GOD AS ABSOLUTE REALITY

In our introductory study of the theological and philosophical definitions of God, a preliminary statement was made to the effect that the ultimate Personality of religion and the Absolute of philosophy find together their highest expression in Jesus Christ; and that in His Person and work, we have the deepest possible insight into the nature and purpose of God. As indicated, also, the Christian concept, historically considered, is a blending of the Hebrew conception as expressed in the Old Testament prophets, with that held by the Greeks, as expressed in their language, through which in the providence of God, most if not all of the books of the New Testament were given to the Christian Church. This gave rise immediately to a conflict of ideas concerning the nature of God as Absolute, due to the attempt to express the higher concepts of divine revelation through the lower concepts of a language which fell short of the full Christian content. The Hebrew conception of God was that of a transcendent Being, powerful, holy, righteous and hence personal. He was regarded as the Creator of all things, was One and was Perfect. Judaism developed a true monotheism. In the Christian concept, the Jewish monotheistic element was carried over, with the added concept of a further revelation through Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Greek concept of God had a long period of development before it came into contact with Christianity, and was not at that time a unity. From nature-gods, through nature itself, it had developed toward a philosophical theism. The concept of Plato was dynamic; while that of Aristotle was static. To Plato, God was the Idea of the Good, or as expressed in modern terminology, the Ideal, this Ideal being the supreme Reality of the Universe. To Aristotle, God was the Prime Mover of the universe, but Himself the Unmoved Mover.

The Stoics regarded God in a pantheistic manner as a sort of quasi-material, the Soul of the Universe. To the Epicureans, the gods were transcendent and aloof from the affairs of men. The Neo-Platonists held to an agnostic idea, which has been the ground of much modern agnosticism. To them God was absolutely transcendent, and therefore impassible, beyond all predicates, but mediated through His Mind in a series of emanations. The mystery religions each had its own Kyrios or Lord, but these were regarded more in the sense of the Lord of a religion or cult, than the God of the universe. They were finite beings rather than Infinite. 

Christianity entered the world at a time when it was under the sway of Deism on the one hand and Pantheism on the other; and these necessitated a consideration of the problem of immanence and transcendence. In addition, there were the ethical questions of sin and grace which were vitally related to those of immanence and transcendence, whether considered in reference to creation or providence. The Greek and Roman philosophies clashed very early with the Christian conception. Certain philosophers of the Epicureans and Stoics encountered the Apostle Paul (Acts 17:18) in the market place at Athens, which garnished the occasion for his great address on Mars' Hill (Acts 17:22-31). From these false philosophies there arose the Colossian Heresy, a form of gnosticism against which St. Paul directed his Epistle to the Colossians. St; John, also, in his first epistle, attacks the same heresy. Perhaps Christian doctrine was never subjected to a severer test than in the early centuries of the Church, especially in the period immediately preceding the time of Augustine. 

Mithraism, Gnosticism, Manichaeism, and Neo-Platonism all combined to rob the Church of the simplicity of its conception of God, as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was for this reason that St. Paul warned the Colossians against philosophy and vain deceit (Col. 2:8), and cautioned Timothy to beware of the oppositions of science falsely so called (I Tim. 6:20). But the apologists of the church had a keen insight as to the fundamentals of the faith, and gave themselves to the propagation of a right idea of God, upon which, they saw, hinged all other doctrines. They took the position that God was related historically to the covenant people of the Old Testament, that He was related spiritually to the Church of the New Testament, and creatively to the world apart from the Church. Furthermore, they removed all the mythological elements which clung to the Aryan conceptions of God, maintained the Christian idea of God as pure spirituality, and denied reality to all heathen deities. The Christian concept of God, therefore, became one of unity, spirituality and absoluteness, which they consistently maintained against pagan philosophy from without, and heretical opinions from within. 

 

THE ORIGIN OF THE ABSOLUTE

The term absolute is the creation of modern philosophy, but the fact of absoluteness is an age old problem. No chapter in ancient philosophy carries with it more pathos than the sincere but blind groping after truth on the part of earnest but unenlightened men. The Ionians sought for a first principle, a prima materia which should explain the origin and unity of the created universe. Thales found it in water, Anaximenes in air, and Anaximander, reaching a somewhat loftier plane, found it in the Infinite. Then followed the "Being" of Parmenides, the "atoms" of Democritus, and a foregleam of that which was to follow in the "nous" or "reason" of Anaxagoras. Ancient thought on the plane of materialism could rise no higher, and was followed as a consequence by a period of skepticism. Out of this confusion Greek thought was led by Socrates to a higher level, that of the moral nature of the universe. On this new plane, Greek philosophy reached its supreme heights in the mysticism of Plato and the logic of Aristotle. It could advance no farther, and again sank into decline. At the time of Christ, Greek philosophy was groping about on the plane of primitive religion expressed in philosophical terms. St. Paul seems to have had this in mind, when after referring to the "unknown God" in his Athenian address, he declared that God in His sovereignty over the nations had appointed the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord, by which we are to understand an intellectual pursuit of truth; if haply they might feel after him, that is in the moral pressure upon the consciences of men; and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring (Acts 17:24-28). Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, he triumphantly exclaims, him declare I unto you (Acts 17:23). Thus to the intellectual gropings and of unenlightened men, and to the moral pressure upon conscience, St. Paul adds another factor-spiritual illumination-which comes through the redemptive religion of the Lord Jesus Christ, and brings men's gropings and pressures to full fruition in finding God. In one divinely inspired and illuminating grasp, therefore, St. Paul combines both the creatura and natura aspects of God-both personal transcendence of the Hebrews, and the immanence of the Greeks. In this authoritative address is given the Christian concept of God. The attempt to harmonize the diverse elements gave rise to great problems which in every age have perplexed theology, but even more so, science and philosophy. The apostle had a deep insight into the different tempers of mind exhibited by the Jew and the Greek when he wrote that we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews, with their scientific temper of mind, a stumblingblock; and unto the Greeks, with their philosophical temper of mind, foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God (I Cor. 1:23, 24). 

