Lectures on the Proofs of the Existence of God/Amplification of the Teleological and Ontological Proofs 1827
Amongst the proofs of the existence of God, the Cosmological occupies the first place. Only in it is the affirmative, absolute Being, the Infinite, defined not merely as infinite in general, but, in contrast to the characteristic of contingency, as absolutely necessary. The True is the absolutely necessary Essence, and not merely Being or Essence.
This category already involves other characteristics. In fact, these proofs might be multiplied by dozens; each stage of the logical Idea may contribute its quota. The characteristic of absolute necessity is involved in the course of thought described.
The absolutely necessary Essence, taken in a general, abstract sense, is Being not as immediate, but as reflected into itself. We have defined Essence as the non-finite, the negation of that negative we term the finite. That to which we make the transition is thus not abstract Being, barren Being, but Being which is the negation of the negation.
It involves in it the element of difference, the difference which carries itself back into simplicity. In this Infinite, this absolute Being or Essence, there is thus involved the determination of difference, negation of the negation, but difference as it relates itself to itself. But determination of this kind is what we call self-determination. Negation is determination or specification, negation of determination is itself an act of determination. To posit a difference, is just to posit a determination. Where there is no negation, there is no difference, no determination.
In this unity, in this absolute Being, there is thus involved determination in general, and it is indeed in it since it is self-determination. It is thus defined as determination which is in itself and does not come from without. This unrest is involved in its very nature as the negation of the negation, and this unrest determines itself more definitely as activity. This determination of Essence in itself is Necessity in itself, the positing of determination, of difference, and the cancelling and absorption of it in such a way that the one is action, and this self-determination thus reached remains in simple relation to itself.
Finite Being does not continue to be an Other; there is no gulf between the Infinite and the finite. The finite is something which cancels itself, loses itself in something higher, so that its truth is the Infinite, what has Being in-and-for-itself. Finite, contingent Being is something which implicitly negates itself, but this negation which it undergoes is just the Affirmative, a transition to affirmation, and this affirmation is the absolutely necessary Essence.
Another form of the argument, the basis of which is constituted by the same characteristic, and which is the same in respect of the characteristic of the form, though the content is greater, is seen in the Physico-theological or Teleological Proof. Here, too, we have finite Being on one side; but it is not determined merely abstractly as Being only, but as something which has in it a determination with a richer content, that of something living. Life taken in its more specific sense implies that there are ends in Nature, and that there is an arrangement in conformity with these ends, which is, at the same time, not produced by these ends, so that the orderly arrangement is there independently for itself, and though from a different point of view it may be characterised as an end also, still what is thus actually given shows itself to be in conformity with these ends.
The physico-theological method of regarding the world can be merely the study of outward teleological arrangement, and so this way of looking at things has fallen into discredit, and justly too; for here we have to do merely with finite ends, which require means, as, for instance, the fact that Man requires this or that for his animal life. This might be further specified. If we regard these ends as something primary, and hold that there exist means for the satisfaction of these ends, and that it is God who permits these means to exist for the sake of such ends, then we very soon come to see that this method of regarding things is inadequate to express what God is.
These ends, in so far as they appear in definite special forms, are seen to be essentially unimportant, so that we cannot possibly hold them in high esteem, and cannot conceive that they represent something which is the direct object of the will and wisdom of God. All this has been summed up in one of Goethe’s Xenien. There some one is represented as praising God the Creator, on the ground that He created the cork tree in order that we might have stoppers.
We may remark in reference to the Kantian philosophy that Kant, in his “Critique of Judgment,” adduced the important conception of inner ends, that is, the conception of life-force. This is Aristotle’s conception, namely, that every living thing is an end which has its means in itself, its members, its organisation; and the process of these members constitutes the end, that is to say, the movement of life.
This is infinite, not finite conformity to an end, in which end and means are not outside themselves. The means produces the end, and the end the means. The world is living, it contains the movement of life and the realm of living things. What has not life—inorganic Nature, the sun, the stars—stands in an essential and direct relation to what has life, and to Man in so far as he in a measure belongs to living Nature, and partly because he sets particular ends before himself. This finite conformity to an end is found in Man.
That is the characteristic note of life in general, and at the same time of life as it actually is, life as seen in the world. This, it is true, is life in itself, inner conformity to an end; but it means that each kind or species of life represents a very narrow sphere, and has a very limited nature.
