[58] Cf. pp. 105-107.
II.
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD.
AUBREY MOORE.
I. The object of this essay is not to discuss the so-called 'proofs' of the existence of God, but to shew what the Christian doctrine of God is, and how it has grown to be what it is, out of the antagonisms of earlier days; and then to ask—What fuller realization of God's revelation of Himself is He giving us through the contradictions and struggles of to-day? If it is true that 'the only ultimate test of reality is persistence, and the only measure of validity among our primitive beliefs the success with which they resist all efforts to change them[59],' it is of first importance to discover what it is which, through all the struggles of past history, the religious nature of man has persistently clung to. Much which was once dear to the religious consciousness, and which seemed at the time to be an integral part of the religious idea, has been given up. A former age abandoned it with regret, and looked forward with gloomy foreboding. A later age looks back with thankfulness, and recognises 'the good Hand of our God' leading us to truer knowledge of Himself.
It would be idle to deny, after all due allowance has been made for the natural tendency to believe that the present is the critical moment, not only for us, but for the world at large, that the crisis of the present day is a very real one, and that the religious view of God is feeling the effects of the change, which is modifying our views of the world and man. When such a fundamental idea is challenged, men are naturally tempted to adopt one of two equally onesided attitudes, to commit themselves either to a policy of unintelligent protest, or to a policy of unconditional surrender. And if the one is needlessly despairing, the other is unwarrantably sanguine. The one asks,—'How much must I give up, of what religion has always been to me, that a little of the old may survive amidst the new?' The other asks,—'How little of the old need I keep, so as not to interfere with the ready acceptance of the new?' The one view is pessimist, the other optimist. Both have their representatives in our day, and each party is profoundly conscious of the danger to which the other is exposed. The advocates of the one view, finding themselves 'in a place where two seas meet,' think it safer to 'run the ship aground'; those of the other 'seeing they cannot bear up against the wind' prefer to 'let her drive.' But if the spirit of the one is merely protestant, the spirit of the other is certainly not catholic.
In contrast with these one-sided views, we propose to approach the question in the full conviction that the revelation of God in Christ is both true and complete, and yet that every new truth which flows in from the side of science, or metaphysics, or the experience of social and political life, is designed in God's providence to make that revelation real, by bringing out its hidden truths. It is in this sense that the Christian revelation of God claims to be both final and progressive; final, for Christians know but one Christ and do not 'look for another'; progressive, because Christianity claims each new truth as enriching our knowledge of God, and bringing out into greater clearness and distinctness some half-understood fragment of its own teaching. There are, no doubt, always to be found Christians, who are ready to treat new knowledge as the Caliph Omar treated the books in the library of Alexandria,—'they agree with the Koran and are unnecessary, or they disagree with it and must be destroyed.' But an intelligent Christian will not ask, 'Does this new truth agree with or contradict the letter of the Bible?' but 'How does it interpret and help us to understand the Bible?' And so with regard to all truth, whether it comes from the side of science, or history, or criticism, he adopts neither the method of protest nor the method of surrender, but the method of assimilation. In the face of new discoveries, the only question he is anxious to answer is this,—'What old truth will they explain, or enlighten, or make real to us? What is this new world of life and interest which is awaiting its consecration? "Truth is an ever-flowing river, into which streams flow in from many sides[60]." What is this new stream which is about to empty itself, as all knowledge must, into the great flood of Divine truth, "that the earth may be filled with the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea"?'
Such a hopeful attitude does not, indeed, imply that the assimilation of the new truths will go on as a matter of course. The Christian knows that the acceptance of truth is a moral, as well as an intellectual, matter, and in the moral world there is no place for laisser faire. He expects to be called upon to struggle; he expects that the struggle will need his utmost effort, moral and intellectual. His work is both to keep and to claim; to hold fast the faith 'once for all delivered to the saints,' and yet to see in every fragment of truth a real revelation of the mind and will of God. He has no cut and dried answer to objections; he does not boast that he has no difficulties. But he does claim to look out upon the difficulties of his day, not only fearlessly, but with hope and trust. He knows that Christianity must triumph in the end, but he does not expect all difficulties to be removed in a moment. And he is strong enough, if need be, to wait.
II. Whether anyone is really guilty of what Hume calls the 'multiplied indiscretion and imprudence' of dogmatic atheism, whether positivism can rightly be so classed, whether agnosticism is not atheism to all intents and purposes, are questions which fortunately lie outside the scope of the present enquiry. As for polytheism it has ceased to exist in the civilised world. Every theist is, by a rational necessity, a monotheist. But we find ourselves, in the present day, face to face with two different views of God, which though they constantly, perhaps generally, overlap, and even sometimes coincide, yet imply different points of view, and by a process of abstraction can be held apart and contrasted with one another. Many devout Christians are philosophers and men of science; many men of science and philosophers are devout Christians. But the God of religion is not the God of science and philosophy. Ideally, everyone will allow that the religious idea of God, and the scientific and philosophical idea of God must be identical, but in actual fact it is not so, and in the earlier stages of the development of both, there is a real antagonism. To accept this antagonism as absolute is, by a necessary consequence, to compel one to give way to the other. We cannot long hold two contradictory truths. We find ourselves compelled to choose. We may have Religion or Philosophy, but not both.
Very few, however, are prepared to go this length. It is much more usual to get rid of the antagonism by adopting one of two alternative methods.