The Religion of Geology and Its Connected Sciences

by Edward Hitchcock

LECTURE XIII.

THE VAST PLANS OF JEHOVAH.

It is interesting and instructive to trace the history of man’s progress in the knowledge of the existence, character, and plans of Jehovah. We shall find that progress to have been marked by epochs, rather than continuous advancement. Some new revelation from heaven, or some new discovery in science, has given a sudden expansion to his views of the Deity, which have then remained in a good degree stationary for a long period. My chief object in this lecture is to show what accessions to our knowledge of the divine plans have been derived from science, especially from geology. But it will give greater distinctness and impressiveness to the subject to take a review of the principal steps by which the human mind has reached its present accurate spiritual and enlarged views of the Deity.

We will first look at man in the rudest condition in society, in which he has any idea of the existence of beings superior to himself.

For there is a state of his being in which no such ideas exist in his mind; tribes of men, and especially individuals, who have lived in a wild state, away from all human intercourse, have been found with no idea of a superior being of any sort. Other tribes have existed a little more elevated above the irrational animals, and these have an impression, derived perhaps from their moral sense, or growing out of their superstitious fears, that some power exists in the universe greater than themselves. But having never entertained an abstract idea on any other subject, and depending alone upon their senses for their knowledge, they identify God with the most remarkable objects of nature. They listen to his voice in the wind and the thunder, in the ocean’s roar, and the volcano’s bellowing; and they see him in the sun, moon, and stars. They feel that he must be superior to themselves; but how much superior, they know not. They never think of him as infinite, because the idea of infinity on any subject never enters their mind. They conceive of the earth only as a plain of considerable extent, bounded by a circle, beyond which their thoughts never wander; and they look up to the heavens as a dome, perhaps solid, studded by luminous bodies, it may be a few feet or yards in diameter. They suppose that, somehow or other, this superior Being has the control of their destinies; but the idea of any thing like worship is too spiritual to be conceived of, except, perhaps, some superstitious rite, performed to deprecate the divine displeasure. In short, every thing in their notion of God is indefinite, gross, and confined to the narrow sphere of the senses.

In the second place, polytheism, especially among nations somewhat civilized, is an advance in man’s conceptions of the Supreme Being.

Polytheism probably originated in the deification of distinguished men. Superior minds, who had been the leaders or the benefactors of mankind, were suddenly torn from an admiring world by death. Their bodies were left behind, but the animating principle, the immortal mind, had vanished in a moment; and it was a most natural inquiry, even among the most ignorant, whether some undying principle had not escaped and gone to a higher sphere; for it would be difficult to conceive how so much intelligence and virtue should be quenched in a moment in eternal night. It would be a most natural and gratifying conclusion with survivors, that their departed leaders and benefactors still lived, and were in some way concerned in watching over their interests, and in controlling their destinies. Conjectures of this sort would, in a few generations, settle into positive belief. Now, this would be a most important advance upon the gross materialism, and indefinite ideas, which identified divinity with striking objects of nature; for if distinguished warriors and statesmen were still alive after their bodies were laid in the grave, there must have escaped, at the moment of death, some principle too subtile to be cognizable by the senses, or by chemical, mechanical, or electrical agencies; and which, therefore, may have been immaterial. At least, by such a belief, men would be led insensibly to form an idea of the human soul as an extremely tenuous, if not immaterial, principle. Especially would educated men—those devoted to philosophical pursuits—come at length to have a clear conception of a spiritual being, neither visible by the senses, nor dependent upon the senses for the exercise of its faculties. Very soon would the imagination fill the universe with such beings, and conceive them as holding intercourse with one another, and as presiding over all the objects of this lower world, and directing all its destinies. It would be very natural, however, to endow these superior beings with human characteristics, and to suppose them actuated by human passions; and thus would the celestial society be represented as a counterpart of that on earth, deformed by the same vices and crimes. This would lead to the idea of a gradation in rank, power, and intellect among the gods, and to the conception of one as supreme. In the popular mythology, however, even Jupiter was represented as acting under the influence of selfishness, pride, lust, and passion; and as sometimes brought into peril by his powerful inferiors. Some of the philosophers of Greece and Rome did, indeed, give descriptions of their supreme divinity not unworthy the biblical views of Jehovah. It may be that they got the clew to these just and elevated conceptions from the Bible. But it is not difficult to conceive that, in the manner which I have described, they might, by reasoning, with, perhaps, some hints derived from revelation, have gradually attained to these just and noble conceptions of the supreme divinity. Yet it ought not to be forgotten that these exalted views of the philosophers were not shared at all by the common people, and that even the philosophers themselves were for the most part polytheists.

