CHAPTER VII.

SOME LOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE DIVINE IMMANENCY.

The doctrine of the Divine immanency carries with it the solution of many vexed questions. In fact, in its light these questions simply pass out of view as no longer having any significance. Several of these questions have been alluded to in an indirect way in the previous chapter and in Chapter III. We take them up distinctly here, and show their relation to evolution.

Religious thought, like all else, is subject to a law of evolution, and therefore passes through regular stages. Of these stages, three are very distinct and even strongly contrasted. They correspond in a general way to the three stages of Comte, which he has misnamed the _theological_, the _metaphysical_, and the _positive_. We will illustrate by many examples.

I. _Conception of God._

This, the most fundamental conception of all religion, has passed from a gross anthropomorphism to a true spiritual theism, and the change is largely due to science and especially to the theory of evolution. There are three main stages in the history of this change: (1.) The first is a _low_ anthropomorphism. God is altogether such a one as ourselves, but larger and stronger. His action on Nature, like our own, is _direct_; his will is wholly man-like, capricious and without law. (2.) The second is still anthropomorphism, but of a nobler sort. God is not _altogether_ like ourselves. He is man-like; yes, but also _king-like_. He is _not_ present in Nature, but sits enthroned above Nature in solitary majesty. He acts on Nature, not directly but indirectly, through physical forces and natural laws. He is an absentee landlord governing his estate by means of appointed agents, which are the natural forces and laws established in the beginning. He interferes personally and by direct action only occasionally, to initiate something new or to rectify something going wrong. This idea culminated and found the clearest expression in the eighteenth century, and was the necessary result of the scientific ideas then prevalent, viz., ideas of pre-established _stability_ of cosmic order and _fixedness_ of organic types. God was the great _artificer_, the great _architect_, working, as it were, on foreign material and conditioned by its nature. He established all things as they are in the beginning, and they have continued so ever since.

This conception still lingers in the religious mind, and is in fact the prevailing one now. It is a great advance on the preceding, but, alas! it removes God beyond the reach of our love. He is the architect of worlds, the artificer of the eye, the sovereign ruler of the universe, but not our Father. We are his creatures, his subjects, but not his children.

(3.) The third and last stage in this development is true spiritual theism. God is immanent, resident in Nature. Nature is the house of many mansions in which he ever dwells. The forces of Nature are different forms of his energy acting directly at all times and in all places. The laws of Nature are the modes of operation of the omnipresent Divine energy, invariable because he is perfect. The objects of Nature are objectified, externalized--materialized states of Divine consciousness, or Divine thoughts objectified by the Divine will. In this view we return again to _direct_ action, but in a nobler, a spiritual, Godlike form. He is again brought very near to every one of us and restored to our love, for in him we live and move and have our being. In him all things consist, by him all things exist. This view has been held by noble men in all times, especially by the early Greek fathers, but is now verified and well-nigh demonstrated by the theory of evolution. No other view is any longer tenable.

The idea of God is of course the most fundamental of all religious ideas, and a change in this carries with it many other changes. Some of these necessary outcomes, especially the nature, the origin, and the destiny of the human spirit, and its relation to the Divine spirit, I have already treated in previous chapters. But there are others which flow so directly and obviously that they may be presented in brief space.

II. _Question of First and Second Causes._

Among the most obvious of these is the question of first and second causes. This distinction, I suppose, did not exist in early thought. As a popular view, it was mainly due to the physical science of the eighteenth century. It was a necessary corollary of the idea of God as the great architect sitting outside of Nature and acting on Nature as on foreign material. According to this view, God is the original and primary cause of all things; but he _delegates_ his power to _secondary_ forces, such as gravity, heat, electricity, etc., which are therefore the immediate causes of phenomena. I believe that most persons hold this view still. But it is now being displaced by the idea of God immanent or resident in Nature as already explained. This view is a complete _identification_ of first and second causes. All causes are mere modes of the first cause. They seem to us secondary, necessary, and unconscious only because they act according to invariable law. But law itself is only the mode of operation of a perfect will. Thus we have the same three stages of evolution here also: (1.) First, all is first cause, direct, man-like, capricious, lawless. (2.) Then the first cause acts king-like, indirectly by many appointed agents subject to pre-enacted laws. These agents or secondary causes directly determine all natural phenomena. (3.) Lastly, come the complete combination and reconciliation of these two. All is by first cause and direct action, like the first. All is by invariable law like the second, the law being only the mode of operation of a perfect will.

