III. That a real material unchangeable spirit, possessing parts and extension, inhabits the body.
Immaterialists who believe in “an inexplicable, incomprehensible, imaginary something without extension or parts, as taught in the first of the Thirty-nine Articles,” are therefore the worshipers of an immortal Nihil—of a Nothing clothed with almighty powers.
It is abundantly evident that the partition between the spiritualist and the materialist is mainly philological, a dispute of words, a variation of terms, spirit and matter differing about as much as azote and nitrogen. The deductions, however, from the Mormon’s premises lead him, as the following extracts prove, far.[207]
[207] From Mr. Apostle Orson Pratt’s “Absurdities of Immaterialism,” and his treatise on the “Kingdom of God.” It is hardly possible not to believe that the author has borrowed most of his theories from Mr. Carlyle’s “Republican.”
“The Godhead consists of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is a material being. The substance of which he is composed is wholly material. It is a substance widely different in some respects from the various substances with which we are more immediately acquainted. In other respects, it is precisely like all other materials. The substance of his person occupies space the same as other matter. It has solidity, length, breadth, and thickness, like other matter. The elementary materials of his body are not susceptible of occupying at the same time the same identical space with other matter. The substance of his person, like other matter, can not be in two places at the same instant. It requires time for him to transport himself from place to place. It matters not how great the velocity of his movement, time is an essential ingredient to all motion, whether rapid or slow. It differs from other matter in the superiority of its powers, being intelligent, all-wise, and possessing the property of self-motion to a far greater extent than the coarser materials of nature. ‘God is a spirit;’ but that does not make him an immaterial being, a being that has no properties in common with matter.”...
“All the foregoing statements in relation to the person of the Father are equally applicable to the person of the Son.
“The Holy Spirit, being one part of the Godhead, is also a material substance, of the same nature and properties in many respects as the Spirits of the Father and Son. It exists in vast, immeasurable quantities, in connection with all material worlds. This is called God in the Scriptures, as well as the Father and Son. God the Father and God the Son can not be every where present; indeed, they can not be even in two places at the same instant; but God the Holy Spirit is omnipresent: it extends through all space, intermingling with all other matter, yet no one atom of the Holy Spirit can be in two places at the same instant, which in all cases is an absolute impossibility. It must exist in inexhaustible quantities, which is the only possible way for any substance to be omnipresent. All the innumerable phenomena of universal nature are produced in their origin by the actual presence of this intelligent, all-wise, and all-powerful material substance called the Holy Spirit. It is the most active matter in the universe, producing all its operations according to fixed and definite laws enacted by itself, in conjunction with the Father and the Son. What are called the laws of nature are nothing more nor less than the fixed method by which this spiritual matter operates. Each atom of the Holy Spirit is intelligent, and, like other matter, has solidity, form, and size, and occupies space. Two atoms of this Spirit can not occupy the same space at the same time, neither can one atom, as before stated, occupy two separate spaces at the same time. In all these respects it does not differ in the least from all other matter. Its distinguishing characteristics from other matter are its almighty powers and infinite wisdom, and many other glorious attributes which other materials do not possess. If several of the atoms of this Spirit should exist united together in the form of a person, then this person of the Holy Spirit would be subject to the same necessity” (N.B., this out-anagkes anagke) “as the other two persons of the Godhead—that is, it could not be every where present. No finite number of atoms can be omnipresent. An infinite number of atoms is requisite to be every where in infinite space. Two persons receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit do not receive at the same time the same identical particles, though they each receive a substance exactly similar in kind. It would be as impossible for them to receive the same identical atoms at the same instant as it would be for two men at the same time to drink the same identical pint of water.”
I will offer another instance of the danger of meddling with such edged tools as MIND AND MATTER.mind and matter—concerning which mankind knows nothing beyond certain properties—in the following answer addressed by Mr. Pratt to the many who have been “traditionated in the absurd doctrines of immaterialism.” “The resemblance between man and God has reference, as we have already observed, to the shape or figure: other qualities may or may not resemble each other. Man has legs, so has God, as is evident from his appearance to Abraham. Man walks with his legs; so does God sometimes, as is evident from his going with Abraham toward Sodom. God can not only walk, but he can move up or down through the air without using his legs as in the process of walking (Gen., xvii., 22, and xi., 5, and xxxv., 13)—‘a man wrestled with Jacob until the breaking of day;’ after which Jacob says, ‘I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved’ (Gen., xxxii., 24-30). That this person had legs is evident from his wrestling with Jacob. His image and likeness was so much like man’s, that Jacob at first supposed him to be a man. God, though in the figure of a man, has many powers that man has not got. He can go upward through the air. He can waft himself from world to world by his own self-moving powers. These are powers not possessed by man, only through faith, as in the instances of Enoch and Elijah. Therefore, though in the figure of a man, he has powers far superior to man.”
This part of the subject may profitably be concluded by quoting the venerable adage, “Qui nescit ignorare nescit sciri.”
MORMON DOXOLOGY.I now offer to the reader a few remarks upon the fourteen articles of the Mormon doxology,[208] leaving him to settle whether it be a kakodoxy or a kakistodoxy.