created and sensible things, and under which we know all things), God, since he is above all essence, escapes our cognition » (in his own nature). So, in the passages cited, Dionysius⁹ and from him Damascene, who both deduce from this that God can be known by us only by concluding from these lower things (ἀναλόγως), and imperfectly¹⁰.

Now, those who lay down this theory of human knowledge certainly teach that the knowledge of God is acquired; if therefore at any time they say that it is innate and congenital to human nature, they cannot be understood in that sense which the words seem at first sight to present, and which not a few more recent writers have ascribed to them since the XVII. century was drawing to its close.

2°. Indeed, from the contexts in which those expressions occur, or at least from a comparison of the doctrine of the authors expressed in other places, it appears that the knowledge is called innate and congenitally joined to the rational nature because the existence of God belongs to those truths which human reason attains easily, by a consideration of objects obvious to all, when the intellect has already been informed with the ideas necessary for ready exercise, by the light implanted in it and by its congenital power, without any special and scientific cultivation of the mind, or reflective and more difficult reasonings, or any human instruction or divine revelation coming from outside being required beforehand for this truth. From this very fact, moreover, that this knowledge of the existing God lies open to reason from those things alone which are naturally at hand to all men, it is universal and common to all who have not perverted the nature of reason, who are not vain by nature (μάταιοι φύσει), as it is said in Sap. XIII. 1. For this double reason the notion is rightly called innate (ἔμφυτος) by the Fathers: first, because it flourishes from the rational nature itself by the use of faculties connatural to all, and so is intimate to the nature which is made for the knowledge of God¹¹; second, because it is not restricted to persons distinguished by singular gifts, but extended to the common nature of the human race¹², just as St James I. 21. called the revealed word an implanted word (λόγον ἔμφυτον), not indeed for the human race but for Christians.

Now we shall easily grasp the true sense of the testimonies from which the more recent writers cited above have tried to vindicate an innate idea of God, as if from the common doctrine of the Fathers.

a) Tertullian, in all the places which are usually brought forward by the adversaries to prove that the idea of God is taught as concreated in the soul, asserts nothing whatever except the universality of the consciousness of the existing God, which is owed not to letters or philosophy or positive instruction, but only to those faculties which are naturally present in the soul. They seize upon the words by which it is said « the consciousness of God is the dowry of the soul from the beginning, » as if it were said that the soul is conscious of God from the beginning of its existence; although Tertullian himself indicates in those same places, and teaches most expressly elsewhere, that from the beginning of things there is no other mode of our natural knowledge of God than by ascent « from sensible things to invisible ones, » « from works to the maker. » This doctrine of Tertullian is plain to anyone who reads in context the testimonies usually cited: de testimon. animae cc. 1. 2. 5. 6; contr. Marc. I. cc. 10. 11; Apolog: c. 17; de anima cc. 2. 20. coll. 18; ad Scapulam c. 2. The sum of all can be brought back to this view: « God never unknown, and therefore not uncertain. For from the beginning of things the Maker of them was discovered together with them, they having been brought forth for this purpose, that God might be known........ See whether they know him whom all things testify that they know; nor do they owe this to any books of Moses: the soul is before prophecy; for the consciousness of God is the dowry of the soul from the beginning, the same in the Egyptians and in the Syrians and in the Pontics..... God has testimonies, all this which we are and in which we are » contr. Marc. I. 10.

From the book of Cyprian, de idolor. vanit. p. 227. ed. Baluzii, and from Lactantii instit. l. III. c. 1., you will extract nothing in favour of the opponents' opinion, except what is read there, as in Tertullian, that even the gentiles who use natural reason do not fail to know the true God: « this is the sum of wrong, not to acknowledge him whom they cannot fail to know. » Minucius Felix, however, in Octav. c. 17. 18. 32., also declares the origin of this universal persuasion, which he attests in the same words as those writers: « for in his works, and in all the motions of the world, we always behold his power present. »

b) Other Fathers, who are cited as witnesses to concreated knowledge from broken-off phrases taken out of text and context, teach only that reason is innate to us as a seed of wisdom, through which we are constituted the image of God, whose nature is that it be made for truth, and first (not in execution but in end) for the knowledge of the first truth. Concerning this innate power of reason, by which the natural image of God exists, and which is called the seminal word (λόγος σπερματικός), enough has been said above.

