"Nay, that I can scarcely answer save in general terms. The cause of law, the cause of evolution, the cause of everything is utterly unknown. The most we can do is to observe phenomena, to class them, and then note the sequences which form necessary connection together; in this way we discover the law, but beyond that science can affirm nothing. The cause we can know nothing, and affirm nothing of, save its bare existence as the incomprehensible cause of all phenomena. The sole possible predication is merely that he, or more properly it, is."
"Why, surely the cause is God," said Hester, who, new as she was to a personal recognition of God's rights to her own devotion, had never dreamed of doubting, that "absolute intelligence" ruled "as cause."
"God," said Mr. Spence, "is too indefined a term for science, or rather there are ideas connected with the term which we cannot scientifically apply to the unknowable. We cannot affirm of this unknowable that he is either matter or mind; because this would be to degrade him, by representing him in terms of our finite and human conceptions. Matter and mind are in fact but phenomena of which the unknowable is the unknown cause. [{762}] He is of a far higher nature than matter or mind, for he is the common cause of both. Of this nature we can form no idea whatever. We cannot attribute to the unknowable reason; since that would represent him as finite, for all reasoning is limitation. We cannot affirm of him either justice or mercy; because these are words borrowed from the human, and to express the unknown in such terms is anthropomorphism and blasphemy. Such a religion is but one grade higher than the ancient theologies that represent God with hands and feet and other human members."
"Stay," said Hester, "I cannot admit all your assumptions. That the cause is the great I Am, of whose essential being we know nothing, is doubtless true, as also that finitude cannot comprehend infinitude: but that it is wrong or blasphemous to speak of him in the language of earth, I cannot see. We know the expression is inadequate, that it is metaphorical, an application of the less to signify the greater, but it is the only voice we have, and the degree of worship depends on the spirit of reverence which prompts the utterance, as the freedom from idolatry must depend on the spirit of appreciative love and submission with which that worship is offered.
"But," said Mr. Spence, "all theologies set out with the great truth, that the deity is incomprehensible. But they immediately contradict and stultify themselves by proceeding to assign him attributes. In this way all religions become suicidal as well as irreligious. The only true religion is to worship God as the unknown and forever unknowable. True religion and science agree in this, that the cause of all phenomena is the unknown. Science, in affirming the cause to be material or mental, becomes unscientific, just as religion, by pretending to reveal his nature or attributes, becomes irreligious."
"Pardon me," said Hester, "I think you are begging the question. Because we know nothing of the interior being of God, it does not follow that we may not discover the relationships which he wishes to establish between himself and ourselves, and to the manifestations of these relationships we may in all reverence and with consistency assign attributes. Within himself God is the great I Am, unknown and unknowable to us. Reason, justice, mercy, probably find there, no exercise. Their exercise is outside in creation; for all creation is outside God, an expression of his power, as of every other attribute justly assigned him. Creation itself is limited: man's expression more so yet: but we do not therefore believe in the limitation of the deity. We cannot conceive infinity, still less express it; still the idea exists, and our minds invest the deity with it in reverential awe, not in blasphemy."
"You have given the modern theology assuming God to be a spirit and a creative spirit; and assuming also that the creation is a work of his design. You do not perceive that you make God the author of evil as well as good, and that you assume matter was created. Now, the eternity of matter would be no greater enigma than the eternity of mind; and we do not know whether the cause be 'matter or mind.' It is unknown, as it is also unknowable."
"Why this is sheer Atheism," said the startled Hester.
"Not so! This doctrine is neither Atheism nor Theism. It is merely the highest and last formula, at once, of science and religion, ceasing to represent the unknowable in any conceptions of human thought, and thus leaving free scope for worship, which (worship) is not assertion, but humility and transcendent wonder."
"Nay," said Hester; "religion, as far as I can make it out, consists in acknowledging the relationships which God has established: first, between himself and man, and secondly, between man and man. Religion, if true, is a manifestation or revelation if not of God's essential nature, yet of his will [{763}] in man's regard. The discrepancies between our conceptions of what is evil and evil itself may explain your difficulty about God being the author of evil. It may be that mere change, mere transition, is not evil, even when accompanied by some pain. I read yesterday that the only real evil was, a voluntary act on the part of a rational creature, performed contrary to the known will of God."