Law, Cause, And Agent.
The word law denotes the unceasing, regular order in which an agent or force operates. It should, consequently, be distinguished from cause or efficiency; it being only the manner, or mode, according to which an agent or cause manifests itself. Therefore law is neither cause or agent. Yet it implies [pg 092] an agent, or an energy; for without these law is nothing—does nothing. The laws of nature had no existence until nature existed. That is to say, the laws of water did not exist until water existed, etc. So it is easy to perceive the truth that the laws of nature created nothing. Nature is said to be the aggregate of everything; therefore nature created nothing. The laws of nature, being the rules according to which effects are produced, demonstrate the existence of a cause or agent which operates. As the rules of navigation never steered a ship, so the law of gravity never moved a planet. A bare order or law of nature was not the cause of nature. To confound order or law with cause is to speak unadvisedly—unintelligently; it is perfectly irrational. Would you cut off executive authority in a government and continue its existence without a person or society to exercise, judge and execute according to law?
To say the world is governed by the laws of nature, without rising up in our thoughts to the efficient cause and superior reason, or, that which is always implied in the term law, viz., a legislator and executive putting in force, is to play the Atheist and take things by halves; is to suppose the laws of nature are beings, and imagine fabulous divinities in ignoring or setting aside the Christian's God, who is the source of all the laws of nature, and who governs all things according to them. “The laws of nature are the art of God.” Without the presence of such an agent—one who is conscious of all upon which the laws of nature depend—producing all that the laws prescribe—the laws themselves could have no existence. The intelligence, or, if you prefer it, cause, which gives the laws of nature their power, and by which they are kept in action, must be everywhere present and always present; otherwise the whole machinery of nature would be deranged—inertia is a property of matter. The universal presence of God is the one great and overwhelming condition of the existence of life and motion throughout the vast universe of nature. The laws of matter are the laws which he has prescribed for his own action. His presence is the essential condition of any natural course of [pg 093] events in the history of matter. His universal agency is the only organ of power adequate to the accomplishment of the wonders of nature—the only solution of its great problems which lies within the reach of human reason. Some fools still say in their hearts there is no God.
One of Newton's great laws of motion is, that a body must continue forever in a state of rest, inertia being a property of matter, or being put in motion continues forever in a straight line, if it be not disturbed by the action of an external cause.
Now let us apply this law to our planet, as a body, and see the result. What is the first necessary conclusion to which we are driven? Ans. Some external agency or cause put our planet in motion. What is the second conclusion? Ans. Some agent or cause controls its motion causing it to depart from a straight line. Do you say the cause is in the influence of other planets? Well, suppose, for the sake of the argument, we admit it, are we then through with the problem? No. We have only moved the difficulty one step backward. We can see how one billiard ball may set another in motion, but it is only thinkable upon the supposition that there was an agent behind the ball which put the second ball in motion. What put the first ball in motion? Did it put itself in motion? No. The law is this: A body must remain forever at rest without some external agency to put it in motion. Now, you step out from our planet to its nearest neighbor, and from thence to the next, and so on till you get to the furthest limits of matter—carry along with you the idea that one planet has put another in motion until you arrive at the last one thinkable, and then ask yourself this question: Is inertia a property of matter here? Is the law of motion, already quoted, a law of motion here? If it is, then, of necessity, science demands an agent outside of planets, or behind the whole of them, to put them in motion, and to control them while in motion in order to carry them forward in circles—do you see? “But the fool says in his heart there is no God.”