Chapter II: Corroborative Evidences Of God’s Existence (2)

Salter, Ethical Religion, quoted in Pfleiderer’s article on
Religionless Morality, Am. Jour. Theol., 3:237—“The earth and the
stars do not create the law of gravitation which they obey; no
more does man, or the united hosts of rational beings in the
universe, create the law of duty.” The will expressed in the moral
imperative is _superior_ to ours, for otherwise it would issue no
commands. Yet it is _one_ with ours as the life of an organism is
one with the life of its members. Theonomy is not heteronomy but
the highest autonomy, the guarantee of our personal freedom
against all servitude of man. Seneca: “Deo parere libertas est.”
Knight, Essays in Philosophy, 272—“In conscience we see an ‘alter
ego’, in us yet not of us, another Personality behind our own.”
Martineau, Types, 2:105—“Over a person only a person can have
authority.... A solitary being, with no other sentient nature in
the universe, would feel no duty”; Study, 1:26—“As Perception
gives us Will in the shape of _Causality_ over against us in the
Non-Ego, so Conscience gives us Will in the shape of _Authority_
over against us in the Non-Ego.... 2:7—We cannot deduce the
phenomena of character from an agent who has none.” Hutton,
Essays, 1:41, 42—“When we disobey conscience, the Power which has
therein ceased to _move_ us has retired only to _observe_—to keep
_watch_ over us as we mould ourselves.” Cardinal Newman, Apologia,
377—“Were it not for the voice speaking so clearly in my
conscience and my heart, I should be an atheist, or a pantheist,
or a polytheist, when I looked into the world.”

3. Man’s emotional and voluntary nature proves the existence of a Being who can furnish in himself a satisfying object of human affection and an end which will call forth man’s highest activities and ensure his highest progress.

Only a Being of power, wisdom, holiness, and goodness, and all these indefinitely greater than any that we know upon the earth, can meet this demand of the human soul. Such a Being must exist. Otherwise man’s greatest need would be unsupplied, and belief in a lie be more productive of virtue than belief in the truth.

Feuerbach calls God “the Brocken-shadow of man himself”;
“consciousness of God = self-consciousness”; “religion is a dream
of the human soul”; “all theology is anthropology”; “man made God
in his own image.” But conscience shows that man does not
recognize in God simply his like, but also his opposite. Not as
Galton: “Piety = conscience + instability.” The finest minds are
of the leaning type; see Murphy, Scientific Bases, 370; Augustine,
Confessions, 1:1—“Thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is
restless till it finds rest in thee.” On John Stuart Mill—“a mind
that could not find God, and a heart that could not do without
him”—see his Autobiography, and Browne, in Strivings for the Faith
(Christ. Ev. Socy.), 259-287. Comte, in his later days,
constructed an object of worship in Universal Humanity, and
invented a ritual which Huxley calls “Catholicism _minus_
Christianity.” See also Tyndall, Belfast Address: “Did I not
believe, said a great man to me once, that an Intelligence exists
at the heart of things, my life on earth would be intolerable.”
Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, 1:505,506.

The last line of Schiller’s Pilgrim reads: “Und das Dort ist
niemals hier.” The finite never satisfies. Tennyson, Two Voices:
“’Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, Oh life, not death, for
which we pant; More life, and fuller, that I want.” Seth, Ethical
Principles, 419—“A moral universe, an absolute moral Being, is the
indispensable environment of the ethical life, without which it
cannot attain to its perfect growth.... There is a moral _God_, or
this is no _universe_.” James, Will to Believe, 116—“A God is the
most adequate possible object for minds framed like our own to
conceive as lying at the root of the universe. Anything short of
God is not a rational object, anything more than God is not
possible, if man needs an object of knowledge, feeling, and will.”

Romanes, Thoughts on Religion, 41—“To speak of the Religion of the
Unknowable, the Religion of Cosmism, the Religion of Humanity,
where the personality of the First Cause is not recognized, is as
unmeaning as it would be to speak of the love of a triangle or the
rationality of the equator.” It was said of Comte’s system that,
“the wine of the real presence being poured out, we are asked to
adore the empty cup.” “We want an object of devotion, and Comte
presents us with a looking-glass” (Martineau). Huxley said he
would as soon adore a wilderness of apes as the Positivist’s
rationalized conception of humanity. It is only the ideal in
humanity, the divine element in humanity that can be worshiped.
And when we once conceive of this, we cannot be satisfied until we
find it somewhere realized, as in Jesus Christ.

Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 265-272—Huxley believes that Evolution is
“a materialized logical process”; that nothing endures save the
flow of energy and “the rational order which pervades it.” In the
earlier part of this process, _nature_, there is no morality or
benevolence. But the process ends by producing _man_, who can make
progress only by waging moral war against the natural forces which
impel him. He must be benevolent and just. Shall we not say, in
spite of Mr. Huxley, that this shows what the nature of the system
is, and that there must be a benevolent and just Being who
ordained it? Martineau, Seat of Authority, 63-68—“Though the
authority of the higher incentive is self-known, it cannot be
self-created; for while it is in me, it is above me.... This
authority to which conscience introduces me, though emerging in
consciousness, is yet _objective_ to us all, and is necessarily
referred to the nature of things, irrespective of the accidents of
our mental constitution. It is not dependent on us, but
independent. All minds born into the universe are ushered into the
presence of a real righteousness, as surely as into a scene of
actual space. Perception reveals _another_ than ourselves;
conscience reveals _a higher_ than ourselves.”

We must freely grant, however, that this argument from man’s
aspirations has weight only upon the supposition that a wise,
truthful, holy, and benevolent God exists, who has so constituted
our minds that their thinking and their affections correspond to
truth and to himself. An evil being might have so constituted us
that all logic would lead us into error. The argument is therefore
the development and expression of our intuitive idea of God.
Luthardt, Fundamental Truths: “Nature is like a written document
containing only consonants. It is we who must furnish the vowels
that shall decipher it. Unless we bring with us the idea of God,
we shall find nature but dumb.” See also Pfleiderer, Die Religion,
1:174.

A. _The defects of the Anthropological Argument are_: (_a_) It cannot prove a creator of the material universe. (_b_) It cannot prove the infinity of God, since man from whom we argue is finite. (_c_) It cannot prove the mercy of God. But,

B. _The value of the Argument_ is, that it assures us of the existence of a personal Being, who rules us in righteousness, and who is the proper object of supreme affection and service. But whether this Being is the original creator of all things, or merely the author of our own existence, whether he is infinite or finite, whether he is a Being of simple righteousness or also of mercy, this argument cannot assure us.

Among the arguments for the existence of God, however, we assign to this the chief place, since it adds to the ideas of causative power (which we derived from the Cosmological Argument) and of contriving intelligence (which we derived from the Teleological Argument), the far wider ideas of personality and righteous lordship.

Sir Wm. Hamilton, Works of Reid, 2:974, note U; Lect. on Metaph.,
1:33—“The only valid arguments for the existence of God and for
the immortality of the soul rest upon the ground of man’s moral
nature”; “theology is wholly dependent upon psychology, for with
the proof of the moral nature of man stands or falls the proof of
the existence of a Deity.” But Diman, Theistic Argument, 244, very
properly objects to making this argument from the nature of man
the sole proof of Deity: “It should be rather used to show the
attributes of the Being whose existence has been already proved
from other sources”; “hence the Anthropological Argument is as
dependent upon the Cosmological and Teleological Arguments as they
are upon it.”

Yet the Anthropological Argument is needed to supplement the
conclusions of the two others. Those who, like Herbert Spencer,
recognize an infinite and absolute Being, Power and Cause, may yet
fail to recognize this being as spiritual and personal, simply
because they do not recognize themselves as spiritual and personal
beings, that is, do not recognize reason, conscience and free-will
in man. Agnosticism in philosophy involves agnosticism in
religion. R. K. Eccles: “All the most advanced languages
capitalize the word ‘God,’ and the word ‘I.’ ” See Flint, Theism,
68; Mill, Criticism of Hamilton, 2:266; Dove, Logic of Christian
Faith, 211-236, 261-299; Martineau, Types, Introd., 3; Cooke,
Religion and Chemistry: “God is love; but nature could not prove
it, and the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world in
order to attest it.”

