There are those, among unbelievers, who profess to see no evidences of a designing intelligence in all the harmonies of nature, and yet profess to see the far off man behind the old stone ax. What wonderful intelligence they have! There is no want of intelligence; it is want of something else, which Christianity requires. I think so much of your common sense that I will leave you to say what that is. Socrates said: “When I was young it was surprising how earnestly I desired that species of science which they call physical, for it appeared to me pre-eminently excellent in bringing us to know the causes of each, through what each is produced and destroyed. But happening to hear some one read in a book, that it is intelligence which is the parent of order and cause of all things, I considered that, if it were so, the ordering intelligence placed each thing where it was best.”
Is mind a development upward from the instinct of the brute creation, or is it an offspring from God? Man's reasoning intelligence separates him from the brute by a chasm that no man can carry the reasoning powers of mind across. All on that side is brutish. The science of the Bible, dealing with intelligence as its subject, is the highest order of science known [pg 078] to man. To limit the term science to physical phenomena is unjustifiable, unless matter is the only substance in the universe, and unless it be true, also, that some things resulting from matter lie outside of science; for if matter is the one, and only, substance, and if science deals with all there is, or may be, connected with that substance, then, according to materialists themselves, its province is to deal with life, mind and religion. But matter is not the only substance, unless a thing can be, exist, and not be at the same time; for if life is a property of matter inertia is not, and if mind is a property of matter it must be with all matter everywhere, or the thing is and is not at one and the same time.
The mind, in all its faculties, lies outside of the domain of the physical sciences. Each man gets his knowledge of his own mental and moral self-hood, not through the senses, but by his consciousness. So there is a mental science that looks inward, and a physical science that looks outward. Break down consciousness and philosophy is ruined. But some ignoramus is ready to say: What care I for philosophy? Poor fellow! He does not know what philosophy is; his ignorance is his trouble. Philosophy simply tells us how things are; it answers the question, how is it? There is nothing in which we are more interested than we are in the how is it? Let us not ruin philosophy; consciousness is her foundation with us; for in order to knowledge there must be primary and intuitive beliefs; the man who has no faith in his own ability to see truth, when it is presented through the medium of the senses, will never come to any definite conclusions about any thing. So mind is innate, and lies in consciousness, or self-hood, and is at the bottom of all our knowledge; otherwise we would not, and could not, be men.
Mind is above matter, and virtue and morals are above both in their results. The certainties are not all confined to physical nature, and hence science should not be. Personality and the freedom of the will, possessed in consciousness, are as certain as any facts in the physical world. Truth, justice, right and wrong are equally certain.
Was It Possible?
The miracle of the sun and the moon standing still in the days of Joshua is urged as contrary to the philosophy of nature, and therefore untrue. That which is simply above the ordinary is not necessarily contrary to the ordinary. The objection is without value until it be proven that there is no God; for it is in his power to control the planets. Otherwise he is not omnipotent. On this very account, it is true, that there is no consistent ground between Christianity and atheism; for the moment we admit the existence of God, that moment we concede the existence of the power adequate to the accomplishment of all the miracles of the Bible. Joshua went to the aid of the Gibeonites against the confederate kings; went up to Gilgal all night, and came instantaneously upon the enemy; having thrown them into confusion with great slaughter, and chased them from Gibeon to Beth-horon, in a westerly direction, the Lord co-operating in their destruction by a great hail-storm, which slew more than the swords of the Israelites, but touched not the Israelites. In this situation of things the sun appears over Gibeon eastward and the moon over Ajalon westward. When Joshua saw it, moved by a grand impulse, he said: “Sun, stand thou still over Gibeon; and thou, moon, over the valley of Ajalon.” See Joshua 10: 1 to 28.
The entire machinery of nature is no more in the hands of an Omnipotent God than a clock or watch in the hands of a man. How absurd it is for a man, who believes in God's existence, to be emptying out his wicked ridicule, the result of his ignorance or otherwise, of his dishonesty, upon this miracle? Is not God above his laws? Can not he manipulate, take hold of and handle the laws of nature?
It is claimed that the miracle was contrary to the philosophy of nature. God out, it would be true, but God in, it is not. It is conceded by the best of minds that the Bible is in perfect accord with the Newtonian system; that the sun is the center of the solar system; and the earth, and all other planets, move round the sun in certain periodical times; that the sun revolves [pg 080] around his own axis, and round the common center of gravity included in his own surface; that the solar influence is the cause of the annual and diurnal motions of the earth, and that the motions of the earth must continue while the solar influence continues to act upon it; that no power but that of Jehovah can change this solar influence; that he can suspend the operation of this influence; that he can and does manipulate—handle the laws which he has established—whenever his wisdom sees proper. It would be degrading to allow that the Almighty One threw this universe of his under laws over which he has no controlling power.
The miracle wrought upon this occasion was altogether worthy of God. Joshua spoke as if he knew all about the effect of the solar influence upon our planet; it is this influence that gives to our earth its diurnal motion, and the arresting of this influence would arrest the motion of the earth and the day would be lengthened out.