The Proof of God's Existence

[Denise]

EPISTLE 1
The Proof of God's Existence

January-February 2010 NOR
By Douglass H. Bartley

Douglass H. Bartley of Ely, Minnesota, a former judge, is the author of a treatise on the Constitution, The Kiss of Judice: The Constitution Betrayed: A Coroner's Inquest and Report, a work in search of a publisher, and a blog, "Pastoral Republican," found at http://douglassbartley.wordpress.com/. Epistle 2, "On Faith & Reason," is the next installment of his essays on God and His creations.


O gracious God! how far have we
Profan'd thy heav'nly gift of Poesy?
Made prostitute and profligate the Muse,
Debas'd to each obscene and impious use,
Whose harmony was first ordain'd above,
For tongues of Angels and for hymns of love! -- Dryden



Prologue

"Words are like leaves, and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found."1
The aim below, 'tis my wish and my hope:
Comply with the decree of Master Pope,
And squander not words, nor waste precious time,
And blight not Doctrine put to verse and rhyme.
For Canons ought not the foolish to bear;
So, please God, as I write this prayer,
Give content, balance, junction to each part,
And let faith be enhanc'd by reason's art.

The Proof of God's Existence

Ye Gods of Science: Haste! to reason, fly!
Lest tyrant, Madame Hubris, blind thine eyes.
The Anarch Chance hath sapp'd thy wits.
Hap bangs, self-mintage account not a whit.
Make haste, end affair soiling all thy gains.
Molt cocksure plume, the ordure of big brains.
"For fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
Let meekness guide thee safely in pride's stead.
And understand, please, there must needs be here
Much more than objects of sense, matter mere.
Muse on it, thy reflection will assess
Materialism, crass guide, you'll soon love less.
If there be doubt, consider please anew,
From gentle censure, this we plead to you:
Here proofs of God's existence thee to sift,
Which, if no more, persuasion's burden shift
To ye agnosticks, scepticks, cav'lers still,
We offer the Angelic Doctor's Bill;
Particulars his, set précis in form,
Hark! Oyez! Lo! Aquin's exordium,
His a posterioris, from effect, cause.
When effect's better perceiv'd than the cause,
We learn causation via consequences.
If effect exist, some cause predispenses.
So far as God be not self-evident,
Here demonstrations quia, five anent:
First Motion, next Efficient Cause present'd,
Necessary and Possibles augment'd,
Perfection and Gradations fourth averr'd,
Intelligent Design he fifth inferr'd.
Neglect we not the other proofs devis'd
Two ontologicals, a prioris.
From Anselm first, and second à la Descartes.
From cause to effect reasonings impart
And one from conscience Newman had assay'd
Eight short refreshers that ought you persuade.

Proof from Motion

Whatever moves is by some other mov'd
As body in act is by the soul behoov'd;
And mover supra by another yet
And that last by some other prior set
In motion by a third, mov'd by a fourth,
And on but not to infinity thenceforth.
For chain causation can't fore'er extend
(Save that attribute for Him Who transcends)
Then, ergo, there would no first mover be.
That, reason's friends and scepticks, must agree
As inconceivable as fig from thorn.
For motion's the actus from power born,
Potential changing into actuate.
So primum movens need we postulate.

Proof from Cause

Because a thing cannot itself remake,
Each effect has cause from which it partakes.
Like motion, causes reach not infinitude.
There must be an uncaused first, self-imbued,
A ne plus ultra, in itself exists,
Perduring, Causer-Uncaused ere subsists.
The sine qua non, take it out and Woe!
Gone universal ballast, status quo
The middle causes and pars pro toto
Soon to collapse in Pope's imbroglio:
"The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth, unbalanced, from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world." 2
Therefore, say I, oblig'd we to admit
Efficient cause thy reason ought submit.

Proof from Necessity & Contingency

So far, as motion and cause have expos'd
Supreme a Mover-Causer are propos'd.
Whence comes all beings incunabala,
And, too, their sequels in low'r Valhalla.
Comes next in Aquin's staunch polemickal,
Revis'd e'er 'umbly to poetickal:
Necessary, the indispensables,
Contingents known also as the possibles.
Since everything from something else is brought,
There ne'er could be a time or State of Naught.
"Naught was!" "No, Naught wasn't!"
maze of poly-nots.
"Yes, naught was," "No, Naught never was not not."
"You do know naught." "No you don't know
no squat."
Thrusts, parries, war between the whats and nots;
Lo! "Nothing comes from nothing," and ne'er could,
So sang Maria, of the sisterhood,
Renewing Ex nihilo, nihil fit,
The upshot is a something requisite.
For if there e'er were time of beings void,
Then either nothing made some sort of 'noid;
Or something made itself and so was, and
So act'd ere twas! Hamlet's legerd'maine:
Be or be not, let question's dawdling close,
For if there ne'er were nothing, we must pose
A being extant with beginning none,
An Alpha essence by which all begun.

Proof from Perfection & Gradation

Gradations in things we find with great ease:
Less in this, more in that, still more in these.
Our judgment on things' rankings postulates
An absolute perfection culminates,
A measure absolute, the maximum.
As a thing's hotter, it the closer comes
To imitating fire the hottest reach.
All things their priors, afters, series'd each
Relations distant or consecutives,
Comparatives and the superlatives,
Ancestors and their primogenitors,
Inferiors and their superiors,
Their antecedents and their consequents,
The accidentals and accouterments
Of good, true, noble; better, truer, nobl'r
Best, truest, noblest: summum bonum, e'er
The consummate Perfection intra se,
Cause of all goodness's and truth's overlay.

