Theism. Flint Robert

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СКАЧАТЬ the image of man. It was the great error of classic heathendom that it thus conceived of the Divine. "Men," says Heraclitus, "are mortal gods, and the gods immortal men." And the gods of Greece, as represented by her poets and adored by her people, were simply magnified and immortal men – a race closely akin to their worshippers in weaknesses and vices no less than in powers and virtues. They were supposed to be born as men are, to have voice and figure, parts and passions, and even at times to cheat and rail and lie. They reflected all the tendencies of the Greek mind, both good and evil.

      Worshippers of the one God can scarcely fall into the same extravagance of error in this respect as the Greeks and Romans did, as all polytheists do; but they can, and often do, fall into the error, and think of God as subject to limits and defects, which are only in themselves. For instance, what is called deism, as distinguished from theism, rests wholly on the conception that the presence and power of God are limited, and that He acts in the manner to which man as a finite creature is restricted. The deist thinks of God as outside of and away from the universe; he thinks of the universe as a mechanism which God has contrived, and which He has endowed with certain powers, in virtue of which it is able to sustain itself in existence, and to perform its work so as to save God, as it were, all further trouble and labour concerning it. It is a great gain for us to have a machine doing what we desire without our needing to pay any attention to it or even to be present where it is, because we cannot give our attention to more than one object at one and the same instant of time, and cannot be present at the same time in more places than one; but those who liken God to man in this respect, divest Him of His omnipresence and omnipotence, and represent Him as characterised in some measure by their own impotency. There is a truth which Pantheism often claims as peculiarly and distinctively its own, – the truth that in God we and all things live, and move, and have our being – that of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things, – but which theism must sincerely and fully appropriate as one of its simplest and most certain elements, otherwise the charge against it of being a false and presumptuous likening of God to man will be warranted. We must not think of Him as "an absentee God, sitting idle ever since the first Sabbath, at the outside of His universe, and 'seeing it go'" – as a God at hand but not afar off, or afar off but not at hand – as here, not there, or there, not here; but we must think of Him as everywhere present, everywhere active – as at once the source of all order, the spring of all life, and the ground of all affection and thought.

      We need to be still more on our guard against limiting His wisdom or righteousness or love, as it is what we are still more prone to do. These attributes of God are often thought of in the meanest and most unworthy ways; and doubtless it has to a large extent been horror at the consequent degradation of the idea of God which has made some men refuse to assign to Him any of the properties of humanity, saying, with Xenophanes, that if the animals could think, they would imagine the Deity to be in their likeness – and with Spinoza, that if a circle could think, it would suppose His essence to be circularity. But this is to flee from one extreme to another extreme, from one error to a still more terrible error, through utterly failing to distinguish between perfection and imperfection, between what ought and what ought not to be ascribed to God. Circularity, animal forms and dispositions, human limitations – these are imperfections, and we must not refer them to God; but intelligence, righteousness, love – these are so little in their own nature imperfections that an intelligent being, however feeble, would be more excellent than an omnipotent and omnipresent being destitute of intelligence; and righteousness and love are as much superior to mere intelligence as it is to mere power and magnitude. To ascribe these to God, if we only ascribe them to Him in infinite perfection, is no presumption, no error; not to ascribe them to Him is the greatest presumption, the most lamentable error.

      The second truth necessary to be borne in mind, whenever we affirm the likeness of God to man, is, that in whatever measure and to whatever extent God may be known, our knowledge of Him is, and always must be, very inadequate. In these latter days of science we are proud of our knowledge of the universe; and yet, although we do know a little of far-away stars and systems, what is this, after all, but, as Carlyle says, the knowledge which a minnow in its native creek has of the outlying ocean? And our knowledge of God must fall unspeakably farther short of being coextensive with its object. To illustrate the disproportion there, no comparison can be appropriate. "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is high as heaven; what canst thou do? Deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea." Our idea of God may contain nothing which is not true of God, and may omit nothing which it is essential for our spiritual welfare that we should know regarding Him; but it is impossible that it should be a complete and exhaustive idea of Him. We have scarcely a complete and exhaustive idea of anything, and least of all can we have such an idea of the infinite and inexhaustible source of all being. God alone can have a complete and exhaustive idea of Himself. There must be infinitely more in God than we have any idea of. There must be many qualities, powers, excellences, in Divine nature, which are wholly unknown to men, or even wholly unknowable by them, owing to their want of any faculties for their apprehension. And even as to what we do know of God, our knowledge is but partial and inadequate. We know that God knows, that He feels, that He acts; but as to how He knows, feels, and acts, as to what is distinctive and characteristic of His knowing, feeling, and acting, we have little or no notion. We can apprehend certain attributes of God, but we can comprehend, or fully grasp, or definitely image, not one of them. If we could find out God unto perfection in any respect, then, either we must be infinite or God must be finite in that respect. The finite mind can never stretch itself out in any direction until it is coextensive with the Infinite Mind. Man is made in the image of God, but he is not the measure of God.

      LECTURE IV

NATURE IS BUT THE NAME FOR AN EFFECT WHOSE CAUSE IS GODI

      We have now to consider the principle of causality so far as it is implied in the theistic inference, and the theistic inference so far as it is conditioned by the principle of causality. It is not necessary to discuss the nature of the principle of causality in itself or for its own sake; it is even expedient, I believe, not to attempt to penetrate farther into its metaphysics and psychology than the work on hand imperatively requires. We must of course go as far as those have gone who have maintained on metaphysical or psychological grounds that the principle of causality warrants no theistic inference; we must show that their metaphysics and psychology are irrelevant when true, and false when relevant; but we may be content to stop when we have reached this result. The truth of theism has been very generally represented, both by those who admit and by those who deny the validity of the theistic inference, as much more dependent than it really is on the truth or falsity of some one or other of the many views which have been entertained as to the nature of causation, and the origin of the causal judgment. We are constantly being warned by theists that unless we accept this or that particular notion of causation, and account for it in this or that particular manner, we cannot reasonably believe in the existence of God; we are constantly being assured by anti-theists that belief in God is irrational, because it assumes some erroneous view of causation, or some erroneous explanation of the process by which causation is apprehended. But it will be found that representations of this kind seldom prove more than one-sidedness and immaturity of thought in those who make them. An accurate and comprehensive view of the nature of causation, and of our apprehension of it, will, it is true, have here as elsewhere great advantages over an erroneous and narrow one, but hardly any of the theories which have been held on these points can be consistently argued by those who hold them to invalidate theistic belief. Even utterly inadequate statements and explanations of the principle of causality – as, for example, those of Hume and J. S. Mill – are not more incompatible with the theistic inference than they are with any other inference which is a real extension of knowledge. Unless they are understood and applied more rigidly than by those who propound them, they allow us to draw the theistic inference; if understood and applied so as to forbid our drawing it, they logically disallow all scientific inference except such as is purely formal and deductive. In a word, if compatible with science they are compatible with theism, and if incompatible with theism they are incompatible with science.

      When we assume the principle of СКАЧАТЬ