Chapter 7

PURE A PRIORI REASONING LEADS
TO KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE
OF SOMETHING INFINITE, GOD.

1456. Reasoning which uses no other datum than that of the idea of being in general would at first seem impossible. We cannot, in fact reason without judgments and arguments, which are operations of the mind requiring several terms. The idea of being is, however, a most simple idea, and hence a single term. With being alone, therefore, every judgment and argument would seem impossible.
The difficulty vanishes, however, if we note that one and the same idea is multiplied in the mind according to the different ways in which it is used, and by the different reflections the mind makes on it. Every insight enabling us to see a new relationship in an idea which we possess provides us with a new idea. Let us apply this observation to the idea of being.

I have the idea of being in general present to my mind. But, furnished with this idea, I can turn back on it and look at it again. As I look, I can observe, analyse and judge the idea. This is a truly extraordinary fact, but a fact nevertheless.
When I reason, for example, about the idea of being, and I say that it is universal, necessary, and so on, I am using the idea itself of being as a rule enabling me to know and judge all this. The idea of being is applied to itself, and acknowledges itself. It acts as predicate and subject, as the rule for judging and as the thing judged. The mind has this wonderful property of turning back on itself. Being, without losing its simplicity, has as it were a virginal capacity for multiplying and generating reasoning within itself.(327)

1457. Some kind of reasoning can therefore be carried out with the idea of being as our sole datum. This reasoning is truly a priori and pure because it needs only a datum manifest per se to us, and not acquired by experience.
But I would go further and say that with the idea of being as our sole datum, we can elaborate a rigorous and extremely solid demonstration of the existence of God, which would therefore be an a priori demonstration in the sense in which we have defined it. However, I do not want to spend too long on this question and will therefore offer only some hints on the matter.

1458. Being in general, thought naturally by the human mind, is of such a nature, we said, that on the one hand, it shows no subsistence outside the mind and can therefore be called logical being. On the other hand, it cannot be a modification of our spirit. In fact, its authority is such that our spirit is entirely subject to it. We are conscious to ourselves that we can do nothing against being, and cannot change it in any way whatsoever.(328) Moreover, it is absolutely unchangeable; it is the knowable act of all things, the fount of all cognitions. It has nothing contingent, and in this sense it is not like us. It is a light that we perceive naturally, but which rules, conquers and ennobles us by submitting us entirely to itself.

Again, although we can, if we wish, think that we might not be, it would be impossible to think that being in general, that is, possibility, truth, might not be. Prior to me, what is true was true, nor is it possible for there to be a time when it could be otherwise. Yet truth is certainly not nothing. Nothing does not bind me; it does not oblige me to pronounce anything. But the nature of truth which shines within me, obliges me to say: `This is’, and even if I did not wish to make this statement, I would know that the thing would be in spite of me.

Truth, being, possibility presents itself to me as an eternal, necessary nature, and such that against it no power whatsoever can prevail. We cannot even conceive a power that can abolish truth. Nevertheless, we do not see how this truth subsists in itself, although we do feel its unconquerable force and the energy that it demonstrates within us as it subjects our own and all other minds to its gentle dominion, a fact without possibility of opposition.
This fact of truth, which stands before me and constitutes my intellectual light, tells me: 1. that there is an effect in me that cannot be produced either by myself or by an finite cause; 2. that this effect is the intuition of an object present to me as intrinsically necessary, immutable, and independent of my own mind and of every finite mind.

1459. These two elements lead me by two ways to the knowledge of the existence of God. If I apply to the first element the principle of cause, I must conclude: `A cause exists that manifests an infinite power; this cause must, therefore, be infinite.’ Considering the second, I see that if the cause which manifests an infinite power were to reveal itself, it would still be that same object of my mind that now presents itself as having existence in my mind alone. And so I conclude: `The nature of this infinite cause is to subsist in a mind, that is, to be essentially intelligible. But if it must subsist in a mind, this mind must be eternally intelligent.’

When I compare this infinite cause with the definition of `accident’, I find that it cannot be just an accident, or generally speaking, a simple appurtenance of a substance, as it would appear if it were a purely mental object, and I conclude: `An eternal mind exists which has the property of being per se intelligible, and of communicating intelligibility to other subjects, and as such is the cause of the infinite power manifested to our minds and of all our cognitions.’
An objection to this argument would be that it introduces us into the communication of being, and hence is not altogether pure. We reply that because we are dealing simply with a manifestation, we ourselves do not enter the argument except as the subject that intuits being. In this respect, we are somehow not separated from, although not confused with, that which is intuited.

1460. But if a purer reasoning is required, it will not be difficult to present it. Being has two aspects under which it can be regarded: relative to itself, or relative to us. Leaving aside completely the second aspect, and considering being purely as it is in itself, we found it to be simply incipient. Consequently, it is on the one hand a likeness of real, finite beings, and on the other the likeness of something real and infinite.(329) It can therefore be predicated univocally,(330) as they said in the Schools, of God and of creatures. With its terms hidden from us, it can actuate and terminate itself both in God and in creatures, but not of course in the same way.

