THE DIVINE PERSONALITY
While in our last three chapters we have been dealing with certain
theories which implicitly or explicitly deny the Divine Personality, and
while an impersonal God can be, as we have already seen, of no value for
religion, there is no mistaking the fact that this very
question--whether, _i.e._, it is possible and legitimate for us to think
of God as personal--constitutes one of the most typical of modern
"difficulties." It is probably correct to say that this difficulty, like
others we have reviewed, dates practically from the collapse of Deism, a
creed which possessed a certain hard lucidity satisfying to many for the
very reason that it required no very profound insight for its
understanding. That a Deity localised in a far-away heaven, seated on a
celestial throne and surrounded by an angelic court, should be a person,
like any other sovereign, presented no problem to the understanding; but
if God was not merely transcendent but also immanent--not merely
somewhere but in some indefinable manner everywhere--then to predicate
personality of {75} such a One seemed a very paradox. In one of
Feuillet's novels there occurs a phrase which sums up in a few expressive
words a very common spiritual misadventure: the hero says, "_J'avais vu
disparaître parmi les nuages la tête de ce bon vieillard qu'on appelle
Dieu_"--"I had seen the head of that good old man called God disappear
amongst the clouds." His naïve material conception of the Eternal had
dissolved--and dissolved into nothingness. May we not surmise that nine
times out of ten this is precisely what has happened when we hear the
question asked, "But how _can_ God be personal?"
In by far the greater number of cases, that is to say, the problem arises
simply and solely from the questioner's failure to dissociate
_personality_ from _materiality_; a "person" suggests to him a tangible,
visible, ponderable form, with arms and legs and organs of sense--and
when he has reflected sufficiently to understand that such a description
cannot apply to God, he concludes that _therefore_ God cannot be
personal. The next step is usually that, having seen this visibly
outlined Deity disappear _parmi les nuages_, he passes into absolute
unbelief; for somehow an impersonal "Power," while it may possibly
inspire awe, cannot move us to worship, cannot present to us a moral
imperative, cannot, above all, either claim our love or give us its
affection. It is really the identical difficulty, stated a little {76}
more pretentiously, which the "rationalist" author of _The Churches and
Modern Thought_ presents to us by remarking that in all our experience
that which makes up personality is "connected with nerve structures," so
that we cannot attribute such a quality to "a Being who is described to
us as devoid of any nerve structure." "I know of no answer," he quaintly
adds, "that could be called satisfactory from a theistic standpoint." [1]
It is evident that Mr. Vivian does not remember the famous passage in the
_Essay on Theism_ where John Stuart Mill explains that "the relation of
thought to a material brain is no metaphysical necessity, but simply a
constant co-existence within the limits of observation," and concludes
that although "experience furnishes us with no example of any series of
states of consciousness" without an accompanying brain, "it is as easy to
imagine such a series of states without as with this accompaniment." [2]
According to Mill--hardly a champion of orthodoxy--there is no reason in
the nature of things why "thoughts, emotions, volitions and even
sensations" should be necessarily dependent upon or connected with "nerve
structures "; so that Mr. Vivian's argument palpably fails.
But what about this popular notion which identifies personality with
materiality, and {77} therefore denies the former attribute to God? One
would think that even the most circumscribed experience, or reflection on
such experience, must suffice to dispose of such a misapprehension; let
us use the most obvious of illustrations for showing where the error
lies. We have only to imagine one of those everyday tragedies that make
a short newspaper paragraph--say, the case of a man passing a house in
process of erection, and being killed on the spot by a piece of falling
timber. He is left as a material form; he is decidedly not left as a
person. Something has disappeared in that fatal moment that no one had
ever seen or handled--his self-consciousness, his intelligence, his will,
his affections, his moral sense: _with_ these he was a person; _without_
them, he is a corpse. If, then, it is these unseen, intangible
qualities, and not flesh and bones, muscle and "nerve structure," that
constitute _human_ personality, is it not rather childish to argue that,
unless God possesses a body of some sort, the _Divine_ Personality is a
contradiction in terms? If we can validly affirm in the Deity qualities
corresponding to those which in human beings we call consciousness,
intelligence, etc., we shall obviously be compelled to assign personality
to Him; the question is, Have we sufficient grounds for making such an
affirmation?
But before we are allowed to answer that question, we have to meet
another preliminary {78} objection; for it seems that we are in conflict
with philosophy--or, to be more exact, with a certain philosophy which,
while no longer perhaps in the heyday of its influence with students,
still enjoys a good deal of popular vogue. We are, of course, referring
to the Spencerian system, in which the word "Absolute" is used as a
synonym for what we should call the Deity; but, argues the Spencerian,
since "Absolute is that which exists out of all relation," [3] whereas
"even intelligence or consciousness itself is conceivable only as a
relation," it follows that "the Absolute cannot be thought of as
conscious." But if God cannot even be thought of as conscious, how much
less can He be thought of as personal!
