2 REASON.
Locke's philosophy of the human understanding logically resulted in atheism. He maintained that all knowledge is founded on, or derived from, sensation, or from sense. Now it is plain that sense can give material facts but not principles and laws. Hence, legitimately no inference whatever could be drawn from the facts of sense or sensation. It could not be inferred that there was any cause whatever of these sensations, for sensation knows nothing of cause. If no faculty of the human mind gave the idea of cause and effect, and the law of causality, all that could be known by us would simply be the material acts that occur. It would be impossible for us to refer them to any law or cause whatever. Therefore, the inquiry after cause, upon the principles of Locke's philosophy, was entirely impertinent.
FINNEY ON THEOLOGY, LECTURE 4 - REASON. paragraph 31 What we mean by the reason, as distinct from the other functions of the intellect ---- First truths of reason have the following characteristics ---- Examples of some first truths of reason ---- How these truths are developed in the reason ---- Division of first truths of reason ---- Second class of truths of reason -- How this class of truths (second class) is developed in the reason -- Remarks -- Truths of conscience -- How the ideas of conscience are developed.
31 Locke in his philosophy could not consistently arrive at this; there being in his estimation no a priori faculty to affirm that an event must be an effect, and that an effect implied a cause, and that events imply causes or cause; he could not conclude that there was any necessary connection between events. Brown assumed Locke's philosophy, and hence consistently denied that there is any cause or effect in the proper sense of these terms. Cause and effect, with him, meant nothing more than precedent and subsequent events -- not antecedent and consequent, but merely antecedent and subsequent. Hamilton denied all causality. This, on the principles of Locke's philosophy, is consistent. But the pure reason irresistibly intuits the law of causality. It affirms that no effect can exist without a cause, and that no cause can exist without an effect -- that they mutually imply each other.
FINNEY ON THEOLOGY, LECTURE 4 - REASON. paragraph 32 What we mean by the reason, as distinct from the other functions of the intellect ---- First truths of reason have the following characteristics ---- Examples of some first truths of reason ---- How these truths are developed in the reason ---- Division of first truths of reason ---- Second class of truths of reason -- How this class of truths (second class) is developed in the reason -- Remarks -- Truths of conscience -- How the ideas of conscience are developed.
32 Hence the ideas of cause and effect are both rational ideas, simultaneously developed upon the perception or consciousness of an event. This perception or consciousness, let it be remembered, is the chronological antecedent of the development of both of these ideas. The law of causality is not a first truth of reason, in the sense that reason affirms that cause and effect do really exist, but in the sense that if one exists the other must, that they mutually imply each other, and that this truth is necessary and universal. In this form it is strictly a first truth of reason, universally known and practically assumed -- as well by Locke, Krouse, and Hamilton, as by others.
FINNEY ON THEOLOGY, LECTURE 5 - THE UNDERSTANDING, JUDGMENT, AND FREEDOM OF THE WILL. paragraph 2 The understanding -- The judgment -- The will.
2 In further remarking upon the revelations given in consciousness, I call attention again to THE UNDERSTANDING as a function of the intellect. This faculty is concerned with the physical as distinct from the metaphysical, or with things in distinction from ideas. It combines, as has been before said, the intuitions of sense and of the other intellectual functions, and forms notions of things. It is concerned with the concrete and contingent, the finite, facts, and events. I have observed that much confusion arises from confounding the intuitions of reason with UNDERSTANDING conceptions. For example, in the UNDERSTANDING conception of God, the attributes of infinity and perfection are dropped; of God as the absolute or unconditioned, the infinite and perfect, the UNDERSTANDING has no conception, these being attributes incognizable by this faculty. It can have a conception of God as a concrete existence, indefinitely great, and of all his attributes as realities, but of no one of them can it conceive the attribute of infinity, except in the Lockean sense of finding no limit. But this is only the indefinite. In UNDERSTANDING conceptions, therefore, of God, I plainly perceive in consciousness that I refer to God my UNDERSTANDING conception of myself, only I conceive of him as being indefinitely greater than myself. I find that with my UNDERSTANDING I cannot but conceive of God as being an agent, and a moral agent like myself. I conceive of him as a personality, as having will, intellect, and sensibility. I conceive of him with my UNDERSTANDING as an affectionate Father, as a lawgiver, judge -- in short, with my UNDERSTANDING I conceive of God in a manner that brings him into relation to me that is approachable and endearing. But if with my UNDERSTANDING I attempt to conceive of God's eternity or infinity, I find a seeming contradiction between my UNDERSTANDING and my RATIONAL conception. So of everything that is infinite.