The Eliminator; or, Skeleton Keys to Sacerdotal Secrets

by Richard B. Westbrook

Men constantly talk of the laws of Nature, forgetting that law itself is a product and cannot be a cause. The law of gravitation is not the cause of gravitation. A self-originating and self-executing law is unthinkable. The prevalence of law supposes the existence of a lawmaker and a law-executor. We accept the law of evolution, but cannot conceive of evolution independent of involution and an Evolver.

It may be said that this is “begging the question” by assuming the existence of an infinite God. But we deny that it is an assumption in its last analysis. What is known as the scientific method leads logically to the conclusion that there must be something that theists generally name God. You may call it “protoplasm,” “molecular force,” the “potentiality of matter,” or even matter itself; and when you tell us what these words mean we will tell you what we mean by “God.” Possibly we all mean the same thing. We know of the existence of God, as we know other things, by palpable manifestations.

Astronomers assumed the existence of Neptune from certain phenomena long before its existence could be demonstrated; and if the discovery had never been made the phenomena so long observed would have nevertheless justified the conclusion that there must be some stupendous cause for such unmistakable and marvellous perturbations.

When men talk of the eternity of matter we do not even profess to understand them. The most advanced scientists do not attempt to explain one of a thousand mysteries in which the phenomena of the material world is enshrouded. Why, then, should we be expected to explain where and how and when God came into existence, or how he could have had an eternal existence or be self-existent? We affirm no more of God than materialists imply of matter, and we endow him with no attributes that they do not virtually ascribe to matter. So far as assumption is concerned, both stand on the same ground. They, indeed, call things by different names, but mean about the same thing. What theists prefer to call “the works of God” materialists call “Nature,” “cosmic laws,” “spontaneous generation,” “the potency of matter,” “conservation of energy," “correlation of force," and “natural selection."

The fundamental error of modern scientists is that they limit their investigations to the physical and palpable, while we have demonstrable evidence of the existence of the spiritual and invisible. We know nothing of matter but from its properties and manifestations, and we have the same kind of evidence in regard to spirit, and know that it is superior to gross matter, and therefore cannot be tested by the same crucibles. In the very nature of things a great cause must ever be imponderable and invisible. It cannot be weighed and measured, but must ever remain intangible and incomprehensible. The spirit in physical man in its relation to the Supreme Spirit is as the drop of water to the ocean or the single glimmering ray to the full-orbed, refulgent sun. Men may talk of “force correlation," and trace its progress and products, but they must remain dumb as to the beginning or origin of force unless they accept the doctrine of an intelligent First Force. There is no way of accounting for the existence of spirit, of life, of intelligence, but by premising the prior existence of spirit, life, and intelligence. Like only causes like. An egg does not come from a stone, and the ascidian did not come from a lifeless rock.

The logical conclusion from the facts and principles herein suggested is that there must be an intelligent First Cause of all things—an all-pervading, fecundating, animating Spirit of the universe; and we prefer to call this God. Science has taught us the processes of his work, and denominates them the “laws of Nature.” In point of fact, as little is known of the origin and essence of matter as of spirit, and there is as good ground for agnosticism in the former as in the latter. There is therefore no necessary conflict between true science and a rational theism or monism.

It is a rational proposition that something must have been before what is called creation. There must have been an intelligent potency, and that power theists call God. Materialism in its last analysis ascribes to matter all that theists ascribe to God. It gives matter an eternal self-existence—endows it with an inherent infinite intelligence and an omnipotent potency. It spells “God” with six letters instead of three. It makes a God of matter, and then denies his existence!

We now submit that it is more rational to postulate the existence of an eternal Supreme Intelligence and Power, the Creator and Ruler of all things visible and invisible, who is the Author and Executor of the laws by which both mind and matter are governed. This Supreme Being is alone the Self-existent One, and what are called the properties and modes of inert matter are but the proofs and manifestations of his eternal power and Godhead. There cannot be a poem without a poet, nor a picture without an artist. There cannot be a watch or other complex machine without an inventor and artisan. The universe is the sublimest of all poems, and Cicero well said that it would be easier to conceive that Homer’s Iliad came from the chance shaking together of the letters of the alphabet than that the atoms should have produced the cosmos without a marshalling agency. The visible and palpable compel us to acknowledge their counterpart in the invisible and intangible, and we cannot rationally account for the origin of man without postulating the existence of an Intelligence and Power greater than humanity.

We are reproached for the inconsistency of believing in a Power we cannot comprehend, and endowing him with attributes of which we can form no just conceptions. Atheists do not seem to realize that they are guilty of a greater inconsistency. They tell us that we believe in a Being of whom we can form no conception, but they themselves must form some conception of such a Being, else how could they deny his existence?

There is no difficulty in admitting the existence of a Supreme Power if we do not attempt to comprehend and describe it. Matthew Arnold says: “We too would say 'God' if the moment we said 'God, you would not pretend that you know all about him.” His definition of God is indeed vague, but vastly suggestive: “An enduring Power not ourselves that makes for righteousness.” This suggests the moral element in the unknown Power. There is not only a spiritual sense in man which recognizes the supersensuous, but there is an indwelling witness to the eternal principle of rightfulness. The sentiment of oughtness is inherent and ineradicable. Every man who is not a moral idiot has a feeling that certain things ought and ought not to be—that there is an essential right and wrong. Human intuition sees and feels this mysterious Power that answers to our Ego, and from which it proceeds; and this inward conviction cannot be eradicated from the average mind by the pretensions of science. The patient watcher in the dark room at the terminus of the ocean cable sees in his suspended mirror the reflection of an electric spark, and he at once recognizes it as a message from the operator three thousand miles away. So God is seen by the aspiring and contemplative in the concave mirror of man’s own spirit, and, though it is a mere reflection, a spark, a flash, it clearly proves the existence of the Central Magnet. It is this recognition of the moral element that forms the basis of moral government and of that worshipfulness which has manifested itself among all nations, barbarian and civilized.