The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Theistic Conception of the World, by B. F. (Benjamin Franklin) Cocker This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Theistic Conception of the World An Essay in Opposition to Certain Tendencies of Modern Thought Author: B. F. (Benjamin Franklin) Cocker Release Date: August 9, 2014 [EBook #46544] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEISTIC CONCEPTION OF THE WORLD *** Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Robert Morse, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. THE THEISTIC CONCEPTION OF THE WORLD. AN ESSAY IN OPPOSITION TO CERTAIN TENDENCIES OF MODERN THOUGHT. By B. F. COCKER, D.D., LL.D., PROFESSOR OF MENTAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN; AUTHOR OF "CHRISTIANITY AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY." "Science discloses the method of the world, but not its cause; Religion, its cause, but not its method."—Martineau. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by Harper & Brothers, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. PREFACE. The present volume was announced in the preface to "Christianity and Greek Philosophy" as nearly ready for publication under the title of "Christianity and Modern Thought." Several considerations have induced the author to delay its appearance, the most influential of which has been the desire to await the culmination among a class of self-styled "advanced thinkers" of what they have been pleased to call "the tendency of modern thought." No extraordinary sagacity was needed to foresee the issue, or to predict that it must soon be reached. The transition has been rapid from negative criticism of the Christian religion to direct assault upon the very foundation of all religion—the personality and providence of God. Distrust of a supernatural revelation, and denial of all authority to the teaching of the sacred Scriptures, has been succeeded by doubt of the existence of God in the proper import of that sacred name. The Theistic postulate is degraded to the rank of a mere hypothesis, which is pronounced inadequate to explain the universe. A "law-governed Cosmos, full of life and reason," eternal and infinite, must now take the place of a personal God, the Creator and Ruler of the universe. This is the "New Faith" which is to supersede the Old. The question, "Are we still Christians?" has received a final answer in the words of Strauss: "If we would speak as honest, upright men, we must acknowledge we are no longer Christians."[1] And in giving this answer he is confident he speaks in the name of a large and rapidly increasing number of men who once believed in the truth of Christianity—"The [Pg 1] [Pg 2] [Pg 3] [Pg 4] [Pg 5] We I mean no longer counts only by thousands."[2] The further question, "Have we still a Religion?" (understanding by religion "the recognition and veneration of God, and the belief in a future life") is also answered in the negative. Religion "is a delusion, to abolish which ought to be the endeavor of every man whose eyes are open to the truth."[3] The only question which now remains for the speculative intellect is, "What is our conception of the Universe?"—the conception which henceforth must take the place of a personal God. The answer of Strauss is explicit, and in his estimation final: "The conception of the Cosmos, instead of that of a personal God as the finality to which we are led by perception and thought, or as the ultimate fact beyond which we can not proceed, ... assumes the more definite shape of matter infinitely agitated, which, by differentiation and integration, develops itself to ever higher forms and functions, and describes an everlasting circle by evolution, dissolution, and then fresh evolution."[4] This may be called pantheism or atheism, materialism or idealism, just as we please; Strauss has no solicitude about mere names. "If this be considered pure, unmitigated materialism, I will not dispute it. In fact, I have always tacitly regarded the contrast so loudly proclaimed between materialism and idealism (or by whatever term one may designate the view opposed to the former) as a mere quarrel about words. They have a common foe in the dualism which pervaded the conception of the world throughout the Christian era, dividing man into body and soul, his existence into time and eternity, and opposing an eternal Creator to a created and perishable universe."[5] The end is reached at last—no soul, no God, no providence, no immortality! We have waited for a culmination, and now we are called upon to look, "not into the golden Orient, but vaguely all around into a dim, copper firmament pregnant with earthquake and tornado." Or, rather, we are called to look into an abyss, and, "shouting question after question into the Sibyl-cave of Destiny, receive no answer" save "the Everlasting No." It only remains for us to listen to Strauss's De Profundis and retire. "The loss of the belief in providence belongs, indeed, to the most sensible deprivations which are connected with a renunciation of Christianity. In the enormous machine of the universe, amid the incessant whirl and hiss of its jagged iron wheels, amid the deafening crash of its ponderous stamps and hammers, in the midst of this whole terrific commotion, man—a helpless and defenseless creature—finds himself placed, not secure for a moment that on some imprudent motion a wheel may not seize and rend him, or a hammer crush him to powder. This sense of abandonment is at first something awful. But, then, what avails it to have recourse to an illusion? Our wish is impotent to refashion the world; the understanding clearly shows that it indeed is such a machine. But it is not merely this. We do not only find the revolution of pitiless wheels in our world-machine, but also the shedding of soothing oil. Our God [the world-machine] does not, indeed, take us into his arms from the outside, but he unseals the well-spring of consolation within our own bosoms.... He who can not help himself in this matter is beyond help, is not yet ripe for our stand-point."