The conception of God as pure Spirit, as the eternal Reason, the righteous Will, the supreme Good, the omnipresent Ruler of the universe, and the Father of humanity, is gradually developed in reflective thought. The first is a metaphysical datum, standing at the commencement of all inquiry, the second is a logical quoesitum which is reached at the end of a process of rational inquiry. Spontaneous consciousness begins with an indeterminate feeling, a mysterious presentiment of the Divine; it proceeds through simple intuition, and ends with affirmative thought. Reflective consciousness begins by questioning our primitive beliefs, and asking for their logical grounds; it proceeds by analytic and inductive reasoning, and may result in the union of logical convictions, with determinate affections—an intelligent reverence and an appreciating love. Spontaneous thought is involuntary, and must necessarily result in faith. Reflective thought is voluntary, and may result in error, doubt, and skepticism. Therefore the method by which we attain to a clear and determinate knowledge of God—by which we really feel, and actually find God—may be defeated, interrupted, and marred by sin. Unholy passion and a perverted will may materially vitiate the process by which the human reason reaches a logical conviction of the being of a God. The ungodly man may desire that the First Cause shall have no moral attributes. The sinner may imagine that the Deity is "altogether such an one as himself." The fool may say in his heart, "There is no God." While the idea of God presents itself naturally and necessarily in spontaneous thought, there may be an "unwillingness to retain God in the knowledge." And even where God is known, He may not be honored and gratefully recognized; and, as a consequence, the "understanding may be darkened." Swallowed up of uncleanness and lust, the abandoned man may "barter the truth of God for lies," and eventually "worship and serve the creature more than the Creator." Still man can not utterly relegate himself from all sense of obligation, and all feeling of dependence upon God. He can not sever the link which binds him to his Maker. He can not wholly extinguish in his heart the sense of the Divine, nor eradicate from his reason the ideas which, in their spontaneous, unimpeded development, reveal to him the personal Lawgiver and Judge. Where there is any rectitude of purpose, any sincere love for truth, there will be, in a proportionate measure, the true knowledge of God. And the pure mind may assuredly rise to that higher religious consciousness in which doubt and uncertainty are swallowed up in an inward vision of his glory.
Here, then, we have the rational foundation for moral government, and the ultimate ground of all religion. The possibility of knowing God, the obligation to reverence and obey God, the power to do the will of God, the susceptibility of the human heart for Divine inspiration and Divine communing, are all grounded upon the correlations between God and man. "God is not far from any one of us, for in Him we live and move and are; as certain of your own poets have said, 'For we are his offspring."'
1. The relation between God and man is a relation of contiguity. God is perpetually near to man. "He is not far from any one of us." The sacred Scriptures not only teach the ubiquity of God, but they emphasize the immediateness of the Divine presence in relation to man. "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me." No man can escape from God. We may retire to the remotest parts of the earth, and take up our abode in the most solitary isle; we may press our way into the deepest recesses of the primeval forest, to spots where the foot of man has never trod, and on which the light of heaven has never shone, and where solitude has held its undisturbed reign ever since the morning of creation, and the conviction that "God is in this place" will relieve the loneliness, and hold us fast within the grasp of his government and laws. Let human thought take to itself the wings of imagination and pierce the heavens, let it travel on through the immensity of space until it has reached the confines of the universe, let it alight on one of the outermost stars which seem to stand as sentinels at the very outposts of creation, and looking out upon the depths of space, there shall be heard the voice of God toning on throughout the fathomless abyss, "Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see?" "Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord." God is not far from any one of us. He is the "Ever Near." Nearer to us than the air we breathe, nearer than the light which reveals surrounding objects, nearer than our body, the living vesture of the soul, is God. In the words of the Persian oracle, "God is nearer to thee than thou art unto thyself." As the Infinite Mind is present to all rational beings, so are they all present to Him. God is omniscient. The thoughts, feelings, and actions of all men are immediately and directly known by Him. "O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, Thou knowest it altogether." The first condition of a moral government is found in the nearness, the contiguity of God to every human soul, and the immediate and infallible knowledge which He consequently must possess of every human thought and act.