It is a broadening and heartening thought that God who revealed Himself to the Jews in a more objective manner, revealed Himself in a measure also to the Gentiles, through their search after truth. The limit of this seeking seems to have been set by the Apostle Paul, as the knowledge of his eternal power and Godhead. Beyond this it cannot go, for the true knowledge of God is at once ethical and spiritual. The redemptive aspect is involved. There was, therefore, as we have indicated, a period of skepticism in Greek thought at the time of Christ. The fullness of time in which Jesus came, seems to have applied not only to the Jews but to the Gentile world as well. It is significant that a company of Greeks came to the disciples and said, Sir, we would see Jesus (John 12:21). Greek thought with its search after truth through intellectual acumen and moral pressure had broken down, and the vague, unsatisfied longings of their hearts, in connection with the providences of God, had brought them to Jesus. The answer which Jesus gave them is significant also, and will receive fuller treatment in our discussion of the knowledge of God. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, He said, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit (John 12:24). The hindering cause does not lie in the failure of the intellectual grasp, or even in the lack of moral pressure, He said, but in the sense of sin which brings a moral and ethical unlikeness to God, and thereby destroys the true basis for personal and spiritual knowledge. There must, therefore, be a death to the sinful nature, and the infusion of a new life, before there can be spiritual comprehension. In the redemptive Christ all the seeming contradictions of life find their principle of unity. Here the Jewish idea of sin as transgression finds forgiveness, and the Jewish mission is thereby fulfilled. Here the Greek conception of sin as a "missing of the mark" or failure, finds its completion in Jesus. This then is the prophetic vision of Christ, a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel (Luke 2:32). 

In this brief historical sketch, we have reviewed the various philosophical concepts of God regarded as the Absolute. The Jews held to the idea of a transcendent God. Because of their belief in creation through the Divine Word, they never regarded God as apart from all relations, and were thereby preserved from an agnostic position. However, when brought into contact with Greek philosophy at Alexandria, Philo and the Neo-Platonists carried the idea of transcendence to such extreme lengths that it issued in agnosticism. They were therefore, under the necessity of superseding the idea of creation, and consequently posited a series of emanations in order to account for the world. From this false philosophy there arose the several gnostic sects, which exerted an unwholesome influence in the church. But Greek philosophy on the whole was pantheistic. That is, it regarded God as the Absolute, not apart from all relations but inclusive of all such relations. The difficulty of the agnostic position concerning the Absolute, lay in its failure to relate God to the universe the weakness of pantheism lay in its failure to distinguish God from the universe. Christianity, and therefore Christian philosophy, took a mediating position. It maintained that God as Absolute is neither apart from relations on the one hand, nor inclusive of relations on the other. It maintains that the Absolute is independent Self-existence. As such it is capable of existing apart from all external relations, or of entering into free relations with created beings, either in an outward and transcendent manner, or an inward and immanent manner. Christian philosophy maintains that to hold less than this, is to limit and thereby destroy any true conception of the Absolute. We turn our attention now to an investigation from the Christian viewpoint, of the various theories of the Absolute which have been current in modern philosophy. 

The New Platonists taught that the original ground and source of all things was simple being, without life or consciousness; of which absolutely nothing could be known, beyond that it is. They assumed an unknown quantity, of which nothing can be predicated. The pseudo-Dionysius called this original ground of all things God, and taught that God was mere being without attributes of any kind, not only unknowable by man, but of whom there was nothing to be known, as absolute being is in the language of modern philosophy-Nothing; nothing in itself, yet nevertheless the dunamiV twn pantwn or (cause of all things). The universe proceeds from primal being, not by any exercise of conscious power or will, but by a process of emanation. . . . . The primary emanations from the ground of all being, which the heathen called gods; the New Platonists, spirits or intelligences; and the Gnostics, aeons; the pseudo-Dionysius called angels. These he divided into three triads: (1) thrones, cherubim, and seraphim; (2) powers, lordships, authorities; (3) angels, archangels, principalities."-HODGE, Systematic Theology, I, pp. 71, 72. (Cf. Col. 1:16). 

  

MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS OF THE ABSOLUTE 

Modern philosophy has interpreted the term "Absolute" in three different ways. First, it has interpreted it to mean that which is entirely unrelated. This position of necessity issues in Agnosticism which maintains that the Absolute is unknowable. 

