Sec. 4. Another argument, or semblance of an argument, is the very prevalent
one, "Our heart requires a God; therefore it is probable that there is a
God:" as though such a subjective necessity, even if made out, could ever
prove an objective existence.[1]
Sec. 5. If it is said that the theistic aspirations of the human heart, by the
mere fact of their presence, point to the existence of a God as to their
explanatory cause, I answer that the argument would only be valid after the
possibility of any more proximate causes having been in action has been
excluded--else the theistic explanation violates the fundamental rule of
science, the Law of Parcimony, or the law which forbids us to assume the
action of more remote causes where more proximate ones are found sufficient
to explain the effects. Consequently, the validity of the argument now
under consideration is inversely proportional to the number of
possibilities there are of the aspirations in question being due to the
agency of physical causes; and forasmuch as our ignorance of psychological
causation is well-nigh total, the Law of Parcimony forbids us to allow any
determinate degree of logical value to the present argument. In other
words, we must not use the absence of knowledge as equivalent to its
presence--must not argue from our ignorance of psychological possibilities,
as though this ignorance were knowledge of corresponding impossibilities.
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