So much for things which have life. Take an equally notorious example from things which have not life.
Is it not above and beyond all our reason—that the seemingly weakest thing in the world, the most soft and yielding, the most frail and vanishing, should be also one of the strongest things in the world? That is so utterly above reason, that while I say it, it seems to some of you to be contrary to reason, to be unreasonable and impossible. It is so above reason, that till two hundred years ago, no one suspected that it was true. And yet it is strictly true.
What is more soft and yielding, more frail and vanishing, than steam? And what is stronger than steam? I know nothing. Steam it is which has lifted up the mountains from the sea into the clouds. Steam it is which tears to pieces the bowels of the earth with earthquakes and volcanoes, shaking down cities, rasping the solid rocks into powder, and scattering them far and wide in dust over the face of the land.
What gives to steam its enormous force is beyond our reason. We do not know. But so far from being contrary to our reason, we have learnt that the laws of steam are as reasonable as any other of God’s laws. We can calculate its force, we can make it, use it, and turn its mighty powers, by reason and science, into our most useful and obedient slave, till it works ten thousand mills, and sends ten thousand ships across the sea.
Above reason, I say, but not contrary to reason, is the mighty power of steam.
And God, who made all these wonders—and millions of wonders more—must he not be more wonderful than them all? Must not his being and essence be above our reason? But need they be, therefore, contrary to our reason? Not so.
Nevertheless, some will say, How can one be many? How can one be three? Why not? Two are one in you, and every man. Your body is you, and your soul is you. They are two. But you know yourself that you are one being; that the Athanasian Creed speaks, at least, reason when it says, ‘As the reasonable soul and the flesh are one man, so God and man is one Christ.’
And three are one in every plant in the field. Root, bark, leaves, are three. And yet—they are one tree; and if you take away any one of them, the tree will die. So it is in all nature. But why do I talk of a tree, or any other example? Wherever you look you find that one thing is many things, and many things one. So far from that fact being contrary to our reason, it is one which our reason (as soon as we think deeply about this world) assures us is most common. Of every organized body it is strictly true, that it is many things, bound together by a certain law, which makes them one thing and no more. And, therefore, every organized body is a mystery, and above reason: but its organization is none the less true for that.
And there are philosophers who will tell you—and wisely and well—that there must needs be some such mystery in God; that reason ought to teach us—even if revelation had not—two things. First, that God must be one; and next, that God must be many—that is, more than one.
Do I mean that our own reason would have found out for itself the mystery of the ever-blessed Trinity? God forbid! Nothing less.