The only rational scientific theory that satisfies my mind is to regard the suns as self-luminous, perfected worlds, the visible abode of deity, and the future home of the soul. This hypothesis accords with every recently established fact in science, nature and revelation. It fits man's hopes and aspirations, his aesthetic nature, his psychic powers and religious concept which have followed him through all the vicissitudes of his history.
The question often arises: As justice reigns in the moral world, as equilibrium reigns in the physical world, and the destiny of the soul is the result of its aptitudes and its aspirations, are only those souls alone that truly live and unfold their faculties and aspire to knowledge and truth destined to a conscious immortality? Many souls pass their lives here in mental sleep, intellectual stupor, and spiritual paralysis. Will they receive the gift of eternal life? Many great scientists think they will not. And all who neglect their mental and moral development seal their own fate and will have no future existence. This is a distressing view held and championed by some of the able minds of modern times. But I do not agree with them, for I believe every soul is a spiritual atom of deity and, however ignorant and depraved, may become wise and good, and enjoy the beatitudes of an immortal existence.
CHAPTER XII HUMAN REASON AND THE UNIVERSE ARE BOOKS OF GOD, AS WELL AS THE BIBLE
It is a mistake to consider the Bible as the only book of God and its revelations the only revelations of Deity. The natural universe and human reason are also books of God. They are books He has been writing all along through the varied history of man and the universe, from the dawn of creation until now. Man is God's handiwork, His most perfect and finished product, a machine he has been developing and improving through all the ages, a book that He has bound and rebound, and stamped upon it His name and title a million times.
The Bible teaches this when it says, "Ye are His epistles known and read of all men." He has named this book, this living epistle written by His own hands, "The Sons of God," "Children of the Most High," "Heirs of Eternal Life." And man's body, the binding which He has furnished for this book, He has designated "the temple of the living God—the tabernacle of flesh." The Bible is not only a book of religious and ethical teaching, but also a history of the reason, conscience and experience of men for a thousand generations.
The Bible is the revelation of God's mind and will, and so is man, who was "made in His image." The Bible is God's book, but so is the physical universe His book and the revelation of His will. The Scriptures affirm this truth, also, when they say, "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge." Thus God has three books instead of one. His first book was the physical universe, His second book was man and human reason, conscience and experience. And then He added the third, the oracles of Divine truth, to instruct His spiritual atom, man, in the essential truths of life, spiritual being and moral perfection. The theologians should remember this, and the scientists should read and study all these books.
Man is a second edition of God epitomized, and in his enlighted spiritual nature he thinks like God, reasons like God, and has the moral conscience, goodness and love that emanate from God. All these books of God should bear the same infallible testimony. The Bible should be in accord with the reason, conscience and experience of man, and both with the constitution and laws of the physical universe. Wherever they seem to differ or contradict each other it is because we do not understand them, for there is perfect unity and harmony in all creation.