"Christianity, therefore, reasonably supplements the mere survival of a discarnate spirit, a homeless wanderer or melancholy ghost, with the warm and comfortable clothing of something that may legitimately be spoken of as a "body;" that is to say, it postulates a supersensually appreciable vehicle or mode of manifestation, fitted to subserve the needs of terrestrial life; an ethereal or other entity constituting the persistent 'other aspect,' and fulfilling some of the functions which the atoms of terrestrial matter are constrained to fulfill now. And we may assume, as consonant with or even as part of Christianity, the doctrine of the dignity and sacramental character of some physical or quasi-material counterpart of every spiritual essence."
In other words, Sir Oliver evidently believes in something equivalent to the resurrection of man; that there will be some sort of quasi-material substance that shall form the future clothing of man's spirit, suitable to the future states of its existence and experiences.
Now, my friends, the point is this: If our professors, as we see they do, insist that there is incarnate in man a divine spirit, and we get men through the veil of death, and they become immortal men, possessing immortal tabernacles, what have you here but the "superman" of the professors, or the "exalted man" of Joseph Smith's doctrine? And if we postulate for these immortals, as both Joseph Smith and the professors do, a limitless opportunity for progress and development, then indeed it is not impossible that man may approach, somewhat even to the excellence of his Father, and of his elder brother, Jesus Christ.
This brings me to the consideration of another thought in connection with Joseph Smith's doctrine, namely, the doctrine that there is a plurality of divine intelligences in the universe—"Lords many and Gods many," as Paul would say.
It was supposed that Joseph Smith was guilty of great blasphemy when he announced to the world that in the great vision of God, given to him, he beheld two personages, each resembling the other, and that they spake to him; and one said to the other, calling the prophet by name, "This is my beloved Son; hear him." Since Joseph represented that there were two divine personages—Father and Son—separate and distinct, one from the other, he was charged with having uttered a great blasphemy. Such a statement was at variance with the orthodox conception of Deity. It had been held in the creeds of men—notwithstanding they professed belief in God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—that somehow or other the three persons of the Godhead were but one essence or substance; were but one entity, and not three separate and distinct personages or individuals. But if the doctrine considered in part II of this treatise be true as to the spirit in man being divine; and if that spirit goes through the resurrection and becomes an immortal personage—still divine—what is the result? The result must be that there are a multitude of divine intelligences; which is only another way of saying with Paul, and Joseph Smith, that there are "Lords many and Gods many." And so the inevitable result of the teachings in our universities leads to the support of this doctrine that was announced to the world by the Prophet Joseph Smith, that there are a multitude of divine intelligences in the heavens—spirits and angels and arch-angels; and Gods who meet in solemn councils—David's "congregation of the mighty," where God "judgeth among the Gods" to generate the wisdom that is present through the universe that has been brought from chaos into cosmos by the wisdom and power of these divine intelligences. But as "pertaining to us," there is one Godhead appointed to preside from among these intelligences—the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And this Godhead, or grand presidency, does preside over our world and the spheres that are associated with it: with our earth and its heavens.
This doctrine of the existence of a plurality of divine intelligences has further support by a very eminent professor—no less a personage than Professor James, late of Harvard university. Within the year, his lectures before Oxford university, England, have been published, and this work bears the title A Pluralistic Universe. The outcome of Professor James' learned discussion of all the questions involved in this subject is to the effect that instead of the universe being, as he satirically speaks of it, when referring to the monistic view of it—"a solid block," it is a pluralistic universe. One of his passages runs as follows:
"I propose to you that we should discuss the question of God, without entangling ourselves in advance in the monistic assumption. Is it probable that there is a superhuman consciousness at all, in the first place? When that is settled, the further question whether its form be monistic or pluralistic is in order." (page 295).
This question as to their being a "superhuman consciousness" the professor decides in the affirmative as at least probable; and then he announces that the only way to escape from the inconsistencies of other theories "is to be frankly pluralistic and assume that the superhuman consciousness, however vast it may be, has itself an external envelopment, and consequently is finite" (page 311 ).
"The line of least resistance, then, as it seems to me," he adds, "both in theology and philosophy, is to accept, along with the superhuman consciousness, the notion that it is not all-embracing, the notion, in other words, that there is a God, but that he is finite, either in power or in knowledge, or in both at once. These, I need hardly tell you, are the terms in which common men have usually carried on their active commerce with God; and the monistic perfections that make the notion of him so paradoxical practically and morally are the colder addition of remote professorial minds, operating in distans upon conceptual substitutes for him alone" (page 311). Professor James also explains that present day Monism carefully repudiates complicity with Spinozistic Monism, "in that, it explains, the many get dissolved in the one and lost, whereas in the improved, idealistic form they get preserved in all their manyness as the one's eternal object. The absolute itself is thus represented by absolutists as having a pluralistic object. But if even the absolute has to have a pluralistic vision, why should we ourselves hesitate to be pluralists on our own sole account? Why should we envolve our 'many' with the 'one' that brings so much poison in its train?" (Page 311.)
Addressing himself directly to Oxford men on the movement of late towards pluralistic conceptions of the universe, professor James says: "If Oxford men could be ignorant of anything, it might almost seem that they had remained ignorant of the great empirical movement towards a pluralistic panpsychic view of the universe, into which our own generation has been drawn, and which threatens to short-circuit their methods entirely and become their religious rival unless they are willing to make themselves its' allies" (page 313).