Apologetics

A Philosophic Defense and Explanation of the Catholic Religion

Rev. Msgr. Paul L. Glen

• Publisher: TAN Books
• Year: 1980
• ISBN:
  9781505103540
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Christliche Konfessionen

Proves the truth of the Faith from a philosophic point of view. Covers proofs for the existence of God; His nature, attributes and action on the world; the nature of religion; the necessity and fact of supernatural revelation; Christ the Redeemer, True God and True Man; His Church--its marks and attributes; the necessity of the Church; plus, the Bible as the true word of God.

BOOK FIRST

GOD

This Book offers rational proofs for the existence of God, and reasons out the truth about His nature and attributes. It then studies the action of God on the world, and shows that God is the creator, conserver, and ruler of the universe. The Book is accordingly divided into three Chapters, as follows:

Chapter I. The Existence of God

Chapter II. The Nature and Attributes of God

Chapter III. The Action of God upon the World

CHAPTER I

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

This Chapter offers rational proofs for the existence of God. That God exists we already know by the divine gift of faith, by revelation, by grace, by training, and by our own direct thought upon the realities and requirements of life. We know that God exists, not because something proves it, but because everything proves it; not because a certain syllogism demonstrates it, but because our rational nature absolutely requires it.

When we analyze a few of the proofs that wise men have formulated for the tremendous truth of God's existence, we undertake a task of some delicacy and even danger. We may find ourselves thinking, as the reasoning process of proof is tediously developed, and as argument is marshaled after argument, that there may be room for questioning what requires such an elaborate process of evidence. On the other hand—so variable is the human viewpoint—we may come to think that the arguments here presented are very few, and make but a sorry basis for the intellectual conviction of so grand a truth as that of God's existence. Let us keep our common sense. Let us remember that this elaborate process of evidence is not requisite, but possible, and that our whole purpose is to show that it is possible. We do not need proofs to convince ourselves of the existence of God; we develop them so that reason may attain its highest function, and so that those who demand rational proof of God's existence may be forced to admit that such proof is available. And if the thought strikes us that these arguments are few, let us recognize the obvious fact that our task is like that of men who dig down to find and study some few of the roots of a giant tree. We do not think that these few roots are all that hold the tree in its place, erect in storm and wind; we know that there are a hundred other roots, each with a hundred sturdy radicels, all firmly grounded and secure, which are not the object of our present study. In a word, while the arguments offered are conclusive and incontrovertible, we do not seek to rationalize faith, but merely to record some of the compelling reasons which show that faith is justified by the natural power of the human mind. Meanwhile we hold fast to the divinely given belief which needs no argument, and to the natural conviction of mind which is the result in us of the converging evidence of all the experiences of rational and practical life.

This Chapter presents five proofs for the existence of God. Each proof is studied in a special Article. The Chapter is accordingly divided into five Articles, as follows:

Article 1. The Argument from Cause

Article 2. The Argument from Motion

Article 3. The Argument from Design

Article 4. The Argument from the Moral Order

Article 5. The Argument from History

ARTICLE 1. THE ARGUMENT FROM CAUSE

a) Doctrine of Causality
b) The Argument
c) Discussion of the Argument

a)DOCTRINE OF CAUSALITY

A cause is that which contributes in any manner whatever to the production of a thing. The thing produced is called an effect. The relation of a cause towards its effect is called causality.

The world around us is a tissue of the cause-and-effect relation, i. e., of causality. The movement of the earth and the heavenly bodies is the cause of recurrent night and day and of the change of seasons. The laws of Nature are but formulas which express the existence and relations of causes and effects. Plants, brutes, and men live and grow by the causal activity of an inner life-principle and by the supplementary causes of light, heat, air, moisture, food, which enable this life-principle to function. Everywhere we see causes at work producing effects, and we see effects, in their turn, becoming causes of further effects. The sun, for example, is the cause of sunlight; sunlight is the cause of sunburn; sunburn is the cause of pain; pain is the cause of sleeplessness, etc.—the example may be extended indefinitely. We need no further example, however, to convince us of these facts: (1) Causality exists in the world. (2) The effect of one cause may become the cause of further effects. (3) The chains of cause and effect may be crossed and interwoven at innumerable points, so that many causes may converge to produce one effect, and the influence of one cause may be found in various effects.

So obvious is the existence of causality in the world that it appears unthinkable that anyone should deny it. Yet men have denied it. There have been, and still are, those who assert that we can know nothing of the relation of objects and events except an association and succession which we have no right to call the relation of cause and effect. This means, for example, that when a piece of dry wood is thrown into a roaring fire, the fire is not to be called the cause, and the decomposition of the wood the effect, of the burning. Now, a treatise on Apologetics has neither the space nor the right to discuss this curious doctrine in detail. Only a general criticism of it can be offered to show that it is contradictory in theory and pernicious in its practical results.

First of all, it must be said that the existence of the cause-and-effect relation in the world is as evident as the existence of the world itself. Causality is understood by a direct and irresistible intuition of the mind, even as the bodily world is perceived by a direct grasp of the senses and of consciousness. All activity, all thought, goes forward upon the solid roadway of the recognition of the obvious fact of causality. The scientist in the laboratory, the surgeon in the operating-room, the physician at his work of diagnosis, the teacher in the classroom, the salesman dealing with a prospective buyer, the mechanic at work upon an automobile, the business man, the economist, the sociologist, the lawyer, the director of souls—all are seeking to know causes, or to produce effects, or to prevent undesirable effects. Everywhere and in everything we find causality showing itself inevitably in the activities of practical and intellectual life.

