I TOOK another step. What is matter--substance? Can it be
destroyed--annihilated? Is it possible to conceive of the destruction of
the smallest atom of substance? It can be ground to powder--changed from
a solid to a liquid--from a liquid to a gas--but it all remains. Nothing
is lost--nothing destroyed.
Let an infinite God, if there be one, attack a grain of sand--attack
it with infinite power. It cannot be destroyed. It cannot surrender. It
defies all force. Substance cannot be destroyed.
Then I took another step.
If matter cannot be destroyed, cannot be annihilated, it could not have
been created.
The indestructible must be uncreateable.
And then I asked myself: What is force?
We cannot conceive of the creation of force, or of its destruction.
Force may be changed from one form to another--from motion to heat--but
it cannot be destroyed--annihilated.
If force cannot be destroyed it could not have been created. It is
eternal.
Another thing--matter cannot exist apart from force. Force cannot exist
apart from matter. Matter could not have existed before force. Force
could not have existed before matter. Matter and force can only be
conceived of together. This has been shown by several scientists, but
most clearly, most forcibly by Buechner.
Thought is a form of force, consequently it could not have caused or
created matter. Intelligence is a form of force and could not have
existed without or apart from matter. Without substance there could have
been no mind, no will, no force in any form, and there could have been
no substance without force.
Matter and force were not created. They have existed from eternity. They
cannot be destroyed.
There was, there is, no creator. Then came the question: Is there a
God? Is there a being of infinite intelligence, power and goodness, who
governs the world?
There can be goodness without much intelligence--but it seems to me
that perfect intelligence and perfect goodness must go together.
In nature I see, or seem to see, good and evil--intelligence and
ignorance--goodness and cruelty--care and carelessness--economy and
waste. I see means that do not accomplish the ends--designs that seem to
fail.
To me it seems infinitely cruel for life to feed on life--to create
animals that devour others.
The teeth and beaks, the claws and fangs, that tear and rend, fill me
with horror. What can be more frightful than a world at-war? Every leaf
a battle-field--every flower a Golgotha--in every drop of water pursuit,
capture and death. Under every piece of bark, life lying in wait for
life. On every blade of grass, something that kills,--something that
suffers. Everywhere the strong living on the weak--the superior on
the inferior. Everywhere the weak, the insignificant, living on
the strong--the inferior on the superior--the highest food for the
lowest--man sacrificed for the sake of microbes. Murder universal.
Everywhere pain, disease and death--death that does not wait for bent
forms and gray hairs, but clutches babes and happy youths. Death that
takes the mother from her helpless, dimpled child--death that fills the
world with grief and tears.
How can the orthodox Christian explain these things?
I know that life is good. I remember the sunshine and rain. Then I think
of the earthquake and flood. I do not forget health and harvest, home
and love--but what of pestilence and famine? I cannot harmonize all
these contradictions--these blessings and agonies--with the existence of
an infinitely good, wise and powerful God.
The theologian says that what we call evil is for our benefit--that we
are placed in this world of sin and sorrow to develop character. If
this is true I ask why the infant dies? Millions and millions draw a few
breaths and fade away in the arms of their mothers. They are not allowed
to develop character.
The theologian says that serpents were given fangs to protect themselves
from their enemies. Why did the God who made them, make enemies? Why is
it that many species of serpents have no fangs?
The theologian says that God armored the hippopotamus, covered his body,
except the under part, with scales and plates, that other animals could
not pierce with tooth or tusk. But the same God made the rhinoceros
and supplied him with a horn on his nose, with which he disembowels the
hippopotamus.
The same God made the eagle, the vulture, the hawk, and their helpless
prey.
On every hand there seems to be design to defeat design.
If God created man--if he is the father of us all, why did he make the
criminals, the insane, the deformed and idiotic?
Should the inferior man thank God? Should the mother, who clasps to her
breast an idiot child, thank God? Should the slave thank God?
The theologian says that God governs the wind, the rain, the lightning.
How then can we account for the cyclone, the flood, the drought, the
glittering bolt that kills?
Suppose we had a man in this country who could control the wind, the
rain and lightning, and suppose we elected him to govern these things,
and suppose that he allowed whole States to dry and wither, and at the
same time wasted the rain in the sea. Suppose that he allowed the winds
to destroy cities and to crush to shapelessness thousands of men and
women, and allowed the lightnings to strike the life out of mothers and
babes. What would we say? What would we think of such a savage?
And yet, according to the theologians, this is exactly the course
pursued by God.
What do we think of a man, who will not, when he has the power, protect
his friends? Yet the Christian's God allowed his enemies to torture and
burn his friends, his worshipers.
Who has ingenuity enough to explain this?
What good man, having the power to prevent it, would allow the innocent
to be imprisoned, chained in dungeons, and sigh against the dripping
walls their weary lives away?
If God governs the world, why is innocence not a perfect shield? Why
does injustice triumph?
Who can answer these questions?
In answer, the intelligent, honest man must say: I do not know.