antius, whose use of
the theistic argument is called forth by the cavils of Sceptics and
atheistic atomists.

But there was also a _positive_ influence at work to facilitate the use
of the theistic argument by the Western Fathers in the prevalence at
Rome of Stoic and Epicurean doctrine. From the former of these schools
would result a familiarity, and, in many cases, an agreement with the
forms of the argument drawn from order and design; from the latter, for
the demonstration from common consent. Both of these influences, no
doubt, had some influence on the shape in which Tertullian of Carthage,
Minucius Felix, Novatian and Lactantius presented their doctrine, and,
together with the more material and less religious character of the
West, accounts in large degree for the comparative frequency of their
appeal to the theistic argument.

But when we consider the frequency with which we meet with the theistic
argument, and with reference to its use in other writers, in the pages
of Cicero, for example, these scanty instances afforded us by the
writings of the ante-Nicene Fathers, whose works occupy, say, 4,500
large, closely-printed pages in the translation, and who were, let us
remember, dealing exclusively with religious thought, indicate plainly a
fundamental change in position, the influence of which was operative for
centuries in this department of thought, and which, even to-day, governs
the attitude of the greater part of the Western world. The absolute
failure of the Greeks to arrive at any certainty of God's existence by
demonstration, the introduction of the Christian doctrine of God, before
which the deductions of Greek philosophy seem empty and unsatisfactory,
even to many who cannot accept that doctrine as truth, and the
substitution of faith in a Person for purely rational proof, render it
impossible, so long as that faith continues, that any one should think
it worth while to devote more than a passing notice to any such
argument, unless for the purposes of an _argumentum ad hominem_. And so
it is not until faith begins to grow cold and men become mere
speculators and debaters about religion, rather than believers in
Christ, that the revival of these arguments under the title of "proofs"
is possible. Even the famous Ontological Argument of St. Anselm was, I
am convinced, no serious attempt to formulate an _a priori_ proof of the
existence of God, but was addressed to a particular case[91]--the "fool"
who "s