A Candid Examination of Theism

by George John Romanes

I have now sufficiently detailed the leading principles of Cosmic Theism to render a clear and just conception of those fundamental parts of the system which I am about to criticise; but it is needless to say that, for all minor details of this system, I must refer those who may not already have perused them to Mr. Fiske's somewhat elaborate essays. In now beginning my criticisms, it may be well to state at the outset, that they are to be restricted to the philosophical aspect of the subject. With matters of sentiment I do not intend to deal,—partly because to do so would be unduly to extend this essay, and partly also because I believe that, so far as the acceptance or the rejection of Cosmic Theism is to be determined by sentiment, much, if not all, will depend on individual habits of thought. For whether or not Cosmic Theism is to be regarded as a religion adapted to the needs of any individual man, will depend on what these needs are felt to be by that man himself: we cannot assert magisterially that this religion must be adapted to his needs because we have found it to be adapted to our own. And if it is retorted that, human nature being everywhere the same, a form of religion that is adapted to one man must on this account be adapted to another, I reply that it is not so. For if a man who is what Mr. Fiske calls an "Anthropomorphic Theist" finds from experience that his system of religion—say Christianity—creates and sustains a class of emotions and general habits of thought which he feels to be the highest and the best of which he is capable, it is useless for a "Cosmic Theist" to offer such a man another system of religion, in which the conditions essential to the existence of these particular emotions and habits of thought are manifestly absent. For such a man cannot but feel that the proffered substitution would be tantamount, if accepted, to an utter destruction of all that he regards as essentially religious. He will tell us that he finds it perfectly easy to understand and to appreciate those feelings of vague awe and "worship of the silent kind" which the Cosmic Theist declares to be fostered by Cosmic Theism; but he will also tell us that those feelings, which he has experienced with equal vividness under his own system of Anthropomorphic Theism, are to him but as non-religious dross compared with the unspeakable felicity of holding definite commune with the Almighty and Most Merciful, or of rendering worship that is a glad hosanna—a fearless shout of joy. On the other hand, I believe that it is possible for philosophic habits of thought so to discipline the mind that the feelings of vague awe and silent worship in the presence of an appalling Mystery become more deep and steady than a theist proper can well believe. It is therefore impossible that either party can fully appreciate those sentiments of the other which they have never fully experienced themselves; for even in those cases where an anthropomorphic theist has been compelled to abandon his creed, as the change must take place in mature life, his tone of mind has been determined before it does take place; and therefore in sentiment, though not in faith, he is more or less of a theist for the rest of his life: the only effect of the change is to create a troubled interference between his desires and his beliefs.

However, I do not intend to develop this branch of the subject further than thus to point out, in a general way, that religion-mongers as a class are apt to show too little regard for the sentiments, as distinguished from the beliefs, of those to whom they offer their wares. But although I do not intend to constitute myself a champion of theology by pointing out the defects of Cosmic Theism in the aspect which it presents to current modes of thought, there is one such defect which I must here dwell upon, because we shall afterwards have occasion to refer to it. A theologian may very naturally make this objection to Cosmic Theism as presented by Mr. Fiske—viz., that the argument on which this philosopher throughout relies as a self-evident demonstration that the new system of Theism is a further and a final improvement on all the previous systems of Theism, is a fallacious argument. As we have already seen, this argument is, that as the progress in the purification of Theism has throughout consisted in a process of "deanthropomorphisation," therefore the terminal phase in this process, which Cosmic Theism introduces, must be still in the direction of that progress. But to this argument a theologian may not unreasonably object, that this terminal phase differs from all the previous phases in one all-important feature—viz., in effecting a total abolition of the anthropomorphic element. Before, therefore, it can be shown that this terminal phase is a further development of Theism, it must he shown that Theism still remains Theism after this hitherto characteristic element has been removed. If it is true, as Mr. Fiske very properly insists, that all the various forms of belief in God have thus far had this as a common factor, that they ascribed to God the attributes of Man; it becomes a question whether we may properly abstract this hitherto invariable factor of a belief, and still call that belief by the same name. Or, to put the matter in another light, as cosmists maintain that Theism, in all the phases of its development, has been the product of a probably erroneous theory of personal agency in nature, when this theory is expressly discarded—as it is by the doctrine of the Unknowable—is it philosophically legitimate for cosmists to render their theory of things in terms which belong to the totally different theory which they discard? No doubt it is true that the progressive refinement of Theism has throughout consisted in a progressive discarding of anthropomorphic qualities; but this fact does not touch the consideration that, when we proceed to strip off the last remnants of these qualities, we are committing an act which differs toto cœlo from all the previous acts which are cited as precedents; for by this terminal act we are not, as heretofore, refining the theory of Theism—we are completely transforming it by removing an element which, both genetically and historically, would seem to constitute the very essence of Theism.

