A Candid Examination of Theism | Page 5

the course of the following pages.
Seeing then that, with this partial exception, no competent writer has
hitherto endeavoured once for all to settle the long-standing question as
to the rational probability of Theism, I cannot but feel that any attempt,
however imperfect, to do this, will be welcome to thinkers of every
school--the more so in view of the fact that the prodigious rapidity
which of late years has marked the advance both of physical and of
speculative science, has afforded highly valuable data for assisting us
towards a reasonable and, I think, a final decision as to the strictly
logical standing of this important matter. However, be my attempt
welcome or no, I feel that it is my obvious duty to publish the results
which have been yielded by an honest and careful analysis.
§ 2. I may most fitly begin this analysis by briefly disposing of such
arguments in favour of Theism as are manifestly erroneous. And I do
this the more willingly because, as these arguments are at the present
time most in vogue, an exposure of their fallacies may perhaps deter
our popular apologists of the future from drawing upon themselves the
silent contempt of every reader whose intellect is not either prejudiced
or imbecile.
§ 3. A favourite piece of apologetic juggling is that of first demolishing
Atheism, Pantheism, Materialism, &c., by successively calling upon
them to explain the mystery of self-existence, and then tacitly assuming
that the need of such an explanation is absent in the case of Theism--as
though the attribute in question were more conceivable when posited in
a Deity than when posited elsewhere.
It is, I hope, unnecessary to observe that, so far as the ultimate mystery
of existence is concerned, any and every theory of things is equally
entitled to the inexplicable fact that something is; and that any
endeavour on the part of the votaries of one theory to shift from
themselves to the votaries of another theory the onus of explaining the
necessarily inexplicable, is an instance of irrationality which borders on
the ludicrous.

§ 4. Another argument, or semblance of an argument, is the very
prevalent one, "Our heart requires a God; therefore it is probable that
there is a God:" as though such a subjective necessity, even if made out,
could ever prove an objective existence.[1]
§ 5. If it is said that the theistic aspirations of the human heart, by the
mere fact of their presence, point to the existence of a God as to their
explanatory cause, I answer that the argument would only be valid after
the possibility of any more proximate causes having been in action has
been excluded--else the theistic explanation violates the fundamental
rule of science, the Law of Parcimony, or the law which forbids us to
assume the action of more remote causes where more proximate ones
are found sufficient to explain the effects. Consequently, the validity of
the argument now under consideration is inversely proportional to the
number of possibilities there are of the aspirations in question being
due to the agency of physical causes; and forasmuch as our ignorance
of psychological causation is well-nigh total, the Law of Parcimony
forbids us to allow any determinate degree of logical value to the
present argument. In other words, we must not use the absence of
knowledge as equivalent to its presence--must not argue from our
ignorance of psychological possibilities, as though this ignorance were
knowledge of corresponding impossibilities. The burden of proof thus
lies on the side of Theism, and from the nature of the case this burden
cannot be discharged until the science of psychology shall have been
fully perfected. I may add that, for my own part, I cannot help feeling
that, even in the present embryonic condition of this science, we are not
without some indications of the manner in which the aspirations in
question arose; but even were this not so, the above considerations
prove that the argument before us is invalid. If it is retorted that the fact
of these aspirations having had proximate causes to account for their
origin, even if made out, would not negative the inference of these
being due to a Deity as to their ultimate cause; I answer that this is not
to use the argument from the presence of these aspirations; it is merely
to beg the question as to the being of a God.
§ 6. Next, we may consider the argument from consciousness. Many
persons ground their belief in the existence of a Deity upon a real or

supposed necessity of their own subjective thought. I say "real or
supposed," because, in its bearing upon rational argument, it is of no
consequence of which character the alleged necessity actually is. Even
if the necessity of thought be