“As to omnipotence,” replied Mr. Clare, “it is a very singular thing that those whose very name for the Deity is ‘the Unknowable’ should be so ready to deny Him omnipotence, an attribute as incomprehensible by our finite minds as infinite space or everlasting time.”
“That is your way of getting out of it,” said the doctor.
“It is simply a statement of facts. We can know of God only what He has revealed to us, through Nature, His ‘living Garment,’ through the Scriptures, and in Jesus Christ, ‘the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person.’”
“Well, Nature and the Sermon on the Mount are about as much alike as chalk and cheese,” said Dr. Richards.
“‘Fire and Hail, Snow and Vapor, Wind and Storm, fulfilling His word,’” said Mr. Clare. “You’ve been reading Mill, Dr. Richards, and he has disagreed with you. I remember, too, that Tennyson represents Nature as crying,—
“‘A thousand types have gone;
I care for nothing, all shall go.’
But Nature does care for something, and if she casts aside a thousand types, it is only as the fruit-tree casts away millions of petals which have done their work in protecting the infant fruit. Nature strives always after one type, one ideal; and will have attained it when man has fulfilled the command laid upon him at his creation, to ’replenish the earth and subdue it.’”
“But could not an All-good, All-powerful Creator have prevented a great deal of sin and misery by making the world perfect in the beginning?”
“I don’t think we can reason about what God might or could have done; that belongs to the realm of the Unknowable. What we can reason about and are entirely justified—that is, made just—in trying to understand, is what He has done. He is life, therefore Nature lives, and we live. But life is evidenced by growth, and growth depends chiefly upon effort. And hence, Dr. Richards, knowledge or virtue or muscular strength must be developed in you by your own exertions, they cannot be won for you by another.”