Some recent Christian thinkers, as Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 13-15, 29-36, 42-52, would define mind as a function of matter, matter as a function of force, force as a function of will, and therefore as the power of an omnipresent and personal God. All force, except that of man's free will, is the will of God. So Herschell, Lectures, 460; Argyll, Reign of Law, 121-127; Wallace on Nat. Selection, 363-371; Martineau, Essays, 1: 63, 121, 145, 265; Bowen, Metaph. and Ethics, 146-162. But if man's will exhibits a force distinguishable from the divine, why may there not be physical forces distinguishable from the divine? If God can disengage from himself the force displayed in living human beings, then he can disengage from himself the force displayed in inanimate nature. The same reasoning which assures us of the existence of the former assures us of the existence of the latter.

To deny second causes is essential idealism, and tends to pantheism. This tendency we find in the recent Metaphysics of Bowne, who regards only personality as real. Matter is phenomenal, although it is an activity of the divine will outside of us. Bowne's phenomenalism is therefore an objective idealism, as distinguished from the subjective idealism of Berkeley, who held to God's energizing only within the soul. But since, according to Bowne, space is only a form of our thinking, the difference between God's ceaseless production of phenomena within, and God's ceaseless production of phenomena without, is purely verbal. Royce, The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, makes man's consciousness a part or aspect of a universal consciousness, and so, instead of making God come to consciousness only in man, as Hegel did, makes man come to consciousness only in God. While this scheme seems, in one view, to save God's personality, it practically identifies man's personality with God's, which is subjective pantheism. On the substantive existence of second causes, see Porter, Human Intellect, 582-588; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1: 596; Alden, Philosophy, 48-70; Hodgson, Time and Space, 149–218.

Pantheism is that method of thought which conceives of the universe as the development of one intelligent and voluntary, yet impersonal, substance, which reaches consciousness only in man. It therefore identifies God, not with each individual object in the universe, but with the totality of things.

The elements of truth in pantheism are the intelligence and voluntariness of God, and his immanence in the universe; its error lies in denying God's personality and transcendence.

Pantheism denies the real existence of the finite, at the same time that it deprives the Infinite of self-consciousness and freedom. See Hunt, History of Pantheism; Manning, Half-truths and the Truth; Bayne, Christian Life, Social and Individual, 21-53; Hutton, on Popular Pantheism, in Essays, 1: 55-76-"The pantheist's 'I believe in God,' is a contradiction. He says: 'I perceive the external as different from myself; but on further reflection, I perceive that this external was itself the percipient agency.' So the worshipped is really the worshipper after all." Harris, Philosophical Basis of Theism, 173– "Man is a bottle of the ocean's water, in the ocean, temporarily distinguishable by its limitation within the bottle, but lost again in the ocean, so soon as these fragile limits are broken."

The later Brahmanism is pantheistic. Rowland Williams, Christianity and Hinduism. quoted in Mozley on Miracles, 284—“In the final state personality vanishes. You will not, says the Brahman, accept the term 'void' as an adequate description of the mysterious nature of the soul, but you will clearly apprehend soul, in the final state, to be unseen and ungrasped being, thought, knowledge, joy-no other than very God." Yet this seems to be only the later depravation of an earlier and purer faith. In the London Spectator, Rhys Davids tells us that "in the Pali Suttas, the earliest Buddhist records, the Buddhist New Testament indeed, Nirvana is only death in the sense of death to trespasses and sins; it is always the extinction of Sehnsucht, excitement, in its three forms of lust, malice, and delusion. It is the extinction of selfness or love of individuality, and is to be reached here on earth." Flint, Theism, 69-“Where the will is without energy, and rest is longed for as the end of existence, as among the Hindus, there is marked inability to think of God as cause or will, and constant inveterate tendency to pantheism."

We object to this system as follows:

1. Its idea of God is self-contradictory, since it makes him infinite, yet consisting only of the finite; absolute, yet existing in necessary relation to the universe; supreme, yet shut up to a process of self-evolution and dependent for self-consciousness on man; without self determination, yet the cause of all that is.

Saisset, Pantheism, 148—“An imperfect God, yet perfection arising from imperfection." Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 1: 13-“Pantheism applies to God a principle of growth and imperfection, which belongs only to the finite." Calderwood, Moral Philos., 245– "Its first requisite is moment, or movement, which it assumes, but does not account for." Caro's sarcasm applies here: "Your God is not yet made-he is in process of manufacture." See H. B. Smith, Faith and Philosophy, 25.

2. Its assumed unity of substance is not only without proof, but it directly contradicts our intuitive judgments. These testify that we are not parts and particles of God, but distinct personal subsistences.

Martineau, Essays, 1: 158-" Even for immanency, there must be something wherein to dwell, and for life, something whereon to act." Any system of monism contradicts consciousness. "In scripture we never find the universe called rò Ħav, for this suggests the idea of a self-contained unity: we have everywhere тà máνra instead." The Bible recognizes the element of truth in pantheism-God is 'through all'; also the element of truth in mysticism-God is 'in you all; but it adds the element of transcendence which both these fail to recognize-God is 'above all' (Eph. 4:6). See Fisher, Essays on Supernat. Orig. of Christ'y, 539.

