Lectures on the Proofs of the Existence of God

In the preceding lecture the speculative fundamental characteristics connected with the nature of the Notion, and its development into the manifoldness of specific qualities and definite forms, have been indicated. If we look once more at the special problem we are dealing with, we find that there, too, we are at once met by a multiplicity. We find that there are several proofs of the existence of God. There is an external empirical multiplicity or difference, which presents itself, first of all, as something which has had an historical origin, and which has nothing to do with the differences which follow from the development of the Notion, and which we take, accordingly, in the form in which we directly come upon it. We may, however, have a feeling of distrust in reference to that multiplicity if we happen to reflect that here we have not to do with a finite object, and remember that our study of an infinite object must be philosophical, and that we are not to deal with it and expend labour upon it in a haphazard and external fashion. An historical fact, nay even a mathematical figure, contains a number of references within it, and relations to what is outside of it, in accordance with which a conception is formed of it, and from which we reason syllogistically to the principal relation upon which they themselves depend, or to another specific quality which is of importance here and which is closely connected with them. It is said that some twenty proofs of the Pythagorean problem have been discovered. The more important an historical fact is, the more points of connection it presents with the circumstances of the time and with other historical events, so that in showing the necessity for accepting the fact as true we may start from any one of these points. The direct testimonies may also be very many in number, and each testimony in so far as it is not otherwise self-contradictory has in this sphere the force of a proof. If in the case of a mathematical proposition one single example is held to be sufficient, it is principally in connection with historical subjects and juridical cases that a multiplicity of proofs must be held to strengthen the force of the proof itself. In the region of experience or phenomena, the object, as being an empirical and individual thing, has the quality of contingency, and thus the particularity of the knowledge we have of it gives the object the same mere appearance of Being. It is its connection with other facts which gives the object its necessary character, and each of these again belongs in itself to this contingent sphere. Here it is the extension and repetition of such connection which gives to objectivity the kind of universality which is possible in this region. The verification of a fact or a perception by means of the mere number of the observations taken, relieves the subjectivity of perception from the reproach of being an illusion, a deception, or any one of those forms of error which it may by way of objection be declared to be.

In dealing with God since we presuppose the existence of an absolutely general idea of Him, it is found, on the one hand, that He infinitely transcends that region in which all objects whatsoever stand in a connected relation with one another; and that, on the other hand, since God exists only for the inner element of Man's nature in general, we directly meet in this sphere with the contingency of thought, conception, and imagination, in the most varied forms and with what is expressly allowed to be contingency, namely, that of sensations, emotions, and such like. We thus get an infinite number of starting-points from which it is possible to advance to God, and from which we must necessarily advance, and hence the infinite number of such essential transitions which must have the force of proofs. So, too, the verification and confirmation of conviction by means of the repetition of the experiences gained of the way to truth, must appear to be necessary in order to counteract the infinite possibility of deception and error which, on the other hand, lurks in the way to truth. The individual's trust and the intensity of his belief in God are strengthened by the repetition of the essential elevation of his spirit to God, and by the experience and knowledge he gains of God's wisdom and providence as shown in countless objects, events, and occurrences. In proportion to the inexhaustible number of the relations in which things stand to the one object is the inexhaustible need felt by Man as he enters more and more deeply into the infinitely manifold finitude of his outward surroundings and his inner states, to continuously repeat his experience of God, that is, to bring before his eyes by new proofs the fact of God's working in the world.