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JOHN E. SMITH
Clark Professor of Philosophy, Tale University
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JOHN E. SMITH
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with objects and hence cannot avail ourselves of the distinction between
presence and absence taken for granted in ordinary experience. The
distinction, nevertheless, between idea and the objective referent remains in
discourse about God although the point is frequently lost on those who insist
on saying that the Ontological Argument is fallacious because we all know
that you cannot obtain existence from 'mere' ideas. I shall not pursue this
point beyond the observation that whether there are any ' mere' ideas, and
particularly whether the idea of God is one of them, is precisely the point
at issue.
It is not my intention to continue discussion of the central problem in terms
of Anselm's particular experience and Argument. It is, however, of the
highest significance that the problem should have arisen within the experience
of a thinker who invested so much in a single and self-sufficient argument
for the existence of God. The demand for the experience of presence would
certainly be expected from avowed mystics who seek to transcend rational
articulation, or from those whose sole appeal is to 'encounter' because they
regard the way of argument inappropriate or misguided. That a thinker like
Anselm, however, should make this demand is evidence that rational
demonstration, even when accepted as logically valid, leaves something out
of account.
The problem of resolving the tension between direct experience and
argument in discourse about God has persisted over centuries and continues
to present itself in ever new forms. The scepticism concerning the viability
of the classical theistic arguments stemming from the criticism of Hume and
Kant was often accompanied by forms of pietism stressing an immediate
relation to God not dependent on any sort of rational demonstration.
Kierkegaard's claim that we can never argue to existence and his consequent
rejection of proof in favour of meeting God in the leap of faith represents a
more recent instance of this same reaction. In a similar vein, the theologians
of 'encounter' sought to interpret the relation of the individual to God
exclusively on the ' I-Thou' model of personal relationships that have a
self-authenticating character and are not to be confused with 'knowledge
about' the persons involved nor with argument of any sort.
Critics of this way of approach, on the other hand, have insisted on the
difficulties posed by the supposition of wholly 'immediate' experience and
on the inescapability of inference and interpretation for articulating any
experience whatever. The curious fact about this confrontation between those
who reject argument in their insistence on encounter, and those who criticize
encounter as not self-supporting apart from argument and interpretation, is
that each side assumes that there is no other alternative but the dyadic one
of either direct experience (immediacy) or argument. This assumption, like
the belief that knowledge means that we have certainty or if we do not that
we know nothing at all, is profoundly mistaken, the result of polarized
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JOHN E. SMITH
thinking determined by the belief that the truth resides in the total negation
of whatever stands directly opposed to what one is trying to maintain. It is
not difficult to show that there is no dimension of our meaningful relations to
reality in which we are able to proceed on the basis of either immediate
perception or rational construction alone.1 Howsoever they are related, the
two are always present together, nor do the admittedly special circumstances
that attend discourse about God radically alter that togetherness. Immediacy
and encounter are not self-supporting apart from various modes of rational
articulation - description, interpretation, comparison, and inference - and
the striking fact about the mystics whom Royce correctly described as the
'pure empiricists' of the religious spirit is that even they have felt the need
for, at times, voluminous measures of expression. The sacred silence of
immediacy has, to be sure, its own central place in the world of the mystics,
but that silence has often proved eloquent enough. The truth is, as Hegel
saw, that if there is to be any immediacy at all, it can come only as the upshot
of mediation and not at the 'beginning'.
On the other hand, the Pascals, Jameses, Kierkegaards, and Edwardses
have been correct in their insistence that formal, rational demonstrations of
divine existence quite out of touch with any experiences from which even the
idea of God itself might arise can never have the religious significance that
should be the central concern. For, among other reasons, the existence of God
is an abstract feature with no more concreteness than that possessed by the
' I ' of Descartes when he expressed the certainty that it exists without yet
knowing what it is. No process of reasoning about God's existence, moreover,
set out with tolerably clear premises and controlled by explicit principles of
inference can by itselfhr'mg the reasoner into the relation of love, of reverence,
of faith standing at the heart of religion. And if this is what is meant by those
who say that God is not to be found in the conclusion of a syllogism, anyone
acquainted with the religious dimension of life must agree. Such agreement,
however, does not settle the matter any more than it would be resolved merely
by insisting on the necessity of some form of mediation. It should be clear
that neither immediacy nor inference is sufficient when taken alone; no
progress is to be found in perpetuating the polar opposition in which the
proponents of each side go to extreme lengths and involve themselves in
untenable exaggerations in order to possess the field exclusively.