Such an inference would, indeed, be irresistible if only the premises on
which it rests were sound. But is it legitimate, we ask, to identify God
with "the Absolute," or is not this merely a way of begging the question?
"Absolute is that which exists out of all relation," we were just told,
and such a genuine Absolute would be genuinely "unknowable," because its
very existence could not be so much as guessed at; but the Spencerian
Absolute is the most certain of certainties, described by Professor
Hudson as "the one Eternal Reality, the corner-stone of all our {79}
knowledge"--otherwise as "the Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all
things proceed." But the corner-stone of all our knowledge can be such
only because, so far from being unknowable, it is intimately related to
all our experience--which is tantamount to saying that it is not absolute
at all; and again, if God be the Infinite and Eternal Energy from which
all things proceed, that Energy must be thought of as related to all
things--in other words, it is the very reverse of absolute. And hence
the imaginary impossibility of thinking of the Deity as conscious and
intelligent vanishes at one stroke. If God were really absolute, in the
sense of the definition quoted above, it would certainly be, as Professor
Hudson says, "from the standpoint of philosophical exactness" quite
inadmissible "to speak of the Divine Will, or a Personal Creator, or an
intelligent Governor of the universe"; but as we have seen that this
absoluteness is purely fictitious, it follows that we may legitimately
inquire whether consciousness, intelligence, will--and hence
personality--are predicable of God, without heeding a veto which rests on
imaginary foundations.
It is true Professor Hudson raises two further objections; these,
however, will not long detain us. We are informed in the first place
that "the further progress of thought 'must force men hereafter to drop
the higher anthropomorphic characters given to the First {80} Cause, as
they have long since dropped the lower'"; but since our guide, a few
pages later, quotes with approval the dictum that "unless we cease to
think altogether, we _must_ think anthropomorphically," we may be
pardoned for declining to believe that "the further progress of thought
must force men hereafter" to "cease to think altogether." Such a suicide
of thought would furnish an odd comment upon philosophic "progress." We
shall, of course, continue to think anthropomorphically of God; our
thought will thus inevitably fall short of the Reality, but it will be
truer than if we did not think of Him at all. Again, Divine Personality
is declared to be a self-contradiction because
"Personality implies limitation, or it means nothing at all. To talk of
an Infinite Person, therefore, is to talk of something that is at once
infinite and finite, unconditioned and conditioned, unlimited and
limited--an impossibility."
To this plea there are, however, two answers. The first may be made in
the unprejudiced words of Mr. Vivian, who observes,[4]
"We must not forget that in philosophy and theology the word 'person'
simply implies 'a nature endowed with consciousness,' and does not
involve limits."
But secondly, without committing ourselves to Professor Hudson's dictum
that personality implies limitation, we have to point out that we are not
concerned to defend any inference that might be drawn from the infinity,
in the sense {81} of the "allness" of God. We do not deny, but on the
contrary affirm, that in the act of creation God imposes limitations upon
Himself; so that this last obstacle also is disposed of.
So far, then, we have dealt with the _a priori_ arguments against the
Personality of God, and have seen why none of these--neither that from
His non-materiality, nor from His alleged absoluteness or
infinity--raises any real bar to His being thought of as personal. We
are now in a position to inquire positively whether there is sufficient
ground for regarding Him as conscious, intelligent and purposive; if He
possesses these qualities, we repeat that He certainly possesses that of
personality.
The method by which we must proceed is obvious, and will at once occur to
the reader who recalls our opening chapter; the question resolves itself
simply into this--Are the phenomena of nature such as to indicate
intelligence and directivity in their Cause? We submit that
incontrovertible proof of the _absence_ of such directive intelligence
would be furnished, if the world were, as a matter of fact, chaotic--if
it disclosed neither regularity nor continuity--if, in a word, we could
never be sure what would happen next. True, in such a state of things
life itself could not be sustained, for life is only possible in a world
of orderly sequences and uniform laws; but seeing that as a matter of
fact such orderly sequences and uniform laws meet us everywhere {82} in
nature, is not the inference fairly inevitable? Let us be quite clear on
one point: there are two ways, and two only, in which any phenomenon can
be accounted for--design or chance; what is not purposed must be
accidental. Does, then, nature impress us as the outcome of chance? If
we saw a faultlessly executed mathematical diagram illustrating a
proposition in Euclid, should we really be satisfied with the statement
that it represented the random pencil-strokes made by a blindfolded child
ignorant of geometry? On the other hand, if a fretful baby is allowed to
divert himself by hammering the piano keys, is the result ever remotely
akin to a tune? We know perfectly well that we never get harmony, order,
beauty, rationality by accident; and there is only one other
alternative--design, purpose, guidance. Professor Fiske quotes a quaint
observation of Kepler's illustrating this very point, which we may be
allowed to reproduce:--
Yesterday, when weary with writing and my mind quite dusty with
considering these atoms, I was called to supper, and a salad was set
before me. "It seems then," said I aloud, "that if pewter dishes, leaves
of lettuce, grains of salt, drops of oil and vinegar, and slices of eggs,
had been floating about in the air from all eternity, it might at last
happen by chance that there would come a salad." "Yes," says my wife,
"but not so nice and well-dressed as mine is!"