III. _Question of General and Special Providence._

So also providence, general and special, is only another phase of the same question and solved in the same way. At first all is _special_ providence--the result of caprice or favoritism and without law. Then all or nearly all is general providence operating by invariable law; but from time to time the general law is broken through for special purposes when necessary. Is not this the prevailing view now? Lastly, these two must be combined and reconciled in a third. All is alike general and special: general--i. e., according to law; special--i. e., by direct action. There is no real distinction between the two. The distinction vanishes in the light of a higher view.

IV. _The Natural and the Supernatural._

In precisely the same category falls the question of the natural and the supernatural. The same three stages are evident here also, and the same solution: 1. First all is supernatural and lawless, and Nature is viewed with stupid wonder and abject fear. 2. Then Nature is reduced to mechanical laws and made subject to man. Wonder and fear give place to indifference and even perhaps to contempt. We practically live without God in the world. It requires, now, _miracles_ or a violent breaking through of law in order to startle us out of our stupidity and awaken in us a sense of the Divine presence. 3. But we must come lastly to a higher philosophy. We must recognize that all is natural and all is supernatural according as we view it, but none more than another. All is natural--i. e., according to law; but all is supernatural--i. e., above Nature, as we usually regard Nature, for all is permeated with the immediate Divine presence. Wonder in the contemplation of Nature returns, or rather exalted reverence and rational worship are given in place of open-mouthed wonder and superstitious fear. Once clearly conceive the idea of God permeating Nature and determining directly all its phenomena according to law, and the distinction between the natural and the supernatural disappears from view, and with it disappears also the necessity of miracles as _we usually understand miracles_. In fact, the word as we usually understand it has no longer any meaning.

I must stop a moment to explain, lest I be misunderstood; and to enforce, lest it be thought I speak lightly.

Miracle, in the sense of violation of law, is simply impossible, because law is the expression of the essential nature and perfection of God. It is as impossible for God to perform a miracle in this sense as it is for him to lie, and for the same reason, viz., that it is contrary to his essential nature. In what sense, then, is a miracle possible? I answer, only as an occurrence or a phenomenon _according to a law higher than any we yet know_. If we define Nature as phenomena governed by physical and chemical laws and forces, then life becomes supernatural and miraculous--because higher than Nature as we define it. If we reduce the phenomena of life to law and include these also in our definition of Nature but limit it there, then the free, self-determined phenomena of reason become supernatural because above our definition of Nature. There may well be still other and higher modes of Divine activity, the law of which we do not and may never understand. These are above our present definition of Nature, and therefore to us supernatural or miraculous. But, even if miracles in the ordinary sense were possible, is it not evident that the ordinary processes of Nature are far more wonderful, more truly Godlike, than any such miracle?

V. _Question of Design in Nature._

So, again, the question of design or purpose or mind in Nature is similarly solved. It has been said, it is continually now being said, that evolution has destroyed forever the teleological view of Nature--i. e., the idea of design in Nature. Yes, if we mean the man-like, cabinet-making, watch-making design of Paley and older writers--a separate petty design for each separate object. It has indeed destroyed this, but only to replace it by a far nobler conception--a truly Godlike design, a design embracing all space and running through all time, including and absorbing all possible separate designs and predetermining them by a universal law of evolution.

Or the same question may be put in another way as “Mind _vs._ Mechanics in Nature.” In the evolution of thought on this subject at first all was _mind_, but lawless, capricious, like our own. Then one department after another of Nature was reduced to mechanical, physical, necessary law, until all have been or will be or conceivably may be thus reduced, and mind seems driven out of Nature entirely. The friends of religion in despair cry out for at least some small corner left for mind. Thus I find in recent numbers of an English scientific periodical, “Nature,” a discussion concerning mind as _one_ of the factors of evolution.[48] Is it not amusing, if it were not so sad?--God the Divine mind as _one of the factors_ of evolution! The true solution is very simple. All is mind or none; so also all is mechanics or none. It _is all mind through mechanics_. It is all mechanics from the outside; it is all mind from the inside. To science all is mechanics; to theology all is mind. It is the duty of philosophy to reconcile these two opposites by the higher view that mechanics is but the mode of operation of the Divine mind. There is only one form of evolution, viz., human progress, in which mind--but the _human_, not the Divine mind--is _one_ of the factors of evolution. But to think and speak thus of God in relation to Nature is to place him on the human plane. It is gross anthropomorphism.[49]

VI. _Question of the Mode of Creation._

I might multiply examples almost without limit, of questions the solution of which depends on this one of the relation of God to Nature. I give one more--Creation.

The creation of the universe _at once_--in the beginning--out of nothing--and then _rest ever since_. This old anthropomorphic idea is now replaced by that of continuous creation--unhasting, unresting, by an eternal process of evolution. For if the universal law of gravitation is the Divine mode of sustentation of the universe, the no less universal law of evolution is the Divine process of creation.