Systematic Theology (Volume 2 of 3)

by Augustus Hopkins Strong

2. From Reason.

We may argue the preserving agency of God from the following considerations:

(a) Matter and mind are not self-existent. Since they have not the cause of their being in themselves, their continuance as well as their origin must be due to a superior power.

Dorner, Glaubenslehre: “Were the world self-existent, it would be God, not world, and no religion would be possible.... The world has receptivity for new creations; but these, once introduced, are subject, like the rest, to the law of preservation”—i. e., are dependent for their continued existence upon God.

(b) Force implies a will of which it is the direct or indirect expression. We know of force only through the exercise of our own wills. Since will is the only cause of which we have direct knowledge, second causes in nature may be regarded as only secondary, regular, and automatic workings of the great first Cause.

For modern theories identifying force with divine will, see Herschel, Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects, 460; Murphy, Scientific Bases, 13-15, 29-36, 42-52; Duke of Argyll, Reign of Law, 121-127; Wallace, Natural Selection, 363-371; Bowen, Metaphysics and Ethics, 146-162; Martineau, Essays, 1:63, 265, and Study, 1:244—“Second causes in nature bear the same relation to the First Cause as the automatic movement of the muscles in walking bears to the first decision of the will that initiated the walk.” It is often objected that we cannot thus identify force with will, because in many cases the effort of our will is fruitless for the reason that nervous and muscular force is lacking. But this proves only that force cannot be identified with human will, not that it cannot be identified with the divine will. To the divine will no force is lacking; in God will and force are one.

We therefore adopt the view of Maine de Biran, that causation pertains only to spirit. Porter, Human Intellect, 582-588, objects to this view as follows: “This implies, first, that the conception of a material cause is self-contradictory. But the mind recognizes in itself spiritual energies that are not voluntary; because we derive our notion of cause from will, it does not follow that the causal relation always involves will; it [pg 413]would follow that the universe, so far as it is not intelligent, is impossible. It implies, secondly, that there is but one agent in the universe, and that the phenomena of matter and mind are but manifestations of one single force—the Creator's.” We reply to this reasoning by asserting that no dead thing can act, and that what we call involuntary spiritual energies are really unconscious or unremembered activities of the will.

From our present point of view we would also criticize Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:596—“Because we get our idea of force from mind, it does not follow that mind is the only force. That mind is a cause is no proof that electricity may not be a cause. If matter is force and nothing but force, then matter is nothing, and the external world is simply God. In spite of such argument, men will believe that the external world is a reality—that matter is, and that it is the cause of the effects we attribute to its agency.” New Englander, Sept. 1883:552—“Man in early time used second causes, i. e., machines, very little to accomplish his purposes. His usual mode of action was by the direct use of his hands, or his voice, and he naturally ascribed to the gods the same method as his own. His own use of second causes has led man to higher conceptions of the divine action.” Dorner: “If the world had no independence, it would not reflect God, nor would creation mean anything.” But this independence is not absolute. Even man lives, moves and has his being in God (Acts 17:28), and whatever has come into being, whether material or spiritual, has life only in Christ (John 1:3, 4, marginal reading).

Preservation is God's continuous willing. Bowne, Introd. to Psych. Theory, 305, speaks of “a kind of wholesale willing.” Augustine: “Dei voluntas est rerum natura.”Principal Fairbairn: “Nature is spirit.” Tennyson, The Ancient Sage: “Force is from the heights.” Lord Gifford, quoted in Max Müller, Anthropological Religion, 392—“The human soul is neither self-derived nor self-subsisting. It would vanish if it had not a substance, and its substance is God.” Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 284, 285—“Matter is simply spirit in its lowest form of manifestation. The absolute Cause must be that deeper Self which we find at the heart of our own self-consciousness. By self-differentiation God creates both matter and mind.”