3. It assigns no sufficient cause for that fact of the universe which is highest in rank, and therefore most needs explanation, namely, the existence of personal intelligences. A substance which is itself unconscious, and under the law of necessity, cannot produce beings who are self-conscious and free.

Gess, Foundations of our Faith, 36-"Animal instinct, and the spirit of a nation working out its language, might furnish analogies, if they produced personalities as their result, but not otherwise. Nor were these tendencies self-originated, but received from an external source." McCosh, Intuitions, 215, 393; Christianity and Positivism, 180.

4. It therefore contradicts the affirmations of our moral and religious natures by denying man's freedom and responsibility; by making God to include in himself all evil as well as all good; and by precluding all prayer, worship, and hope of immortality.

Conscience is the eternal witness against pantheism. Conscience witnesses to our freedom and responsibility, and declares that moral distinctions are not illusory. Renouf, Hibbert Lect., 234-"It is only out of condescension to popular language that pantheistic systems can recognize the notions of right and wrong, of iniquity and sin. If everything really emanates from God, there can be no such thing as sin. And the ablest philosophers who have been led to pantheistic views, have vainly endeavored to harmonize these views with what we understand by the notion of sin or moral evil. The great systematic work of Spinoza is entitled 'Ethica'; but for real ethics we might as profitably consult the Elements of Euclid." Hodge, System. Theology, 1: 299-330-"Pantheism is fatalistic. On this theory, duty pleasure; right might; sin good in the making. Satan, as well as Gabriel, is a self-development of God. The practical effects of pantheism upon popular morals and life, wherever it has prevailed, as in Buddhist India and China, demonstrate its falsehood." See also Dove, Logic of the Christian Faith, 118; Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 202; Bib. Sac., Oct., 1867: 603-615; Dix, Pantheism, Introd., 12.

5. Our intuitive conviction of the existence of a God of absolute perfection compels us to conceive of God as possessed of every highest quality

and attribute of men, and therefore, especially, of that which constitutes the chief dignity of the human spirit, its personality.

Diman, Theistic Argument, 328-" We have no right to represent the supreme Cause as inferior to ourselves, yet we do this when we describe it under phrases derived from physical causation." Mivart, Lessons from Nature, 351-"We cannot conceive of anything as impersonal, yet of higher nature than our own-any being that has not knowledge and will must be indefinitely inferior to one who has them."

6. Its objection to the divine personality, that over against the Infinite there can be in eternity past no non-ego to call forth self-consciousness, is refuted by considering that even man's cognition of the non-ego logically presupposes knowledge of the ego, from which the non-ego is distinguished; that, in an absolute mind, self-consciousness cannot be conditioned, as in the case of finite mind, upon contact with a not-self; and that, if the distinguishing of self from a not-self were an essential condition of divine self-consciousness, the eternal personal distinctions in the divine nature might furnish such a condition.

Pfleiderer, Die Religion, 1: 190 sq.-" Before the soul distinguishes self from the notself, it must know self-else it could not see the distinction. Its development is connected with the knowledge of the non-ego, but this is due, not to the fact of personality, but to the fact of finite personality. The mature man can live for a long time upon his own resources. God needs no other, to stir him up to mental activity. Finiteness is a hindrance to the development of our personality. Infiniteness is necessary to the highest personality." Lotze, Microcosmos, vol. 3, chapter 4; transl. in N. Eng., March, 1881: 191-200-"Finite spirit, not having conditions of existence in itself, can know the ego only upon occasion of knowing the non-ego. The Infinite is not so limited. He alone has an independent existence, neither introduced nor developed through anything not himself, but, in an inward activity without beginning or end, maintains himself in himself."

Dorner, Glaubenslehre: "Absolute Personality = perfect consciousness of self, and perfect power over self. We need something external to waken our consciousness-yet self-consciousness comes [ logically] before consciousness of the world. It is the soul's act. Only after it has distinguished self from self, can it consciously distinguish self from another." British Quarterly, Jan., 1874: 32, note; July, 1884: 108 "The ego is thinkable only in relation to the non-ego; but the ego is liveable long before any such relation." See Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2: 122-126; Christlieb, Mod. Doubt and Christ. Belief, 161-190; Hanne, Idee der absoluten Persönlichkeit; Eichhorn, Die Persönlichkeit Gottes.

PART III.

THE SCRIPTURES A REVELATION FROM GOD.

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS.

I. REASONS A PRIORI FOR EXPECTING A REVELATION FROM GOD.

1. Needs of man's nature. Man's intellectual and moral nature requires, in order to preserve it from constant deterioration, and to ensure its moral growth and progress, an authoritative and helpful revelation of religious truth, of a higher and completer sort than any to which, in its present state of sin, it can attain by the use of its unaided powers. The proof of this proposition is partly psychological, and partly historical.

