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PARTISAN REVIEW
to the other can be demonstrated, then the conclusion from the exis–
tence of
creatura
to the existence of a
creator
is unwarranted.
This
same first point, moreover, implies that religion is a kind of
-perhaps illusory-"remedy," but this is not a naturalistic interpre–
tation of religion. For the assumption that everything has natural
causes is as such quite independent of human needs or social condi–
tions. It pretends to be either true or false.
What I want to point out is that if you take causality as a valid
principle, you will always end up with a "demonstration" of the
existence of God. The trouble with all such demonstrations is of
course that, as Kant showed, one never can prove the existence of
a
tact
by logical deduction. By the same token, one can't disprove it.
Scientifically speaking, we can't either prove or disprove the exis–
tence of God. A "scientific attitude" which believes it can make such
statements is the attitude of uncritical superstition.
This impossibility to make valid statements in this matter, how–
ever, has a philosophical significance.
It
seems as though the human
condition and the human mind are of such a nature that men have
been left in the dark with regard to the most interesting factual
information. This in itself is a fact and open to interpretation.
Theology may say that without this darkness, there could be no
faith and therefore no salvation which is merited. Philosophy may say
that without this essential lack of information there could be no hu–
man freedom. The chief point with respect to the "scientific at–
titude" seems to be that it belongs to the very essence of science,
which is primarily interested in facts, that our factual information
is not only limited but that the answers to the most important
factual questions concerning the human condition as well as the
existence of being in general are beyond factual knowledge and
experience.
2. I should like to warn you not to overestimate the signi–
ficance of the present "religious revival." These "puffs of the Zeit–
geist" have followed their zigzag line ever since the age of Enlighten–
ment which was followed so closely by romanticism.
If
we look at
this history from a purely intellectual point of view and think of it
in terms of the history of an idea, we find that every twenty years
or so some "naturalistic" (or positivistic, ·or dialectical-materialistic,
or pragmatistic) attitude was followed by a religious revival. This