[6] There is a weighty and solemn lesson in this illustration of the "tendency of modern thought"—a lesson which even Strauss intended to teach the age, viz., that there is no discernible via media between "the Old Faith and the New"— between the belief in a personal God and the impersonal All. The "New Faith" must at last be the faith of all who reject providence, that providence which is pre-eminently revealed in history, instituting a kingdom of God upon earth by a supernatural guidance and grace. The issue, now so sharply and clearly defined, between a God and no God, has determined a change in the plan of our work, and justifies, we trust, the attempt we have made to restate and defend "The Theistic Conception of the World." Those who have done me the honor to read "Christianity and Greek Philosophy" will detect in the present volume a radical change of views concerning the concepts Time and Space. This change of position is the result of patient reconsideration of this branch of the discussion, and we allude to it here simply to guard against the charge of unconscious inconsistency. The views presented in this volume must stand or fall on their own merits. The author has to acknowledge many obligations to his friend, Dr. Bernard Moses, for material aid rendered in getting this work through the press. University of Michigan, July, 1875. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I The Problem Stated 13 CHAPTER II God the Creator 27 Chapter III The Creation 56 CHAPTER IV [Pg 6] [Pg 7] [Pg 8] [Pg 9] [Pg 10] Creation.—the Genesis Or Beginning 97 CHAPTER V Creation: Its History 127 CHAPTER VI Conservation.—The Relation of God to the World 172 CHAPTER VII Conservation.—The Relation of God to the World 202 CHAPTER VIII Providence of God in Human History.—The Relation Of God to Humanity 244 CHAPTER IX Special Providence and Prayer 292 CHAPTER X Moral Government.—Its Grounds, the Correlation between God and Man 344 CHAPTER XI Moral Government.—Its Nature, Condition, Method, and End 366 INDEX FOOTNOTES "To such readers as have reflected on man's life; who understand that for man's well-being Faith is properly the one thing needful; how with it martyrs, otherwise weak, can cheerfully endure the shame and the cross; and without it worldlings puke up their sick existence by suicide in the midst of luxury: to such it will be clear that for a pure moral nature, the loss of religious belief is the loss of every thing. "All wounds, the crush of long-continued destitution, the stab of false friendship and of false love, all wounds in thy so genial heart, would have healed again had not its life-warmth been withdrawn. "Well mayest thou exclaim,'Is there no God, then; but at best an absentee God, sitting idle, ever since the first Sabbath, at the outside of his universe and seeing it go?' 'Has the word Duty no meaning; is what we call Duty no Divine messenger and guide, but a false earthly phantasm made up of desire and fear?' 'Is the heroic inspiration we name Virtue but some passion; some bubble of the blood, bubbling in the direction others profit by?' I know not; only this I know, If what thou namest Happiness be our true aim, then are we all astray. 'Behold, thou art fatherless, outcast, and the universe is—the Devil's.'"—Carlyle. CHAPTER I. THE PROBLEM STATED. As Archimedes demanded only one fixed point in order to move the world, so Descartes desired to find one certain and indubitable principle upon which he could plant his feet and lift himself out of the universal doubt which environed him. He found it in the proposition—I exist. This for me is the most direct, immediate, and certain of all intuitions. I can not doubt, I can not deny my own existence. Whatever else I doubt, I can not doubt that I, the doubter, exist. This I that thinks, that is conscious, is the fundamental reality.[7] I see around me a plurality of personal existences who are self-conscious and self-manifesting beings—beings who think and feel, and display their activities in time and space, as I do; and I can no more doubt their existence than I can doubt my own. This combination of the content of external perception with that of internal perception gives the immediate consciousness of external reality.[8] Besides these personal existences analogous to my own, there are other objects which exist in relation to my corporeal organism—relations of position, distance, and direction, which are purely objective. These existences offer resistance to my muscular effort to displace them in space, and defy all my mental effort to reduce them to the category of subjective phenomena. These objects have specific properties or exist in certain conditions which, in their mutual relation with my sensitive organism, produce in me certain vital affections, as heat, light, color, and sound. These affections presuppose a force or energy outside of my consciousness, and distinct from myself. Thus I am constrained to believe that the earth [Pg 12] [Pg 13] [Pg 14] [Pg 15] on which I tread, the heavens that shine upon me, the forms and movements which surround me, are not vain shadows, unreal phantoms of my own creation, but real entities. The totality of existence called the universe is for me a reality. The phenomena of the universe are in ceaseless flow and change. Bodies are aggregated and dissolved. Plants are evolved from germs, they live and grow, then decay and perish. Animals and men are born and developed to maturity, then they sicken and die. The earth itself is in constant change. The storms of heaven, the erosion of the atmosphere, the gnawing of the tidal wave, the mountain torrent, the flowing river, the earthquake and the volcano, are perpetually changing the aspect of the globe. There is perpetual genesis, ceaseless becoming, incessant change. Beneath all these changes there is an enduring "something." There are abiding constants as well as fleeting changes; enduring realities as well as unstable phenomena. The same forms and relations, the same forces and laws, the same analogous functions, and the same archetypal ideas, remain amid all individual changes. There is an