c) By an intolerable abuse, the same learned men bring forward, in confirmation of concreated knowledge, certain sentences of some Fathers, from which, when they are seen in context, the opposite is manifestly demonstrated. Thus Gregorius Naz. or. 28. al. 34. n. 6. 16. is said to have taught congenital knowledge of God from the « law of nature implanted »; and Athanasius contr. gent. n. 33., and Gregorius Nyss. or. 6. de beatitud. T. I. p. 815., from the fact that the knowledge of God, being most intimate and consubstantial with the soul (κατουσιωθέν), they draw knowledge of God from what is most intimate and consubstantial with the soul (κατουσιωθέν), and so are reported to have taught it as congenital. But to one considering the context of Gregory Nazianzen described above by us, there can be no doubt what « implanted law of nature » means; it is nothing else than human reason itself, insofar as, by concluding from understood effects according to the principle of causality, it arrives at the knowledge of God the Creator¹³.

Athanasius, however, and Gregory of Nyssa, and with them Basil, hom. attende tibi n. 7. T. II. p. 23. ed. Maur.; Aug. Confess. VII. c. 10; Gregor. M. in Ezech. l. II. hom. 5. n. 8. 9., and others, teach in express language that the soul can, from consideration of itself and of its own perfections, understand the existence and perfections of God; whence the soul itself is for itself the objective means of knowing God¹⁴. Hence Athanasius says, n. 33. 34., that the soul, insofar as it knows from its operations that it is a spiritual substance, is « to itself a way to the notion and thought of God, and thus from itself receives the knowledge of God the Word » (of God the Word considered absolutely it receives knowledge from itself; of God the Word considered personally it receives from itself analogical knowledge, supposing revelation). The doctrine of Gregory of Nyssa l. c. is this: God in himself and in his nature is immeasurable and incomprehensible to human reason; yet there are works of God from which we can know God; therefore the works of God are for us the measure of the knowledge of God; among these the spiritual soul stands out especially if it has cleansed itself from the filth of sin. Hence « the measure of the knowledge of God comprehensible to you is in you, since he who created you has implanted in your nature so great an essential good; for God has imprinted upon your structure the imitations of the goods of his own nature¹⁵…. So he is blessed in heart who is pure, because in seeing his own cleanness he sees the archetype in the image. » Anyone can see that the Fathers speak of a concreated medium of knowledge, and not of concreated knowledge.

d) It must further be noted that many texts of the holy Fathers are adduced, both by Thomasinus and by Staudenmair, to prove an idea of God divinely impressed upon the soul, although in those texts there is question solely of the habit of supernatural knowledge and of infused faith.

e) Finally, those Fathers come into consideration who say, in so many words, that the notion of God is innate, implanted in the mind of all men, and natural; those whom we cited at p. 94. sq. Yet on inspecting all those passages it will become entirely clear that the sense is that which we proposed at the beginning and have hitherto explained. Namely: a) knowledge is not opposed by those epithets to acquired knowledge simply; indeed b) it is expressly or equivalently indicated that it is acquired from a prior knowledge of creatures; γ) it is opposed rather to knowledge either cultivated through reflective meditations and scientific demonstrations, or raised up by revelation; δ) finally, the doctrine of the Fathers about the manner in which human reason is naturally informed by the knowledge of God, expressly set forth in other places, cannot be ascribed to them as an opinion of a concreated knowledge of God, without their manifestly contradicting themselves. Therefore no other sense lies under such expressions, except that the knowledge of God is taught to arise, at least confusedly, of its own accord, from a consideration which is obvious and common to all who have the free use of reason; a doctrine which, as has been demonstrated above, is already indicated in the Scriptures themselves, th. V. n. 3°.