The next step in man’s knowledge of God was an immeasurable advance upon polytheism. I refer to the revelation which God made of himself to the Jews in the Old Testament. Most of this revelation did, indeed, precede the writings of the Greek and Roman philosophers, but it was confined to a rude and almost unknown people, until the days of their glory had gone by, and did not spread over the globe till an opportunity had been afforded to prove that the world by wisdom knew not God. You may, indeed, find, in the writings of a few philosophers, passages descriptive of the natural attributes of the Deity that will compare favorably with those of the Old Testament. But his moral attributes, his benevolence, mercy, justice, and holiness, are brought out in the Old Testament in a far more distinct and impressive manner than in all other ancient writings. Another point, and a vital one, with the writers of the Old Testament, in which that inspired volume goes infinitely beyond the philosophers, is the unity of God. They teach, as a fundamental principle, and with all the earnestness which inspiration can bestow, not only that Jehovah is supreme, but that he is God alone, and that no other gods exist. You may, indeed, find statements to this effect in the works of the philosophers; but the conduct of Socrates, the most enlightened of them all,—in his dying moments,—in directing a sacrifice to be made to Æsculapius, is a good practical commentary upon their doctrine of the divine unity. It shows that, with some correct notions of the supreme divinity, they believed in the existence of inferior deities; or, at least, they did not regard the popular error on this subject of importance enough to require them boldly to testify against it. But such testimony constitutes the burden of the Old Testament, as if all other religious truths were of little importance without it. And so far as these inspired books succeeded in fixing this doctrine in the minds of the Jews, they performed an immense service for religion. They swept at once from the universe the thirty thousand divinities of Greece and Rome, and placed Jehovah only on the throne. But, for some reason or other, polytheism has always been a doctrine most congenial to human nature; especially to the uncultivated mind; and the probability is, that the great mass of the Jews, while they believed in the supremacy of Jehovah, still supposed that the gods of the heathen had a real existence. This certainly was the case before the Babylonish exile, though doubtless the patriarchs had more correct notions. This fact explains the otherwise unaccountable disposition of the Jews to fall away to idolatry, in spite of all which Jehovah did to preserve among them his true worship.

On the subject, also, of the divine spirituality, we have evidence that the notions of the great mass of the Jewish nation were low and confused. They distinguished, it is true, very clearly between the body and the soul. But they probably conceived of the latter as a very subtile, invisible, corporeal essence, and not that pure, immaterial substance which is understood by that term in metaphysics. The abstract ideas attached to the soul in the nineteenth century probably never entered their minds; and though in strict language they might be called materialists, they were by no means such materialists as modern times have produced, who understandingly deny the existence of the soul, and regard it as a function of the brain. The Jews thought of God as the most subtile essence of which they could form any idea; but whether he were material, or immaterial, probably they never inquired. And it cannot escape the notice of a reader of the Old Testament how frequently God is represented by figures derived from material objects. This was in accommodation to the rude and uncultivated state of most minds in those early days. Purely abstract truths would have conveyed no ideas to minds which had never been accustomed to abstractions. Hence it is, that we meet in the Bible with so many descriptions of the Deity, which theologians and philosophers denominate anthropopathic and anthropomorphic. It was in accommodation to the uncultivated state of common minds, which could form no conceptions of God that were not founded on some property belonging to man. The language of the sacred writers does, indeed, when correctly interpreted, convey the idea of the most perfectly simple, spiritual, and immaterial substance as constituting the divine essence; and minds accustomed to abstract ideas find no difficulty in enucleating the spiritual meaning of Scripture. But had the divine Being been described by abstract terms, the great mass of men, even at the present day, would receive no impressive conception of the Godhead. God, therefore, in the Old Testament, revealed as much concerning himself and his plans, as men would understand. But other revelations and developments would follow, when the human mind should be prepared to receive and appreciate them.