Mrs. Kepler's shrewd, homely remark gives its last touch of absurdity to
the suggestion {83} that a world which we see to be pervaded by unfailing
law has come together by sheer, incalculable accident. Not so much as a
salad of respectable calibre could be accounted for upon such a theory;
how much less credible is it that the universe began with a cosmic dance
of unconscious atoms whirled along by unconscious forces, and happening
so to combine as to produce order and sequence, life and consciousness,
will and affection!
But not only does the universe exhibit a sublime order which is the very
contrary of what we can associate with the blind workings of chance; not
only do the circling immensities of the stars and the microscopic
perfections of the snow-crystals alike point to a shaping and directing
Mind and Will: what nature reveals--what is implied in the very term
evolution--is not merely order but progress. As Fiske has it, "Whatever
else may be true, the conviction is brought home to us that in all this
endless multifariousness there is one single principle at work, that _all
is tending towards an end that was involved in the very beginning_." In
other words, the supreme certainty brought home to us by the researches
of modern science is that all creation is thrilled through by an
all-encompassing Purpose. We really ask for no more than such an
admission; that, in short, is our case. We can clinch the whole argument
with one quiet sentence of Mr. Chesterton's: "Where there is a purpose,
{84} there is a person." If Mr. Spencer's "Infinite and Eternal Energy,
from which all things proceed" is purposive, that is equivalent to saying
that God is what we mean by personal.
But ought we not to have shown first of all that He is conscious? No,
for the greater includes the less, and purpose is unthinkable apart from
consciousness. In saying this we are aware that a philosopher like
Eduard von Hartmann speaks of "the wisdom of the Unconscious," of "the
mechanical devices which It employs," of "the direction of the goal
intended by the Unconscious," etc., etc.; but this, we are bound to say,
is to empty words of their meaning. To intend, to direct anything
requires at least that the one so doing should be conscious of what it is
he is doing. And consciousness, intelligence, directivity are
constituents never found apart from personality. But, we are told, "the
choice lies, not between personality and something lower, but between
personality and something inconceivably higher." [5] We reply that we
have already made the acquaintance of this idea of a "super-personal"
Deity, and found that for all practical--_i.e._, religious--purposes the
super-personal is simply the impersonal under another name.[6] And when
we remember that the "inconceivably higher than personal" ultimate
Reality of the agnostic possesses neither {85} consciousness, nor will,
nor intelligence, we simply fail to see how a Power lacking these
attributes could be even personal, to say nothing of its being _more_
than personal. Be this, however, as it may, the decisive fact remains
that we are persons, and therefore personality is the highest category
under which we can think; and if we, the children of the Eternal, are
endowed with personality, it is sufficient for us to know that a cause
must be at least adequate to produce the effects that have flowed from
it. Nothing can be evolved but what was first involved. On this ground
alone, whatever else God may be, He is at least personal; and that is all
we were anxious to establish.
That is all--but it is also all-important; for it cannot be too
emphatically insisted that without a personal God religion simply ceases
to be. It is a strange and delusive fancy on Professor Hudson's part,
and that of a good many people, that "the religious emotions" will
survive the de-ethicising, depersonalising of the Deity, and that men
will remain "deeply religious" even when it is recognised that the "Great
Enigma," the "eternal and inscrutable energy," the "ultimate Reality"
cannot be spoken of as "a Personal Creator, or an intelligent Governor of
the universe." For our own part, we find it difficult to believe that
such a forecast could have been framed by anyone possessing a first-hand
knowledge of what "the religious {86} emotions" are; we say with the
utmost confidence that no such emotions can be felt towards a Power which
"cannot be thought of as conscious," let alone as benevolent or
personally interested in us. We well know that we can be nothing to such
a Power--nor can It be anything to us; for a God who does not care, does
not count. We cannot commune with this chill and awesome Unknown; we can
only pray to One who hears; we can only love One who has first loved us.
In the last analysis, an "impersonal Deity" such as one hears
occasionally spoken of, is a mere contradiction in terms, the coinage of
confused and inaccurate thought. Where the meaning of personality is so
much as understood, doubt as to the Divine Personality vanishes; and
least of all will that truth be doubted by those who see the supreme
revelation of God in Jesus Christ. He, the Incarnate Son, has shown us,
not a Power but a Person--the Person of the Father--and, to-day as of
old, "it sufficeth us."
[1] _The Churches and Modern Thought_, by Philip Vivian, p. 231.
[2] _Three Essays on Religion_, R.P.A. reprint, p. 85.
[3] This and subsequent quotations are taken from pp. 108-119 of Prof.
Hudson's _Introduction to the Philosophy of Herbert Spencer_.
[4] Op. cit., p. 231.
[5] Hudson, _op. cit._, p. 116.
[6] _Supra_, p. 46.
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