Or the case may be presented in yet another light. The only use of terms, whether in daily talk or in philosophical disquisition, is that of designating certain things or attributes to which by general custom we agree to affix them; so that if anyone applies a term to some thing or attribute which general custom does not warrant him in so applying, he is merely laying himself open to the charge of abusing that term. Now apply these elementary principles to the case before us. We have but to think of the disgust with which the vast majority of living persons would regard the sense in which Mr. Fiske uses the term "Theism," to perceive how intimate is the association of that term with the idea of a Personal God. Such persons will feel strongly that, by this final act of purification, Mr. Fiske has simply purified the Deity altogether out of existence. And I scarcely think it is here competent to reply that all previous acts of purification were at first similarly regarded as destructive, because it is evident that none of these previous acts affected, as this one does, the central core of Theism. And, lastly, if it should be still further objected, that by declaring the theory of Personal Agency the central core of Theism, I am begging the question as to the appropriateness of Mr. Fiske's use of the word "Theism,"—seeing he appears to regard the essential meaning of this word to be that of a postulation of merely Causal Agency,—I answer, More of this anon; but meanwhile let it be observed that any charge of question-begging lies rather at the door of Mr. Fiske, in that he assumes, without any expressed justification, that the essence of Theism does consist in such a postulation and in nothing more. And as he unquestionably has against him the present world of theists no less than the history of Theism in the past, I do not see how he is to meet this charge except by confessing to an abuse of the term in question.

I will now proceed to examine the structure of Cosmic Theism. We are all, I suppose, at one in allowing that there are only three "verbally intelligible" theories of the universe,—viz., that it is self-existent, or that it is self-created, or that it has been created by some other and external Being. It is usual to call the first of these theories Atheism, the second Pantheism, and the third Theism. Now as there are here three distinct nameable theories, it is necessary, if the term "Cosmic Theism" is to be justified as an appropriate term, that the particular theory which it designates should be shown to be in its essence theistic—i.e., that the theory should present those distinguishing features in virtue of which Theism differs from Atheism on the one hand, and from Pantheism on the other. Now what are these features? The postulate of an Eternal Self-existing Something is common to Theism and to Atheism. Here Atheism ends. Theism, however, is generally said to assume Personality, Intelligence, and Creative Power as attributes of the single self-existing substance. Lastly, Pantheism assumes the Something now existing to have been self-created. To which, then, of these distinct theories is Cosmic Theism most nearly allied? For the purpose of answering this question, I shall render that theory in terms of a formula which Mr. Fiske presents as a full and complete statement of the theory:—"There exists a POWER, to which no limit in space or time is conceivable, of which all phenomena, as presented in consciousness, are manifestations, but which we can only know through these manifestations." But although the word "Power" is here so strongly emphasised, we are elsewhere told that it is not to be regarded as having more than a strictly relative or symbolic meaning; so that, in point of fact, some more neutral word, such as "Something," "Being," or "Substance," ought in strictness to be here substituted for the word "Power." Well, if this is done, we have the postulation of a Being which is self-existing, infinite, and eternal—relatively, at all events, to our powers of conception. Thus far, therefore, it would seem that we are still on the common standing-ground of Atheism, Pantheism, and Theism; for as it is not, so far as I can see, incumbent on Pantheism to affirm that "thought is a measure of things," the apparent or relative eternity which the Primal Something must be supposed to present may not be actual or absolute eternity. Nevertheless, as Mr. Fiske, by predicating Divinity of the Primal Something, implicitly attributes to it the quality of an eternal self-existence, I infer that Cosmic Theism may be concluded at this point to part company with Pantheism. There remain, then, Theism and Atheism.

