Samuel Clark

Samuel Clark provides a convincing demonstration in Section (IV) where establishes the existence of an independent and unchangeable being that has always existed. He believes that there are two options when it comes to the explanation of how things have come to be. The first, is his acceptable premise that a “being has always existed in some one unchangeable, and independent” form. (p. 10) The other premise is that “there has been an infinite succession of unchangeable and dependent beings, produced from one another in an endless progression without any original cause at all.” (p.10) He believes this to be an absurd conclusion. He explains that any different understanding than a self-existing and eternal being would express a direct contradiction. To say that something has found a cause in it-self, without an external being giving it that cause, is illogical. A finite thing must have been given its cause by a self-existing, independent and eternal being. In the first proposition there is an explanation of an independent and self-existing being. For Clarke, self-existing is not the notion of producing itself but rather one of absolute necessity. By this, I understand that the existence of an eternal being is an absolute. Just as one cannot dispute the truth of two plus two is four, one cannot deny the existence of an eternal being. (p.14) For Clarke, the only way to explain the …show more content…
This is because we live in a material and finite world. He distinguishes between two ideas; the first being the ability to understand certainly that such a being exists, and the other is to understand what exactly this being is, or its essence. This conception is absolutely beyond the reach of our faculties to understand. “What the substance or essence of that being which is self-existent or necessarily existing is, we have no idea, neither is it at all possible for us to comprehend.”