The one solution enabling us to transcend the futile dyad is to be found
in experience interpreted in a reflective process whereby its implicit meaning is
made rationally explicit and in such a way that the resultant interpretation
is neither set over against the experience as a contrast between 'reality' and
'mere thought', nor allowed to supplant the original experience as if it were
unimportant and could be dispensed with. Both these aberrations must be
1
It is interesting to note that the whole point of Kant's intuitionism in mathematics was to show that
even in that discipline something in addition to 'pure reason' is at work.
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JOHN E. SMITH
the necessary as well. When Peirce refers, as he does throughout the paper,
to God as the creator and coordinator of the three Universes of Experience,
it must be understood that he means the three dimensions of his conception
of what there is. There is, first, the Universe of Ideas or possibilities consisting
in their capability of being thought; secondly, there is the Universe of the
brute actuality of things and facts manifest in action and reaction; and,
thirdly, there is the Universe of signs or active powers establishing connections
between things in one Universe and especially between the items in different
Universes. It is of the utmost importance to notice that in this triadic
conception Peirce was rejecting the paradigm of so much modern empiricism
and nominalism. According to that view there is, on the one hand, a domain
of'given' facts, and, on the other, a set of concepts and logical forms, so that
from some mysterious conjunction or correlation between the two there must
result experience, knowledge and meaning. Peirce saw that such a dyadic
model is not only inadequate to explain the occurrence of either experience
or knowledge, but that it entirely omits his third Universe or the reality of
the signs expressing the intelligible relations between our thought and the
world which are already manifest in the experience and knowledge we actually
possess. Peirce was correct in affirming the reality of this third Universe and,
as will become clear, it is intimately related to his argument for God as creator
and coordinator of the three Universes.
Peirce's discussion is divided into three stages and, although he sometimes
regarded the second stage as constituting the 'Neglected Argument' as such
(5. 487), it is clear that all three must be taken together to form what he
called a 'nest' and to which he gave the name of'the N.A.'. The first stage
consists of a free play of thought and meditation which he called' Musement'
an opening up of the mind and heart of the person to some wonder in one
of the Universes or to meditation on the cause of some relation between any
two Universes-leading ultimately to the idea of God as creator of the
universes. Musement is free and receptive to what is before us and is guided
by the purpose of setting aside all serious or specific purpose so as to be given
over to wonder and speculation 'on the whole'. Musement, says Peirce, is
not to be controlled at the outset by logical analysis, although such analysis
can be of use within the framework of musement.1 The reason for the
restriction is clear; musement is direct experiencing or perception, as Peirce
sometimes called it, suffused with the impressions and observations that occur
1
Peirce distinguished between an ' Argument' and an ' Argumentation'; the former means any process
of thought 'reasonably tending to produce a definite belief and the latter is an Argument 'proceeding
on definitely formulated premises' (6. 456). In a fuller discussion, more attention would have to be paid
to this distinction, but for present purposes we need only to point out that, for Peirce, the work of reason
is not confined to Argumentation or formal demonstration, but is manifest as well in the reflective
development of a person's experience and in man's instinctive capacity to propose relevant explanatory
hypotheses. And, indeed, Peirce was convinced that theologians have overlooked the line of thought he
was pursuing because they ' share those current notions of logic which recognize no other Arguments than
Argumentations' (6. 457).
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in ' a give and take of communion betwen self and self (6. 459). Musement
is meditation engendered by becoming 'awake to what is about or within
you' (6. 461), and when directed to the Universes and their relations, it
gradually flowers into a pattern of speculation that leads to the hypothesis
of God's reality.
The second stage - the 'neglected' factor-is a reflection on the first stage
resulting in the discovery that the Humble Argument, a fruit of free
meditation, is a manifestation of universal human nature, or a general
tendency toward belief in God springing from wonder at the origin of the
Universes. As we shall see, this stage is of vital importance, first, because it
shows how the hypothesis of God's reality arises out of meditation upon direct
experience, and, secondly, it calls attention to the role of man's capacity to
frame hypotheses in the process. The third stage in the argument takes the
form of an analysis of the actual procedure of scientific thought for the
purpose of comparing what happens there with the processes of thought
manifested in the Muser's meditation on the origin of the Universes. Before
considering each of the stages in more detail, it well be helpful to summarize
the entire cycle of the argument so as to relate Peirce's analysis to the problem
previously posed as the tension between direct experience or presence and
argument in the religious context. The problem, it will be recalled, was how
to retain both direct experience and argument and so relate them that the
former is not surpassed or rendered superfluous, while the latter bestows upon
experience a rationality that delivers it from the charge of fancy, wish or
caprice.
