Life's problems here and hereafter; an autobiography

Contents

Chap. Page.

I. Prelude 1

II. God 17

Chapter II. God

Let us begin at the beginning. Is there a selfexisting, self-acting, intelligent, supreme first cause, whom all peoples have agreed in calling God?

When at the climax of my doubts and difficulties, and entertaining serious thoughts of abandoning the ministry, a legal friend put into my hand a little book, in which the author described his conversion from atheistic infidelity to rational Christianity, and the means by which it was accomplished. I knew the author as one of the most acute of living metaphysicians, and for a long time an avowed and well known sceptic. His undoubted intellectual ability, together with the fact that he had publicly renounced infidelity, was sufficient assurance that what he had written would be worth reading. My friend, who was fully aware of my doubts, was confident that the little book would, at least, put me in possession of a clue to a rational faith. He well knew, from personal experience, the need of one honestly beset with doubt.

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Franklin Gale, — for such was the name of my friend, — was a man of exceptionally fine mental and moral quality. He was graduated at one of our oldest colleges with the highest honors; studied "evangelical theology, and entered the ministry." Falling into doubt, and subsequently into absolute unbelief, he left the ministry and the church and adopted as a permanent profession the practice of the law.

His mental ability was of the first order, and he did not rest at ease in sheer negation. Again, and again, he fought over the field of christian evidences ; nor did he give up the contest until he had rounded from his sceptical perturbation back into the true orbit of christian faith. During his sceptical cruise he had thrown overboard much heavy and useless theological lumber, which, from very density, sank to unknown depths and was never recovered ; but to the end of his days — days brimmed with joy and peace in believing — he rejoiced at his riddance from doubt, on the one hand, and on the other, from teasing, unrestful dogma. His last supreme hour was the happiest hour of his life.

My knowledge of Franklin Gale gave me confidence in his judgment ; and so thanking him for the little book, I took it home, and in the seclusion of my study read it with avidity from beginning to end. The effect it produced on my mind

G OD.

was immediate and conclusive. I derived from its perusal the first purely rational and logical proof, I had then seen of the existence of an intelligent first cause. Years have passed away, and I have read much, and thought more ; but the argument that then convinced me, stands to-day unanswerable and unrivalled. I shall endeavor to lay the substance of it, with reinforcements of my own, before the reader.

But first, let me premise with regard to what then seemed to me a serious weakness in the argument based on the appearance of intelligence and design in nature, so ably stated by Paley. The difficulty with Paley' s argument is that it fails to terminate. The presence of intelligence and design in nature, undoubtedly necessitates the admission that nature is the work of an intelligent designer ; but it does not prove that the designer now exists, or that he was, or is, First Cause.

Nor is this the only defect in Paley's argument. The stream cannot rise higher than its fountain. There can be nothing in the effect which is not first in the cause. If the presence of intelligence and design in the effect, is proof of an intelligent and designing cause back of the effect, then the presence of intelligence and design in the cause must be proof of a cause still further back, and nothing is proved as to a First Cause !

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If it be assumed that the phenomena of intelligence and design exist in the First Cause uncaused, then the fatal admission must be made that they can exist uncaused ; and the fact of their presence in nature is no proof of a First Cause !

Paley's argument is simply a revolving chain, with a perpetually recurring proposition, — a well, into which innumerable buckets are let down, but nothing adequate and satisfactory drawn up.

The argument that brought the relief I needed, was in no respect like Paley's. It was purely metaphysical ; but it lay easily and luminously within the compass of my thought. I, at least, understood it, and was unable to resist its force. I shall endeavor to make it equally easy and luminous to the reader. It may be stated in a series of self-evident propositions :

The human mind is so constituted that it is compelled to believe that what is, is.

And it is compelled to believe that what is, is something, and not nothing.

In all objects which we see, we recognize something as the cause of their existence, and without which they would not be.

We are compelled to believe that something is in all forms and substances, that it is neither the form nor the substance, but which operates and manifests itself through them.

G OD.

Something, for example, produces the tree, leaves, flowers, fruit, fragrance ; but that which produces is not the thing produced.

Compelled to give it a name, we sometimes call it Life, Essence, Spirit ; but we always distinguish between it, and its external form and substance.

If we call it Spirit, we know what we mean, and are understood by others ; though we might not be able to clearly define our meaning. In common usage the word has various applications : the spirit of nature, the spirit of the universe, the spirit of wine, the spirit of truth, the spirit of the law, the spirit of man, " the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." In these uses of the word spirit, we mean the Reality of the thing ; that which constitutes its essence, and makes it what it is. And this Reality we believe to be in everything.