Now undoubtedly, at first sight, Cosmic Theism appears to differ from Atheism in one all-important particular. For we have seen that, by means of a subtle though perfectly logical argument, Cosmic Philosophy has evolved this conclusion—that all phenomena as presented in consciousness are manifestations of a not improbable Single Self-existing Power, of whose existence these manifestations alone can make us cognisant. From which it apparently follows, that this hypothetical Power must be regarded as existing out of necessary relation to the phenomenal universe; that it is, therefore, beyond question "Absolute Being;" and that, as such, we are entitled to call it Deity. But in the train of reasoning of which this is a very condensed epitome, it is evident that the legitimacy of denominating this Absolute Being Deity, must depend on the exact meaning which we attach to the word "Absolute"—and this, be it observed, quite apart from the question, before touched upon, as to whether Personality and Intelligence are not to be considered as attributes essential to Deity. In what sense, then, is the word "Absolute" used? It is used in this sense. As from the relativity of knowledge we cannot know things in themselves, but only symbolical representations of such things, therefore things in themselves are absolute to consciousness: but analysis shows that we cannot conceivably predicate Difference among things in themselves, so that we are at liberty, with due diffidence, to predicate of them No-difference: hence the noumena of the schoolmen admit of being collected into a summum genus of noumenal existence; and since, before their colligation noumena were severally absolute, after their colligation they become collectively absolute: therefore it is legitimate to designate this sum-total of noumenal existence, "Absolute Being." Now there is clearly no exception to be taken to the formal accuracy of this reasoning; the only question is as to whether the "Absolute Being" which it evolves is absolute in the sense required by Theism. I confess that to me this Being appears to be absolute in a widely different sense from that in which Deity must be regarded as absolute. For this Being is thus seen to be absolute in no other sense than as holding—to quote from Mr. Fiske—"existence independent of the conditions of the process of knowing." In other words, it is absolute only as standing out of necessary relation to human consciousness. But Theism requires, as an essential feature, that Deity should be absolute as standing out of necessary relation to all else. Before, therefore, the Absolute Being of Cosmism can be shown, by the reasoning adopted, to deserve, even in part, the appellation of Deity, it must be shown that there is no other mode of Being in existence save our own subjective consciousness and the Absolute Reality which becomes objective to it through the world of phenomena. But any attempt to establish this position would involve a disregard of the doctrine that knowledge is relative; and to do this, it is needless to say, would be to destroy the basis of the argument whereby the Absolute Being of Cosmism was posited.

Or, to state this part of the criticism in other words, as the first step in justifying the predication of Deity, it must be shown that the Being of which the predication is made is absolute, and this not merely as independent of human consciousness, but as independent of the whole noumenal universe—Deity itself alone excepted. That is, the Being of which Deity is predicated must be Unconditioned. Hence it is incumbent on Cosmic Theism to prove, either that the Causal Agent which it denominates Deity is itself the whole noumenal universe, or that it created the rest of a noumenal universe; else there is nothing to show that this Causal Agent was not itself created—seeing that, even if we assume the existence of a God, there is nothing to indicate that the Causal Agent of Cosmism is that God.

It would appear therefore from this, that whatever else the Cosmist's theory of things may be, it certainly is not Theism; and I think that closer inspection will tend to confirm this judgment. To this then let us proceed.

Mr. Fiske is very hard on the atheists, and so will probably repudiate with scorn any insinuations to the effect that his theory of things is "quasi-atheistic." Nevertheless, it seems to me that he is very unjust to the atheists, in that while he spares no pains to "purify" and "refine" the theory of the theists, so as at last to leave nothing but what he regards as the distilled essence of Theism behind; he habitually leaves the theory of the atheists as he finds it, without making any attempt either to "purify" it by removing its weak and unnecessary ingredients, or to "refine" it by adding such sublimated ingredients as modern speculation has supplied. Thus, while he despises the atheists of the eighteenth century for their irrationality in believing in the self-existence of a phenomenal universe, and reviles them for their irreligion in denying that "the religious sentiment needed satisfaction;" he does not wait to inquire whether, in its essential substance, the theory of these men is not the one that has proved itself best able to withstand the grinding action of more recent thought. But let us in fairness ask, What was the essential substance of that theory? Apparently it was the bare statement of the unthinkable fact that Something Is. It therefore seems to me useless in Mr. Fiske to lay so much stress on the fact that this Something was originally identified by atheists with the phenomenal universe. It seems useless to do this, because such identification is clearly no part of the essence of Atheism, which, as just stated, I take to consist in the single dogma of self-existence as itself sufficient to constitute a theory of things. And, if so, it is a matter of scarcely any moment, as regards that theory, whether we are immediately cognisant of that which is self-existent, or only become so through the world of phenomena—the vital point of the theory being, that Self-existence, wherever posited, is itself the only admissible explanation of phenomena. Or, in other words, it does not seem that there is anything in the atheistic theory, as such, which is incompatible with the doctrine of the Relativity of Knowledge; so that whatever cogency there may be in the train of reasoning whereby a single Causal Agent is deduced from that doctrine, it would seem that an atheist has as much right to the benefit of this reasoning as a theist; and there is thus no more apparent reason why this single Causal Agent should be appropriated as the God of Theism, than that it should be appropriated as the Self-existing X of Atheism. Indeed, there seems to be less reason. For an atheist of to-day may very properly argue:—'So far from beholding anything divine in this Single Being absolute to human consciousness, it is just precisely the form of Being which my theory postulates as the Self-existing All. In order to constitute such a Being God, it must be shown, as we have already seen, to be something more than a merely Causal Agent which is absolute in the grotesquely restricted sense of being independent of 'one petty race of creatures with an ephemeral experience of what is going on in one tiny corner of the universe;' it must be shown to be something more than absolute even in the wholly unrestricted sense of being Unconditioned; it must be shown to possess such other attributes as are distinctive of Deity. For I maintain that even Unconditioned Being, merely as such, would only then have a right to the name of God when it has been shown that the theory of Theism has a right to monopolise the doctrine of Relativity.'

