"Apart from God, the world is nonentity; God is in all things, and is all things, for creatures have no essence except God. Yet He is not nature, but above it, for the world of space and time is created out of nothing. The motive of God's goodness, which necessarily extends itself; and, by the same necessity, creation is continuous, eternal. Different from this, as the realizing of the ideal by the artist, is the creation out of nothing, in time." (History of Philosophy—Elmendorf—pp. 136-137.)

LESSON XXVIII.

(Scripture Reading Exercise.)

MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD.

ANALYSIS.

REFERENCES.

I. The Period—State of Philosophy.

Many of the authorities cited in Lessons xxv, xxvi and xxvii will be available in this; also the works of Bacon, Locke, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Hamilton, Berkeley, Hume, Mill; also Kant, Fichte, Hegel and Spencer.

It may be that the works of these masters may only be available to those within reach of reference libraries. The following, however, are one-volume works that would be of great service in studying this lesson: John Fiske's Studies in Religion; History of Philosophy, Elmemdorf; "The Conception of God"—Royce, Leconte, Howison, Meze; "Typical Modern Conceptions of God," Leighton; Haeckel's "Riddle of the Universe;" ditto, "Wonders of Life," and J. S. Mills' "Theism and Berkeley," and Roberts' "Mormon Doctrine of Deity."

II. Modern Schools of Philosophy:

1. Empiricism;

2. Idealism;

3. Rationalism;

4. Pantheism;

5. Materialism;

6. Monism;

7. Mormonism—Eternalism.

SPECIAL TEXT: "Gird up now thy loins like a man * * * and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof if thou knowest, or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereon are the foundations thereof fastened, or who laid the cornerstone thereof?" Job xxxviii.

NOTES.

1. The Period: The Modern period extends from the establishment of Protestantism, in the middle of the sixteenth century, until the present time. Necessarily the limits imposed upon our treatise can admit only of a very limited presentation of the conceptions of God during that important thought-revolutionary period, covering something over 250 years. In this period philosophy occupies a most independent position. It is no longer dominated by the Church; nor are its efforts consecrated to the advocacy of the defense of "orthodox Christian" dogma In fact, little is heard of that dogma. "Highest truths," writes Elmendorf in his "History of Philosophy," "were to be determined by reason alone; not even an appeal for verification to Christian revelation (was) recognized. Ancient systems were reconstructed without any reference to the teaching of the Church, or it was maintained that philosophic truth might be false according to faith and conversely. * * * * The sixteenth century was a period of transition, of confusion, without settled method or principle; there was no predominating school, no originality, but a vague following of every ancient school. Greek thinkers were now read in the original, and men, no longer scholastics, were Platonists, Peripatetics, etc.; but rather as scholars, classicists, than with any comprehensive or productive grasp of the principles which they professed.

"Without great names, there was a widening of the sphere of philosophy; it was popularized, but the influence of classicism made the culture of mere form as extreme as the neglect of it among the later schoolmen; but philosophy at the same time exerted, particularly through the 'humanists', a more manifest influence on general literature, science, and social life. * * * The invention of printing, together with the increase of wealth in the free cities, widened immensely the interest in philosophy, and brought it sensibly into general literary culture and political life." (History of Philosophy—Elmendorf—pp. 142-3.)

There was a reversion in Europe to the speculations of Plato and Aristotle, and the intellectual battles of the two Greeks were fought over again in Europe, with sometimes one and sometimes the other prevailing.