Second, at the other extreme, it has been interpreted to mean the totality of all things, or that Being which embraces the universe as a whole. This is Pantheism. It was against these positions in their ancient forms that the Apostle Paul reasoned on Mars' Hill, and they are no less anti-Christian in their modern philosophical forms. 

Third, the Absolute has been interpreted as meaning that which is independent or self-existent. On this theory, the Absolute is not necessarily apart from all relations, but these relations are free and the existence of the absolute is not dependent upon them. This is the position of Theism. Christianity is theistic, and it is only within the third classification that the Christian viewpoint is to be found. The distinctive feature of the Christian system is, that its revelation is made through a Person and not through the barren abstractions of philosophy. 

While Christianity is based upon the theistic conception of the Absolute, it endeavors to guard the truth in the first and second classifications without allowing it to be perverted into Agnosticism on the one hand or Pantheism on the other. In the First, there is the thought of transcendence. Christianity has always maintained that God is incomprehensible as transcending the limits of human knowledge, but it denies Agnosticism in that it insists that its knowledge of God is true within the limits of finite conception. In the Second, there is the thought of divine immanence, which if the idea of personality be persistently held can never become pantheistic. Both immanence and transcendence belong to the Christian conception of God, but it denies both Pantheism and Agnosticism. Since these forms of modern philosophy furnish nonbiblical conceptions of God, they must be given further consideration and refutation. 

Theism has also been attacked in modern times by the so-called "Anti-Theistical Theories," and of these we must later make brief mention. 

Agnosticism. This is the negative theory of the Unknowable, and while in the case of Herbert Spencer it was made to apply equally to the ultimate of science and that of religion, the theory has assumed its most definite form in the denial of the possibility of any true knowledge of God. It is the outgrowth of phenomenalism and is closely connected with the skepticism of Hume, but has been accepted also in some instances by those who rest their doctrine of the Infinite and the Absolute on the limitation of human intelligence. 

Three stages may be noted in the development of agnosticism, preceding its fuller and perhaps final culmination in the theory of Naturalistic Evolution. The first stage is usually attributed to Kant, whose philosophy is admittedly due to that of Locke and Hume, for its inspiration if not it content. Kant's Critical Philosophy was an attempt to ascertain to what extent knowledge is given in experience, and how much of it is due to the mind's own contribution. This latter was understood not in the sense of actual knowledge, but as the necessary forms which determined the possibilities of knowledge. He therefore attributed all our knowledge to three cognitive faculties, the sensory, the understanding, and the reason. The sensory gives us the perceptions of the phenomena of understanding, a more elaborated knowledge grouped under the categories of quantity, quality, relation and modality; while the reason gives us those ideas which are regulative of the system of our knowledge the soul, the universe and God. When Kant speaks of knowledge ending with reason, he regards the reason as the faculty or principle which relates the understanding, and consequently as the highest reach of human intelligence. The matter of knowledge is phenomenal and comes through the senses; the form is supplied by the mind itself; and therefore the categories and the ideas, space and time, the soul, the universe and God are only regulative of mental procedure and do not furnish the knowledge of real existences. The basis for agnosticism, however, is found only in his Critique of Pure Reason. In his Critique of Practical Reason, he stresses the categorical imperative of moral law and establishes his doctrine of the existence of God, as based upon faith rather than reason. 

The second stage is found in the philosophy of Sir William Hamilton and that of Henry Longueville Mansel. Hamilton maintained that "the mind can conceive, and consequently can know, only the limited and conditionally limited. The unconditionally limited, whether the Infinite or the Absolute, cannot positively be construed to the mind; they can be conceived only by thinking away from, or abstractions of those very conditions under which thought itself is realized; consequently the notion of the unconditioned is only negative-the negative of the conceivable itself" (HAMILTON, Discussions on Philosophy, p. 13). Dean Mansel of St. Paul's (1820-1871) accepted the philosophy of Hamilton and sought to apply it as an apologetic in theology. This he did in his famous Bampton Lectures, delivered at Oxford under the title of The Limits of Religious Thought. Instead, however, of appealing to the theologians, his lecture afforded a stimulus to agnosticism. His argument, borrowed from Hamilton, stated that to think is to condition, and therefore the unconditioned cannot be an object of thought, thus excluding the whole range of revealed truth concerning God, as beyond the pale of logic. 

The third stage is found in the philosophy of John Stuart Mill, who in his Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy has carried out the implications of Hamilton, and denied that we have "an intuitive knowledge of God." "Whatever relates to God," he says, "I hold to be a matter of inference; I would add, of inference a posteriori." While accepting the philosophy of Hamilton, his criticism was, that Hamilton did not rigidly carry out his agnostic principles and treat the Absolute as an unmeaning abstraction. This brings us to a consideration of the agnosticism of Huxley and Spencer, the immediate precursors of the doctrine of evolution as advanced by Darwin. 

Thomas E. Huxley (1825-1895) based his agnostic philosophy upon Hume and Kant, while Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) starts from Hamilton's Philosophy of the Unconditioned, and Mansel's Limits of Religious Thought. Huxley boasted that he invented the term "agnostic" in order to designate his mental attitude toward the many problems which remained for him unsolved. "It is an ill-omened invention," declares Dr. Harris, for the word etymologically denotes the negation of all knowledge, and is synonymous with universal skepticism. Perhaps he builded better than he knew; for the way of thinking to which he applied the name necessarily involves skepticism as its ultimate, logical issue." 

