It is therefore desirable that we should set down, in a provisional form, the general conception of God as it exists in the mind of the Theist and the Christian. I can not do this better than by selecting from the writings of three men of diverse schools of thought—one a Physicist, another a Metaphysician, the third a Theologian; and all in a greater or less degree influenced by the teaching of the Christian Scriptures.
My first selection will be from the "Meditations" of Descartes, who is regarded as "the father of modern philosophy." "By the name of God," says he, "I mean an infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, omniscient, omnipresent substance, by which I and all other things which are have been created and produced."[19]
My second selection is from the "Principia" of Sir Isaac Newton, a work which, by the general consent of the scientific world, is the greatest contribution ever made to science. Sir Isaac Newton was a Physicist rather than a Metaphysician; he will therefore represent to us the conception of God entertained by the scientific Theist. At the close of this his great work he writes: "The true God is a living, intelligent, powerful Being, and, from His other perfections, it follows that He is Supreme, or most perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, His duration reaches from eternity to eternity, His presence from infinity to infinity. He governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. He is not eternity and infinity, but eternal and infinite. He is not duration or space, but He endures and is present. He endures forever, and He is every where present; and by existing always and every where, He constitutes [or causes] duration and space. Since every particle of space is always, and every indivisible moment of duration is every where, certainly the Maker and Lord of all things can not be never and nowhere.... God is the same God, always and every where. He is omnipresent, not virtually [potentially] only, but also substantially; for virtue can not subsist without substance. In Him all things are contained and moved, yet neither affects the other. God suffers nothing from the motion of bodies; bodies find no resistance from the omnipresence of God. It is allowed by all that the Supreme God exists necessarily; and by the same necessity exists always and every where.... We know Him only by His most wise and excellent contrivances of things and final causes; we admire Him for His perfections; but we reverence and adore Him on account of His dominion. A God without dominion, providence, and final causes is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind mechanical necessity, which is certainly the same always and every where, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing."
My last selection is from the "Grammar of Assent," by John Henry Newman, formerly a Protestant, now a Catholic divine. Prior to his change of theological position he published a remarkable work "On the Development of Christian Doctrine in Aid of a Grammar of Assent," the design of which is to exhibit the influence of philosophic thought upon the evolution of Christian doctrine, and to bring it into harmony with the theories of Cosmical, Physiological, and Historical development, which seem for the present to be in the ascendant. For this reason I choose to employ his words, as setting forth the conception of God which is generally entertained by thoughtful men. At page ninety-seven of his last work, "The Grammar of Assent," I read:
"There is one God, such and such in Nature and Attributes. I say 'such and such,' for, unless I explain what I mean by one God, I use words which may mean any thing or nothing. I may mean a mere anima mundi; or an initial principle which once was in action and now is not; or collective humanity. I speak then of the one God of the Theist and of the Christian: a God who is numerically One, who is Personal; the Author, Sustainer, and Finisher of all things, the Life of Law and Order, the moral Governor. One who is Supreme and Sole; like Himself, unlike all things besides Himself, which all are but his creatures; distinct from, independent of, them all. One who is self-existing, absolutely infinite, who has ever been and ever will be, to whom nothing is past or future; who is all perfection, and the fullness and archetype of every possible excellence, the Truth itself, Wisdom, Love, Justice, Holiness; One who is All-powerful, All-knowing, Omnipresent, Incomprehensible. These are some of the distinctive prerogatives which I ascribe unconditionally and unreservedly to the great Being whom I call God."
These statements of the Theistic conception will be regarded by most men as adequate and satisfactory. They will be accepted by the scientific Theist and approved by the dogmatic Theologian. They present the idea of God within the sphere of Christian thought; that is, reflective thought informed and illuminated by the revelations of God which are given in the Christian Scriptures. At the same time it must be confessed that they are defective in scientific form, philosophical development, and logical articulation. They do not present the conception of God in harmony with any principles of Rational Integration. They show no attempt to combine the various elements of this conception in the unity of an Absolute Principle, an Ultimate and Fundamental Idea.
The aim of all true philosophy is to attain to the insight of First Principles, yea, to the insight of the Absolute First Principle from which whatever now is must be derived, and in which whatever is must have its intelligible ground and sufficient reason. There exists in man, as the essential characteristic of his humanity, a power or faculty of intelligence, best named the Reason, which awakens in him the desire and furnishes to him the law that enables him to fulfill the inherent desire of combining all his manifold knowledges in the unity of such Absolute First Principle; and the one fundamental law of this faculty is the Law of Sufficient Reason, which has been thus enounced by Leibnitz: "Whatever exists, or begins to be, must have a sufficient reason for its existence, and why it is as it is, and not otherwise;" or, to give the principle a fuller, and at the same time a legitimate expansion—For all genesis, or beginning, there must be an adequate Cause; beneath all appearance, all changeful and fleeting phenomena, there must be a permanent Being or Reality; beyond all the diverse and manifold, there must be an ultimate Identity, an incomposite indivisible Unity; and in all order and special adaptation, there must be a unifying Thought, a definite Purpose and End.
The Reason of man can find satisfaction and harmony only in the recognition of an Absolute First Principle which shall comprehend and unite all these universal and necessary ideas which are the correlates of the facts of experience; that is, an Absolute First Principle which shall be the Ultimate Reality, the Ultimate Cause, the Ultimate Unity, and the Ultimate Reason of all existence. In other words, the Reason is not and can not be satisfied without "the clear insight of a Causative Principle containing, predetermining, and producing all the actual results we see around us, with their orderly relations in reference to a final purpose, reason, or end; and which causative principle exists not only as the originative and constructive, but also as the conservative energy of all things;" a Being who "is before all things, and by whom all things consist," "from whom, in whom, and to whom are all things."
And now what is this Absolute First Principle, causative of all existence, which the spontaneous reason has always intuitively apprehended, and which the reflective reason has always found to be the adequate, and only adequate explanation of the universe? I answer in a word, it is AN UNCONDITIONED WILL OR SELF-DIRECTIVE POWER, SEEING ITS OWN WAY, AND HAVING THE REASON AND LAW OF ITS ACTION IN ITSELF ALONE. This always and every where has been intuitively apprehended, with more or less clearness, as standing at the fountain-head of all existence.