Everything in philosophy depends on where we begin, whether with
nature or with self, whether with the necessary or with the free.
In one sense, therefore, we should in practice begin with the
Anthropological Argument, and then use the Cosmological and
Teleological Arguments as warranting the application to nature of
the conclusions which we have drawn from man. As God stands over
against man in Conscience, and says to him: “Thou”; so man stands
over against God in Nature, and may say to him: “Thou.” Mulford,
Republic of God, 28—“As the personality of man has its foundation
in the personality of God, so the realization by man of his own
personality always brings man nearer to God.” Robert Browning:
“Quoth a young Sadducee: ‘Reader of many rolls, Is it so certain
we Have, as they tell us, souls?’ ‘Son, there is no reply!’ The
Rabbi bit his beard: ‘Certain, a soul have _I_—_We_ may have
none,’ he sneered. Thus Karshook, the Hiram’s Hammer, The
Right-hand Temple-column, Taught babes in grace their grammar, And
struck the simple, solemn.”

It is very common at this place to treat of what are called the
Historical and the Biblical Arguments for the existence of God—the
former arguing, from the unity of history, the latter arguing,
from the unity of the Bible, that this unity must in each case
have for its cause and explanation the existence of God. It is a
sufficient reason for not discussing these arguments, that,
without a previous belief in the existence of God, no one will see
unity either in history or in the Bible. Turner, the painter,
exhibited a picture which seemed all mist and cloud until he put a
dab of scarlet into it. That gave the true point of view, and all
the rest became intelligible. So Christ’s coming and Christ’s
blood make intelligible both the Scriptures and human history. He
carries in his girdle the key to all mysteries. Schopenhauer,
knowing no Christ, admitted no philosophy of history. He regarded
history as the mere fortuitous play of individual caprice. Pascal:
“Jesus Christ is the centre of everything, and the object of
everything, and he that does not know him knows nothing of nature,
and nothing of himself.”

IV. The Ontological Argument, or Argument from our Abstract and Necessary Ideas.

This argument infers the existence of God from the abstract and necessary ideas of the human mind. It has three forms:

1. That of Samuel Clarke. Space and time are attributes of substance or being. But space and time are respectively infinite and eternal. There must therefore be an infinite and eternal substance or Being to whom these attributes belong.

Gillespie states the argument somewhat differently. Space and time are modes of existence. But space and time are respectively infinite and eternal. There must therefore be an infinite and eternal Being who subsists in these modes. But we reply:

Space and time are neither attributes of substance nor modes of existence. The argument, if valid, would prove that God is not mind but matter, for that could not be mind, but only matter, of which space and time were either attributes or modes.

The Ontological Argument is frequently called the _a priori_
argument, that is, the argument from that which is logically
prior, or earlier than experience, viz., our intuitive ideas. All
the forms of the Ontological Argument are in this sense _a
priori_. Space and time are _a priori_ ideas. See Samuel Clarke,
Works, 2:521; Gillespie, Necessary Existence of God. _Per contra_,
see Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 364: Calderwood, Moral
Philosophy, 226—“To begin, as Clarke did, with the proposition
that ‘something has existed from eternity,’ is virtually to
propose an argument after having assumed what is to be proved.
Gillespie’s form of the _a priori_ argument, starting with the
proposition ‘infinity of extension is necessarily existing,’ is
liable to the same objection, with the additional disadvantage of
attributing a property of matter to the Deity.”

H. B. Smith says that Brougham misrepresented Clarke: “Clarke’s
argument is in his sixth proposition, and supposes the existence
proved in what goes before. He aims here to establish the
infinitude and omnipresence of this First Being. He does not prove
_existence_ from immensity.” But we reply, neither can he prove
the _infinity_ of God from the immensity of space. Space and time
are neither substances nor attributes, but are rather relations;
see Calderwood, Philos. of Infinite, 331-335; Cocker, Theistic
Conception of the World, 66-96. The doctrine that space and time
are attributes or modes of God’s existence tends to materialistic
pantheism like that of Spinoza, who held that “the one and simple
substance” (substantia una et unica) is known to us through the
two attributes of thought and extension; mind = God in the mode of
thought; matter = God in the mode of extension. Dove, Logic of the
Christian Faith, 127, says well that an extended God is a material
God; “space and time are attributes neither of matter nor mind”;
“we must carry the moral idea into the natural world, not the
natural idea into the moral world.” See also, Blunt, Dictionary
Doct. and Hist. Theol., 740; Porter, Human Intellect, 567. H. M.
Stanley, on Space and Science, in Philos. Rev., Nov.
1898:615—“Space is not full of things, but things are spaceful....
Space is a form of dynamic appearance.” Prof. C. A. Strong: “The
world composed of consciousness and other existences is not in
space, though it may be in something of which space is the
symbol.”