And to our understanding it is always the thing ; that is to say the essential and real thing. We distinguish readily between substance and and spirit, — or between substance and life — between what we see and comprehend, and between what we do not see and cannot comprehend, but the existence of which we are compelled to believe in and acknowledge.

The substance of a man is what we can see, handle, dissect, analyze ; but the spirit of a man is something we cannot see, handle, dissect nor

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analyze. It is thoroughly distinguished from the gross and tangible elements of his bodily form.

Take this from man, and at once he ceases to be man. He has lost that which constitutes him man, and keeps him man under all circumstances, and in spite of moral or physiological changes and modifications. In this spirit we have the ground and substance of man ; and which, if lost, all is lost.

In the material universe, science recognizes something that sustains and keeps it what it is. It also recognizes the fact that if this something were withdrawn, it would cease to be what it is. In other words it would cease to be.

What is that which

" Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms from the trees, Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent ? "

It is the Spirit of the universe. It is its Life. It is its living Force. It is the Ground of its substance, and of all that is. It is the Life of all that is. It is that mysterious something that men, in every age, have agreed in calling GOD.

Spirit, therefore, is the one thing real and substantial, in opposition to the unreal, perishable, and imaginary. It is Reality — Life — Cause — Being. • In light, it is the Light ; in life, it is the

GOD.

Life ; in soul, it is the Soul ; in reason, it is the Reason ; in truth, it is the Truth ; in cause, it is the Cause ; in the beautiful, it is Beauty ; in goodness, it is the Good ; in love, it is Love ; — everywhere, wherever seen or felt, it is God !

Wherever we attain to that which really and truly exists, that has an absolute living force, we attain to God. In all Reality we find God. And being Reality it is Substance ; unless we are prepared to prove that something came from nothing, and that something is no substance ! This, of course, reason, experience, and science deny.

The conception and acknowledgment, therefore, of an absolute Reality, or its equivalent absolute Substance, — a substance containing in itself the cause and grounds of all minor substance, — is an imperative necessity of the reason.

We are compelled, for example, to entertain the idea of the true. We must believe that something is true ; and therefore believe in the true in itself. The true in itself must be universally and eternally true ; for if, under any condition, it would not be true in itself, then its truth would depend on conditions ; and the true in itself would be proved to be not true in itself !

When we say a thing is true, we mean that it is what it purports to be, — that it exists, — that it is reality, and therefore substance. If we ad-

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mit the existence of the true in itself, we must admit the existence of reality in itself, and hence of substance in itself, — that is, a substance that requires no external conditions in order to be a substance, — that is always and everywhere substance, containing in itself the grounds of its own existence, — in other words, an absolute substance.

The absolute substance, therefore, must be uncreated, independent, and necessary. If created it would be dependent, and not absolute ; and its cause would have to be sought for further back.

Moreover, the absolute substance must necessarily be one. Two absolutes would be as great an absurdity as two infinites, or two Almighties.

This absolute Something that we are compelled to recognize and acknowledge in everything as absolute Keality, and therefore absolute Substance ; that is one and can exist only in Unity ; must also be absolute Cause ; for it is self-evident that there can be no cause without substance ; unless we agree that nothing is capable of producing something ; which, to say the least, is manifestly absurd.

The absolute Cause, therefore, must be first cause ; and the demonstration of such Cause is here effected, and is complete.

But the demonstration of a First Cause does not fully meet the demands of the reason. The

GOD.

inquiry must be pushed a step further. Is the absolute First Cause intelligent ; or is it a mere blind, unthinking, fatal cause ? It is intelligent, most certainly. What is the chief characteristic of reason ? It is intelligence. All we know we we know by virtue of the reason. On its authority we affirm that we exist ; that the external world exists. It speaks with authority, and we obey its mandates almost instinctively. On its sole authority we acknowledge the relation of numbers, and of logical deductions from admitted premises. It is not infallible ; but its imperfection, in certain cases, arises from circumstances, and not from any imperfection in itself.

Nay more : Reason is an independent authority. We cannot control it. It says two and two are four ; and we cannot make it say otherwise. What is just and true now, it says was always just and true. Its conceptions are not relative and dependent, and therefore temporary ; but independent, necessary, and eternal. It is Reality. It is the highest reality we know ; and hence is identical with the sole and absolute Cause.

