If, then, the direct influence of the Spirit of God on the spirit of man be what we call revelation, then there is evidently no other kind of revelation possible; and, furthermore, such revelation is given to all men in different degrees. It is given to all men as conscience; in greater measure to all great and good men as clearer perception of righteousness; in pre-eminent measure to Hebrew prophets and Christian apostles; but supremely and perfectly to Jesus alone. But there is, and in the nature of things there can be, no test of truth but reason. We must fearlessly, but honestly and reverently, try all things, even revelations, by this test. We must not regard, as so many do, the spirit of man as the passive amanuensis of the Spirit of God. Revelations to man must of necessity partake of the imperfections of the medium through which it comes. As pure water from heaven, falling upon and filtering through earth, must gather impurities in its course differing in amount and kind according to the earth, even so the pure divine truth, filtering through man’s mind, must take imperfections characteristic of the man and of the age. Such filtrate must be redistilled in the alembic of reason to separate the divine truth from the earthy impurities.
CHAPTER VI.
THE OBJECTION, THAT THE ABOVE VIEW IMPLIES PANTHEISM, ANSWERED.
It will be observed that the views presented in the last three chapters are closely connected with one another, and all conditioned on the “Relation of God to Nature,” urged in [Chapter III]. Now it will doubtless be objected to this view, especially as applied in [Chapter IV] on the “Relation of Man to Nature,” that it is naught else than pure pantheism; that it destroys completely the personality of Deity, and with it all our hopes of communion with him, and all our aspirations of love and worship toward him; that, according to this view, God becomes only the soul or animating principle of Nature, operating everywhere but unconsciously like the vital principle of an organism; that the whole cosmos becomes in fact a great organism, developing under the operation of resident force according to necessary law, only that we apotheosize this omnipresent force and call it God; and finally, that God is naught else than an abstraction, created like other abstractions or general ideas wholly by the human mind, and having no objective existence. Furthermore, it will be said, that according to this view, this omnipresent unconscious energy individuates itself by necessary law of evolution more and more until it reaches, for the first time in man, self-consciousness and immortality, and thus that man himself is the only self-conscious immortal being in existence, and therefore the only being worthy of reverence and worship. Thus, this view leads to humanity-worship or rather to self-worship.
I feel the full force of this objection. I answer it as follows: I freely admit that, following up this scientific line of thought alone, we are carried strongly in the direction of pantheism. But there is nothing strange or exceptional in this. In all the deepest questions, single lines of thought inevitably carry us to extreme one-sided views. This seems to be the necessary result of the essentially two-fold nature of man, self-conscious spirit in a material body, the relation between which is, and must ever be, inscrutable. On this account there is and must be a fundamental antithesis in human philosophy, i. e., two lines of thought, the material and spiritual, which lead to two apparently irreconcilable views.[46] We have already seen that a rational philosophy, whenever we are able to reach such, is always found in a higher and more comprehensive view, which includes, combines, and reconciles two one-sided, partial, and mutually excluding views. But spirit and matter, or mind and brain, or God and Nature, is the fundamental antithesis which underlies and is the cause of all other lesser antitheses. This antithesis, therefore, is absolutely fundamental, and therefore forever irreconcilable. We must accept both sides, even though we can not clearly perceive the nature of their relation. We must be content with compromise where we can not effect complete reconciliation. We must frankly acknowledge that the antagonism is apparent only, and the result of the limitation of our faculties, and believe that, if we could only rise to a high enough point of view, like all other antitheses, this also would disappear in a rational philosophy.
Now, to apply these principles. No one, we admit, can form a clear conception of how immanence of Deity is consistent with personality, and yet we must accept both, because we are irresistibly led to each of these by different lines of thought. Science, following one line of thought, uncorrected by a wider philosophy, is naturally led toward the one extreme of pantheistic immanence; the devout worshiper, following the wants of his religious nature, is naturally led toward the other extreme of anthropomorphic personality. The only rational view is to accept both immanence and personality, even though we can not clearly reconcile them, i. e., immanence without pantheism, and personality without anthropomorphism. We have already seen in the third chapter, how following the scientific line of thought, we are logically driven to immanence. We wish now to show how, following another line of thought, we are as logically driven to personality. On this most difficult subject, however, all we are prepared to do is to throw out some brief suggestions, in the hope that they may be carried out more perfectly by some thoughtful reader; scatter some seed-thoughts, in the hope that, falling haply on good soil, they may spring up and bear more fruit than I have been able to produce.