2. That of Descartes. We have the idea of an infinite and perfect Being. This idea cannot be derived from imperfect and finite things. There must therefore be an infinite and perfect Being who is its cause.

But we reply that this argument confounds the idea of the infinite with an infinite idea. Man’s idea of the infinite is not infinite but finite, and from a finite effect we cannot argue an infinite cause.

This form of the Ontological Argument, while it is _a priori_, as
based upon a necessary idea of the human mind, is, unlike the
other forms of the same argument, _a posteriori_, as arguing from
this idea, as an _effect_, to the existence of a Being who is its
_cause_. _A posteriori_ argument = from that which is later to
that which is earlier, that is, from effect to cause. The
Cosmological, Teleological, and Anthropological Arguments are
arguments _a posteriori_. Of this sort is the argument of
Descartes; see Descartes, Meditation 3: “Hæc idea quæ in nobis est
requirit Deum pro causa; Deusque proinde existit.” The idea in
men’s minds is the impression of the workman’s name stamped
indelibly on his work—the shadow cast upon the human soul by that
unseen One of whose being and presence it dimly informs us. Blunt,
Dict. of Theol., 739; Saisset, Pantheism, 1:54—“Descartes sets out
from a fact of consciousness, while Anselm sets out from an
abstract conception”; “Descartes’s argument might be considered a
branch of the Anthropological or Moral Argument, but for the fact
that this last proceeds from man’s constitution rather than from
his abstract ideas.” See Bib. Sac., 1849:637.

3. That of Anselm. We have the idea of an absolutely perfect Being. But existence is an attribute of perfection. An absolutely perfect Being must therefore exist.

But we reply that this argument confounds ideal existence with real existence. Our ideas are not the measure of external reality.

Anselm, Proslogion, 2—“Id, quo majus cogitari nequit, non potest
esse in intellectu solo.” See translation of the Proslogion, in
Bib. Sac., 1851:529, 699; Kant, Critique, 368. The arguments of
Descartes and Anselm, with Kant’s reply, are given in their
original form by Harris, in Journ. Spec. Philos., 15:420-428. The
major premise here is not that all perfect ideas imply the
existence of the object which they represent, for then, as Kant
objects, I might argue from my perfect idea of a $100 bill that I
actually possessed the same, which would be far from the fact. So
I have a perfect idea of a perfectly evil being, of a centaur, of
nothing,—but it does not follow that the evil being, that the
centaur, that nothing, exists. The argument is rather from the
idea of absolute and perfect Being—of “that, no greater than which
can be conceived.” There can be but one such being, and there can
be but one such idea.

Yet, even thus understood, we cannot argue from the idea to the
actual existence of such a being. Case, Physical Realism, 173—“God
is not an idea, and consequently cannot be inferred from mere
ideas.” Bowne, Philos. Theism, 43—The Ontological Argument “only
points out that the idea of the perfect must include the idea of
existence; but there is nothing to show that the self-consistent
idea represents an objective reality.” I can imagine the
Sea-serpent, the Jinn of the Thousand and One Nights, “The
Anthropophagi, and men whose heads Do grow beneath their
shoulders.” The winged horse of Uhland possessed every possible
virtue, and only one fault,—it was dead. If every perfect idea
implied the reality of its object, there might be horses with ten
legs, and trees with roots in the air.

“Anselm’s argument implies,” says Fisher, in Journ. Christ.
Philos., Jan. 1883:114, “that existence _in re_ is a constituent
of the concept. It would conclude the existence of a being from
the definition of a word. This inference is justified only on the
basis of philosophical realism.” Dove, Logic of the Christ. Faith,
141—“The Ontological Argument is the algebraic formula of the
universe, which leads to a valid conclusion with regard to real
existence, only when we fill it in with objects with which we
become acquainted in the arguments _a posteriori_.” See also
Shedd, Hist. Doct., 1:331, Dogm. Theol., 1:221-241, and in Presb.
Rev., April, 1884:212-227 (favoring the argument); Fisher, Essays,
574; Thompson, Christian Theism, 171; H. B. Smith, Introd. to
Christ. Theol., 122; Pfleiderer, Die Religion, 1:181-187; Studien
und Kritiken, 1875:611-655.

