Chapter VII: An Impartial Deity

What difficulties and contradictions we fall into the moment we identify Nature with God, and what equal or greater difficulties we fall into if we refuse to identify Nature with God! True it is that in the former case we bring God very near and make him very real; we see and feel our direct and continuous dependence upon Him--indeed, that we are a part of Him; that every breath we draw, and every thought we think, and every pound of energy we put forth is in and through Him; and that we can no more wander or escape from Him than we can escape gravity or chemical affinity. There are no skeptics or atheists in regard to Nature. It alone exists and goes on forever. But here comes the pinch! God as Nature is not only the author of the good, He is the author of what we call evil also; He is as many-sided as Nature is. The savage and merciless aspects of Nature are of Him also; He is in the jungles of Africa, as well as in the walks of culture and refinement; in the destroying tornado as well as in the gentle summer breeze; in the overwhelming floods as well as in the morning dews. He is as much the author of disease as He is of health; of war, pestilence, famine, as He is of peace, plenty, and the progress of the world. He is in the trenches and the slaughter of the contending armies as truly as in the most peaceful and pious family or social circle in the world. The asphyxiating gases are his, and the bursting bombs, no less than the breaking hearts and the prayerful souls at home. The comets that come like apparitions in the heavens, and then are gone, and the stars that shine steadfastly, are all a part of the same scheme. The dragons and monsters that possessed the earth and the fruits thereof for millions of years in geologic time were the work of that divinity which shapes our ends to-day.

We separate ourselves from Nature and flatter ourselves that we belong to another and higher order; that we alone are of divine origin, and not involved in the fate of the rest of Creation; but we are fragments of the same granite that forms the foundation of the earth. “I am stuccoed with birds and quadrupeds all over,” says Whitman. The reptile was our ancestor; we were cradled in the old seas; we are kin to the worm and the mollusk; we derive from creeping, swimming, noisome things, from the slime and mud of the old sea bottoms, from the cosmic dust and the solar radiations. Why should we put on superior airs when not one atom of matter will turn aside for us, not one law of physics cease to operate to save us from destruction? The vast army of elemental forces knows us not. We may divert them and bend them to our will, but they heed us not; they destroy us the moment we lose control.

Nature does not love us any more than she hates us; she goes her way, indifferent.

The best we can say about it all is that Nature, or the Natural Providence, is too big for us to grasp; that in these seas we can find no soundings. But we are here, the world is beautiful, life is worth living, love always pays; Nature serves us when we know how to use her; when we plant and sow wisely God will send the increase. Friendly or unfriendly, of God or of the Devil, the physical forces have ministered to us. More things have been for us than have been against us; more winds have blown our barks into safe harbors than have dashed us upon the rocks. There are more refreshing showers than devastating tornadoes; more sunshine than forked lightning; more fertile land upon the earth than parched deserts; a broader belt of genial climates than of frigid zones. Thorns and spines and nettles are the exception in vegetation; stings and venomous fangs are the exception in animal life. Hawks can catch the smaller birds, yet there are vastly more small birds than hawks. The weasel can catch the rabbit and the squirrel and the rat, yet there are ten-fold, fifty-fold, more of these rodents than there are weasels. The carnivorous beasts of the plains and of the jungle do not exterminate the herbivorous; there is more good than evil everywhere; more peace than war; more kindness than cruelty. The God of Nature goes his way, but his way is our way; we have arisen out of Nature; as it is, the chances of life have been in our favor; the stream makes its own channel; the waters find their way to the sea; they do not all stagnate on the way. Some of the seed which the winds sow falls upon barren places, but not the most of it. Some men are born criminals or cripples or malformed, but not the majority. The creatures preyed upon always vastly outnumber the creatures that prey upon them. And in truth, in the whole realm of Nature more things wait upon man than war upon him.