The Searching Mind: Summary and Application

In his book, The Searching Mind, philosopher and theologian Joseph Donceel, S.J., argues from reason alone for the existence of God (Donceel 55). Donceel begins his argument by saying that it is contradictory to deny the existence of God—“an infinitely perfect, necessarily existing being” (55). In so doing, he recycles a form of the Leibnitzian ontological argument the general structure of which is: 1) If God is possible, he exists; 2) God is possible; therefore, 3) God exists. Or to put it in terms of symbolic logic:

If (A) > (B)

(A)

∴ (B)

More complex than this simplified version of Leibnitz’s argument but following the same general structure, Donceel’s argument is basically this: 1) That God is possible; 2) God is possible; therefore, 3) God exists. For purposes of simplicity let’s look at each of these propositions separately, since Donceel has an argument for each proposition. In doing so, several other points will be elucidated, namely: the implicit presence of Donceel’s argument within any cosmological argument, that to deny God’s existence is a performative contradiction, that according to Donceel’s argument both Descartes’s ontological argument and Kant’s denial of God are wrong.

The major premise of this argument: “If the infinitely perfect being is possible, it exists,” Donceel claims is self-evident—that it “is evident as soon as one understands it” (90). To which he answers that our continual striving toward the infinite implies the existence of the infinite or at least its possibility (57). He explains the striving of the mind for the illimited thusly. He begins by saying that this striving is either caused by something within a human being or without a human being. It is not possible that it result from something within a human being, since human nature is finite. As such, it is not possible of for such a striving to originate from within a person. Therefore, this striving toward the infinite must find its origin in something outside of the human being—in a wholly distinct reality. Said reality cannot itself be limited, because such a being could not elicit a craving for the infinite. Hence an infinitely perfect being needs must exist, for it is only by its existence that the human craving/striving toward the infinite can be explained (63).

Donceel, further explains that he does not mean by his major premise that God derives his existence from his possibility. What he means is that “God’s positive possibility implies, as a previous condition, his existence” (70). “If God does not exist, he is not possible either” (70). Therefore, He is only possible if He exists. He explains this by making the distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic possibility. “A being is extrinsically possible if it either exists or can be made to exist.” As such, “a square circle is extrinsically impossible” (71). An intrinsically possible being is possible only if its concept is not contradictory in its constitutive notes. Thus to propose the nonexistence of a necessarily existing being is contradictory. “It follows that according to both meanings of the word ‘possible’ God is possible only if he exists, which is the same as to say: If God is possible, he exists” (71).

The minor premise of the argument, “The infinitely perfect being is possible,” Donceel says must be demonstrated (90). Donceel bases his argument for God’s existence in the dynamism of the human intellect. He begins his argument by saying that what is known to us by experience is known as finite. He claims that our knowledge of things as finite—as limited is rooted in our constant striving beyond things and “beyond all limits, toward the unlimited” (55). He claims that we can only know a limit as limit by surpassing it. Within the concept of “limit as limit” there are two elements: “until here” and “not further” (55). In this second element is implied that there is already something further—beyond the limit. For Donceel, that everything our minds encounter or may in encounter is known as limited can only be explained in that our minds strive beyond these limits (56). This dynamism of the intellect is not sated in or by the finite, for as soon as our minds grasp a finite reality they are already beyond it, striving towards another reality. Donceel says, “The awareness of the finiteness of all that which enters my mind can be explained only by the fact that my intellect keeps pointing toward the illimited, the intensively infinite” (56). At which point he makes the bold claim, “That is the way, and the only way, in which I know God” (56). Donceel then closes the argument for this proposition saying, “if I am a being who, by his innermost self, continually strives for the infinite, the infinite must at least be possible” (56). He holds that it cannot be admitted “that a human being would be an embodied affirmation of the contradictory, of the impossible” and “congenitally the faculty of the impossible” (56-57, 90). This requires that the infinite exists.