enduring substance which is the subject of all these changes. There is a permanent force, or power, which is the cause of all change. There are constant numerical proportions, determinate geometrical forms, specific ideal archetypes, and special ends, which give the law of all change. The universe is not a mere aggregation of phenomena, a mere concourse of things in time and space with accidental resemblances: it is a unity, a cosmos, a harmonious whole, both in its contemporaneous and successive history. So much is and always has been known, with more or less clearness and distinctness by all men, and known by a spontaneous and immediate intuition. This intuition, like every intuition, even the commonest intuition of sense, has had a gradual development both in the consciousness of the individual, and in the consciousness of the race. It has always been immanent in human thought even when not articulately expressed in human language. To the native common-sense of our race, the world is a reality, not a dream; to the universal reason of mankind the universe is a harmony, not a chaos. Men have instinctively apprehended some ideal relations, some causal connection, some adaptation and purpose in nature, and they have always had some intuition, however dim and shadowy, of an all-pervading unity, and an ultimate causative principle. But when the universe has become the object of reflective thought, when man has attempted a colligation of the individual facts, and an ideal construction and rational interpretation of the phenomena, when he has sought to grasp the manifoldness and diversity of nature in a higher unity of thought, and, above all, when he has attempted to pass beyond phenomena and their relations, and form a conception of the absolute reality and ultimate cause—then it is that difficulties have arisen and questions have presented themselves which have perplexed the discursive reason, and taxed the genius of the ablest thinkers of every age. 1. First of all, there have arisen the fundamental questions: Has the universe always existed, or had the Cosmos, with its changes and constants, its forces and laws, its forms and relations, a Beginning? Is its present condition but one link in an endless chain, one phasis in a series of changes, which had no beginning and shall have no end? Is the universe limited both in space and duration, or is it unlimited, unbeginning, and endless? 2. If the universe had a beginning, what is the ἀρχῆ—the originant, causative Principle in which or from which it had its beginning? How are we to conceive aright that First Principle of all existence and of all knowledge? is it material or spiritual, intelligent or unintelligent? 3. What conception are we to form of the nature and mode of that beginning? Was it a pure supernatural Origination— an absolute creation? or was it simply a Formation out of a first matter or first force—an artistic, architectonic, demiurgic creation? Was that beginning determined by necessity or by choice? Was it an unconscious emanation from, or a necessary development of, the First Principle; or was it a conscious forth-putting of power for the realization of a foreseen, premeditated, predetermined plan—a mental Order. 4. A supernatural Origination being assumed, then, from that first initial act of absolute creation, has the process of formation been gradual, continuous, and uniform—a progressive Evolution from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from lower to higher forms, according to a changeless law of uniformity and continuity? or have there been marked, distinct, and successive stages of formation—creative epochs which may be called "new beginnings?" Is the historic unity of creation a unity of Thought, an ideal consecution? or is it simply a physical unity grounded in a material nexus—a genetic connection resulting from the necessary action of physical causes? 5. What is the relation of the Creator to the existing creation? Is the Deity, in any sense, immanent in, or does he dwell altogether apart from, and out of all connection with, the universe? Has any finite thing or being an independent existence? Have the forces of nature any reality apart from the Divine efficiency? Did the Creator, in the beginning, give self-being to the substance of the universe, and endow it with properties and forces, so that it can exist and act apart from, and independently of, the First Cause? or is God still in nature upholding all substance, the power of all force, the life of all life, shaping all forms, and organizing all systems? Is God not only the Creator but the Conservator of all things? 6. Is there any Ethical meaning, any moral significance in the universe? Is the physical order of the universe subordinated to a moral order in which freedom exists? Are there any indications that the existence of moral personality is the end toward which all the successive changes of nature have tended, and the progressive types of life have been a preparation and a prophecy? Was the earth designed to be a theatre for the development of moral character, the education and discipline of moral beings? Does the course of history reveal "a power that works for righteousness," and aims at the highest perfection of rational and free beings? In a word, is there a Providential Government of the world? 