Dorner, in his Glaubenslehre, 1:197, gives us the best statement
of the Ontological Argument: “Reason thinks of God as existing.
Reason would not be reason, if it did not think of God as
existing. Reason only is, upon the assumption that God is.” But
this is evidently not argument, but only vivid statement of the
necessary assumption of the existence of an absolute Reason which
conditions and gives validity to ours.

Although this last must be considered the most perfect form of the Ontological Argument, it is evident that it conducts us only to an ideal conclusion, not to real existence. In common with the two preceding forms of the argument, moreover, it tacitly assumes, as already existing in the human mind, that very knowledge of God’s existence which it would derive from logical demonstration. It has value, therefore, simply as showing what God must be, if he exists at all.

But the existence of a Being indefinitely great, a personal Cause, Contriver and Lawgiver, has been proved by the preceding arguments; for the law of parsimony requires us to apply the conclusions of the first three arguments to one Being, and not to many. To this one Being we may now ascribe the infinity and perfection, the idea of which lies at the basis of the Ontological Argument—ascribe them, not because they are demonstrably his, but because our mental constitution will not allow us to think otherwise. Thus clothing him with all perfections which the human mind can conceive, and these in illimitable fullness, we have one whom we may justly call God.

McCosh, Div. Govt., 12, note—“It is at this place, if we do not
mistake, that the idea of the Infinite comes in. The capacity of
the human mind to form such an idea, or rather its intuitive
belief in an Infinite of which it feels that it cannot form an
adequate conception, may be no proof (as Kant maintains) of the
existence of an infinite Being; but it is, we are convinced, the
means by which the mind is enabled to invest the Deity, shown on
other grounds to exist, with the attributes of infinity, _i. e._,
to look on his being, power, goodness, and all his perfections, as
infinite.” Even Flint, Theism, 68, who holds that we reach the
existence of God by inference, speaks of “necessary conditions of
thought and feeling, and ineradicable aspirations, which force on
us ideas of absolute existence, infinity, and perfection, and will
neither permit us to deny these perfections to God, nor to ascribe
them to any other being.” Belief in God is not the conclusion of a
demonstration, but the solution of a problem. Calderwood, Moral
Philosophy, 226—“Either the whole question is assumed in starting,
or the Infinite is not reached in concluding.”

Clarke, Christian Theology, 97-114, divides his proof into two
parts: I. Evidence of the existence of God from the intellectual
starting-point: The discovery of _Mind_ in the universe is made,
1. through the intelligibleness of the universe to us; 2. through
the idea of cause; 3. through the presence of ends in the
universe. II. Evidence of the existence of God from the religious
starting-point: The discovery of the _good God_ is made, 1.
through the religious nature of man; 2. through the great
dilemma—God the best, or the worst; 3. through the spiritual
experience of men, especially in Christianity. So far as Dr.
Clarke’s proof is intended to be a statement, not of a primitive
belief, but of a logical process, we must hold it to be equally
defective with the three forms of proof which we have seen to
furnish some corroborative evidence of God’s existence. Dr. Clarke
therefore does well to add: “Religion was not produced by proof of
God’s existence, and will not be destroyed by its insufficiency to
some minds. Religion existed before argument; in fact, it is the
preciousness of religion that leads to the seeking for all
possible confirmations of the reality of God.”

The three forms of proof already mentioned—the Cosmological, the
Teleological, and the Anthropological Arguments—may be likened to
the three arches of a bridge over a wide and rushing river. The
bridge has only two defects, but these defects are very serious.
The first is that one cannot get on to the bridge; the end toward
the hither bank is wholly lacking; the bridge of logical argument
cannot be entered upon except by assuming the validity of logical
processes; this assumption takes for granted at the outset the
existence of a God who has made our faculties to act correctly; we
get on to the bridge, not by logical process, but only by a leap
of intuition, and by assuming at the beginning the very thing
which we set out to prove. The second defect of the so-called
bridge of argument is that when one has once gotten on, he can
never get off. The connection with the further bank is also
lacking. All the premises from which we argue being finite, we are
warranted in drawing only a finite conclusion. Argument cannot
reach the Infinite, and only an infinite Being is worthy to be
called God. We can get off from our logical bridge, not by logical
process, but only by another and final leap of intuition, and by
once more assuming the existence of the infinite Being whom we had
so vainly sought to reach by mere argument. The process seems to
be referred to in _Job 11:7—_“Canst thou by searching find out
God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?”