Hume was the great protagonist of Huxley's philosophy, and he makes it clear that his positions are but an application of Hume's theory of knowledge. "In the business of life," says Huxley, "we constantly take the most serious action upon evidence of an utterly insufficient character. But it is surely plain that faith is not entitled to dispense with ratiocination, because ratiocination cannot dispense with faith as a starting point; and that because we are too often obliged by the pressure of events to act on very bad evidence, it does not follow that it is proper to act on such evidence when the pressure is absent." Here the agnostic principle is directed toward the destruction of all religious belief. Rishell points out that in the course of investigation this form of agnosticism undergoes a complete change. It quietly substitutes "I do not believe" for "I do not know." What right has agnosticism in the realm of belief? But it draws a practical conclusion from "I do not believe" and says, "I will not act." If it had remained agnosticism it might have acted in spite of its lack of knowledge. But its "I do not believe" is a complete annihilation of all impulse to action. The difference between agnosticism in this form, and atheism is almost, if not wholly, in name (RISHELL, Foundations of the Christian Faith, p. 62). Huxley's agnosticism differs from that of Spencer, and is more in accord with the principles of Comte's Positivism. 

Herbert Spencer as an Evolutionist carried the doctrine of Hamilton and Mansel one step farther, and professed belief in "an Absolute that transcends not only human knowledge, but human conception." He wrote his First Principles of a New System of Philosophy in an attempt to discover a basis for the reconciliation of science and religion. He endeavors, therefore, to show that the ultimate ideas of both science and religion lie in a great mystery behind all things and are identical. "If religion and science are to be reconciled," he says, "the basis of reconciliation must be this deepest, widest and most certain of all facts; that the Power which the universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable" (Cf. First Principles, chapters 2, 3). 

The agnosticism of Spencer is not a thorough-going denial of all knowledge, for it recognizes not only knowledge of the universe, but an absolute Being, which as an omnipresent Power reveals itself through all the phenomena of the universe. The fallacy of this type of agnosticism comes out more clearly in its treatment of symbolic conceptions and the relativity of knowledge, and we may add, its antitheistic character as well. "When instead of things whose attributes can be tolerably united in a single state of consciousness, we have to deal with things whose attributes are too vast or numerous to be united, we must," he says, "either drop in thought part of their attributes, or else not think of them at all; either form a more or less symbolic conception or no conception." "We are led," he then continues, "to deal with our symbolic conceptions as though they are actual ones, not only because we cannot clearly separate the two, but also because in a majority of cases, the first serve our purposes nearly or quite as well as the last-are simply abbreviated signs we substitute for those more elaborate signs which are our equivalent for real objects. . . . . Thus we open the door to some which profess to stand for known things, but which really stand for things which cannot be known in any way" (First Principles, pp. 28, 29). Then, without any ground in either science or religion, he proceeds to include all ultimate ideas of both science and religion in the class of the Unknown, and by analysis attempts to show that the Reality behind the appearances is and must ever be unknown. All knowledge with him is relative, that is, a knowledge of relations, but never reaching the finality of things. From this viewpoint there can be no knowledge of the world-ground upon which all finite things depend, nor can God as the Absolute, the Infinite, or the First Cause be known. Against this agnostic theory, theism maintains that while man's knowledge of God is inadequate, it is yet positive and not merely a negative abstraction. 

Wherein does the fallacy of Agnosticism lie? First, it lies in the attempt to develop the Absolute from a mere a priori idea. From the presupposition that the Absolute is entirely unrelated, the unlimited, the unconditioned or the independent, nothing can be developed but a series of negations without positive content. This is the type of thought represented by Hamilton and Mansel. 

Second, not only is it impossible to unfold a doctrine of the Absolute from an a priori idea, but in some types of agnosticism there is a false conception of this a priori idea. It is defined as that which is apart from all relations and hence "unknowable." The error here lies in assuming that the absolute is unrelated. The Absolute is not indeed conditioned by the universe as a necessary relation, but it does condition the universe, and is therefore not apart from all relation. This sometimes takes the form of Kant's thing-in-itself, and sometimes is an attempt to resolve the universal into indeterminate qualities, but both lead immediately to agnosticism. 

Third,

Spencer objects to the position taken by Hamilton and Mansel, which he thinks calls in question the impossibility of affirming the positive existence of anything beyond phenomena, whereas for him there is what he defines as "a Power, the First Cause, absolute and infinite, and capable of manifesting itself," and insists that "its positive existence is a necessary datum of consciousness; that so long as consciousness continues we cannot for an instant rid it of this datum; and that thus the belief which this datum constitutes has a higher warrant than any other whatever-First Principles, p. 98.

