That the line of thought we are now pursuing is the true one, and that the result which we approach, and are about to utter, is well founded, receives decisive confirmation from the following facts. Man perceives that malice must be criminal. Just so the Eternal Eye must see it. A similar remark is true of mathematical, and all other a priori laws. Sometimes, at least, there awakens in man's bosom the unutterable thrill of benevolence; and thus he tastes of the crystal river which flows, calmly and forever, through the bosom of the "Everlasting Father." For his own conduct, man is the final cause. In this is he, must he be, the likeness of the Ultimate. Spiritual personality is the highest possible form of being. It is then a form common to God and man. Here, therefore, Philosophy and Revelation are at one. With startling, and yet grateful unanimity, they affirm the solemn truth, "God made man in his own image."
We reach the goal at last. The Final Truth stands full in the field of our vision. "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith Jehovah, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." That spiritual Person who is self-existent, absolute, and infinite, is the Ultimate Ground, the Final Cause of the Universe.
The problem of the Universe is solved. We stand within the portico of the sublime temple of truth. Mortal has lifted, at last, the veil of Isis, and looked upon the eternal mysteries.
It is manifest now, how irrelevant and irreverent those expressions must be, in which the terms infinite and absolute are employed as signifying abstractions or amounts. They can have no meaning with reference to the Universe. But what their true significance is, stands out with unmistakable clearness and precision.
1. Absoluteness is that distinctive spiritual quality of the necessary Being which establishes Him as unqualified except by Himself, and as complete.
2. Absoluteness and Unconditionedness are,—the one the positive, and the other the negative term expressive of the same idea.
3. Infinity is that distinctive spiritual quality of the necessary Being which gives to Him universality.
Absoluteness and Infinity are, then, spiritual qualities of the self-existent Person, which, distinguishing Him from all other persons, constitute Him unique and supreme.
It is a law of Logic, which even the child must acknowledge, that whenever, by a process of thought, a result has been attained and set forth, he who propounds the result is directly responsible for all that is logically involved in it. The authority of that law is here both acknowledged and invoked. The most rigid and exhaustive logical development of the premises heretofore obtained, which the human mind is capable of, is challenged, in the confidence that there can be found therein no jot of discrepancy, no tittle of contradiction. As germain, and important to the matter in hand, some steps in this development will be noted.
In solving the problem placed before us, viz: To account for the being and continuance of the Universe, we have found that the Universe and its Cause are two distinct and yet intimately and necessarily connected beings, the one dependent upon the other, and that other utterly independent; and so that the one is limited and finite, and the other absolute and infinite; that the one is partly thing and partly person, and that to both thing and person limitation and finiteness belong; while the other is wholly person, and consequently the pure, absolute, and infinite Person. We have further found that absoluteness and infinity are spiritual qualities of that one Person, which are incommunicable, and differentiate Him from all other possible beings; and which establish Him as the uncaused, self-active ground for all possible beings besides. It is then a Person with all the limitations and conditions of personality,—a Person at once limited and unlimited, conditioned and unconditioned, related and unrelated, whose limitations, conditions, and relations are entirely consistent with his absoluteness and infinity, who is the final Cause, the Ultimate Ground of the Universe.