Among proposed substitutes for Christianity, none occupies a more
prominent place than Pantheism, the identity of God and the universe.
'Pantheism,' says Haeckel, 'is the world system of the modern
scientist.'[1] Pantheism, or the Religion of the Universe, is, in one
aspect, a protest against Anthropomorphism, the making of God in the
image of man. It is in supposing God to be altogether such as we are,
to be swayed by the same motives, to be actuated by the same passions
as we are, that the most deadly errors have arisen. Robert Browning,
in _Caliban upon Setebos_, represents a half-brutal {66} being who
lives in a cave speculating upon the government of the world, wondering
why it came to be made, and what could be the purpose of the Creator in
making it. Every motive that could sway the savage mind is in turn
discussed: pleasure, restlessness, jealousy, cruelty, sport. 'Because
I, Caliban,' such is the process of his reasoning, 'delight in
tormenting defenceless animals, or would crush any one that interfered
with my comfort, or do things because my taskmaster obliges me to do
them, so must it be with Him Who made the world.' With great
grotesqueness, but with marvellous power, the degraded monster argues
as to the reasons which could have prompted the Unseen Ruler to frame
the earth and its inhabitants. Everything that he attributes to God is
in keeping with his own base nature. What is the explanation of the
horrors which have been perpetrated in the Name of God? The sacrifice
of human {67} beings, of vanquished enemies, or of the nearest and the
dearest, the agonies of self-torture, did not these originate in the
transference to the Invisible God of the emotions and principles by
which men were guiding their own lives? They had no notion of
forbearance and forgiveness and patience, therefore they did not think
that there could be forgiveness with God. They were to be turned aside
from their fierce, revengeful purposes by bribes and by the protracted
sufferings of their foes, therefore they thought that God might be
bribed by gifts or propitiated by pains. What they were on earth,
delighting in bloodshed and conquest and revelry, that, they supposed,
must be the Being or the Beings who ruled in the world unseen.
I
God is not as man is, this was a lesson which ancient prophets
struggled to teach. He is not a man that He should lie, or a son {68}
of man that He should repent. He is not to be conceived as influenced
by the petty hopes and fears and jealousies which influence the mass of
mortals. 'My thoughts are not as your thoughts, neither are your ways
my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your
thoughts.' He is infinitely exalted above the best and wisest of His
children and to see in Him only their likeness is not to see Him
aright. It is not to be denied that the writers of the Old Testament
employ anthropomorphic language to vivify the justice and goodness of
the Eternal. They speak of His Eyes and of His Face, of His Hands and
of His Arm and of His Voice. They speak of Him walking in the Garden
and smelling a sweet savour. They speak of Him repenting and being
jealous and coming down to see what is done on earth. Such figures,
however, as a rule, have a force {69} and an appropriateness which
never can become obsolete or out of date. They even heighten the
Majesty and Spotless Holiness of God. They are felt to be, at most,
words struggling to express what no words can ever convey: they are the
readiest means of impressing on the dull understanding of men their
practical duty, of letting them know with what purity and righteousness
they have to do. It is not in such figures that any harm can ever lie.
The error of taking literally such phrases as 'Hands' or 'Arm' or
'Voice' is not very prevalent, but the error of framing God after our
moral image is not distant or imaginary. There is a mode of speaking
about Divine Purposes and Divine Motives which must jar on those who
have begun to discern the Divine Majesty, to whom the thought of the
All-Embracing Presence has become a reality.
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