Proof from Intelligent Design

Intelligent Design, most manifest,
Draws the proof from the universe impress'd
With beauty and an order symmetris'd.
And to say world and stars self-actu'lis'd!
As dim as "fickle chance" did form the Earth
"Courts give the constitution high worth";
Or worse: "Abortion's not infanticide";
"The Maginot Line stemm'd the Nazitide."
If the inertnoids rule themselves, what next?
The Zooids, humanoids they to perplex;
Shafts fly without an archer to dispatch?
If stones self-govern, what will then next hatch?
A Pres'dnt Min'ral, Chief Justice Igneous?
Inanimates to rule themselves and us?
(Give me impervious o'er the vainglorious,
Far better torpid o'er the succubus,
The Mephistoes whom, ought we, to keelhaul.)
Digress no more, to Line 122 please recall,
For beings to their best ends are deploy'd,
Inerts though are in intellect devoid;
Reach not their ends without a course to trace,
A coxswain to guide, pace them through their race.
If ye a scientist's seal do require,
Know ye that Newton's work is still for hire:
"Blind metaphysickal necessity,"
Says he, could ne'er yield the diversity
Of beings natural, of things we find,
Well-suit'd to places sundry, diverse times.
For that plurality must needs proceed,
Contriv'd by Wisdom, the all-knowing seed.
Perhaps a naturalist ye might desire
Know Doctor Galen's work3 might yet inspire
God's plan, said he, in nature's labours bound,
Where no effort wast'd is e'er to be found.
And Galen, of God's craft so taken was he,
Prais'd a hymn honouring His majesty.

Proof from Mental Conception

To ontology, metaphysicks turn
To Anselm's Proslogium pray ye well learn.
The argument Copleston4 well digests:
"God" to all, faithful, even atheists,
Is that which greater none can be conceiv'd,
But greatest's not best till it's first achiev'd ,
Existence which, without, makes nullity,
For greatest is none-such, supremacy,
As pride (or opera) supreme malignancy.
But a "supreme" can't the "supremest" be
Without its being true and realis'd,
And not just an idea fictionis'd.
Else would be by a second overpass'd,
One having true existence the first lack'd.
Of "God," the utmost of conceivable,
Existence must be e'er believable,
The nulli secundus, first principle,
Actual, He "Who Is," Original.
Replying, Monk Gaunilo who demurr'd, 5
To the Saint's logic and in turn averr'd:
"We might as well say, ‘The most excellent
Isle we conceive must somewhere be extant,
For we can just as well envision it.'"
But the Monk's protest was inapposite,
For Anselm's reply held off the barrage
And popp'd the "island perfect" mirage:
Most beautiful isle, said he, need not be,
An isle such, a mere possibility,
Whereas a being perfect must exist,
So island parity one must resist.

Proof from Cogito, Ergo Sum

The Saint's proof was reissu'd à la Descartes
Cogito, ergo sum, so his proof starts,
What e'er's in a thing by one's notions true
Must in that being found and be imbu'd,
And notion of a thing that is complete
Requires, therefor, a real existence meet.

Proof from Conscience

To Newman now we to his proof recur
For a last a posteriori refer.
From the internal witness conscience flows
To the supremacy of law moral goes,
To a supreme law-giver the proof's course runs.
When shame deserve we, our touch'd
conscience duns.
We sorrow as when we a mother hurt,
When right reigns, to delight we do advert,
As on receiving a true father's praise.
The conscience both as accuser, judge so weighs.
Emotions, joy and sorrow, both it stirs
Inward a monitor, when it concurs
"The sweetest cordial we receive at last
Is conscience of our virtuous actions past." 6
But when wrong we do, strongly it dissents
Brings on remorse, all kind of discontents.
Compunction and foreboding ne'er a pause.
Those feelings, glad and sad, require a cause
"The wicked flees when him pursueth none." 7
Why does he fly? Whence his terror begun?
Who can into heart's darkest chambers see?
Can the cause of those passions from here be?
Or from beyond, from an all-seeing grace,
Of God's sure being, we now rest our case.

Other Considerations

If doubt grip ye yet, as a last resort,
Agnosticks consult this, our last exhort:
Look well at your odds, muse Pascal's advice;
His wager take; risk not the rolling dice,
Bet God and be right: infinite bliss yours.
Bet no God and be wrong, your lot's remorse,
Perpetual grief or eternal inferno;
For evil's woe of your bet "No" —
Discount'd even for chance ye deem but scant —
Would be "the sprites of fiery termagants," 8
Thy flaming companions for aye to be,
As thy remains gyre on Hell's gallows tree.



Notes:
1: Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism.
2: Pope, An Essay on Man.
3: Galen was a second-century philosopher and author of On the Uses of the Parts of the Body of Man.
4: Frederick Copleston was a 20th-century Jesuit priest and author of A History of Philosophy.
5: Gaunilo of Marmoutier, France, was an 11th-century Benedictine monk and author of On Behalf of the Fool, in opposition to St. Anselm's ontological argument for God's existence.
6: John Henry Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent.
7: ibid.
8: Pope, "The Rape of the Lock."

[KarlB]

That's neat.. and it must have taken some time and patience, putting all of the major logical Proof's of God's Existence into rhyming couplets.