Page:Philosophical Review Volume 3.djvu/165

Rh that it can be approached rather on the negative than on the positive side. Therefore the Angelic Doctor enters upon the subject by proposing the question : "Is there a God?" and warns us that "In what we profess concerning God, there are two kinds of truth to be distinguished. For some truths exceed all power of human reason, as that God is one substance in three persons. But there are other truths to which natural reason can attain, such as the existence and unity of God, and the like; and these truths philosophers have proved by demonstration, being guided by the light of natural reason (Contra gentiles, I, 3). The loftiness of his intellect gives him a commanding view of the whole field which he is to traverse. Thus in his Summa theologica, Part I, he proposes to examine: 1st, Whether there is a God; 2nd, What God is, or, rather, what he is not; 3d, What pertains to the divine operations, viz.: His knowledge, His will, and His power. Then, with the clearness and method characteristic of his every work, he proceeds to consider each of these topics in detail. On the first he proposes three questions that go behind the great burning issue of our own day: 1st, Is the existence of God knowable in itself? 2nd, Can it be demonstrated? 3d, How can it be demonstrated? The discussion of each of these forms the subject matter of an article. In each article, he first puts forth in all their strength the leading objections to the conclusion which he seeks to establish. Then he investigates the principles according to which the truth is to be made manifest, and concludes the article by a brief response to each objection. How admirable, then, is the contrast which his masterpiece presents to the foolhardy way so prevalent in our age of treating even the most profound and intricate questions! Note the accuracy and completeness of his divisions and distinctions and the care with which he points out the special phases of the subject which is here and now under discussion. Thus, as preparatory to answering whether God's existence can be known in itself, he explains that a thing may be known in two ways: "1st, in itself, but not in our regard; 2ndly, both in itself and in our regard." "A proposition," he adds, "is