 

and the Infinite become finite. The argument of Dr. Harris against this position so dominant in modern philosophy is, we think, unanswerable, and is thus stated: "The maxim that all definition limits is pertinent to a logical general notion or a mathematical sum total, not to a concrete being. The arguments of agnostics are conclusive as to the false ideas of the Absolute which they hold, but have no force against our knowledge of the real Absolute or unconditioned Being, whose existence the universe reveals. But the more powers it reveals, the more determined it is. There are fewer beings like it; fewer in the class designated by the general name. The increased determinateness, which restricts the logical general notion to fewer beings, greatens the beings. And when we come to the absolute Being, which is one and reveals itself in all the powers of the universe, it is the Being at once the most determinate and greatest of all. It is not necessary that the Absolute be everything to prevent its being limited by that which it is not. The existence of finite beings dependent on absolute Being is no limitation of the Absolute. On the contrary, if the absolute Being could not manifest itself in finite beings dependent on itself, that inability would be a limitation of it" (HARRIS, Self-revelation of God, pp. 175, 176). 

 

Pantheism. As a philosophical theory of the universe, Pantheism reduces all being to a single essence or substance. It derives its name from en kai pan, or the One and the All, and seems to have been first used by Xenophanes, the Greek philosopher, about the sixth century B.C. It has appeared in many forms. The common substance which composes the universe may be regarded as matter, and hence we have materialistic pantheism. Or, it may regard the universal substance or ground of the universe as thought, in which case we have idealistic pantheism, its most common form philosophically. Only, however, as pantheism makes God the sole substance, does it acquire the significance which the name implies. As such, the theory holds that God is not outside and beyond the universe, but that he is the universe. He exists only in it, and apart from it has no existence. He is the Soul, Reason and Spirit of the world. The natural world is his body in which he comes to expression. God is everything-the sum total of all being. It is evident that Pantheism occupies a middle ground between Materialism, which identifies God with Nature; and Theism which holds to a belief in God as a self-conscious Being, a Person, infinite and eternal who created the world and sustains it by His power. 

 

Pantheism is closely related to polytheism as found among the ethnic religions. The two seem so dissimilar that this relationship is often overlooked. Just as the Greek religion held that in addition to the Olympian gods, there were innumerable demigods, as nymphs and naiads peopling all nature; so the Greek philosopher saw in all nature a manifestation of Deity. Pantheism and polytheism are therefore but two forms of the same fundamental belief, the first seeking in a philosophical manner for unity amidst individual phenomena, and the latter stopping short with personifications of them. It is for this reason, that pantheism, both religious and philosophical, is always found closely associated with polytheistic forms of religion. 

 

Disregarding the religious fallacies of pantheism, which we reserve for a later paragraph, pantheism as a theory of the Absolute in relation to the world-ground is scientifically untenable. First it is built upon assumptions which are not only unproved but incapable of proof. As Materialism is built upon the supposition of the eternity of matter, so Spinoza who is the pattern for modern day pantheism, builds upon the supposition of a universal substance which he identifies with God. He does not investigate this idea of God. He substitutes, instead, a mere logical universal in which are embraced all individual notions; but he fails to see that this is merely a subjective idea, not a real existence. This confusion of thought with existence, this merely imagined unity of ideas in our consciousness with the actually existing objective order, is the fallacy which underlies most modern thought concerning the nature of the Absolute. "I have," says Spinoza, "opinions as to God and nature entirely different from those which modern Christians are wont to vindicate. To my mind God is the immanent, and not the transcendent Cause of all things; that is, the totality of finite objects is posited in the Essence of God, and not in His Will. Nature considered per se, is one with the essence of God." 

 

Second, Pantheism fails to account for the origin of cosmical matter. Since the world dud God are regarded as of identical essence, it is inconceivable that He could call it into existence out of its former nothingness. Spinoza attempts an explanation on the basis of a natura naturans, or a "begetting nature" which from eternity is constantly begetting and bringing forth mundane phenomena (natura naturata). In order to account for this eternal fullness of life, Spinoza maintains that begotten nature reacts upon the begetting nature, and thus a harmony is established. Against such absurdities, the biblical idea of creation as a miracle must appear far more reasonable. 

Third,

"If we demand the origin of the actual world, that is of 'begotten nature' we are told that 'begetting nature' is the ultimate cause; and if we demand the origin of the latter, we are again referred to 'begotten nature,' that is, to the very fact of which we seek an explanation." CHRISTLIEB, Mod. Doubt and Chr. Belief, p. 116.  The utter erroneousness of pantheism is manifest in this, that the monism which it maintains determines all finite existences to be mere modes of the one infinite substance, mere phenomena without any reality of being in themselves. The physical universe becomes unsubstantial as in the extremist form of idealism. Mind becomes equally unreal. Neither can be thus dismissed from the realm of substantial existence. In the physical universe there is a very real being. Not all is mere appearance. And every personal mind has its own consciousness the absolute proof of being in itself. Personal mind is not a mere phenomenon. The monism of Pantheism is utterly false in doctrine.-MILEY, Systematic Theology, I, pp. 115, 116.  Pantheism as surely as materialism would, if carried out to its logical results, destroy all thought. It begins with the contradiction of the fundamental facts of consciousness. If we do not know that we exist as personal and free agents we know nothing. For to deny this is to deny the ego, in contradistinction from which alone we know the non-ego. So that both the self and the not-self are struck down at a single blow. But if we are so grossly deceived in the primary facts of consciousness, in those things which are most accessible to thought, how can we trust our conclusions in matters more remote.-RISHELL, Foundations of the Christian Faith, p. 102.