The real advance accordingly is from this finite mode of life to absolute, universal conformity to an end, to the thought that this world is a κόσμος, a system, in which everything has an essential relation to everything else, and nothing is isolated; something which is regularly arranged in itself, in which everything has its place, is closely connected with the whole, subsists through the whole, and thus takes an active part in the production, in the life of the whole.
The main point thus is that a transition is made from finite life to one universal life, to one end which is articulated into particular ends, in such a way that in this particularisation things are in a condition of harmony and of reciprocal essential relation.
God is defined, to begin with, as the absolutely necessary Essence; but this definition, as Kant has already observed, falls very far short of expressing the conception of God. God alone is the absolute necessity, but this definition does not exhaust the conception of God; the definition in which He is described as the universal life-force, the one universal life, is both higher and deeper.
Since life is essentially subjectivity, something living, this universal life is subjective, the νοῦς, a soul. Thus the idea of the soul is involved in the universal life, the characteristic of the one all-disposing, all-ruling, organising νοῦς.
As regards the formal element here, we have to note the very same thing as we found in connection with the previous proofs. We have here once more the transition of the Understanding; because there are arrangements, ends of a like kind, there is a wisdom which disposes and orders everything. But the act of rising to this thought involves at the same time the negative moment, which is the main point, namely, that this life, these ends as they actually are, and as existing in their immediate finite form, do not represent what is true. On the contrary, it is this one life movement, this one νοῦς, which is what is true.
There are not two things; there is indeed a starting-point, but the mediation is of such a character that in the transition what is the first does not continue to be the basis, the condition. On the contrary, its untruth, its negation, is involved in this transition; the negation of the negative, finite element in it, the negation of the particularity of life. This negative is negated, and in this act of elevation, finite particularity disappears. As representing truth, the object of consciousness is the system of one life movement, the νοῦς of one life movement, the soul, the Universal Soul.
Here it happens again that this definition: God is the one universal active force of life, the soul which produces, posits, organises a κόσμος, is a conception which does not yet suffice to express the conception of God. It is essentially involved in the conception of God that He is Spirit.
We have still to consider the third, essential and absolute form from this point of view. In the transition just referred to, the content was life, the finite life movement, immediate life which actually exists. Here in the third form the content which forms the basis is Spirit. Put in the form of a syllogism, it runs thus: Because finite minds exist or are,—and it is Being which here constitutes the starting-point,—therefore the absolute Mind or Spirit exists or is.
But this “because,” this merely affirmative relation, is defective in this respect, that the finite minds would require to be thought of as the basis, and God would be a consequence of the existence of finite minds. The true form is: There are finite minds, but the finite has no truth, the truth of the finite spirit is the absolute Spirit.
The finitude of finite minds is no true Being; it is by its very nature dialectic, which implies that it abrogates itself, negates itself, and the negation of this finitude is affirmation as infinitude, as something universal in-and-for-itself. This is the highest form of the transition; for the transition is here Spirit itself.
There are in this connection two characteristics, Being and God. In so far as we start from Being, this latter, looked at as it first shows itself, is directly finite. Since these characteristics exist, we could equally as well begin from God and go on to Being, though, when we say we could, we must remember that we cannot speak of what we can do in connection with the conception of God, because He is absolute necessity.
This starting-point when it thus appears in finite form does not yet involve Being; for a God who is not, is something finite, and is not truly God. The finitude of this relation consists in the fact that it is subjective, that it is this general conception in fact. God has existence, but He has only this purely finite existence in our idea of Him.
This is one-sided; we have introduced into this content, namely, God, the taint of that one-sidedness, that finitude, which is termed the idea of God. The main point is that the idea should get rid of this defect whereby it is something merely represented in the mind, something subjective, and that this content should have attached to it the determination of Being.
We have to consider this second mediation as it appears in this finite form, or form of the Understanding, in the shape of the Ontological Proof. This proof starts from the Notion or conception of God, and goes from this to Being. We do not find this transition amongst the ancients, for instance in Greek philosophy, nor was it made in the Christian Church till after a long time. It was one of the great scholastic philosophers, Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, that profound, philosophical thinker, who first grasped this idea.