7. Does man stand in a more immediate relation to God than the things of nature? Is each individual the charge of a [Pg 16] [Pg 17] [Pg 18] [Pg 19] providence, the subject of a moral government, and the heir to a future retribution? Has man a spiritual and immortal nature? Has he the power so to determine his own action and character that he can justly be held accountable, and treated as the proper subject of reward and punishment? In the final issue of things, will every human being meet his righteous deserts, and be rewarded or punished according to his works? In short, is man under Moral Government? These are the great, the vital questions of to-day. In one form or another they have engaged the attention and stimulated the earnest thought of the ablest and best of minds in past ages; and, whether from the inherent demand of reason, or the promptings of instinctive curiosity, they have a deeper hold on the mind of this, than of any preceding age. We approach the discussion of these questions with a profound conviction of their magnitude and difficulty, and an oppressive foreboding that our essay will be pronounced ambitious and vain. Their vastness seems to defy our admeasurement, and their complexity and difficulty may defeat our feeble efforts at solution. "The mer-de-glace of the Infinite is covered with myriads of philosophic insects which have been carried up there and lost." May we hope for any better fate? Do the problems permit any solution at all? Of one thing, at any rate, we are sure: these questions are native to the human mind. They arise spontaneously in presence of the facts of the universe. However much of human effort to solve these problems has ended in failure and defeat, the human mind has never lost confidence in the possibility of their ultimate solution, and humanity has never abandoned them in despair.[9] A few impatient souls have plunged into Pyrrhonism and taken refuge in universal skepticism; while others have sought to organize nescience into a science. But patient, earnest souls have never cast away their faith in the integrity of universal reason, and have never ceased to believe that its ideas and laws are, in truth, the ideas and laws of the universe. These problems are the great problems of all philosophy, and all religion; and unless philosophy be a dream, and religion an illusion, they are capable of such a solution as shall satisfy the reason of man.[10] This conviction, which is common to the mass of thoughtful men, will justify every attempt of philosophy to attain to an ultimate unity of thought. The ultimate harmony of physical, philosophical, and religious truth is the faith of all noble minds. The signs of the times are propitious. To-day the conflict between reason and faith, science and religion, presents many hopeful indications of an approaching conciliation. Candid men in both fields are earnestly working, and patiently watching, and hourly catching clearer glimpses of the everlasting harmony which pervades the universe of being and of thought. Every, even the smallest, contribution made with an honest purpose to give confidence and collimation to this movement, will be welcome to all earnest minds. This may be our apology for attempting a task that belongs to stronger intellects than ours. It is obvious, at first thought, that the questions before us admit of no loose and desultory treatment. Abysses are not to be concealed by laurel screens, or chasms bridged by flowers of rhetoric. If we are to reach any satisfactory conclusions, our procedure must be rigidly systematic and logically exact. We must have a fixed point of departure, and, if possible, a faultless method of advance. The fundamental question must be determined. The central problem must be ascertained, and we must deal with all correlative questions in their logical connection with the one fundamental inquiry. First of all, then, can we place that central problem clearly before our mental vision? Amid the diverse questions which spontaneously arise in presence of the diversified phenomena of nature, and the wonderful evolutions of humanity, can we fix upon the one question in which all others are involved—the grand underlying problem which comprehends them all? A little reflection will make it apparent that the problem of all problems is this— How shall we conceive aright the FIRST PRINCIPLE and ORIGIN of all things, itself unoriginated and unbeginning, the source of all beginnings? Or again, what is that FIRST PRINCIPLE which, being assumed, shall be found a sufficient explanation of the motion and change, the order and adaptation, the life and feeling, the consciousness and reason, we call, collectively, the universe? This is clearly the fundamental question on which all the others are grounded, and in the solution of which they have their solution. The universe presents itself to sense and sense-perception as a perpetual genesis, "a vast aggregation and history of phenomena conditioned in time and space which, by its diversity and mutability, is disqualified from being regarded as independent and self-existent." To our experiential knowledge, to our physical science in its highest generalizations, the universe is a product, an effect. And it is an effect for which the reason demands an explanation and a cause. It is a manifoldness and diversity which the logical understanding is ceaselessly endeavoring to reduce to a unity. Indeed, every movement of thought, from the first rude attempt at classification on the simple basis of resemblance, upward to the recognition of more profound ideal relations and uniform laws, until its culmination in the highest integration of reason, is but the effort of the mind to grasp the individual facts of nature in a unity of thought, and interpret the universe according to principles and ideas which the reason supplies. The moment reflective thought is directed to the phenomenal world, the questions spontaneously arise—Out of what does the phenomenal come? By what agency or efficiency does it arise? Why does it present itself in this order rather than another? Or, more specifically—What is the abiding reality which sustains the array of phenomena? What is the invisible power which effects all the changes we see around us? What is that unseen presence which determines the forms, relations, and adaptations which every where present themselves to the reason of man? In a word, What is that ultimate principle—the last or remotest in the order of analytic thought, the first in the order of being and of [Pg 20] [Pg 21] [Pg 22] [Pg 23] reason—which sustains and moves and organizes and governs all—that fundamental, abiding primus which is everlastingly present behind the scenery and changes of the world—that which always was, and now is, and ever shall be FIRST? Or if we permit ourselves to regard the present order of things as a necessary out-birth from the past, still we are