The first and second of these propositions coalesce with the creed of Atheism, the third with the creed of Pantheism, the fourth is the creed of Theism, and, as we hope to prove in subsequent chapters, the only rational and adequate explanation of the facts of the universe.
[CHAPTER II.]
GOD THE CREATOR.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."—Gen. i. 1.
"God that made the world and all things therein.... He is Lord of heaven and earth."—Acts xvii. 24.
"The Eternal Will is the creator of the world as He is the creator of the finite person."—Fichte.
God is the first principle, the unconditioned cause of all existence. This is the answer of Christian doctrine to the great problem presented for solution in the preceding chapter. Whether this fundamental presupposition shall be finally accepted as the only adequate solution of the problem of existence will depend in a large degree upon our apprehension of the Christian idea of God. We shall, therefore, open the discussion by asking the question—What is the content of our conception of God?
Dogmatic theology might rest satisfied with the simple affirmation,"God is God,"[17] as against all the captious demands of science, were it not necessary to render an account to itself of what, at first sight, might be pronounced a "sublime tautology." For, while it is hereby confessed that God in his essential being is incomprehensible and ineffable, so that to the Christian as well as to the philosopher he is "the great Unknown," still it is not hereby admitted that it is absolutely impossible to know God. To affirm that God is absolutely "the Unknowable" is simply to assert his unreality. Mr. Martineau has finely observed that this term is self-contradictory; for we affirm by the use of it that we know so much that He can not be known. Nay, it assumes the existence of God, and in the same breath separates us from Him forever. But if it be admitted that God is, it can not be absolutely impossible to know what He is. The knowledge of existence and the form of existence mutually condition each other. There must be something in the understanding answering to the term in the language of mankind, and there must be something in the realm of being which is the ground of the idea in the reason of Man. The heathen have a presentiment, a dim intuition of the "unknown God," and the inspired teacher may so "declare Him" in human language that his hearers may receive a definite notion, and attain to a practical knowledge of God.
The idea of God is a common phenomenon of the universal intelligence of our race, and must have been present to the thought of man even before he uttered the name of God.[18] The moment man becomes conscious of himself, and knows himself as distinct from the world, that same moment he becomes conscious of a Higher Self—a living Power upon which both himself and the world depend. For this Higher Self all nations have found a name. All languages have a term cognate with the Saxon "God," which expresses that spontaneous consciousness of a supernatural power which is common to all minds—that intuition of a supramundane existence which is the ground and reason of all other existence. Even Polytheism has a name for the abstract of all the gods, which sets forth the ideas of being, power, causality, and personality. And in Christian lands the term God, without any periphrasis, at once represents the idea of a Being distinct from self and the world, who is the Maker of the world and the Father of humanity. For all practical ends it is enough to say God is God. It is only when reflective thought seeks to express some more specific and determinate conception of the Supreme Being that we find ourselves under the necessity of adding other expletives to this term God.