The chief characteristic of reason, — yea, its very essence, — is, therefore, intelligence. The absolute reason must be absolute intelligence ; and God is not a mere blind unthinking force, but a self -existent, independent, necessary, intelligent first CAUSE. In this great fact we discover the

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grounds of the reason, intelligence, and design that appear everywhere in creation.

In man, reason and intelligence are subject to human conditions ; but they reveal themselves as stretching beyond the bounds of time and space, and they assure us that though we now " see through a glass darkly " we shall sometime " see face to face." Not, we dare say, the eternal realities without limit, but with ever increasing insight, as the law of ceaseless progress, and, therefore, of ceaseless growth, bears us on.

The imperfection of reason in ourselves, is solved by the fact that we are but receptacles of reason, as we are of life ; and in no sense self-existent, self-supporting, nor in any strict sense independent. In every condition of life, and in our very innermost, we are, like all other living things, dependent. Every hour of our life, and of the life of everything that lives, the most ancient testimony receives verification : — " In Him we live, move, and have our being : " " The eternal God is our refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms ! "

I saw no way of evading this reasoning then ; and I see no way of evading- it, now. Unlike Paley's the argument terminates. It is impossible to go beyond or back of the result ; and it is quite as impossible to escape the result. The proof of the existence of God, — of an absolute, intelli-

GOD.

gent, self -willing, independent First Cause, — of a cause adequate to produce all the phenomena of the universe, and the universe itself, — is seen to be stored in what man is compelled to see, know, and acknowledge. It lies all around us and within us, and is as much a part of our consciousness as our personality.

The first great step toward a rational faith was thus taken, — taken successfully and irreversibly. The foundation stone was laid. Here, I said, is something solid and imperishable, and here I will stand and abide. From henceforth I was able to assert the existence of God with honest conviction. I am sure that those who heard me were profoundly impressed that I believed what 1 said.

But I could not pause at the goal I had won. Other problems, of equal importance to the one I had solved, awaited solution. I was confronted with the problem of Personality. Is the intelligent First Cause, I queried, so identified with matter as to be inseparable from matter ?

In other words, — If matter were disorganized, would it effect the disorganization of the First Cause ?

If, for instance, a star were burned up, — as it is said by astronomers several have been, — would such disaster diminish the magnitude or prevalence of the First Cause ?

Or is the First Cause an absolute, independent,

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organic unity, and therefore personality, that no disaster in time or space can affect ?

Questions, such as these, were inevitable, and they brought me face to face with Materialistic Pantheism. How I dealt with the problem they involve, will be told in detail in the next chapter,

PERSONALITY.

The Pantheistic speculations which are directed against the

personality of God, are equally conclusive, if they be conclusive at all, against the personality of man ; for they run counter to the intuitive knowledge of the human mind; and they cannot be embraced without doing violence to some of our clearest and surest convictions. — Prof. James Buchanan, L. L. T>.

Next looking around, the primeval Being saw nothing but himself ; and he first said, " I am I." Therefore his name was I : and thence even now, when called, a man first answers, " It is I; " and then declares any other name that appertains to him, — Vrihad aranyaca.

Chapter III. Pebsonality

In spite of learned definitions of spirit, by the theologians, and the philosophers, and of such ponderous words as " anthropomorphism ; " in spite of solemn warnings against materializing Deity, I felt profoundly the inadequacy of both the theological and philosophical conception of God. The creeds I found reticent, and inconclusive; apparently afraid of shadows, and even absurd. The conception of a strictly personal first cause does not appear in any one of them. It is true that they stoutly assert that God is a^ " person;" and they contain articles labeled, " Personality of God ; " but the terms in which this assertion is made are vague and misleading.

The good men who framed the creeds, evidently groped blindly after the truth an interior instinct compelled them to acknowledge ; but their inability to put what they dimly perceived into plain unmisleading English, is painfully apparent. They simply succeeded in furnishing an admirable illustration of a possible combination of words

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without adequate sense. The specimens following, selected from the leading creeds, both Catholic and Protestant, are in point :

Roman Catholic : " God is everywhere. He is pure spirit, having no body."

Episcopal : " God is without body or parts."

Baptist : " God is inexpressible in glory and holiness."

Methodist : " God is without body or parts."

Presbyterian: "God is pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions ; immense, eternal, incomprehensible."