There are several hints interspersed throughout the Donceel’s text which suggest that Donceel’s argument is implicit within Aquinas’s cosmological argument or any cosmological argument, for that matter. The first of these suggestions comes in the closing of Chapter 1. Here Donceel suggests that, in the end, St. Thomas’s arguments do not end with God as the Unmoved Mover or the First Cause, “but as the Principle of all Intelligibility” (54). It is “a Principle which we do not actually grasp with our finite intellects, but one which we keep forever intending as lying beyond all that which we can grasp” (54). Later on he says that in St. Thomas’s First Way, it can be “difficult to see why finite effect demands for its explanation an infinite cause” (64). However, within his argument there is already present an aspect of the infinite in the minds striving toward infinity. He claims this to be a compelling reason in the case why an infinite should be demanded as an explanation for a finite (64).

For Donceel, to deny the existence of God is a performative contradiction. For Donceel, God is the “Principle of all Intelligibility” (54). He says:

We LIVE the principle and the affirmation before we can express them in words. They are our intellect in act, what scholastic philosophy called our “agent intellect.” Our only way of establishing validity is to try to show that those who deny them in words use them in fact, in their knowledge and their action. We must use “retortion” and show that, like the existence of God, the principle of intelligibility may be denied only through an affirmation which asserts it implicitly. (89).

To deny the existence of God, is to deny the Principle of Intelligiblity—it is to deny the very principle by which we think, by which we live, by which we act, and by which we even make the denial. Hence to say or to believe that God does not exist is to be in a LIVED performative contradiction.

Contrary to Donceel’s argument from the dynamism of the intellect, in Descartes ontological argument it remains impossible to determine whether contradiction is even possible. Donceel argues that we do not perceive contradictions because “the idea is surrounded by a haze, which may well hide the contradictions” (68). Therefore, he claims, that it is not possible to arrive at a “positive possibility of God” through an examination of an a priori idea of God. It is necessary that this examination be based on some experience. Only in this way could Descartes’s ontological argument be considered valid.

Donceel admits that Immanuel Kant got it right when he rejected the ontological argument on grounds that it illicitly moves from the “conceptual to the real order” (71). But that Kant got it wrong when he denied the existence of God. Donceel says that Kant claims that we need not affirm the existence of a necessarily existing being (72). By simply refraining from thinking of it we avoid contradiction. He says, “Kant admits here that the idea of a nonexisting necessary being is contradictory” (72). Therefore, according to Donceel, Kant is right in not affirming it and rejecting it. However, Donceel goes on to restate his previous explanations saying, “we cannot affirm the existence of an infinite” (72). But that we “coaffirm” implicitly its existence when we affirm that a finite reality exists, as such, we do so in every human action. Donceel holds that the distinction rests between the static Kantian conception of knowledge and a dynamic conception of knowledge. In a dynamic conception of knowledge, denial of this principle of coaffirmation is impossible. To Kant’s second objection, Donceel replies that while the denial of certain realities may not involve a logical contradiction; there are few realities which can be denied without a performative contradiction. Statements such as: “The world does not exist, “The Infinite Being does not exist” while they do not present logical contradictions, imply a lived performative contradiction “which occurs between the content of the affirmation and the act of affirming” (74). Thus, saying, “The Infinite Being does not exist,” presupposes the intention in the intellect of the Infinite Being.

Thus, in basing his argument in the dynamism of the intellect, Donceel avoids the pitfalls of both the ontological and the cosmological arguments. He is easily able to contend with the objections of both Descartes and Kant. In providing a concept of God, a denial of which is a lived contradiction, Donceel is able to supplant all criticism both on logical and performative grounds, and provides an argument for God’s existence which says more of God than do other cosmological arguments. For according to his argument, “we reach God as the Infinite Mystery” and the very “Principle of Intelligibility” (54).

Works Cited

Donceel, Joseph, S.J. The Searching Mind: An Introduction to a Philosophy of God. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979.