compelled by a laborious effort of regressive thought to climb upward through a series of changes to an absolutely FIRST of the series conditioning all the other members, but itself unconditioned. Few will now claim that this is the natural and adequate cosmical conception; but, even under this mode of conception, we can not but feel that a development without a beginning of the process, a series without a first term, is impossible. "The absolute infinity of a series is a contradiction in adjecto. As every number, although immeasurably and inconceivably great, is impossible unless unity is given as its basis, so every series, being itself a number, is impossible unless a first term is given as its commencement." Therefore the question still returns—What is that First Principle of all things? In obedience to this demand of reason, or impelled by an innate "wonder"—"the feeling of the philosopher"—men have in all ages attempted an ideal construction and rational interpretation of the universe.[11] The Mythologies, Cosmogonies, Philosophies, Religions of the ancient world were the simple products of this innate tendency. Beyond the circle of thought illuminated by Divine revelation, the first movement of reflection was unmethodical and incomplete. Pursuing the inquiries objectively, that is, in the realm of outward nature, and not subjectively in the realm of reason, the human mind was perpetually entangled with dualistic conceptions. There were contrarieties, polarities, antagonisms, which the logical understanding could not cancel. Hence we have, as an early, perhaps the earliest, form of construction, an Oriental Dualism—as in the Adonis and Moloch of the Phoenicians, the Isis and Osiris of the Egyptians, the Ormuzd and Ahriman of the Persians, the Chaos and Love of Orpheus, the Plenum and Vacuum (Matter and Space) of Democritus, and even some lingering taint in the God and Necessity of Plato's "Timæus." But all this was unsatisfactory to human reason, which is a unity, and which makes its imperious demand that absolute unity shall stand at the fountain-head of being. It has never been able to rest in an Ultimate which was not an Absolute —that is, a unity which by its very idea and conception is the negation of all plurality and mutability; a unity which is unconditioned, and yet which conditions all; an "eternal constancy," the voluntary cause of all genesis and all change.[12] It is a law of reason, under which alone it can maintain its integrity, that the First Cause must be ONE, and not many. An absolute cause must be one in order to be absolute; two absolutes is a contradiction. With more or less clearness, men in all ages have apprehended that "the First Principle must be one or nothing." This is tacitly conceded in all modern systems of thought. Büchner, the materialist; Spencer, the dynamist; Hegel, the idealist; Cousin and Coleridge, the spiritualists, know no divergence here. Atheism, Pantheism, and Theism alike commence with unity at the fountain-head of being—a unity which is incomposite, absolutely continuous, every where present and eternal. Every system of philosophy is essentially an effort to show how the universe that now is has been originated by, or evolved out of, or has emanated from, a First Principle, an absolute Unity. To determine whether this absolute First Principle can be known, and, if known, how conceived and expressed aright, is the ultimate problem of all philosophy and all religion. All the answers which have been given, and, indeed, all which can be conceived, are contained in the following four propositions: 1. In the beginning was MATTER—matter as the original substance or substratum, with its inherent, essential, and necessary attribute of force; this alone is eternal and infinite. "No force without matter—no matter without force." "Matter and its immanent force is immortal and indestructible." "The world is unlimited and infinite."[13] Matter, with its primary forces of attraction and repulsion, cohesion and affinity, is fully adequate to the explanation of all the phenomena of the universe, physical, vital, and mental. 2. In the beginning was FORCE—force homogeneous but unstable, and necessarily tending to differentiation and heterogeneity; splitting into opposites, standing off into polarities, ramifying into attractions and repulsions, light, heat, magnetism, and electricity; and mounting up through the stages of physical, vital, and neural to the mental life itself, with all its varied and endless phenomena, as revealed in the languages, laws, institutions, arts, sciences, and religions of the world. Force is "the ultimate of all ultimates," the "Absolute Reality," the "Unconditioned Cause."[14] 3. In the beginning was THOUGHT—thought as an eternal process of self-manifestation and self-actualization, which in its necessary evolution reveals itself as force, and expresses itself in the varied types of existence and laws of phenomena, natural and spiritual. "The Absolute Idea," as a perpetual process, an eternal thinking, is the supreme principle of all reality. "The idea of the Absolute Spirit comprehends the entire wealth of the natural and the spiritual world; it is the only substance and truth of this wealth, and nothing is true and real except so far as it forms an element of its being."[15] 4. In the beginning was WILL—an unconditioned Will as the indivisible unity and perpetual differentiation of Reason and Power and Love. This Unconditioned Will is the causative principle of all Reality, all Efficiency, and all Perfection —a causative principle containing, predetermining, and producing all the manifold forms and relations, forces and laws of the universe in reference to a final purpose. This Absolute First Cause is a living personal Being, "from whom, in whom, and to whom are all things."[16] The first and second of these propositions coalesce with the creed of Atheism, the third with the creed of Pantheism, the fourth is the creed of Theism, and, as we hope to prove in subsequent chapters, the only rational and adequate explanation of the facts of the universe. [Pg 24] [Pg 25] [Pg 26] [Pg 27] CHAPTER II. GOD THE CREATOR. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."—Gen. i. 1. "God that made the world and all things therein.... He is Lord of heaven and earth."—Acts xvii. 24. "The Eternal Will is the creator of the world as He is the creator of the finite person."—Fichte. God is the first principle, the unconditioned cause of all existence. This is the answer of Christian doctrine to the great problem presented for solution in the preceding chapter. Whether this fundamental presupposition shall be finally accepted as the only adequate solution of the problem of existence will depend in a large degree upon our apprehension of the Christian idea of God. We shall, therefore, open the discussion by asking the question—What is the content of our conception of God? Dogmatic theology might rest satisfied with the simple affirmation,"God is God,"[17] as against all the captious demands of science, were it not necessary to render an account to itself of what, at first sight, might be pronounced a "sublime tautology." For, while it is hereby confessed that God in his essential being is incomprehensible and ineffable, so that to the Christian as well as to the philosopher he is "the great Unknown," still it is not hereby admitted that it is absolutely impossible to know God. To affirm that God is absolutely "the Unknowable" is simply to assert his unreality. Mr. Martineau has finely observed that this term is self-contradictory; for we affirm by the use of it that we know so much that He can not be known. Nay, it assumes the existence of God, and in the same breath separates us from Him forever. But if it be admitted that God is, it can not be absolutely impossible to know what He is. The knowledge of existence and the form of existence mutually condition each other. There must be something in the understanding answering to the term in the language of mankind, and there must be something in the realm of being which is the ground of the idea in the reason of Man. The heathen have a presentiment, a dim intuition of the "unknown God," and the inspired teacher may so "declare Him" in human language that his hearers may receive a definite notion, and attain to a practical knowledge of God. The idea of God is a common phenomenon of the universal intelligence of our race, and must have been present to the thought of man even before he uttered the name of God.[18] The moment man becomes conscious of himself, and knows himself as distinct from the world, that same moment he becomes conscious of a Higher Self—a living Power upon which both himself and the world depend. For this Higher Self all nations have found a name. All languages have a term cognate with the Saxon "God," which expresses that spontaneous consciousness of a supernatural power which is common to all minds—that intuition of a supramundane existence which is the ground and reason of all other existence. Even Polytheism has a name for the abstract of all the gods, which sets forth the ideas of being, power, causality, and personality. And in Christian lands the term God, without any periphrasis, at once represents the idea of a Being distinct from self and the world, who is the Maker of the world and the Father of humanity. For all practical ends it is enough to say God is God. It is only when reflective thought seeks to express some more specific and determinate conception of the Supreme Being that we find ourselves under the necessity of adding other expletives to this term God. It is therefore desirable that we should set down, in a provisional form, the general conception of God as it exists in the mind of the Theist and the Christian. I can not do this better than by selecting from the writings of three men of diverse schools of thought—one a Physicist, another a Metaphysician, the third a Theologian; and all in a greater or less degree influenced by the teaching of the Christian Scriptures. My first selection will be from the "Meditations" of Descartes, who is regarded as "the father of modern philosophy." "By the name of God," says he, "I mean an infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, omniscient, omnipresent substance, by which I and all other things which are have been created and produced."[19] My second selection is from the "Principia" of Sir Isaac Newton, a work which, by the general consent of the scientific world, is the greatest contribution ever made to science. Sir Isaac Newton was a Physicist rather than a Metaphysician; he will therefore represent to us the conception of God entertained by the scientific Theist. At the close of this his great work he writes: "The true God is a living, intelligent, powerful Being, and, from His other perfections, it follows that He is Supreme, or most perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, His duration reaches from eternity to eternity, His presence from infinity to infinity. He governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. He is not eternity and infinity, but eternal and infinite. He is not duration or space, but He endures and is present. He endures forever, and He is every where present; and by existing always and every where, He constitutes [or causes] duration and space. Since every particle of space is always, and every indivisible moment of duration is every where, certainly the Maker and Lord of all things can not be never and nowhere.... God is the same God, always and every where. He is omnipresent, not virtually [potentially] only, but also substantially; for virtue can not subsist without substance. In Him all things are contained and moved, yet neither affects the other. God suffers nothing from the motion of bodies; bodies find no resistance from the omnipresence of God. It is allowed by all that the Supreme God exists necessarily; and by the same necessity exists always and every where.... We know Him only by His most wise and excellent contrivances of things and final causes; we admire Him for His perfections; but we reverence and adore Him on account of His dominion. A God without dominion, providence, and final causes