why
or the
how
of this Creation would be useless speculation; but
this much is science
, and science that is to-day all the more impressive and conclusive because it has been won by centuries of conflict with every conceivable opposing prejudice.
IV
In conclusion we may attempt to speak in a brief way of the present relationship between the Creator and the things which He has made, and if possible to dispel the sad confusion prevailing in many minds between God's continued immediate action in certain departments of nature and His action in other departments through the intermediate use of second causes.
On every hand we hear proclaimed a form of the doctrine of God's omnipresence (usually called the divine "immanence") which not only denies all distinction between the original Creation and the present perpetuation of the world, but a form which practically denies all second causes, and which cannot well be distinguished from pantheism, though it would be a spiritualistic or "idealistic" form of pantheism, or "monism," to use the favorite modern term. These extreme advocates of what they term the divine "immanence" go so far as to deny all second causes. And while they are fond of proclaiming this idea as an entirely new discovery, and proclaiming it with all the enthusiasm of proselytes to a new religion, they are also prone to state the (seemingly) opposed doctrine of second causes in such a way that it amounts to a mere caricature, a burlesque, picturing a sort of "absentee" God, who started the universe running and now merely stands by and watches it go. Thus pantheism and deism are often spoken of as the only alternatives for the choice of the modern man; for the real teachings of the Bible and of Christian philosophy are as completely ignored as if they had never been formulated or taught by intelligent people.
Let us first consider the scientific aspects of the doctrine of second causes, and the doctrine of God's immediate acting in various departments (or all departments) of nature.