In thus endeavouring to "purify" the theory of Atheism, by divesting it of all superfluous accessories, and laying bare what I conceive to be its essential substance; it may be well to state that, even apart from their irreligious character, I have no sympathy with the atheists of the past century. I mean, that these men do not seem to me to deserve any credit for advanced powers of speculation merely because they adopted a theory of things which in its essential features now promises to be the most enduring. For it is evident that the strength of this theory now lies in its simplicity,—in its undertaking to explain, so far as explanation is possible, the sum-total of phenomena by the single postulate of self-existence. But it seems to me that in the last century there were no sufficient data for rendering such a theory of things a rational theory; for so long as the quality of self-existence was supposed to reside in phenomena themselves, the very simplicity of the theory, as expressed in words, must have seemed to render it inapplicable as a reasonable theory of things. The astounding variety, complexity, and harmony which are everywhere so conspicuous in the world of phenomena must have seemed to necessitate as an explanation some one integrating cause; and it is impossible that in the eighteenth century any such integrating cause can have been conceivable other than Intelligence. Therefore I think, with Mr. Fiske, that the atheists of the eighteenth century were irrational in applying their single postulate of self-existence as alone a sufficient explanation of things. But of course the aspect of the case is now completely changed, when we regard it in all the flood of light which has been shed on it by recent science, physical and speculative. For the demonstration of the fact that energy is indestructible, coupled with the corollary that every so-called natural law is a physically necessary consequence of that fact, clearly supply us with a completely novel datum as the ultimate source of experience—and a datum, moreover, which is as different as can well be imagined from the ever-changing, ever-fleeting, world of phenomena. We have, therefore, but to apply the postulate of self-existence to this single ultimate datum, and we have a theory of things as rational as the Atheism of the last century was irrational. Nevertheless, that this theory is more akin to the Atheism of the last century than to any other theory of that time, is, I think, unquestionable; for while we retain the central doctrine of self-existence as alone a scientifically admissible, or non-gratuitous, explanation of things, we only change the original theory by transferring the application of this doctrine from the world of manifestations to that which causes the manifestations: we do not resort to any of the additional doctrines whereby the other theories of the universe were distinguished from the theory of Atheism in its original form. However, as by our recognition of the relativity of knowledge we are precluded from dogmatically denying any theory of the universe that may be proposed, it would clearly be erroneous to identify the doctrine of the Unknowable with the theory of Atheism: all we can say is, that, so far as speculative thought can soar, the permanent self-existence of an inconceivable Something, which manifests itself to consciousness as force and matter, constitutes the only datum that can be shown to be required for the purposes of a rational ontology.

To sum up. In the theory which Mr. Fiske calls Cosmic Theism, while I am able to discern the elements which I think may properly be regarded as common to Theism and to Atheism, I am not able to discern any single element that is specifically distinctive of Theism. Still I am far from concluding that the theory in question is the theory of Atheism. All I wish to insist upon is this—that as the Absolute Being of Cosmism presents no other qualities than such as are required by the renovated theory of Atheism, its postulation supplies a basis, not for Theism, but for Non-theism: a man with such a postulate ought in strictness to abstain from either affirming or denying the existence of God. And this, I may observe, appears to be the position which Mr. Spencer himself has adopted as the only logical outcome of his doctrine of the Unknowable—a position which, in my opinion, it is most undesirable to obscure by endeavouring to give it a quasi-theistic interpretation. I may further observe, that we here seem to have a philosophical justification of the theological sentiment previously alluded to—the sentiment, namely, that by his attempt at a final purification of Theism, Mr. Fiske has destroyed those essential features of the theory in virtue of which alone it exists as Theism. For seeing it is impossible, from the relativity of knowledge, that the Absolute Being of Cosmism can ever be shown absolute in the sense required by Theism, and, even if it could, that it would still be but the Unconditioned Being of Atheism; it follows that if this Absolute Being is to be shown even in part to deserve the appellation of Deity, it must be shown to possess the only remaining attributes which are distinctive of Deity—to wit, personality and intelligence. But forasmuch as the final act of purifying the conception of Deity consists, according to Mr. Fiske, in expressly removing these particular attributes from the object of that conception, does it not follow that the conception which remains is, as I have said, not theistic, but non-theistic?