2. The relation between God and man is a relation of immanency. "In Him we live and move and are" (ἐσμέν, = have conscious being). Our life, our power, our consciousness are from God, through God, and in God. This relation is manifestly something more immediate than the relation of contiguity. It is the present, instant, ceaseless relation of Divine efficiency. This is involved in the very idea of the creature. If man is the creature of God, he has not only his beginning, but his continuance of existence by a real and immediate causality. God alone possesses true life—"life in Himself"—He alone is really self-existent, our life and our being are continually derived from Him. If we were without God, and entirely isolated from Him, we could not live or move or even exist. God is every where, not virtually but actually. He pervades and interpenetrates all existences without displacing them in space or disturbing their operations. His infinite essence underlies all the principles and powers of all created existences; they all move within the range of his presence, and act within the sphere of his energy. And God is not only present immediately to man, but his mighty will sustains man in existence every moment, vitalizing his organism, endowing him with power, illuminating his reason, and inspiring him with knowledge. God is immanent in man, and man is immanent in God. "To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him."[498]—"One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all."[499]—"The same God who worketh all in all."[500] Our life is from God and in God. Our power to energize is from God and constantly sustained by God. We consciously know in and through God, who so illuminates our reason that we can interpret the symbolism of nature. "God teacheth man knowledge." "He giveth wisdom to the wise and prudence to men of understanding." "There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding." The reason of man is a beam of the eternal reason. "The spirit of a man is the candle of the Lord." All good desires, all noble impulses, all power to resist temptation and perform heroic acts of endurance and suffering, are from God. "Every good and every perfect gift cometh down from above, from the Father of Lights."[501]
The constant, ceaseless dependence of all rational existence on God for vitality, for power, and for consciousness must be maintained, if we would be faithful to the plain language of Scripture. We are aware that fears of a pantheistic perversion has led some men, without reason, to refine upon the language of Scripture. By the expression "in Him" (ἐν αυτῷ), we are, they say, to understand "with Him." But ἐν αυτῷ does not mean "with Him" or "through Him." The most natural grammatical construction is "in Him," and this suits best the logical connection. The Uncreated is the only self-existent being. All other existences are derived and dependent, and therefore can not be self-existent. The Supreme can not communicate the attribute of self-existence any more than the attribute of infinity. A finite existence can not be at once dependent and independent. Of mind, as well as of matter, it is equally true that the sole ground of its continuing to be, as well as its beginning to be, is in the Almighty will and power directly and ceaselessly put forth. The direct agency of God sustaining conscious life is a universal, constant, profound reality.[502]
It may be objected that in maintaining these views we are in danger of sacrificing the personality of man. It may be asked, How can we sustain the antithesis between the I and Thou of a commandment or of a prayer? How can we reconcile human self-determination with absolute dependence upon God? How can we conceive the possibility of sin—the possibility of a creature dependent every moment on God for power, acting in opposition to the mind and will of God?
These are questions of profound significance; they are also questions of extreme difficulty. Our reason staggers under their weight. We tremble in the presence of the mystery of evil. It is obvious that these questions involve the deeper question as to the causal connection of God with his creation, which all men confess is an insoluble and impenetrable mystery. The feeling of dependence on the one hand, as well as the sense of personal power and freedom on the other, are primitive facts of consciousness. That we live and move and have our being in God, and that we have a real determinate selfhood, a finite personality, a responsible spirit-life, are both affirmed in Scripture. That a holy God made the world, and still actually upholds it; and that sin, as lawlessness (ἀνομία), as a real antagonism to the will and nature of God, exists in his world, can not be denied by Christian men. These are equally truths. To our conception, they may appear antithetical, if not contradictory. But truth is often of a dual character; like the magnet, it may have opposite poles. And many of the differences which agitate the world are often to be traced to the exclusiveness with which different parties affirm one half of the duality in forgetfulness of the other half. We must accept both aspects of the truth, even though we can not at present effect their real conciliation in thought, and wait for further light.