 

absolute Substance into its various modes of existence, but never producing effects ad extra, outside of or beyond itself. It is therefore an eternal process of becoming, and the God which it would reveal is perpetually hidden. 

Fourth, Pantheism denies the personality of God. It is under the necessity, therefore, of explaining how personality can proceed from an impersonal Substance. Pantheism maintains that God is free in the sense that there are no external constraints. But freedom to choose is denied Him because He must unfold according to the nature of His essential being. What He does, He does because of what He is and not because He wills to do so. Intelligence is thus denied God in the only sense of the word which is known to us. Pantheism regards man and other finite beings as but a mode of God's existence, embracing the only two attributes known to us-thought and extension. The mind of man is essentially a portion of the divine thought, while the body is the object of the mind. These are related to each other, not because of their essential unity but because they are regarded as twofold aspects of the same substance. But while Spinoza denies self-determination and free will to man, he does not deny that he possesses self-consciousness. The question immediately arises, "How can this self-consciousness proceed from the Soul of the world, if God does not Himself possess it? How can God create or communicate that which He does not possess? Here pantheism must ever break down from its own inherent weakness. The Absolute of pantheism is not a true Absolute because it is deficient at the point of personality. It is this restriction which denies to pantheism on its own assumptions, the use of the term Absolute. 

The relation of pantheism to religion has already been anticipated. Religion presupposes a personal God,  &nb

There is even a form of Pantheism, or rather of semi-Pantheism, in which the personality of God is to some extent preserved, which looks upon the world as an efflux from Deity, and hence as being of His essence, but not co-extensive with Him. Thus, for instance, the doctrine of the emanations in the Indian Vedas. But here too, the personality of God is dangerously comprised by the necessity of the natural process in which these emanations take place. Cf. CHRISTLIEB, Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, p. 163.

who is not only endowed with intelligence and power, but with all moral excellence. Pantheism identifies God with the universe. It denies to Him personality, free will or moral attributes. He is the Soul or Reason of the world, and all nature His body which must unfold according to the law of necessity. The idea of creation then as a free act of will must be given up and emanation as a substituted in its place. Belief in miracles and a superintending providence must likewise be given up. Since pantheism makes man a phenomenon only, or a mere mode of the infinite, there can be in him no free will and hence no sense of responsibility. Sin and guilt become, therefore, mere figments of the imagination. Furthermore, since God is all, that which appears to be evil must be regarded as Good. The sinful acts and passions of men become, in this theory, as much the acts and states of God as those which are righteous and holy. Again, pantheism destroys belief in individual immortality by merging it with the life of the universe. Without a personal God there can be no object worthy of reverence or worship, no place for prayer and providence, no object of adoration and love. Pantheism by identifying God with the universe excludes all personal relations, and thereby destroys the foundations of both morality and religion. 

Theism

In conceiving of God, the choice before a pantheist lies between alternatives from which no genius has yet devised a real escape. God, the pantheist must assert, is literally everything; God is the whole material and spiritual universe; he is humanity in all its manifestations; he is by inclusion every moral and immoral agent; and every form and exaggeration of moral evil, no less than every variety of moral excellence and beauty, is part of the all-pervading, all-comprehending movement of his universal life. If this revolting blasphemy be declined, then the God of pantheism must be the barest abstraction of abstract being; he must, as with the Alexandrian thinkers, be so exaggerated an abstraction as to transcend existence itself; he must be conceived of as utterly unreal, lifeless, nonexistent; while the only real beings are these finite and determinate forms of existence whereof "nature" is composed. This dilemma haunts all the historical transformations of pantheism, in Europe as in the East, today as two thousand years ago. Pantheism must either assert that its God is the one only existing being whose existence absorbs and is identified with the universe and humanity; or else it must admit that He is the rarest and most unreal of conceivable abstractions; in plain terms, that he is no being at all.-LIDDON, Bampton Lectures.

and pantheistic positions. Here the Absolute is conceived, not as entirely unrelated, nor again as the sum total of all existence, but simply as independent or self-existent. Under this third class erroneous opinions have also arisen, such as Materialism which regards matter as the ultimate ground of the world; or Idealism in some of its many forms which make thought ultimate, but these belong properly to the subject of "Antitheistic Theories." 

The feature of theism, as it concerns these theories, is its belief in the world ground as personal. But can the Absolute of philosophy be identified with the Christian conception of God? Christianity affirms that it can. It insists that the philosophy which would prevent this is false; but it concedes, also, that theism has itself frequently misconstrued the Christian idea of God. To mature thought they must be identical. We are dealing. however, not primarily with the personality of God-this must be a later argument, but God as the Absolute in the sense of the world ground. Christianity maintains that the world ground is personal; that God is the ground of all finite being and rational intelligence. Reason is seen to be universal, and the Absolute becomes the ultimate in thought and relations.  &nbs