is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind mechanical necessity, which is certainly the same always and every where, could produce no variety of things. All [Pg 28] [Pg 29] [Pg 30] [Pg 31] that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing." My last selection is from the "Grammar of Assent," by John Henry Newman, formerly a Protestant, now a Catholic divine. Prior to his change of theological position he published a remarkable work "On the Development of Christian Doctrine in Aid of a Grammar of Assent," the design of which is to exhibit the influence of philosophic thought upon the evolution of Christian doctrine, and to bring it into harmony with the theories of Cosmical, Physiological, and Historical development, which seem for the present to be in the ascendant. For this reason I choose to employ his words, as setting forth the conception of God which is generally entertained by thoughtful men. At page ninety-seven of his last work, "The Grammar of Assent," I read: "There is one God, such and such in Nature and Attributes. I say 'such and such,' for, unless I explain what I mean by one God, I use words which may mean any thing or nothing. I may mean a mere anima mundi; or an initial principle which once was in action and now is not; or collective humanity. I speak then of the one God of the Theist and of the Christian: a God who is numerically One, who is Personal; the Author, Sustainer, and Finisher of all things, the Life of Law and Order, the moral Governor. One who is Supreme and Sole; like Himself, unlike all things besides Himself, which all are but his creatures; distinct from, independent of, them all. One who is self-existing, absolutely infinite, who has ever been and ever will be, to whom nothing is past or future; who is all perfection, and the fullness and archetype of every possible excellence, the Truth itself, Wisdom, Love, Justice, Holiness; One who is All-powerful, All-knowing, Omnipresent, Incomprehensible. These are some of the distinctive prerogatives which I ascribe unconditionally and unreservedly to the great Being whom I call God." These statements of the Theistic conception will be regarded by most men as adequate and satisfactory. They will be accepted by the scientific Theist and approved by the dogmatic Theologian. They present the idea of God within the sphere of Christian thought; that is, reflective thought informed and illuminated by the revelations of God which are given in the Christian Scriptures. At the same time it must be confessed that they are defective in scientific form, philosophical development, and logical articulation. They do not present the conception of God in harmony with any principles of Rational Integration. They show no attempt to combine the various elements of this conception in the unity of an Absolute Principle, an Ultimate and Fundamental Idea. The aim of all true philosophy is to attain to the insight of First Principles, yea, to the insight of the Absolute First Principle from which whatever now is must be derived, and in which whatever is must have its intelligible ground and sufficient reason. There exists in man, as the essential characteristic of his humanity, a power or faculty of intelligence, best named the Reason, which awakens in him the desire and furnishes to him the law that enables him to fulfill the inherent desire of combining all his manifold knowledges in the unity of such Absolute First Principle; and the one fundamental law of this faculty is the Law of Sufficient Reason, which has been thus enounced by Leibnitz: "Whatever exists, or begins to be, must have a sufficient reason for its existence, and why it is as it is, and not otherwise;" or, to give the principle a fuller, and at the same time a legitimate expansion—For all genesis, or beginning, there must be an adequate Cause; beneath all appearance, all changeful and fleeting phenomena, there must be a permanent Being or Reality; beyond all the diverse and manifold, there must be an ultimate Identity, an incomposite indivisible Unity; and in all order and special adaptation, there must be a unifying Thought, a definite Purpose and End. The Reason of man can find satisfaction and harmony only in the recognition of an Absolute First Principle which shall comprehend and unite all these universal and necessary ideas which are the correlates of the facts of experience; that is, an Absolute First Principle which shall be the Ultimate Reality, the Ultimate Cause, the Ultimate Unity, and the Ultimate Reason of all existence. In other words, the Reason is not and can not be satisfied without "the clear insight of a Causative Principle containing, predetermining, and producing all the actual results we see around us, with their orderly relations in reference to a final purpose, reason, or end; and which causative principle exists not only as the originative and constructive, but also as the conservative energy of all things;" a Being who "is before all things, and by whom all things consist," "from whom, in whom, and to whom are all things." And now what is this Absolute First Principle, causative of all existence, which the spontaneous reason has always intuitively apprehended, and which the reflective reason has always found to be the adequate, and only adequate explanation of the universe? I answer in a word, it is AN UNCONDITIONED WILL OR SELF-DIRECTIVE POWER, SEEING ITS OWN WAY, AND HAVING THE REASON AND LAW OF ITS ACTION IN ITSELF ALONE. This always and every where has been intuitively apprehended, with more or less clearness, as standing at the fountain-head of all existence. This, then, we shall postulate as the fundamental axiom of all rational integration, viz., AN UNCONDITIONED WILL, the principle of all Reality, all Efficiency, and all Perfection. 1. An unconditioned Will which realizes itself in IPSËITY—self-potency and self-affirmation; expresses itself in that august name of God "I AM;" and constitutes ABSOLUTE REALITY. 2. An unconditioned Will which manifests itself in ALTERITY—pluri-efficiency; utters itself in the "I WILL" of the creative fiat; and constitutes INFINITE EFFICIENCY. 