A profound faith in the unity of all truth will inspire the hope that reason may yet attain to ultimate principles in which shall be found the harmony of facts and subordinate principles that to-day seem irreconcilable. Underlying the above apparently antithetical truths we can even now dimly discern still more fundamental principles which prophesy a solution. If Divine Love will that there shall be other existences who shall resemble God, and be capable of fellowship with Him in knowledge and in love—in other words, shall be perfect so far as is consistent with the notion of dependent existence—these beings must have a real selfhood, a conscious personality, a conditioned freedom. For impersonal being, even though it may by its absolute dependence reveal the eternal power, and in some degree reflect the thought of God, can not in any sense be the image of God, who is absolute Personality. Above all, that which can not know itself, can not know God, and can not love God. That which can not freely determine itself, can not obey God or resemble God. The highest form of spirit-life "is the conscious return, by a free identification, of every delegated power into harmony with its source." Real being and real life in God must therefore involve, not only a consciousness of dependence and obligation, but also self-consciousness and self-determination. Resemblance to God and fellowship with God are possible only through these fundamental elements of personality. Moral union requires dynamical separation. And because God wills this highest unity, He creates the highest individuality, and gives being to a will under concessions of freedom.
We conceive of the Divine conservation of the world and man as "the simple, universal, uniform efficiency of God which sustains the created powers in every moment of their activity, and thereby keeps them bound to Himself. As such it makes itself the basis of all individual efficiencies in the life and movement of the world, without indeed itself, as such, giving to the efficiency of creaturely powers any particular direction." The conserving activity of God moves in prearranged lines, and according to laws and measures determined by the infinite wisdom of God, and conserves, therefore, all individual existence only within the boundaries which are fixed by these arrangements, and through the relations of the powers of the world. Thus as the world-conserving activity of God leaves all creatures just as it finds them, and equally embraces irrational as well as rational beings, "the evil as well as the good" (Matt. v. 45), it can in nowise remove the answerableness of man for his sins, or in any way taking part in the same. The world-conserving efficiency of God sustains man every moment in being, and conditions the activity of his moral powers even when they are exerted in an evil choice, just as it sustains the universe according to a predetermined plan and in harmony with fixed laws; but it does not thereby give to the activity of the moral creature any determinate direction whatever, either good or evil. The general power to will and do is received immediately and constantly from God, but it is a delegation of power under concessions of freedom and conditions of accountability. The specific determinations of that power are from man himself. He may give an evil direction to his derived and dependent activities, and thus commit sin. The responsibility for that evil determination rests upon himself alone, even though he is every moment pervaded and sustained by the conserving efficiency of God. Alternative power is a talent loaned out by God to man. But it is a talent which still belongs to God, for the proper or improper use of which man is accountable.
It has been urged by the captious critic, who would fain cast upon God all responsibility for the presence of evil in the world, that "if God does not actually determine the evil, He delegates to man the power to actualize evil; let Him only refuse his conserving efficiency to the will of man, and thus prevent the evil!" The reckless objector knoweth not what he saith. In order to render evil impossible, it is demanded that God shall rob man of his personality, and degrade him to the level of impersonal nature; for the possibility of evil is inseparable from the notion of free, self-determined existence. "The momentary withdrawment of the conserving activity of God from the moral creature were the immediate annihilation of its existence."[503] Liberty is not only a good, but it is the necessary condition of all goodness. It is the sphere of all great virtues, noble deeds, and heroic acts. There can be no virtue, no praiseworthiness, no godlikeness, no real felicity, where there is no freedom. Shall we reproach God for having made us free personalities? Shall we complain because God has honored us by committing to us a sacred trust, and placed our happiness and well-being largely under our own control? Who would surrender his conscious power and freedom, and sacrifice the infinite possibilities of good which lie before him, to escape the possibility of failure and suffering and defeat? Will any rational man exchange his position for that of the ant or the beaver? "What," exclaims Rousseau, "to render man incapable of evil, would we have him lowered to mere brute instinct? No! God of my soul, I will not reproach Thee for having made me in thine image, so that I might be good and free and happy like Thyself."