Stonyhurst Philosophical Series

Natural Theology

by

Bernard Boedder, S.J.

Second Edition

Longmans, Green, and Co.
39 Paternoster Row, London
New York and Bombay
1902

Preface

Introduction
BOOK I. Of the Existence of God.

CHAPTER I. Views of Monotheistic Philosophers on the Natural Foundation of a Reasonable Belief in God. Refutation of Ontologism and of the so-called Ontological Argument.

SECTION 1. -- Explanation of the different opinions about God's existence and the proofs for it.
SECTION 2. -- Refutation of Ontologism.

CHAPTER II. Proofs for the Existence of an Intelligent First Cause or Personal God.

SECTION 1. -- Method of Proof.
SECTION 2. -- The Argument of the First Cause.
SECTION 3. -- The Argument from Design.
SECTION 4. -- The Moral Proof.
SECTION 5. -- Logical consequences of Agnosticism.

CHAPTER III. On the Fundamental Attributes of the Personal God and his Fundamental Relation to Things Distinct from Him.

SECTION 1. -- The Unity of God
SECTION 2. -- The Simplicity of God.
SECTION 3. -- The Infinity of God.

CHAPTER IV. The Fundamental Relation of God to the World. Refutation of Pantheism. Doctrine of Creation.

SECTION 1. -- Definition of Creation.
SECTION 2. -- Pantheism.
SECTION 3. -- The Contingency of the World.
SECTION 4. -- The Dependence of all things on God.
SECTION 5. -- Proof of an Immediate Influence of God.
SECTION 6. -- Proof of Creation.
SECTION 7. -- Possibility and limitation of the world accounted for by the Divine Infinity.
SECTION 8. -- Proof that God alone can create.
SECTION 9. -- Proof that God is the immediate Author of Mind and Matter.
SECTION 10. -- Creation a free act of God's will.
SECTION 11. -- Creation not necessarily Eternal.
SECTION 12. -- On the possibility of Eternal Creation.
SECTION 13. -- The beginning of this World.

CHAPTER V. Solution of Difficulties against the Fundamental Truths of Natural Theology.

SECTION 1. -- Arguments urged by Traditionalists in favour of the opinion, that only by faith can we be certain of God's existence.
SECTION 2. -- Kant's difficulties against the proofs of God's existence.
SECTION 3. -- Difficulties of Spencer and Mill against the proof of a First Cause.
SECTION 4. -- Difficulties of Mill and Lange against the Argument from Design.
SECTION 5. -- Darwin's reasons for doubting the existence of God.
SECTION 6. -- Spinoza's proof that God is the only substance, and that everything else is a mode of God.
SECTION 7. -- Remarks on the theories of Fichte, Hegel, and others.
SECTION 8. -- Aristotle's reasons for the necessity of eternal motion. Similar modern arguments from the writings of Kant and Cousin.
SECTION 9. -- Mansel's arguments for the doctrine that all our attempts to form to ourselves the idea of God involve us in contradiction.

BOOK II. The Divine Attributes.

CHAPTER I. The Immutability of God.
CHAPTER II. The Eternity of God.
CHAPTER III. The Immensity of God.
CHAPTER IV. The Divine Intellect.

SECTION 1. -- The perfection of the Divine Intellect contrasted with the defects of the human.
SECTION 2. -- God's Knowledge completely determined by His Essence.
SECTION 3. -- The objects of Divine Thought.
SECTION 4. -- The manner in which God knows the free acts of His rational creatures.
SECTION 5. -- The Divisions of the Divine Knowledge.

CHAPTER V. The Divine Will.

SECTION 1. -- Necessity aud freedom of the Will of God.
SECTION 2. -- Holiness and other moral attributes of the Divine Will.
SECTION 3. -- The Will of God as supreme Life and Beatitude.

CHAPTER VI. The Omnipotence of God.
CHAPTER VII. The Metaphysical Essence of God.

BOOK III. The Action of God upon This World.

CHAPTER I. Divine Preservation and Concurrence.

SECTION 1. -- The Divine conservation of creatures.
SECTION 2. -- Simultaneous Concurrence of God in the actions of creatures.
SECTION 3. -- Controverted question about physical premotion and predetermination.

CHAPTER II. Divine Providence and its Relation to Existing Evil.

SECTION 1. -- The existence of Divine Providence.
SECTION 2. -- The relation of Providence to existing evil.

CHAPTER III. Possibility of a Supernatural Providence.

SECTION 1. -- Miracles conceivable and possible.
SECTION 2. -- Miracles can be known as such.

APPENDIX I. St. Thomas and Premotion.
APPENDIX II. Examination of Propositions I. - VI. in Spinoza's Ethics.
APPENDIX III. Immediate Consciousness of God in the Patristic Writings.
APPENDIX IV. St. Thomas and the Idea of Indeterminate Being.
APPENDIX V. The Logical Connection between the Self-Existence, Unity, and Infinity of God.
APPENDIX VI. On the Optimism of St. Thomas.

Index

Preface.

THE manual of Natural Theology which now makes its appearance before the English-speaking public, existed in manuscript substantially ready for print in the year 1889. Through a combination of untoward circumstances its publication has been delayed till now. The delay in its appearance has not been without advantage for the book itself. Its subject makes it most suitable to be the last in order of publication among those volumes of the Stonyhurst Series which are concerned about Speculative Philosophy; for though the utmost care has been taken to make it intelligible even to those who have studied no other branch of Philosophy, yet minds prepared for the reading of this manual by a careful perusal of its companions in the department of Speculative Philosophy, will arrive at a far deeper and fuller understanding of its contents. The better readers are versed in the laws of right reasoning by the study of Logic, the more thoroughly convinced they are of the absolute necessity for the human mind to admit the existence, sources, and criteria of Certitude, as laid down in the First Principles of our Series, the greater diligence they have bestowed upon acquiring a firm grasp of the fundamental notions and principles treated of in General Metaphysics, and the more solid the knowledge is they have gained of the moral freedom, spirituality, and immortality of the human soul expounded in Psychology, the greater will be their ability to appreciate and to turn to practical account the doctrine about God which is explained and defended in the present volume.

This manual embraces not only those questions which in our Latin compendia usually are treated of under the heading Theologia Naturalis, but also those which commonly are discussed as a part of Cosmologia. This was done in order to give the necessary completeness to the treatment of my subject. Our English volumes are in the first place intended to help those who do not intend to study in detail Catholic Theology to a sound understanding of the most important questions of Philosophy, and particularly to show them the way to judge intelligently and to solve clearly modern difficulties against those natural truths which form the basis of Christianity.

In the celebrated Catholic controversy about the manner of Divine foreknowledge of and concurrence in human actions, it has been my endeavour to give a good account of the opposite opinions and of my own position. I have purposely avoided quotations, as often as I could conveniently without doing harm to the cause of truth, in order to eliminate any element of prejudice or party strife.

B. BOEDDER St. Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst April 4, 1891.

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