3. An unconditioned Will which returns to itself in TOTALITY—a complete Ideal to be realized in Creation; which expresses its satisfaction in pronouncing all things "very good," and constitutes PERFECT PERSONALITY. The changeless correlation and inherent harmony of these ideas of the reason (Reality, Efficiency, and Personality) may [Pg 32] [Pg 33] [Pg 34] [Pg 35] be rendered more obvious by the following formula, after the method of Coleridge's "polar logic."[20] PROTHESIS UNCONDITIONED WILL / | \ /-----------------/ | \------------------\ THESIS / MESOTHESIS \ ANTITHESIS / | \ IPSËITY-----Efficient CAUSALITY Efficient----ALTERITY \ | / \ Final / \-----------------\ | /------------------/ \ | / TOTALITY Prothesis expresses the absolute identity or eternal co-inherence of Reason, Love, and Power (the Divine Essence). Thesis expresses Power in the form of Love (the Divine Self-sufficiency and Self-potency). Antithesis expresses Reason in the form of Power (the Divine Efficiency). Synthesis expresses the diversity in unity of Reason, Love, and Power (the Divine Perfection). And Mesothesis expresses the essential correlations which integrate the whole (the Triunity of the manifested God). Thus Absolute Reality, Infinite Efficiency, and Perfect Personality are all, as a triplicity, contained in the fundamental unity of an unconditioned Will, which has Love as its motive, Power as its agent, and Reason as its light and law. And now let us retire within our own consciousness, and see if this fundamental axiom of rational integration—Will as the principle of all Reality, Efficiency, and Perfection—is not reflected in our reason, and evolved in our inner experience. Do we not find that the central point of our consciousness—that which makes each man what he is in contradistinction from every other man—that which expresses the real essence of the soul apart from its formal processes and regulative laws—is the WILL? Without Will man would fall back from the elevation which he now assumes to the level of impersonal nature: in a word, he would be a thing, and not a power. Power, spontaneity, causality, will—these, or similar forms, express, as nearly as can be, the essential nature or principle of the human soul.[21] Furthermore, it is obvious that mere Power or Energy does not suffice for the notion of Will—there must also be Reason and Affection.[22] Indeed, "Will is contemplated universally as the inseparable union and perpetual differentiation of Intelligence and originative Power, and as such the sole ground of the intelligibility of all causation."[23] A volitional act, a moral and responsible act, must be one which is performed under the influence of motives, and for which, when called to account, we can assign valid reasons. All true volition supposes a purpose or end to be realized, an inward appetency or motive which makes the end desirable, and the selection and adaptation of means to accomplish that end. Power divorced from reason is simply blind force, and can not be dignified with the name of Will. The mind of man is sometimes in a predominant state of knowing, sometimes in a predominant state of feeling, and sometimes in a predominant state of determination. To call these separate faculties, however, is altogether beside the mark. No act of intelligence can be performed without some determination of the Ego, no act of determination without some cognition, and no act of the one or the other without some amount of feeling being mingled in the process. Thus, while each mental state may have its distinctive characteristics, there is unity at the root—the identical Ego, spirit, WILL.[24] Sensibility is the condition, Reason is the light, Will is the centre of human consciousness. Consciousness is a threefold phenomenon in which feeling, knowing, and self-determination are reciprocal elements, and in their connection and simultaneousness, and at the same time their differentiation, they compose the entire intellectual life.[25] The finite spirit or will unfolds itself, first, subjectively, in the spontaneous affirmation of self-being or self-potency (IPSËITY); secondly, objectively, in the exertion of power to produce motion, change, phenomena (EFFICIENCY); thirdly, synthetically, in the unity of motive and intention, purpose and act, means and end (PERSONALITY). Thus does "Will present the middle point, which embraces thought on the one hand and force on the other; and which yet, so far from appearing to us to be a compound arising out of them as an effect, is more easily conceived as the originative prefix (prothesis) of all mental phenomena.... It carries with it, in its very idea, the co-presence of thought as the necessary element within whose sphere it has to manifest itself; its phenomena can not exist alone; it acts on preconceptions, which stand related to it, not however as its source, but as its conditions, and are its co-ordinates in the effect, rather than its generating antecedents."[26] Psychological analysis leads us inevitably to this conclusion, that all things are issued by Will, whether in the sphere of the finite or the infinite, and therefore we postulate an UNCONDITIONED WILL, A PERFECT MIND, at the source of all becoming. Thus, as Martineau truly remarks, between the FORCE of the physical atheist and the THOUGHT of the metaphysical pantheist, we fix upon WILL as the true balancing-point of a moral theism. The intelligent reader scarce needs to be reminded that this is the conclusion reached by reflective thought in that best and fullest exhibition of it which is found in Greek philosophy. The great problem of Greek philosophy, as of all philosophy, was, "What is the ἀρχῆ, the First Principle—the ground and cause and reason of all existence?" The final answer of that age is found in Plato, for Platonism was the culmination, the ripened fruit of the ages of earnest thought which preceded Plato. He gathered up, co-ordinated, and grasped into unity the results bequeathed by the mental efforts of his predecessors. The Platonic answer to this great question of philosophy is clear and unequivocal. A perf...