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

by B. F. Cocker

The phenomena of the universe are in ceaseless flow and change. Bodies are aggregated and dissolved. Plants are evolved from germs, they live and grow, then decay and perish. Animals and men are born and developed to maturity, then they sicken and die. The earth itself is in constant change. The storms of heaven, the erosion of the atmosphere, the gnawing of the tidal wave, the mountain torrent, the flowing river, the earthquake and the volcano, are perpetually changing the aspect of the globe. There is perpetual genesis, ceaseless becoming, incessant change.

Beneath all these changes there is an enduring "something." There are abiding constants as well as fleeting changes; enduring realities as well as unstable phenomena. The same forms and relations, the same forces and laws, the same analogous functions, and the same archetypal ideas, remain amid all individual changes. There is an enduring substance which is the subject of all these changes. There is a permanent force, or power, which is the cause of all change. There are constant numerical proportions, determinate geometrical forms, specific ideal archetypes, and special ends, which give the law of all change. The universe is not a mere aggregation of phenomena, a mere concourse of things in time and space with accidental resemblances: it is a unity, a cosmos, a harmonious whole, both in its contemporaneous and successive history.

So much is and always has been known, with more or less clearness and distinctness by all men, and known by a spontaneous and immediate intuition. This intuition, like every intuition, even the commonest intuition of sense, has had a gradual development both in the consciousness of the individual, and in the consciousness of the race. It has always been immanent in human thought even when not articulately expressed in human language. To the native common-sense of our race, the world is a reality, not a dream; to the universal reason of mankind the universe is a harmony, not a chaos. Men have instinctively apprehended some ideal relations, some causal connection, some adaptation and purpose in nature, and they have always had some intuition, however dim and shadowy, of an all-pervading unity, and an ultimate causative principle.

But when the universe has become the object of reflective thought, when man has attempted a colligation of the individual facts, and an ideal construction and rational interpretation of the phenomena, when he has sought to grasp the manifoldness and diversity of nature in a higher unity of thought, and, above all, when he has attempted to pass beyond phenomena and their relations, and form a conception of the absolute reality and ultimate cause—then it is that difficulties have arisen and questions have presented themselves which have perplexed the discursive reason, and taxed the genius of the ablest thinkers of every age.

1. First of all, there have arisen the fundamental questions: Has the universe always existed, or had the Cosmos, with its changes and constants, its forces and laws, its forms and relations, a Beginning? Is its present condition but one link in an endless chain, one phasis in a series of changes, which had no beginning and shall have no end? Is the universe limited both in space and duration, or is it unlimited, unbeginning, and endless?

2. If the universe had a beginning, what is the ἀρχῆ—the originant, causative Principle in which or from which it had its beginning? How are we to conceive aright that First Principle of all existence and of all knowledge? is it material or spiritual, intelligent or unintelligent?

3. What conception are we to form of the nature and mode of that beginning? Was it a pure supernatural Origination—an absolute creation? or was it simply a Formation out of a first matter or first force—an artistic, architectonic, demiurgic creation? Was that beginning determined by necessity or by choice? Was it an unconscious emanation from, or a necessary development of, the First Principle; or was it a conscious forth-putting of power for the realization of a foreseen, premeditated, predetermined plan—a mental Order.

4. A supernatural Origination being assumed, then, from that first initial act of absolute creation, has the process of formation been gradual, continuous, and uniform—a progressive Evolution from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from lower to higher forms, according to a changeless law of uniformity and continuity? or have there been marked, distinct, and successive stages of formation—creative epochs which may be called "new beginnings?" Is the historic unity of creation a unity of Thought, an ideal consecution? or is it simply a physical unity grounded in a material nexus—a genetic connection resulting from the necessary action of physical causes?

5. What is the relation of the Creator to the existing creation? Is the Deity, in any sense, immanent in, or does he dwell altogether apart from, and out of all connection with, the universe? Has any finite thing or being an independent existence? Have the forces of nature any reality apart from the Divine efficiency? Did the Creator, in the beginning, give self-being to the substance of the universe, and endow it with properties and forces, so that it can exist and act apart from, and independently of, the First Cause? or is God still in nature upholding all substance, the power of all force, the life of all life, shaping all forms, and organizing all systems? Is God not only the Creator but the Conservator of all things?

6. Is there any Ethical meaning, any moral significance in the universe? Is the physical order of the universe subordinated to a moral order in which freedom exists? Are there any indications that the existence of moral personality is the end toward which all the successive changes of nature have tended, and the progressive types of life have been a preparation and a prophecy? Was the earth designed to be a theatre for the development of moral character, the education and discipline of moral beings? Does the course of history reveal "a power that works for righteousness," and aims at the highest perfection of rational and free beings? In a word, is there a Providential Government of the world?