The Theistic Conception of the World / An Essay in Opposition to Certain Tendencies of Modern Thought

by B. F. Cocker

[CHAPTER VI.]
CONSERVATION.—THE RELATION OF GOD TO THE WORLD.

"The relations which unite the creature and the Creator compose a problem obscure and delicate, the two extreme solutions of which are equally false and perilous: on the one hand, a God so passes into the world that He seems to be absorbed in it; on the other hand, a God so separated from the world, that the world has the appearance of going on without Him; on both sides there is equal excess, equal danger, equal error."—Cousin.

In the preceding chapters we have endeavored to present the Christian doctrine concerning God, and concerning the world as the work of God. God is a person—the unconditioned Personality, all of whose determinations are from Himself. And creation is the voluntary act of God, who freely chooses to award existence to other beings distinct from Himself. If our scientific conceptions are in harmony with this doctrine, we are safe from the temptations of materialism on the one hand, and proof against the seductions of pantheism on the other. Henceforth we must regard the unconditioned Being as essentially distinct from the material universe. Matter with its phenomena is limited in extent and duration, God is infinite and eternal. Extension is not an attribute of the Divine substance. Succession is not a mode of God's eternity. The Divine life infinitely transcends the dynamical life of the universe.

Still there is some connection, some relation between God and the world. Of this we have the fullest assurance, however incapable we may be of comprehending the mode. The material universe is the product of the Divine efficiency, and therefore the first and most fundamental relation of God to the world is that of causality. The universe exists solely through the will of God. It had a beginning, and the beginning of the world was the beginning of time. Prior to that beginning there was no succession, no limitation, no finite existence; only the eternal and infinite One. The creative efficiency was put forth, and matter, as the statical condition necessary to the manifestation of physical phenomena, began to be. The Spirit of God moved upon the formless abyss, and phenomenal change commenced its history. With motion and consequent succession there arose the relations of time. With the differentiation and collocation of matter there arose the relations of space. And the wealth and fullness of inorganic and organic nature sprang up under the directive, formative, and vitalizing energy of the Spirit of God.

But is there no further relation of God to the world, beyond that which is involved in the primary and solitary fact of creative causality? Did the connection of God with his works terminate in an event which belongs to the inapproachable past? Did the Creator, in the beginning, give self-being to the substance of the universe, and endow it with active forces, so that it can exist and act apart from and independent of God? Have the laws of nature a real efficiency, so that the further agency of God is dispensed with, and the universe can pursue a fixed and inevitable path of self-development without his control and oversight? Or is God still immanent in nature, upholding all substance, the power of all force, the life of all life, shaping all forms, and organizing all systems? In a word, has the Divine efficiency remained, since the first creative act, in sublime repose, or does "the Father work hitherto," sustaining, moving, vitalizing, and perfecting the universe—the Conservator, as well as the Creator, of all things? This is the living question of our times, whether viewed from the scientific or the theological stand-point. The mental posture we assume in relation to this question must determine our systems of philosophy and religion.

The language of Scripture on this point is direct and explicit, and unless our interpretation thereof needs to be modified in order to place it in harmony with the general spirit and tenor of Christian teaching, or with the unquestionable facts of nature, which are also a revelation of God, there can be no difficulty in determining the Christian doctrine of God's relation to the world. It teaches us, not only that all things were made by God, but that all things are sustained by God. God is still the first and immediate cause of all existence. "He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things" (Acts xvii. 25). The created universe is in complete and ceaseless dependence on the Divine causality; it consists by the same will and the same word by which it was first originated. He who made all things, continues to "uphold all things by the word of his power" (Heb. i. 3). "He is before all things, and by Him all things consist" (Col. i. 17). The universe is not self-existent, nor self-evolved, neither has it any inherent power of self-perpetuation. Notwithstanding the individuality and self-life conceded to the creature, it has no independent existence apart from God, "for of Him, and through Him, and for Him are all things, to whom be glory forever." (Rom. xi. 36.)

The recognition of a real presence of God in nature, and of the immediate agency of God in the production of all natural phenomena, has been a characteristic of the religious consciousness in all ages. This consciousness of the presence of God embracing and sustaining all worldly being is, in fact, an essential content of all vital piety. "It is only a mechanical deism, a barren rationalistic theology, or a piety meagre in the last degree, which has interposed a chasm between God and his creatures." The religious spirit is remarkably developed in the Psalms of David, and here all the operations of nature are spoken of as the operations of Deity. The thunder is "the voice of God." The lightnings are "his arrows." The earthquakes and volcanoes are produced directly by Him. "He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth; He toucheth the hills, and they smoke." "He giveth snow like wool, He scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes, He casteth forth his ice like morsels; who can stand before his cold? He causeth his winds to blow, and the waters flow." "He covereth the heavens with clouds, He prepareth rain for the earth." "He watereth the hills from his chambers, the earth is satisfied with the fruit of his work." "He causeth grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man." "He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry." "All creatures wait upon Him, and He giveth them their meat in due season. He openeth his hand, they are filled with good. He hideth his face, and they are troubled. He taketh away their breath, they die and return to the dust. He sendeth forth his Spirit, and they are created; and He reneweth the face of the earth." To the eye of the inspired writer, the agency of God is concerned in every process and every product of nature. "There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God who worketh all in all." His will and his power are the only real forces in nature.

The interpretation which the Church has given of this teaching of the Sacred Scriptures has been remarkably uniform through the ages. She has always taught that the continuance of the world, no less than its origination, has its ground in the Divine causality; and every theory of the relation of God to the world which has sacrificed the doctrine of the all-embracing, all-sustaining presence of God in the universe, as an immediate and real efficiency, has always been rejected as Pelagian, Rationalistic, or Deistic. The conception of the Divine conservation of the world as the simple, uniform, and universal agency of God sustaining all created substances and powers in every moment of their existence and activity, is the catholic doctrine of Christendom. In attempting the difficult, perhaps impossible task of conceiving the mode of this Divine conservation, different theories have been developed. But whatever the conception formed, whether that of the Divine co-operation (concursus Dei generalis), as taught by St. Augustine and the Schoolmen; or that of a Divine intermediate impulse (impulsus non cogens), as taught by Luther; or that of the Divine sustentation (sustentatio Dei), as held by the Arminians; or even that of the superintendence and control of the Deity, as adopted by some modern religious scientists,[219] they all repose on the ultimate truth that whatever is created can have no necessary or independent existence; the same power which called it into being must continue to uphold it in being; and were God to withdraw his conserving efficiency the creature would be immediately annihilated.[220]

St. Augustine, "the father of systematic theology," conceived the Divine conservation of the world as a continual creation (creatio continua). He taught that the life and activity of the creatures, collectively and individually, are ceaselessly and absolutely dependent on and conditioned by the almighty and omnipresent agency of God. "Were He to withdraw from the world his creative power, it would straightway lapse into nothingness."[221] Thomas Aquinas, "the Angelical Doctor," who is regarded as having brought Scholastic theology to its highest development, held the same views on this subject as Augustine. He taught that "preservation is an ever-renewed creation."[222] All creaturely causes derive their efficiency directly and continually from the First Cause.[223]