To begin with, the first stage, involving direct experience of ourselves and
the Universes and participation in Musement or meditation upon that
experience, is absolutely essential. Without that foundation in the experience
of the Muser, the other two parts of the argument are of no avail. The direct
experience born of Musement, in short, is and remains indispensable. In this
Peirce was entirely correct; abstract reasoning divorced from any encounter
with reality can engender no conviction in the religious realm. And Peirce
was so insistent on the point that he declared, without the Humble
Argument, 'theological argumentation' (the arguments of the other two
stages) would be no more than 'an apology a vindicatory description of
the mental operations which the Humble Argument actually and actively lives
out' (6. 487). Does this then mean that argument makes no contribution and
is, as James thought, nothing more than a conceptual superstructure, a
second-hand accretion to the religious feeling in the depths of the soul? Not
in the least; what Peirce means is that the experientially rooted Humble
Argument remains primary, but that it can be given indirect rational support
through two other lines of argument which in no way take the place of or
supplant the experience and musement from which the total argument takes
its rise. The crucial point here, and I believe it represents one of the most
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JOHN E. SMITH
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hypothesis of God's Reality' (6. 465). One should not be misled by the use
of the term 'hypothesis' as if this meant an affair of purely theoretical
explanation, because the movement of thought is in the context of musement
and is thus guided by what later turns out to be the play of instinct in the
person expressing itself in free meditation. The relation between the hypothesis
about God and the being of the person is regarded by Peirce as internal. 'The
more he ponders it [the idea of God's Reality]', says Peirce, 'the more it will
find response in every part of his mind, for its beauty, for its supplying an
ideal of life, and for its thoroughly satisfactory explanation of his whole
threefold environment' (6. 465).* We may say that this response is an effect
of the Musement itself on the individual; he is not involved in a dialectic
of ideas merely to be considered or entertained. It is for this reason that the
meditative exercise must actually be carried through by the individual; its
impact cannot come from any secondary account or description.2 Consequently, Peirce writes,
from what I know about the effects of Musement on myself and others...any
normal man who considers the three Universes in the light of the hypothesis of God's
Reality, and pursues that line of reflection in scientific singleness of heart, will come
to be stirred to the depths of his nature by the beauty of the idea and by its august
practicality... (6. 467)
The two succeeding stages of the Argument represent analysis and
reflection upon the Humble Argument and are intended to develop the
rationality implicit in it. Briefly stated, the Second Argument, or 'neglected'
one, purports to show that the Humble Argument is itself a manifestation
of what Peirce called 'the intuitive conjectures of instinctive reason'. To
establish this conclusion, Peirce set forth a three-stage analysis of the structure
to be found in scientific inquiry. One feature of this argument is of special
importance: Peirce was among the first to notice that the traditionally
recognized types of reasoning, deduction and induction or sampling, while
essential for scientific procedure, are, nevertheless, limited to the testing of
hypotheses and are of themselves insufficient for the generation of any one of
them. For the setting forth of any hypothesis a third type of reasoning is
required which Peirce described as arguing from consequent to antecedent
and called 'retroduction' or 'abduction'. Peirce thus directed attention to
the creative element in scientific discovery, the element of ingenuity, if you
like, and he was concerned to find some explanation for this human capacity
1
Those familiar with the full range of Peirce's thought will recognize here the presence of the three
'normative' sciences esthetics, ethics and logic and in that order.
2
In a full treatment of the Neglected Argument account would have to be taken of the theory of
experience held by Peirce and, in a similar vein, by James and Dewey as well. Central to that theory
is the idea of experiencing as ' actually trying out' o r ' actually undergoing' as opposed to merely thinking
or conceptually entertaining a thought content. It is clear from Peirce's entire discussion that actually
engaging in Musement is essential, for it is obvious that it would be idle for him to speak of the effect
Musement has on an individual were no Musement to take place.
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JOHN E. SMITH
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any argument. On the other hand, that element is not left standing alone
in its immediate or pristine form as the Humble Argument but is made
subject to a process of reflection developing its immanent rationality and
finally issuing in the support derived from the discovery that the entire
process of Musement and argument has an intelligible structure. It would,
therefore, be quite correct to conclude that Peirce succeeded in relating direct
experience and argument in religion and that he did so in a way not so
different in the end from that first suggested by the ancient tradition of
'faith seeking understanding'. What is novel in his view is the finding of a
point of contact between the movement of the mind in religious meditation
and the creative ingenuity of human thought in the domain of science.
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