From these definitions I found it impossible to derive the personality of God, in any true and comprehensible sense belonging to the word personality. It was instantly evident, that anything "without body, parts, or passions" is no person, and has not even the slightest claim to personality ; yea, more : it must be classed with the inorganic, intangible, unthinking and unfeeling forces of nature. Such a Being, if indeed such a Being were possible, would be not only " unknowable," but absolutely unthinkable ! It is safe to say no thoughtful person was ever satisfied with these definitions.

Turning from the theologians to the metaphysical philosophers, it was soon made evident that I

PEBSONALITY.

would fare no better. They, too, were struggling with difficulties they could not overcome, and their intellectual travail seemed simply painful. Their attempts to define God are melancholy failures. The specimens following will suffice to show that the philosophers are not helpful guides to one seeking after a personal God :

Hegel : " God is the eternal movement of the universal, ever raising itself to a subject, which first of all in the subject comes to objectivity, and accordingly absorbs the subject in its abstract individuality."

Fichte : " The only God we can affirm is simply the idea of moral order. Every precise notion we form of God must be an idol. To have an idea of God is to limit him."

Schelling : " God, before the existence of this world, is the undeveloped impersonal essence from which all things proceed."

Leibnitz : " The universe is a system of monads — ie : ultimate atoms." " Some are in a state of stupor, as those which compose material objects ; others are raised to a complete state of apperception or consciousness, forming the souls of men when clear and distinct, but the souls of animals when indistinct. God is the absolute and original monad, from which all the rest have their origin."

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Mansel: 44 The conception of the Absolute and Infinite, from whatever side we view it, is encompassed with contradictions. There is a contradiction in conceiving it as one ; and there is a contradiction in conceiving it as many. There is a contradiction in conceiving it as personal ; and a contradiction in conceiving it as impersonal. It cannot without contradiction be conceived of as active : nor without equal contradiction be represented as inactive. It cannot be conceived as the sum of all existence ; nor yet can it be conceived as a part only ! "

Sir William Hamilton: 4 4 The Absolute is conceived merely by a negation of conceivability ! "

Herbert Spencer : 44 It is alike our highest wisdom, and our highest duty to regard that through which all things exist, as The Unknowable."

It would not be difficult to multiply similar definitions indefinitely; but to what purpose? They are denials, if not of God himself, at least of his personality ; although it must be confessed that their chief characteristic is fog ! That those profound men had a clear idea of what they were writing about, may reasonably be doubted.

What then ? I asked. Have I discovered an intelligent, absolute Something, 4 4 without body, form, or parts," — an 44 undeveloped essence, and imper-

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sonal," — an " eternal movement of the universal," — a " contradiction, " — a great " unknowable, " of which it is impossible to even think? And is this all that the demonstration of the existence of an intelligent first cause amounts to? I took up again the argument of the demonstration, and sought through its several stages for the solution I desired. I felt convinced that it must be lodged, somewhere, among the strong links of its development. Nor was I mistaken. I was not long in making the discovery, that the fact that God is an independent reality, an intelligent first cause, logically involves an admission of his personality. Thus :

1. First cause, he is independent ; and being independent he is necessarily free. He cannot be coerced. He acts because he chooses to act.

2. He is therefore possessed of will, and is no blind unintelligent actor. In him the elements of the reason, of the understanding, of consciousness, are absolute. He knows that he acts, and why he acts, and therefore acts with purpose, design, and plan.

3. Are not these the elements of the most perfect personality ? Must not a being thus conditioned, possess personality in the highest degree ? It is impossible to think of the attributes contained

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in the absolute first cause, without perceiving that this follows as a matter of course.

4. Moreover, whatever argument or proposition be urged against the personality of God, I perceived must be equally conclusive against the personality of man. What proof have we of our own personality? The evidence of our senses* How do we know that they are not delusive ? The proof of our personality lies in the intuitive knowledge of the human mind, and it cannot be resisted without doing violence to some of our clearest and surest convictions. We are conscious of being intelligent, thinking, self -willing, designing, and, to a limited extent, free-acting beings ; and nothing but an act of Deity can deprive us of this conviction. In other words, we are conscious of our personality. The proof by which we arrive at this conclusion is precisely the proof, and of equal value, of the personality of God.

5. I found, too, that a species of fatality attends the proper use of language, and compels us, consciously or unconsciously, when we speak of God, to acknowledge that he is a person. This is especially true when we attempt to describe Him. We are compelled to use such terms as describe the personality of a man, viz : He — Him — His — Thy— Thine — Thou— Whom — Who. A description of God, with these terms left out,

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would be more amusing, we dare say, than instructive. Nor would the result be essentially different if only words expressive of the neuter gender were used. The idea of personality would still assert itself in any form of statement we might make.