We have the idea of God; but He is not merely an idea, He is. How are we to make this transition? How are we to get to see that God is not merely something subjective in us? How is this determination of Being to be mediated with God?
The Kantian criticism was directed against this so-called Ontological Proof too, and with triumphant success, so to speak, in its day. It is still held at the present day that these proofs have been refuted as being worthless efforts on the part of the Understanding. We have, however, already recognised the fact that the act whereby these higher thoughts are here reached is the act of Spirit, the act peculiarly belonging to thinking Spirit, which Man will not renounce the right to exercise; and so, too, this proof is an act of the same sort.
The ancients did not know of this transition; for, in order to arrive at it, it is necessary that Spirit should go down into itself as deeply as possible. Spirit, when once it has arrived at its highest form of freedom, namely, subjectivity, first conceives this thought of God as subjective, and reaches first this antithesis of subjectivity and objectivity.
Anselm expressed the nature of this transition in the following fashion. The idea of God is that He is absolutely perfect. If accordingly we think of God only as idea, then we find that what is merely subjective, and merely represented in the form of an idea, is defective, and not perfect; for that is the more perfect which is not merely represented as an idea, but also is, really is. Therefore, since God is what is most perfect, He is not idea merely, but, on the contrary, He is possessed of actuality or reality.
The later, broader, and more rational form which represents the development of this thought of Anselm asserts that the conception or Notion of God implies that He is the Substance of all realities, the most real Essence. But Being also is reality, therefore Being belongs to Him.
It has been urged against this that Being is no reality, that it does not belong to the reality of a notion. Reality in a notion or conception implies determinate content in a notion, but Being adds nothing to the notion or to the content of the notion. Kant has put it in the following plausible form: I form an idea of a hundred thalers; but the notion or conception, the determinateness of the content is the same whether I form an idea of them, or whether I actually possess them.
As against the first proposition that Being ought to follow from the Notion in general, it has been urged that Notion and Being are different from each other: the Notion thus exists for itself, while Being is different. Being must come to the Notion from the outside, from elsewhere. Being is not involved in the Notion. This can be put in a very plausible way by the aid of the hundred thalers.
In ordinary life an idea of a hundred thalers is called a notion or conception. That is not a notion at all in which you may have any kind of determination of content. It is certainly true that Being may not belong to an abstract sense-idea such as blue, or to any determinateness of the Understanding which happens to be in my mind; but then this ought not to be called a notion.
The Notion, and still more the absolute Notion, the Notion in-and-for-itself, the Notion of God, is to be taken for itself, and this Notion contains Being as a determinate characteristic. Being is a form of the determinateness of the Notion. This may easily be shown to be the case in two ways.
First of all, the Notion is essentially the Universal which determines itself, which particularises itself; it is what has the active power of differentiation, of particularising and determining itself, of positing a finitude, and of negating this its own finitude, and of being through the negation of this finitude identical with itself.
This is the Notion in general. This is just what the Notion of God, the absolute Notion, God, really is. God as Spirit or as love means that God particularises Himself, begets the Son, creates the world, an Other of Himself, and possesses Himself, is identical with Himself, in this Other.
In the Notion in general, and still more in the Idea, what, in fact, we see is, that through the negation of the particularisation, the positing of which is at the same time the work of the activity which He Himself is, He is identical with Himself, relates Himself to Himself.
The primary question is, What is Being? what is this attribute, this determinateness, namely, reality? Being is nothing but the unutterable, the inconceivable; it is not that concrete something which the Notion is, but merely the abstraction of reference to self. We may say, it is immediacy, Being is the Immediate in general, and conversely the Immediate is Being, it is in relation to itself, that is, the mediation is negated.
This determination, namely, reference to self, or immediacy, accordingly directly exists for itself in the Notion in general, and it is involved in the absolute Notion, in the Notion of God, that He is reference to self. This abstract reference to self is directly found in the Notion itself.
The Notion is what has life, what is self-mediating; and so Being, too, is one of its characteristics. Being is different from the Notion to this extent, that Being is not the entire Notion, but is only one of its characteristics, merely that simple aspect of the Notion in virtue of which it is at home with itself, is self-identity.
