CHAPTER VI

This chapter brings us again to the much disputed ground of intuition, When discussing, in the first part of this essay, the various methods of explaining the origin of the idea of God, we found that the method of intuition properly understood affords the most satisfactory explanation of the genesis of theistic ideas. We now approach the material there reviewed by a different path ; and we shall also proceed to use it for another purpose. In the former part of the essay we found the origsn of the idea of the Divine Being in intuition; in the discussion of this chapter we are invited to examine the nature of that intuition logically, for the purpose of discovering what evidence it affords of the actual exzstence of God, It will be observed that the question now before us has not reference so much to the psychology of theistic ideas, as to the objective validity of the intuition, Does the Being to whom the intuition relates cx4sf, and how can we vindicate the position that there is an objective reality agreeing with the intuition? In seeking to unfold the answer to these questions we require to consider two topics. In the first place, we must carefully unfold the content of the intuition ; and in the second place, we are required to indicate the logical significance of that content in vindicating the rational character of the belief in God’s existence, It may be best to treat each of these in a separate section.

SECTION I