A. Psychological proof.-(a) Neither reason nor intuition throws light upon certain questions whose solution is of the utmost importance to us; for example, Trinity, atonement, pardon, method of worship, personal existence after death. (b) Even the truth to which we arrive by our natural powers needs divine confirmation and authority when it addresses minds and wills perverted by sin. (c) To break this power of sin, and to furnish encouragement to moral effort, we need a special revelation of the merciful and helpful aspect of the divine nature.

(a) Bremen Lectures, 72, 73; Plato, Second Alcibiades, 22, 23; Phaedo, 85–λóyov delov Tuvós. lamblicus, #eρì тov Ilvvayoρikov Biov, chap. 28. (b) Versus Socrates: Men will do right if they only know the right. Flint, Theism, 305; Martineau, in Nineteenth Century, 1: 331, 531; Curtis, Hum. Element in Inspiration, 250; Emerson, Essays, 2: 41; Murphy, Scientific Bases, 172. (c) Versus Thomas Paine: "Natural religion teaches us, without the possibility of being mistaken, all that is necessary or proper to be known." Plato, Laws, 9: 854, c, for substance: "Be good; but if you cannot, then kill yourself."

B. Historical proof.—(a) The knowledge of moral and religious truth possessed by nations and ages in which special revelation is unknown is grossly and increasingly imperfect. (b) Man's actual condition in anteChristian times, and in modern heathen lands, is that of extreme moral depravity. (c) With this depravity is found a general conviction of helplessness, and on the part of some nobler natures, a longing after, and hope of, aid from above.

Pythagoras: "It is not easy to know [duties], except men were taught them by God himself, or by some person who had received them from God, or obtained the knowledge

of them through some divine means." Socrates: "Wait with patience, till we know with certainty how we ought to behave ourselves toward God and man.' Disciple of Plato: "Make probability our raft, while we sail through life, unless we could have a more sure and safe conveyance, such as some divine communication would be."

See references and quotations in Peabody, Christianity the Relig. of Nature, 35, and in Luthardt, Fund. Truths, 156-172, 335-338; Farrar, Seekers after God; Garbett, Dogmatic Faith, 187.

2. Presumption of supply. What we know of God, by nature, affords ground for hope that these wants of our intellectual and moral being will be met by a corresponding supply, in the shape of a special divine revelation. We argue this:

(a) From our necessary conviction of God's wisdom. Having made man a spiritual being, for spiritual ends, it may be hoped that he will furnish the means needed to secure these ends. (b) From the actual, though incomplete, revelation already given in nature. Since God has actually undertaken to make himself known to men, we may hope that he will finish the work he has begun. (c) From the general connection of want and supply. The higher our needs, the more intricate and ingenious are, in general, the contrivances for meeting them. We may therefore hope that the highest want will be all the more surely met. (d) From analogies of nature and history. Signs of reparative goodness in nature and of forbearance in providential dealings lead us to hope that, while justice is executed, God may still make known some way of restoration for sinners.

In the natural arrangements for the healing of bruises in plants and for the mending of broken bones in the animal creation, in the provision of remedial agents for the cure of human diseases, and especially in the delay to inflict punishment upon the transgressor and the space given him for repentance, we have some indications, which, if uncontradicted by other evidence, might lead us to regard the God of nature as a God of forbearance and mercy. Plutarch's treatise De Sera Numinis Vindicta is proof that this thought had occurred to the heathen. It may be doubted, indeed, whether a heathen religion could even continue to exist, without embracing in it some element of hope. The New Testament intimates the existence of this witness of God's goodness among the heathen, while at the same time it declares that the full knowledge of forgiveness and salvation is brought only by Christ. Compare Acts 14: 17-"And yet he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness; 17: 25-27-"he himself giveth to all life and breath and all things; and he made of one every nation of men.... that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him and find him;" Rom. 2: 4-"the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance;" 3: 25-"the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God;" Eph. 3: 9" to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which from all ages hath been hid in God;' 2 Tim. 1: 10-"our Savior Jesus Christ, who abolished death, and brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel." See Hackett's edition of the treatise of Plutarch, as also Bowen, Metaph. and Ethics, 462-487; Diman, Theistic Argument, 371.

We conclude this section upon the reasons a priori for expecting a revelation from God with the acknowledgement that the facts warrant that degree of expectation which we call hope, rather than that larger degree of expectation which we call assurance; and this, for the reason that, while conscience gives proof that God is a God of holiness, we have not, from the light of nature, equal evidence that God is a God of love. Reason teaches man that, as a sinner, he merits condemnation; but he cannot, from reason alone, know that God will have mercy upon him and provide salvation. His doubts can be removed only by God's own voice, assuring him of “redemption. . . . the forgiveness of . . . . trespasses" (Eph. 1: 7), and revealing to him the way in which that forgiveness has been rendered possible.