Being is the determination which is found in the Notion as something different from the Notion, because the Notion is the whole of which Being is only one determination. The other point is that the Notion contains this determination in itself, this latter is one of its determinations; but Being is also different from the Notion, because the Notion is the totality. In so far as they are different, mediation forms a necessary element in their union.
They are not immediately identical; all immediacy is true and real only in so far as it is mediation within self, and conversely all mediation, in so far as it is immediacy in itself, has reference to self. The Notion is different from Being, and the peculiar quality of the difference lies in this that the Notion absorbs and abolishes it.
The Notion is the totality, represented by the movement, the process, whereby it makes itself objective. The Notion as such, as distinct from Being, is something purely subjective, and that implies a defect. The Notion, however, is all that is deepest and highest. The very idea of the Notion implies that it has to do away with this defect of subjectivity, with this distinction between itself and Being, and has to objectify itself. It is itself the act of producing itself as something which has Being, as something objective.
Whenever we think of the Notion, we must give up the idea that it is something which we only possess, and construct within ourselves. The Notion is the Soul, the final-end of an object, of what has life; what we call Soul is the Notion, and in Spirit, in consciousness, the Notion as such attains to existence as a free Notion existing in its subjectivity as distinct from its reality as such.
The sun, the animal is the Notion merely, but has not the Notion; for them the Notion has not become objective. It is in consciousness and not in the sun that we find that division which is called I, the existing Notion, the Notion in its subjective reality, and I, this Notion, am the subjective.
No man, however, is content with his mere self-hood. The Ego is active, and this activity shows itself in objectifying self, in giving to it reality, definite existence. In its more extended and concrete signification, this activity of the Notion is impulse. All sense of satisfaction arises through this process whereby subjectivity is done away with, and what is inward and subjective is posited as at the same time outward, objective, and real, that process by which the unity of the merely subjective and merely objective is brought about, and the two are stripped of their one-sidedness.
There is nothing so well illustrated by all that goes on in the world as the abolition of the antithesis of subjective and objective, whereby the unity of the two is effected.
The thought of Anselm, therefore, so far as its content is concerned, is the truer and more necessary thought; but the form of the proof deduced from it is certainly defective in the same way as the modes of mediation previously referred to. This unity of Notion and Being is hypothetical, and its defect consists just in the very fact of its being hypothetical.
What is presupposed is that the pure Notion, the Notion in-and-for-itself, the Notion of God, is, involves Being also.
If we compare this content with faith or immediate knowledge, we shall find that the content is the same as that of Anselm’s presupposition.
When the matter is regarded from this standpoint of immediate knowledge, what is said is this. It is a fact of consciousness that I have the idea of God, and along with this idea, Being must be given, so that Being is bound up with the content of the idea. If it is said that we believe it, that we know it immediately, then the unity of the idea and Being is expressed in the form of the presupposition just exactly as it is in Anselm’s argument, and we have not got one bit further. This is the presupposition we everywhere meet with in Spinoza too. He defines the Absolute Cause, Substance, as that which cannot be thought of as not existing, the conception of which involves existence; that is, the idea of God is directly bound up with Being.
This inseparableness of Notion and Being is found in an absolute form only in the case of God. The finitude of things consists in the fact that the Notion, and the determinate form of the Notion, and the Being of the Notion, are essentially different. The finite is what does not correspond to its notion or rather to the Notion.
We have the notion of Soul; the reality, the Being is represented by the corporeal form. Man is mortal; we express this truth also by saying, Soul and body can part. There we have the fact of separation, but in the pure Notion we have the inseparableness referred to.
When we say that every impulse is an example of the Notion which realises itself, we are saying what is formally correct; the impulse which has received satisfaction is undoubtedly infinite so far as the form is concerned. But the impulse has a content, and so far as the determinate character of its content is concerned, it is finite and limited; in this respect it does not correspond to the Notion, to the pure Notion.
This is the explanation of what is involved in the standpoint of the knowledge of the Notion. What was considered last was the knowledge of God, the certainty of the existence of God in general. The essential thought in this connection is the following. When we have knowledge of an object, the object is before us; we are directly related to it. But this immediacy involves mediation, what was called the act of rising to God, the fact that the human spirit comes to consider the finite as non-existent.
By means of this negation Man’s spirit raises itself to God, brings itself into harmony with God. The conclusion: I know that God is, is the simple relation which has originated in this negation.