As a logical process this is indeed defective, since all logic as well as all observation depends for its validity upon the presupposed existence of God, and since this particular process, even granting the validity of logic in general, does not warrant the conclusion that God exists, except upon a second assumption that our abstract ideas of infinity and perfection are to be applied to the Being to whom argument has actually conducted us.

But although both ends of the logical bridge are confessedly wanting, the process may serve and does serve a more useful purpose than that of mere demonstration, namely, that of awakening, explicating, and confirming a conviction which, though the most fundamental of all, may yet have been partially slumbering for lack of thought.

Morell, Philos. Fragments, 177, 179—“We can, in fact, no more
prove the existence of a God by a logical argument, than we can
prove the existence of an external world; but none the less may we
obtain as strong a _practical_ conviction of the one, as the
other.” “We arrive at a scientific belief in the existence of God
just as we do at any other possible human truth. We _assume_ it,
as a hypothesis absolutely necessary to account for the phenomena
of the universe; and then evidences from every quarter begin to
converge upon it, until, in process of time, the common sense of
mankind, cultivated and enlightened by ever accumulating
knowledge, pronounces upon the validity of the hypothesis with a
voice scarcely less decided and universal than it does in the case
of our highest scientific convictions.”

Fisher, Supernat. Origin of Christianity, 572—“What then is the
purport and force of the several arguments for the existence of
God? We reply that these proofs are the different modes in which
faith expresses itself and seeks confirmation. In them faith, or
the object of faith, is more exactly conceived and defined, and in
them is found a corroboration, not arbitrary but substantial and
valuable, of that faith which springs from the soul itself. Such
proofs, therefore, are neither on the one hand sufficient to
create and sustain faith, nor are they on the other hand to be set
aside as of no value.” A. J. Barrett: “The arguments are not so
much a bridge in themselves, as they are guys, to hold firm the
great suspension-bridge of intuition, by which we pass the gulf
from man to God. Or, while they are not a ladder by which we may
reach heaven, they are the Ossa on Pelion, from whose combined
height we may descry heaven.”

Anselm: “Negligentia mihi videtur, si postquam confirmati sumus in
fide non studemus quod credimus intelligere.” Bradley, Appearance
and Reality: “Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what
we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an
instinct.” Illingworth, Div. and Hum. Personality, lect.
III—“Belief in a personal God is an instinctive judgment,
progressively justified by reason.” Knight, Essays in Philosophy,
241—The arguments are “historical memorials of the efforts of the
human race to vindicate to itself the existence of a reality of
which it is conscious, but which it cannot perfectly define.” H.
Fielding, The Hearts of Men, 313—“Creeds are the grammar of
religion. They are to religion what grammar is to speech. Words
are the expression of our wants; grammar is the theory formed
afterwards. Speech never proceeded from grammar, but the reverse.
As speech progresses and changes from unknown causes, grammar must
follow.” Pascal: “The heart has reasons of its own which the
reason does not know.” Frances Power Cobbe: “Intuitions are God’s
tuitions.” On the whole subject, see Cudworth, Intel. System,
3:42; Calderwood, Philos. of Infinite, 150 _sq._; Curtis, Human
Element in Inspiration, 242; Peabody, in Andover Rev., July, 1884;
Hahn, History of Arguments for Existence of God; Lotze, Philos. of
Religion, 8-34; Am. Jour. Theol., Jan. 1906:53-71.

Hegel, in his Logic, page 3, speaking of the disposition to regard
the proofs of God’s existence as the only means of producing faith
in God, says: “Such a doctrine would find its parallel, if we said
that eating was impossible before we had acquired a knowledge of
the chemical, botanical and zoölogical qualities of our food; and
that we must delay digestion till we had finished the study of
anatomy and physiology.” It is a mistake to suppose that there can
be no religious _life_ without a correct _theory_ of life. Must I
refuse to drink water or to breathe air, until I can manufacture
both for myself? Some things are given to us. Among these things
are “grace and truth”_ (John 1:17; __cf.__ 9)_. But there are ever
those who are willing to take nothing as a free gift, and who
insist on working out all knowledge, as well as all salvation, by
processes of their own. Pelagianism, with its denial of the
doctrines of grace, is but the further development of a
rationalism which refuses to accept primitive truths unless these
can be logically demonstrated. Since the existence of the soul, of
the world, and of God cannot be proved in this way, rationalism is
led to curtail, or to misinterpret, the deliverances of
consciousness, and hence result certain systems now to be
mentioned.