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Show THE EXISTENCE OF GOD Modern Unbelief Moving farther Erom God-Objections God-Objections Answered faith and Science Harmonize. (Written for The Intermountain Catholic") I Our are, in its steady march of material growth, enlightenment and prepress, is proportionately ro-c-edinjr from the knowledge of God and the observance observ-ance of His commands. The corruption that exists j Tears unmistakable evidence of this, and finds its i t-ount-crpart. in ancient paganism after the groat , iipostasy. The patriarchal religion was the type from which the Gentiles receded, whose first departure de-parture was in the loss of the tradition of creation. cre-ation. It is historically evident (1) that belief in flic God was prior to the belief in many gods, and 2)' that the worship of one God long existed be- . fore the call of Abraham. In studying Gentilim ' tinder its various forms, and in the light of an- ! c icnt history, there can be no other conclusion than that, it was a corruption of the true faith handed j down by the Patriarchs and revealed in Paradise. 1 Its many inconsistencies various absurdities and ! licentious excess iven ess bear testimony to the fact that it was a departure from the original type of the one true God worshipped by the Israelites. The farther the departure in time, the less they retained of the original type. The same fact is evident in the present age. The Catholic church is the continuation con-tinuation of the synagogue. It is the type, and the farther removed have those who separated from her communion become, the less do they retain of the original deposit of faith. The tendency of the age, in all newly formed creeds, is to minimize failh. indulge in vague generalities regarding God and man's relations to his Creator. Orthodox Protestants, Protest-ants, who still adhere to their founder's name, retain less of the primitive faith than their founders found-ers had. In modern, like ancient, times, a changeable change-able creed leads in its final development to zero. This we see fully realized in agnosticism. There is a downward tendency, so much so. that unbelief, even the denial of God, is becoming popular,' and what is popular, not what is true, sways the masses. The traces of Catholic belief still retained are only jvmiuisences of the past, and even agnosticism 1 would be preferable to Catholic faith in its plen- i titude to most of the sects which are opposed to I her teaching. SThc real living issue of the day is not the articles ar-ticles of faith, which the CaUiolic church authoring, authori-ng, tive.ly proposes to manV belief, for reason and eom- mon pense, together with ancient tradition, and the example of the syname, show tlxat without an Authoritative teacher the demand of God "He that believeth not shall be condemned"' co i!d not be fulfilled, but the existence of God. Modern unbelief, though not openly and avowedly atheistical, questions all forms of belief which they term superstitious. But how explain the origin of this faith in God which is coeval and coexistent with the history of the human race Will it be said that this belief has no foundation in fact, nor can reason demonstrate- that God is. Both suppositions are false. If. supposing the im-. possible, man was at any past period of human existences ex-istences ignorant of the existence of a Supreme ! Being, he could not by any possible known means originate that belief. Xot. as some suppose, by infusing in-fusing into the mind of the child symptoms of awe, wonder, fear. etc. For in the first place the human race began, not iu childhood, but in manhood; man-hood; and. secondly, before the father could infuse those feelings of awe, wonder, fear or love for some invisible being, he must intellectually apprehend appre-hend that, being. What is entirely unknown to the human mind cannot be an object of desire, love, fear or reverence. The passions, which are blind, ! obscure the intellect and caused the Gentiles to ( wander away from the knowledge of the one true j God. and identify the reminiscence of that ancient 1 faith still retained after their separation from the synagogue with wood, stone, the sun. moon, rop- ' tiles and all the elements of nature. But could the j passions generate this belief, if the knowledge of 1 God. or Divine element, had not previously existed? ex-isted? Impossible. Truth must be prior to error, which is simply a negation, and with an affirmation affirma-tion a denial is a mere nullity. The neat hen deities nre subsequent to the belief in one God. and instead in-stead of disproving that they had any knowledge of the Divine, or proving th-Jt the passions gene-Dated gene-Dated the belief, the contrary is 1 he case. The corruption cor-ruption is proof sufficient of the genuine, its application, ap-plication, even in a