So let it be. But this does not diminish the value of that transformation (and in a sense origination) of force by intelligence, by reason of which order is brought forth from disorder—cosmos from chaos. What matters it if great spaces of matter are "without form and void," and "darkness is upon the face of the deep," if only intelligence is there brooding over the mass to give purposive direction to the forces there latent or blindly tumbling in chaotic confusion, until light and orderly development shall bring forth worlds to answer noble ends. And that the 'Eternal Cause' does thus operate upon co-eternal force and eternal matter is witnessed by the orderly universe, everywhere giving evidence of the reign of law. It is this fact of an orderly universe, whose phenomena run backward through a chain of causes that suggest a purposive Eternal Cause, back of it. This necessity for an Eternal Cause makes that cause one of the sources of man's knowledge of God.
9. On the Use of the Phrase "Eternal Cause." It will be observed that in the quotation made from the article "Belief in God," in this lesson, (Note 2) that the term "Eternal Cause" is used instead of "First Cause." It is used by the author of that Article without explanation. Mr. Mill uses the term "First Cause" and "Eternal Cause" interchangeably. The reason for our use of "Eternal Cause," instead of "First Cause" will appear in part from the quotation made from Mill in note 2, where the difficulty of arriving at a cause that is not itself an effect to some preceding cause is pointed out; and where also it is shown that "though all causes have a beginning, there is in all of them a permanent element which had no beginning;" and "this permanent element may with some justice be termed a first or universal cause." In both Mormon Theism and Mormon philosophy, matter is eternal force, the permanent element in all causation, according to the suggestion of Mr. Mill, is eternal; and intelligence, with its power to direct force to purposive ends, is eternal. "Intelligence, * * * was not created or made, neither indeed can be." (Doc. and Cov. Sec. XCIII.) To talk of "beginnings," then, or "firsts," in any absolute sense, in the midst of these eternal things, is to talk nonsense.
As Mr. Herbert Spencer remarks, "We are no more able to form a circumscribed idea of cause, than of space or time; and we are consequently obliged to think of the cause which transcends the limits of our thought as positive though indefinite. Just in the same manner that on conceiving any bounded space there arrives a nascent consciousness of space outside the bounds; so, when we think of any definite cause, there arises a nascent consciousness of a cause behind it; and in the one case as in the other, this nascent consciousness is in substance like that which suggests it, though without form." (First Principles, p. 95-6.)
It may be difficult, then, especially within the range of human experience or even within human power of conception, to posit a cause that is not itself an effect of some antecedent cause, in other words, a "first cause;" but it is not difficult to apprehend an eternal cause, co-existing with eternal matter and force; and by the interaction of these eternal things an orderly universe under the reign of law is the outcome. I say it is not difficult to apprehend an eternal cause. I mean, of course, it is no more difficult to apprehend an eternal cause than it is to apprehend any other eternal thing—matter or force or extension.
Footnotes
[1]. Such as space, duration, matter, force. See Seventy's Second Year Book, all the notes of Lesson V, pp. 28-32.
LESSON V.
(Scripture Reading Exercise.)
SPECIAL LESSON.
ARE THE SOURCES OF MAN'S KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, APART FROM REVELATION, SUFFICIENT FOR AN INTELLIGENT FAITH IN GOD?