III. The Anthropological Argument, or Argument from Man's Mental and Moral Nature.
This is an argument from the mental and moral condition of man to the existence of an Author, Lawgiver, and End. It is sometimes called the Moral Argument.
The common title "Moral Argument" is much too narrow, for it seems to take account only of conscience in man, whereas the argument which this title so imperfectly designates really proceeds from man's intellectual and emotional, as well as from his moral, nature. In choosing the designation we have adopted, we desire, moreover, to rescue from the mere physicist the term "Anthropology"--a term to which he has attached altogether too limited a signification, and which, in his use of it, implies that man is a mere animal,--to him Anthropology is simply the study of _la bête humaine_. Anthropology means, not simply the science of man's physical nature, origin, and relations, but also the science which treats of his higher spiritual being. Hence, in Theology, the term Anthropology designates that division of the subject which treats of man's spiritual nature and endowments, his original state and his subsequent apostasy. As an argument, therefore, from man's mental and moral nature, we can with perfect propriety call the present argument the Anthropological Argument.
The argument is a complex one, and may be divided into three parts.
1. Man's intellectual and moral nature must have had for its author an intellectual and moral Being. The elements of the proof are as follows:--(_a_) Man, as an intellectual and moral being, has had a beginning upon the planet. (_b_) Material and unconscious forces do not afford a sufficient cause for man's reason, conscience, and free will. (_c_) Man, as an effect, can be referred only to a cause possessing self-consciousness and a moral nature, in other words, personality.
This argument is is part an application to man of the principles of both the Cosmological and the Teleological Arguments. Flint, Theism, 74--"Although causality does not involve design, nor design goodness, yet design involves causality, and goodness both causality and design." Jacobi: "Nature conceals God; man reveals him."
Man is an effect. The history of the geologic ages proves that man has not always existed, and even if the lower creatures were his progenitors, his intellect and freedom are not eternal _a parte ante_. We consider man, not as a physical, but as a spiritual, being. Thompson, Christian Theism, 75--"Every true cause must be sufficient to account for the effect." Locke, Essay, book 4, chap. 10--"Cogitable existence cannot be produced out of incogitable." Martineau, Study of Religion, 1:258 _sq._