corrupt form, necessarily presupposes pre-supposes the belief. Hence, our modern unbelievers who adopt the maxim of the old Roman philosopher, philoso-pher, Lucretius, that, "fear made the gods." err, localise the fear necessarily follows the belief. !. therefore could not generate it. I Again, supposing the impossible, if a colony of I lavages existed in an isolated island and never j heard of a Great Spirit. Supreme Being or the Di-I Di-I vine Element, their sense of awe. wonder or ad-I ad-I miration would not and could not in the develop-I develop-I ment of their intellects for a thousand ages, gene- rate a belief in God. Why? Because, supposing an-I. an-I. other absurdity, namely, that by their own inherent efforts they could read) civilization and begin to :j reason,, there is no mental process by which they eould arrive at the conclusion that God is. The I f-ense of awe. wonder, etc, belongs to 1he soul, and I from particular sentiments no general conclusion ! of the existence of a Supreme Being could be logi- rally d-dueed. At best, all (the impossible suppo-I suppo-I ition) a civilize! savage could conclude logically I from his inward feelings would be that he had a I eouh lie might attempt to analyze his thoughts. I hut jn the supposition that he is entirely ignorant j of God. he could not find God in the analysis of these thoughts of wonder, admiration, etc." Then j he could find him at all, and could not j possibly originate the belief. Here the practical I question is: Since belief in God brings usback I to the root of the human race, and existed in some I form or other among-st all nations and people, civ-I civ-I ilized and savage, how did that belief originate? I "My parents lold me," says the pretentious unbe- liever, "and I suppose they were instructed in the j t-amc way by their parents, and so on back to the I heg-inning." But there must be a beginning, for an infinite series, of teachers is an infinite absurdity, and on the unbeliever, standing- in spirit before the first teacher who taught his children the knowledge knowl-edge of God. rests the burden of proof as to how that belief originated. The various theories advanced, ad-vanced, as we have shown, are both absurd and illogical, il-logical, and the only possible explanation that can be given is that God revealed himself to our first parents, as we read in Genesis. Then the belief has a foundation in fact, and is reasonable, too. God revealing himself to our first parents is a matter of faith, because it belongs to the supernatural super-natural order, but the knowledge, that God is, is also matter of (science. If there were no proofs that clearly demonstate the existence of God, then it might be said that the belief was a superstition, or that it, was not reasonable. Such, however, is not the case. It is not denied that in time superstition super-stition and superstitious practices were interwoven with the faith first revealed. But the reasons for all this have been already given. "To err is human." Faith and science are twin sisters. What faith teaches must be also a matter of science, i. e., the motives of credibility must rest on a scientific basis. ba-sis. We must know through reason that God ex-. ex-. ists. and is the Creator of heaven and earth and all things. To know that God exists, from motives of credibility that have a scientific basis, it is not necessary that the human mind should originate that knowledge, for, if reason confirms what has ; loen revealed, then that belief passes into the domain do-main of sciepee. ' Heason begets no new knowledge." Its province is to develop and make clear truths that the human mind could not apprehend at first sight. A man may have a clear perception of a right angle, and a triangle, but no conception at all of how the three angles of the triangle would or could equal two right angles. Reason, with certain premises, which are verities, clearly demonstrates that they are equal. This could not be termed a 'discovery of new knowledge, but the development ot certain i known premises. Without those premises it could j not work. Neither can reason furnish its. own premises. They are always given and stand as first j principles both in the mixed sciences and in j philosophy. When I say the whole is greater than a part, that stands as a first principle, and is prior i to reason. Whilst reason, then, may not originate j the belief in God. that faith is none the less seien- I tific, if reason, from the premises already furnished, i. c, first principles, clearly demonstrates the ex- i istence of God. This reason can and has demonstrated. demon-strated. St. Paul says: .''From the visible things of this world we come to the knowledge of the invisible.' in-visible.' From the known we reach the unknown; from our knowledge of the creature we must conclude con-clude a Creator. F. D. 4 |