1. In the gradual individuation of the universal Divine energy described in [Chapter IV], there must of course be a corresponding growth of a kind of independent self-activity which reaches completeness in man, and in fact constitutes what we call self-consciousness and free will. The exact nature of the relation of Deity or of the general forces of Nature to this gradually individuated portion, I do not undertake to define. And how this idea of partial self-activity comports with the absoluteness of Deity we can not clearly understand. But this fact need not specially disturb us here; for this is only one branch of the wider question of the moral agency of man in relation to the absolute sovereignty of God, or the freedom of man in relation to necessary law in Nature.
2. Personality behind Nature.—We have already shown that, if the brain of a living, thinking man were exposed to the scrutiny of an outside observer with absolutely perfect senses, all that he would or could possibly see would be molecular motions, physical and chemical. But the subject himself, the thinking, self-conscious spirit, would experience and observe by introspection only consciousness, thought, emotion, etc. On the outside, only physical phenomena; on the inside only psychical phenomena. Now, must not the same be necessarily true of Nature also? Viewed from the outside by the scientific observer, nothing is seen, nothing can be seen, there is nothing else to be seen, but motions, material phenomena; but behind these, on the other side, on the inside, must not there be in this case also psychical phenomena, consciousness, thought, will; in a word, personality?[47] In the only place where we do get behind physical phenomena, viz., in the brain, we find psychical phenomena. Are we not justified, then, in concluding that in all cases the psychical lies behind the physical? The human brain is a wonderful instrument, by means of which, in some inscrutable way, viz., in our own experience, we do get behind, on the other side, on the inside of some material phenomena, and in so far become partakers of the Divine nature. But behind other phenomena of Nature we may never hope to penetrate either by observation or experience, but only in dim way by highest reason. Science, even in the case of the brain, can not pass from the one kind of phenomena to the other. If she would study the inside she must abandon the outside—she must abandon the microscope and take to introspection. If she would study the phenomena of the higher platform, she must leave the lower and climb up and stand on the higher. If this be true of the brain where the two kinds of phenomena are brought so close together, how much more is it true of the phenomena of the cosmos. We can never hope, either by observation or by experience, to pass beyond the veil. We must abandon the methods of science and reach it, if at all, in some other way. Not the clear-sighted but the pure-hearted shall see God in Nature.
Thus, then, we see that our own self-conscious personality behind brain phenomena compels us to accept consciousness, will, thought, personality behind Nature. Now I assert that, once get this abstract idea in the mind, and by a necessary law of thought it gradually expands without limit, and eventually reaches the form of infinite consciousness, will, thought, etc., and therefore of an infinite person. This law of indefinite expansion may be illustrated by the ideas of space and time. The animal, and, indeed, the infant, understands space and time only in their relation to itself, but has not yet abstracted these from their contents. This comes only with the birth of self-conscious personality. But, so soon as the abstract idea of space is acquired, by a necessary law of mental activity it expands without limit, and finally becomes the idea of infinite space. Similarly, so soon as the idea of time as abstracted from its contents is conceived, it inevitably expands without limit and grows into the idea of infinite time. So is it precisely with the idea of self-conscious personality. The animal or the very young child is indeed conscious of its body and of external objects in their mutual relations, but not of self, as abstracted from its contents. The animal never attains it, the child does. Now, so soon as this idea of self-conscious personality—of a spiritual entity underlying material phenomena—appears, by a necessary law of mental activity it expands without limit, and inevitably reaches the idea of an infinite self, an infinite person, God, behind the phenomena of Nature.