The man who denies causality denies all things; he must lapse into the endless silence of universal skepticism. Such a man has no right to take medicine for the relief of an ailment, nor to eat food to appease his hunger; to do these things would be to admit that the medicine could cause relief, and that the food could cause satisfaction of appetite. Nor has such a man even the right to defend his theory that there is no causality; for were he to offer argument, he would show that he believed argument capable of causing others to agree with him, and certainly such argument would reveal the reasons which cause him to hold his theory. Thus, the denial of causality is shown to be contradictory in theory. If the man who denies causality objects to this, if he says, "Between food and satisfied appetite, between medicine and the relief of sickness, between argument and mental conviction, there is only a relation of succession, albeit necessary succession," we answer, "Very well. You choose to call it a necessary relation; we call it cause; there is a difference in our terms, but not in the thing we mean." As a fact, those that deny causality dislike the word; they call it by another name; but they do not destroy the reality.

If there be no causality in the world, then the murderer is not the cause of his victim's death; the lazy student is not responsible for his failure in examinations; the good man deserves no praise for his virtues; the weakling is not to be encouraged, for he can in no wise amend his efforts. Thus the denial of causality is the denial of all practical morality. Hence, on grounds both speculative and practical, we reject the denial of causality as a contradictory and pernicious thing.

Causality, then, exists. There are really causes which contribute to the production of effects. Indeed, every object, every event in this finite world must have its cause or causes, and these must be adequate, i. e., sufficient to account fully for all the positive being or perfection of the effect. To limit our study to bodily objects—for our argument is to deal with this bodily or material world—we find that four causes regularly converge to produce a material or bodily thing. These causes are called, respectively, the material, the formal, the efficient, and the final cause. We shall study these as they are exhibited in a pertinent illustration:

1. I have on my desk a small marble statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This statue is neither infinite nor eternal, and hence it must have its causes; it is not a thing which must exist, but it has received existence from its causes. When I ask what these causes are, the first answer is obviously: the material, the stuff, out of which the statue is made. This is its material cause. It is a true cause, for without it the statue could not exist. The material cause of this statue is marble.

2. Now the statue might be made of wood, of plaster, of metal, or of other substance; but, as a matter of fact, it is made of none of these things, but of marble. There is something that makes this substance the precise thing that it is; there is something that makes marble marble. This is a cause of the statue, for without it the statue would not be the precise kind of substantial thing that it is. This is the substantial formal cause of the statue.—Further, the statue has its outward shape, figure, or form. This is also a cause of the statue, for without it the statue would not be just what it is. This is the accidental formal cause of the statue. We use the term accidental to signify that which happens to be present as an extrinsic determination of the effect, although the effect would be essentially the same were this determination different. Thus, the statue would be a statue and a marble statue, even if it were of a different figure, or were made to represent some other personage than the Blessed Virgin Mary.

3. The statue has had a maker. The artist who produced it is its true cause. He is the efficient cause of the statue, for by his own activity he effectively produced it as this statue, using the material substance called marble to work upon.—The tools used by the artist in making the statue are also causes of the statue, for without them it could not have been made. These are instrumental causes of the statue. Instrumental causes are not major, but minor causes, for they subserve the action of the efficient cause.—Further, the artist made the statue according to some plan or model (person, picture, sketch, image in his imagination, other statue, or the like), and this is also a cause of the statue, for without it the work of the efficient cause would not have been guided to produce just this statue. This is called the exemplary cause. Like the instrumental cause, the exemplary cause is a minor cause and subserves the action of the efficient cause.

4. The artist must have had some purpose, some end in view, in making the statue. Perhaps he made it to sell for money, perhaps he made it to express his devotion to the Blessed Mother, perhaps he merely wished to exhibit his skill, perhaps he only wanted to do something to pass away the time, perhaps he found pleasure in the work, perhaps several or all of these motives, or others, had a place in the work. In any case, the artist was moved to make the statue by some end in view which was recognized as desirable to achieve. Now, this end in view, or simply end, is a cause of the statue, for without it the efficient cause would not be stirred to make the statue. It is called the final cause of the statue (from the Latin finis, "end").

We see that of the four major causes two belong to the very being of the effect; they are intrinsic to the effect as such: these are the material and the formal cause. The other two causes, viz., the efficient and the final cause, are not part and parcel of the effect, but are extrinsic to it. Thus we divide the four causes as follows:

In the argument which we are to offer presently we shall be concerned, first and foremost, with the necessity of admitting the existence of an efficient cause of the world. But first we have to consider another matter, one closely related to the question of efficient causality—indeed, it is a part of that question.

Everything that exists must have a sufficient explanation of its existence. Nothing can exist without a sufficient reason for its existence. Now, obviously this sufficient reason must be found either in the existing thing itself, or in that which gave it existence. To put the matter in another way: if a thing exists, then either (1) it is so perfect that it must exist and cannot be non-existent, or (2) it has received existence by the action of some efficient cause.

Now, if a thing be so perfect that it must exist and cannot be non-existent, it is self-existent. Such a thing contains in itself the sufficient reason for its existence. And since i...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• BOOK FIRSTGOD
• BOOK SECOND RELIGION
• BOOK THIRD CHRIST
• BOOK FOURTH THE CHURCH
• APPENDIX. ON THE BIBLE OR HOLY SCRIP