By the term "world ground" we mean the basic reality of the world. Materialism regards this basic reality as "matter"; Idealism as "thought"; and the modern Personalistic philosophies as "personal."  Theism means the existence of a personal God, Creator, Preserver and Ruler of all things. Deism equally means the personality of God and also His creative work, but denies His providence in the sense of theism. These terms were formerly used in much the same sense, but since early in the last century deism has mostly been used in a sense opposed to the Scriptures as a divine revelation, and to a divine providence. Such is now its distinction from theism. Pantheism differs from theism in the denial of the divine personality. With this denial, pantheism can mean no proper work of creation or providence. The philosophic agnosticism which posits the Infinite as the ground of finite existence, but denies its personality, is in this denial quite at one with pantheism. The distinction of theism from these several opposing terms sets its own meaning in the clearer light.-MILEY, Systematic Theology, I, p. 57.  Julius Kaftan favors the use of the term Absolute in theology. However, he maintains that it should be used, not merely in its etymological sense, but from the meaning it has acquired by its use in language. "We should never forget," he says, "that by the expression, 'God is the absolute,' we do not mean to make a fundamental affirmation as to the essence of God, but simply an expression of the significance the idea of God has for us."-KAFTAN, Dogmatics, p. 162.

 

All the ultimate realities such as the True, the Right, the Perfect and the Good center in the Absolute, where all relations have their ground and beyond which they cannot go. If viewed otherwise, Dr. Harris points out that "no rational conclusion would be possible, no scientific observation would be trustworthy, no scientific system could be verified, science would be disintegrated, and all knowledge crumbled into isolated and illusive impressions. Hence God is essential to the reality of all knowledge as well as all being. We cannot think Him away; for without the assumption explicit or implied of His existence, all ratiocinated thought becomes empty and cannot conclude in knowledge. If thought rests ultimately on zero all its creations and conclusions must be zero" (HARRIS, Self-revelation of God, p. 227). 

 

 

THE ABSOLUTE AND THE IDEA OF GOD 

We have shown that theism must rest upon a conception of the Absolute as independent or self-existent, and that it is this position which distinguishes it from Agnosticism and Pantheism. But theism is also personal, as over against certain philosophical theories which in opposition to theism regard the world-ground as impersonal. Such is the philosophy of Materialism which regards matter as the ultimate reality, or some of the many forms of Monism or Idealism which conceive of the world-ground as of the nature of thought. These equally with Agnosticism and the older Pantheism must be regarded as antitheistic. Since, however, the same arguments may be urged against them as in the case of pantheism we need here only to make brief mention of these antitheistical theories. 

    

The teaching of Scripture concerning God is based on the theistic conception, that, namely, which holds fast at once His supramundane and His intramundane character; the one in virtue of His nature and essence, the other of His will and power. For while Theism, on the one hand, regards the Theos as a personal Being, and so as essentially distinct from the whole created universe and from man, it is no less careful, on the other hand, to present Him as the ever-living and working One in His immediate personal relationship to man and the universe by the doctrine of a universal Divine Providence.-CHRISTLIEB, Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, p. 210.

Antitheistical Theories. There are three theories which have been advanced in modern times in opposition to theism, and these have been peculiarly subversive of the Christian conception of God. (1) Atheism

"If atheism is true, then man is out of harmony with truth." This is an anomaly, and how are we to account for it? Atheism says there is no God-no supernatural first cause; but man has within him the intuitive conviction that there is a God, and this conviction is as universal as the family of man. If man is the offspring of chance, or if he is evolved from some lower order of being, it is strange indeed that he should be so completely "out of harmony with truth." It would seem most reasonable that whatever caused him to exist would impress upon his nature the truth. But if atheism is true, then that which caused man to be is untrustworthy, for it impressed upon his consciousness the conviction that there is a God-some being or beings superior to himself.-WEAVER, Christian Theology, p. 11.

 simple and direct refutation of this false and unworthy position, says a modern apologist, is the fact that a direct certainty of God exists in our mind. "We do not merely believe that there is a God, but we know it in virtue of an ideal cognition consisting in an immediate act of faith in human consciousness."   

(2) Materialism. This is a form of philosophy which gives priority to matter as the ground of the universe, and ignores the distinction between mind and matter. According to this theory all the phenomena of the universe, whether physical or mental are to be regarded as functions of matter. Materialism was first given systematic form by Epicurus (342-271 B.C.). In the history of modern philosophy, Materialism is represented by La Mettrie and Von Holback who are usually classed as materialistic atheists by Buchner, Voght, Mollschott, Strechner, Feuerbach and others. This theory asserts (1) that matter is eternal; (2) that matter and force have built up the universe apart from any personal Creator; (3) that the soul is material and mortal; (4) that a fixed code of morals is impossible, and (5) that religion as commonly understood is unessential. The weakness of Materialism is its inability to account for mind and its manifestations. 

