The truth that God in form is like man is further emphasized by the fact that Jesus is declared to have been in "the express image" of the Father's person (Heb. 1:3); and until Mr. V. or some other person of his school of thought, can prove very clearly that the word of God supports his theory of the unreality of the Bible's description of form, organs, proportions, passions and feelings, to God and other heavenly beings, the truth that God in form is like man will stand secure on the foundation of the revelations it has pleased God to give of his own being and nature.[A]
[Footnote A: Dean Mansel administers a scathing reproof to the German philosophers Kant and Fichte (and also to Professor Jowett in his note xxii in Lecture 1.) for what he calls "that morbid terror of what they are pleased to call anthropomorphism, which poisons the speculation of so many modern philosophers, when they attempt to be wise above what is written, and seek for a metaphysical exposition of God's nature and attributes." These philosophers, while holding in abhorrence the idea that God has a form such as man's—or any form whatsoever—parts, organs, affections, sympathies, passions or any attributes seen in man's spirit, are, nevertheless, under the necessity of representing God as conscious, as knowing, as determining; all of which, as pointed out by Dean Mansel in the passage which follows, are, after all, qualities of the human mind as well as attributes of Deity; and hence the philosophers, after all their labor, have not escaped from anthropomorphism, but have merely represented Deity to our consciousness, shorn of some of the higher qualities of the human mind, which God is represented in the scriptures as possessing in their perfection—such as love, mercy, justice. As orthodox Christian ministers, both Catholic and Protestant alike, including Mr. V., are afflicted with the same madness, I see no reason why the Dean's reproof should not be made to apply to them, and hence quote the passage in extenso: "They may not forsooth, think of the unchangeable God as if he were their fellow man, influenced by human motives, and moved by human supplications. They want a truer, juster idea of the Deity as he is, than that under which he has been pleased to reveal himself; and they call on their reason to furnish it. Fools, to dream that man can escape from himself, that human reason can draw aught but a human portrait of God. They do but substitute a marred and mutilated humanity for one exalted and entire: they add nothing to their conception of God as he is, but only take away a part of their conception of man. Sympathy, and love, and fatherly kindness, and forgiving mercy, have evaporated in the crucible of their philosophy; and what is the caput mortuum that remains, but only the sterner features of humanity exhibited in repulsive nakedness? The God who listens to prayer, we are told, appears in the likeness of human mutability. Be it so. What is the God who does not listen, but the likeness of human obstinacy? Do we ascribe to him a fixed purpose? Our conception of a purpose is human. Do we speak of him as continuing unchanged? Our conception of continuance is human. Do we conceive him as knowing and determining? What are knowledge and determination but modes of human consciousness? and what know we of consciousness itself, but as the contrast between successive mental states? But our rational philosopher stops short in his reasoning. He strips off from humanity just so much as suits his purpose; 'and the residue thereof he maketh a God less pious in his idolatry than the carver of the graven image, in that he does not fall down unto it and pray unto it, but is content to stand off and reason concerning it. And why does he retain any conception of God at all, but that he retains some portions of an imperfect humanity? Man is still the residue that is left; deprived indeed of all that is amiable in humanity, but in the darker features which remain, still man. Man in his purposes; man in his inflexibility; man in that relation to time from which no philosophy, whatever its pretensions, can wholly free itself; pursuing with indomitable resolutions a preconceived design; deaf to the yearning instincts which compel his creatures to call upon him. Yet this, forsooth, is a philosophical conception of the Deity, more worthy of an enlightened reason than the human imagery of the Psalmist: 'The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers.' Surely downright idolatry is better than this rational worship of a fragment of humanity. Better is the superstition which sees the image of God in the wonderful whole which God has fashioned, than the philosophy which would carve for itself a Deity out of the remnant which man has mutilated. Better to realize the satire of the eleatic philosopher, (Xenophanes) to make God in the likeness of man, even as the ox or the horse might conceive gods in the form of oxen or horses, than to adorn some half-hewn Hermes, the head of a man joined to a misshapen block. Better to fall down before that marvelous compound of human consciousness whose elements God has joined together, and no man can put asunder, than to strip reason of those cognate elements which together furnish all that we can conceive or imagine of conscious or personal existence, and to deify the emptiest of all abstractions, a something or nothing, with just enough of its human original left to form a theme for the disputation of philosophy, but not enough to furnish a single ground of appeal to the human feelings of love, of reverence, and of fear. Unmixed idolatry is more religious than this. Undisguised atheism is more logical." (Limits of Religious Thought, Mansel, pp. 56-58).
Notwithstanding this passage, however, it should be remarked that Dean Mansel holds on the very next page of this treatise that there is a principle of truth of which this philosophy is the perversion. "Surely," he remarks, "there is a sense in which we may not think of God as though he were a man; as there is also a sense in which we cannot help so thinking of him. * * * * * We feel that there is a true foundation for the system which denies human attributes to God; though the superstructure, which has been raised upon it, logically involves the denial of his very existence." The position of the Dean, as is well known, is that such are the limitations of the human mind—such the limitations of religious thought, that man may not hope to understand the divine nature, but as an act of faith must accept what is revealed concerning that nature.]
But the strangest part of the Reverend gentleman's contention on the matter now in hand is that the Latter-day Saints understand the anthropomorphic expressions in the scriptures as he explains them; and cites our catechisms (chapter 5, question 9) in proof of it![A] I quote the reference given:
[Footnote A: This is a thing so astonishing for Mr. Van Der Donckt to say, that lest the reader should think I had misunderstood him. I place before him in this note Mr. Van Der Donckt's statement at length. "It is a well known fact that all men after the example of the inspired writings, make frequent use of the figure called anthropomorphism, attributing to the Deity a human body, human members, human passions, etc.; and that is done, not to imply that God is possessed of form, limbs, etc., but simply to make spiritual things or certain truths more intelligible to man, who, while he tarries in this world, can perceive things and even ideas only through his senses, or through bodily organs.
"That even the Latter-day Saints thus understand such expressions is evident from their catechism (chapter 5: question 9), etc., etc.">[
9. Q. If God is a person, how can he be everywhere present? A. His person cannot be in more than one place at the same time, but he is everywhere present by his Holy Spirit.
This is preceded by the following passages from the same book and chapter:
1. Q. What kind of a being is God?
A. He is in the form of a man.
2. Q. How do you learn this?
A. The scriptures declare that man was made in the image of God. * * *
3. Q. Have you any further proof of God's being in the form of a man?
A. Yes, Jesus Christ was in the form of a man, and was at the same time in the image of God's person. * * *
4. Q. Is it not said that God is a spirit?
A. Yes; the scriptures say so. (John 4:24.) * * *
5. Q. How, then, can God be like man?
A. Man has a spirit, though clothed with a body, and God is similarly constituted.
6. Q. Has God a body then?
A. Yes; like unto man's body in figure.
7. Q. Is the person of God very glorious?
A. Yes; infinitely glorious.
8. Q. Is God everywhere present?
A. Yes; He is in all parts of the universe.
Then follows, of course, question nine and its answer, quoted above and by Mr. V.; and yet the gentleman, in the very face of these explicit statements concerning the reality of God's form in our faith, would have it believed that the Latter-day Saints understand the expressions of scripture ascribing human forms, limbs and organs to God as he explains them—not to imply that God is possessed of form, limbs, etc., but simply to make spiritual things more intelligible to man! This is a splendid illustration of Mr. V.'s ability to misunderstand.