It is also true that we do not have the necessary, internal efficacy to make being terminate without perceiving and experiencing its terms. With ideal being alone, therefore, we cannot have the perception of any subsistent being whatsoever.
Nevertheless, contemplating initial being, we are able to know that as such it could not subsist without having its proper terms. It does not, in fact, present itself as having an absolute subsistence.(331) However, although we do not see any absolute subsistence in it, the principle of absolute subsistence (which states: `that which exists relatively supposes that which exists absolutely’ and originates from being as the principle of substance does) enables us to judge that it must be reduced to and terminate in an absolute subsistence of which initial being is a mental appurtenance.

Having discovered this, we are also able to know that it is altogether impossible for this subsistent being to be finite. If it were, it would not be a suitable term of initial being. On the contrary, it would be outside initial being; instead of forming with it an essence that is its proper term and complement, it would be something extraneous to it and its contingent effect.
Ideal being, therefore, requires an infinite, substantial actuation through which it has not only a logical existence before the mind but also an absolute existence — a metaphysical existence, as it is called. This is existence in itself: full, essential existence. And such a being is the divine essence.

In this way, subsistent, or metaphysical, necessary being is identified with necessary, logical being to which is added its natural term. We conclude, therefore, that two per se necessities,(332) one logical and the other metaphysical, do not properly speaking exist. Only one exists, and this is simultaneously in the mind and in itself.

Notes

(327) Anyone having the idea of being, but devoid of sensation and stimuli, would never produce any reasoning. This is clear, and does not require any comment from me; the whole of my theory on the origin of ideas points to this. Such a realisation, however, does not damage our immediate question about the force present in pure a priori reasoning. We are not concerned with the material conditions and the motive which would impel us, while possessing only the idea of being, to carry out some effective reasoning. We are asking whether the idea of being itself includes all the data needed for this reasoning in such a way that, if the motive were present, the reasoning could be carried out. In a word, we are not asking stupidly and childishly if the baby in the mother's womb reasons a priori, but if a mature adult, and probably a philosopher can carry out pure a priori reasoning.

(328) `To understand is to experience, to know is to act,' says Aristotle (De Anima, bk 3, l. 7). By the word understanding Aristotle meant what I call intuiting, that is, the intuition of essences which was not, for this philosopher, knowing. For him, knowing meant having a reflective cognition which provides the specific difference between essences.

(329) `Because the intellective power of the creature is not the essence of God,' says St. Thomas, `it has to be a kind of shared likeness of him who is the first intellect' (S. T., I, q. 12, art. 2). Human beings, therefore. were created to the image and likeness of God.

(330) This question has been dealt with in the treatise of Carlo Francesco da San Floriano (Milan, 1771, tom. 2, p. 103) on the philosophy of Scotus where the work of the Doctor Subtilis is compared with that of modern philosophers.

(331) It is not necessary to prove here that initial being is not an accident or a modification of our spirit because 1. our spirit is supposed as unknown in this argument, and therefore entirely excluded from it; 2. being is per se so distinct and separate from the spirit that it is impossible to confuse it with the spirit when both are considered directly. The first intuition of being excludes the perception of ourselves which, as we have said so many times, is reflective.

(332) Truly, when I say necessity, I can only express a pure relationship of the thing with the mind in the same way that likeness is only a relationship with the mind, as we have seen. When I say: `This is a necessary being', I am affirming that it cannot not be, that is, that its non-existence would imply a contradiction. We say it is necessary, therefore, because we see that the principle of contradiction forces us to admit that being as existent. A being's necessity depends, therefore, on the principle of contradiction; and the principle of contradiction, although in the mind, is not the mind; it is logical necessity.
In fact, any being, when considered in itself, and without relationship with its logical principles, offers us subsistence and nothing more. It does not provide us with the necessity of subsistence. Nevertheless, when human beings, furnished as they are with intelligence, perceive the subsistence of such a being, they ask themselves: `Could that being not be?' If it is a necessary being, they reply: `No, that would be impossible. Its non-existence is repugnant.' In this way, we have compared it (its subsistence) with the possibility of its non-existence, and found a contradictory relationship. This relationship is necessity.

From this observation we can draw the following corollaries:

1. Logical and metaphysical necessity are a single necessity which consists in the relationship of contradiction that a being has with its non-existence. When this relationship is considered as possible, we have what we call logical necessity, which forms the principle of contradiction; when considered as something real, it is called metaphysical necessity. The principle of contradiction, or logical necessity, is therefore the fount of metaphysical necessity.

2. Necessary being has a very close relationship with logical being. This relationship consists in the fact that necessary being must have an essentially intelligible nature. Otherwise, it would not be absolutely necessary, because in order to be such it would depend on something else, that is, a mind and a first idea essentially different from itself.