(3) Idealism

Christlieb describes in the following graphic paragraph, the reign of terror during the French Revolution when atheism was in the ascendancy. "Encouraged by the abjuration of Christianity on the part of the Bishop of Paris and his priests, they came before the Convention with a petition for the abrogation of Christianity, and the institution of a worship of Reason, presenting the wife of one of their colleagues as the Goddess of Reason. Clad in white garments and a sky-blue mantle, with the red cap on her head and a pike in her hand, they placed her on a fantastically ornamented car, and conducted her, surrounded by crowds of bacchanalian dancers, to the "Temple of Reason," as they were pleased to rename the Cathedral of Notre Dame. There she was seated on the high altar, and amidst profound obeisances, frantic speeches, and frivolous songs, divine honors were paid to her-a scandal which was immediately imitated in several thousand churches in the country. Who does not see from this what abysses are opened before a nation when atheism once gains ground in it!-CHRISTLIEB, Mod. Doubt and Chr. Belief, p. 139.  Foster mentions three types of atheism:(1) dogmatic atheism, which denies that any God exists; (2) skeptical atheism, which doubts that any God exists; (3) critical atheism, which says that if a God exists there is no evidence of it. It is doubtful if there have ever been any thorough-going atheists of the first class. The third type is closely akin to agnosticism.

which have succeeded to the place formerly held by the older materialism, such as Idealistic Monism and Materialistic Monism. These regard matter as a product of force, rather than force as a property of matter. 

Materialistic Monism was advocated by August Florel and Ernst Haeckel. Florel taught that the brain and the soul were one, the soul having its material aspect and the brain its psychical aspect. Psychology and brain physiology therefore were but two aspects of the same thing. Haeckel in a similar manner maintained that what we call the soul is but the sum of the physiological process of the brain. 

Idealistic Monism as represented by Höffding holds that there is one substance which works in both spirit and matter but denies any interaction between them. It advocates rather a parallelism between the activity of consciousness and the functions of the nervous system. In addition to these theories there is an extreme idealism which holds that the sensitive and cognitive mind alone is real and that the phenomena of the material world are but modifications of mind. Whether Atheism, Materialism or Monism be advanced as an explanation of the universe, all equally fail before the intuitive and universal conviction of mankind that there is a God and that He alone is the Creator and Preserver of all things. 

Modern Disintegration of the Idea of God. From the time of Augustine to that of Descartes and Spinoza, there was but little change in the common concept of God. Beginning with Descartes, and especially with Spinoza, we have a new cycle of thought which gave emphasis to the philosophical concepts of God, and consequently affected religious beliefs. While each of the modern philosophical definitions contain some fundamental truth, none of them reach the sublime heights of the Christian conception of God. (1) Descartes held to the idea of God as supreme Substance; (2) Spinoza to an All-Substance; (3) Leibnitz to a Chief Monad in a universe of monads; (4) Kant to the idea of a Moral Governor; (5) Herbert Spencer to an Unknowable Ultimate Reality, sometimes mentioned as "The Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed"; (6) Hegel, the Absolute Mind; (7) Fichte, the Social Ego; (8) H. G. Wells, the Veiled Being; (9) Höffding, the Principle of the Conservation of Value; (10) Bergson, the Life Force, his favorite term being Vital Impetus (11) A. N. Whitehead, the "Integral Impetus" or the Principle of Concretion while (12) William James, H. G. Wells and others advanced anew the idea of a Finite God. It will be seen that these philosophical conceptions are only partial, and can in nowise satisfy the religious nature of man, which demands an object of worship as explanation of the universe. 

Basic Ideas of God. The numerous ideas of God advanced by modern philosophers maybe classified in three main groups, insofar as they stress one of the following basic elements in the definition of God: First, God is regarded as the source of all Reality, generally expressed in terms of creatorship. This may be called the cosmic idea of God. 

Second, the conception of God as the Ideal, or the sum of all Values, all goodness and all Perfection. Murray calls this theory the "focus of all hypostatized values," while Galsworthy regards it as "the sum of altruism in man." This is the idealistic aspect of God. 

Third, there is that which conceives of God as a Supreme Being or an Independent Entity. This is primarily the religious conception as over against the philosophical concepts mentioned above. In its scope it may reach from the lowest conception of God held by the primitive religions, to the highest Christian concept of the Triune God. 

The first or cosmic aspect affirms that God must be to us at least as real as physical things or human persons. This argument is based upon the nature of consciousness, in which is to be found the idea of dependence. However free we may be as moral persons, we are aware in consciousness that this freedom is limited. We are therefore ultimately dependent upon an independent Being, and this Being the cosmic philosophers call God. The idea, however, is one of bare existence only, and tells us nothing of the content of this Being. Hoffding saw that not only must the sense of dependence be included in religion, but the sense of values also. These values we may believe are to be found in moral personality. God, therefore, is the conservator of values and consequently of persons. 

The second or idealistic aspect of God is that which views the supreme Being as the Ideal, or that which comprises truth, beauty and goodness. These ideals are regarded as having absolute or divine authority, so that truth is the divine word and duty the divine law. When religion is regarded as aspiration, the Ideal takes on new significance. The Idealistic philosophers maintain that this ideal does not exist as a necessity, but subsists in a transcendent manner as a progressively permanent Reality. But it has been found difficult to harmonize Absolute Reality with a transcendent Idea which is eternally becoming, without a unifying concept of moral will. 

This leads directly to the third aspect of God as an independent Entity, a Personal Being. If God be characterized by personality, He may be absolutely Ideal in character and yet His perfect will may still be unrealized in the objective world. As a Personal Being, He may be trusted and worshiped, while leaving at the same time a place for the moral imperative, which calls upon man to share in the task and the prayer which our Lord taught His disciples, Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven (Matt 6:10).