6. The same fact strikingly appears in all forms of rational prayer. We say, almost instinctively, — " Our Father who art in heaven," — " O thou eternal One," — " Divine Spirit, we would worship Thee," — and our thought is always fixed on a personal God who sees, hears, feels, and who can answer our prayer. Were it otherwise, prayer would be meaningless, and something worse than a farce !

7. The historical fact of worship may also be cited as proof of the Divine personality. In some form worship has always been universal, and invariably addressed to a personal God. The absurdity of addressing worship to anything else, is apparent. Should we say, — "O great law of gravitation, have mercy upon us miserable sinners ? " Or, — " We adore, we worship thee, O universally diffused cohesion, electricity, magnetism, or whatever thou art?" — Or shall we call for help on a philosophical or mathematical principle or law ? Shall we address worship to one's self? Shall we apply terms of personality — Him — He — Thou — to nature ? — Whether as

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Jehovah, Jove, or Brahm, it is a fact that all people of whom we have any accurate knowledge, have, from the remotest times, conceived of God and worshipped Him as a person.

8. In the most refined and cultivated society to-day, the truth that God is a Father, and that man is his child, is gratefully received and acknowledged. The cultivated reason knows that we are not self -created, nor the creatures of a blind unthinking force. It perceives that the ground of the Fatherhood of God must, of necessity, lie in the fact that he has begotten a child " in his own image ; " and that, through all ranks of created creatures, paternity can have no other than a similar basis. All living creatures beget their kind ! This is a law to which there are no exceptions. It extends from the lowest forms of organized life up to God. But of all creatures God has made, man alone has the proud distinction of bearing God's image. " In the image of God created he him ; male and female created he them ; and he called their name man." In this stupendous fact three immutable truths are lodged, — the personality of God — the immortality of the soul — and man's perpetual progress and development !

9. But I perceived that the personality of God is demonstrable on grounds of pure reason and exact science. We find in nature and in life

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evidences of wisdom, goodness, power, and their practical applications ; and reason demands a personality around which to group them, and of which they are the out-flow. It is self-evident that these attributes, if they work at all, must work and manifest themselves from a personal stand-point. If they work intelligently, and with purpose, they must necessarily be under control of intelligence and will. It is quite impossible to conceive of them as attributes or elements of matter, or as attached to something " without body, parts, passions, or form." No amount of matter contains their reality, potentiality, or possibility. We have no direct knowledge of any personality but our own, and the only positive knowledge we have of the attributes we ascribe to God, is derived from our experience of them in ourselves. We know that these attributes are attributes of personality, and nothing can make us say that they are not.

10. "Humanity," says J. D. Morell, (Hist. Mod. Phil. p. 739.) " is not self-created. The reason we possess, is not constructed by us out of a state of unreason. If, therefore, it is implanted in us, then the Being who implanted it, must himself possess reason. If there is a law of right and wrong engraven on our constitution, there must have been a law-giver. All the appeals of innocence against unrighteous force, are appeals

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to an Eternal Justice, and all visions of moral purity are glimpses of the Infinite Excellence. In a word, if we see in nature, in mind, in history ; if we see in every region of the Divine operation intelligence adapting means to an end ; if we see moral sanctions expressed and implied in the natural tendencies of human action ; if we see all this, morever, effected by a supreme intelligent power, that is, a Divine will ; then from the conception we have of intelligence, moral sentiments, and will existing in our own personality, we are constrained to regard the Being from whom they all flowed, as Himself a personality in which all these attributes exist in their fullness and perfection."

11. Mr. Morell once more. " Were we required to point out the region in which the whole argument is best concentrated, we should refer to man, as hiiftself a living embodiment of all the evidences. If you want argument from design, then you see in the human frame the most perfect of all known organization. If you want the argument from being, then man, in his conscious dependence, has the clearest conviction of that independent and absolute one, on which his own being reposes. If you want the argument from reason and morals, then the human mind is the only known repository of both. Man is, in fact, a microcosm — a universe in himself ; and what-

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ever proof the whole universe affords, is involved in principle^ in man himself. With the image of God before us, who can doubt of the divine type? 9 '

12. Finally ; What the laws of thought and language compel ; what reason and science confirm, the Scriptures positively assert. Man was created in the Divine image. Such is the statement of, perhaps, the oldest of most ancient books. In the New Testament it is affirmed of Christ : " He was the brightness of the Father's glory,"