_Anthropomorphic Conceptions of God._
Between the two ideas of God which we have exhibited in such striking
contrast, there is nevertheless one point of resemblance; and this
point is fundamental, since it is the point in virtue of which both
are entitled to be called theistic ideas. In both there is presumed
to be a likeness of some sort between God and Man. In both there is
an element of anthropomorphism. Even upon this their common ground,
however, there is a wide difference between the two conceptions. In
the one the anthropomorphic element is gross, in the other it is
refined and subtle. The difference is so far-reaching that some years
ago I proposed to mark it by contrasting these two conceptions of God
as Anthropomorphic Theism and Cosmic Theism. For the doctrine which
represents God as immanent in the universe and revealing himself in
the orderly succession of events, the name Cosmic Theism is eminently
appropriate: but it is not intended by the antithetic nomenclature
to convey the impression that in cosmic theism there is nothing
anthropomorphic.[18] A theory which should regard the Human Soul as
alien and isolated in the universe, without any links uniting it
with the eternal source of existence, would not be theism at all. It
would be Atheism, which on its metaphysical side is "the denial of
anything psychical in the universe outside of human consciousness."
It is far enough from any such doctrine to the cosmic theism of
Clement and Origen, of Spinoza and Lessing and Schleiermacher. The
difference, however, between this cosmic conception of God and the
anthropomorphic conception held by Tertullian and Augustine, Calvin
and Voltaire and Paley, is sufficiently great to be described as a
contrast. The explanation of the difference must be sought far back
in the historic genesis of the two conceptions. Cosmic theism, as we
have seen, was reached through nature-worship with its notion of vast
elemental spirits indwelling in physical phenomena. Anthropomorphic
theism is descended from the notion of tutelar deities which was
part of the primitive ancestor-worship. In the process by which men
attained to cosmic theism, physical generalization was the chief
agency at work; but into anthropomorphic theism, as we have seen,
there entered conceptions derived from men's political thinking. For
such a people as the Romans, who could deify Imperator Augustus in
just the same way that the Japanese have deified their Mikado, it was
natural, and easy to conceive of God as a monarch enthroned in the
heavens and surrounded by a court of ministering angels. Such was the
popular conception in the early ages of Christianity, and such it has
doubtless remained with the mass of uninstructed people even to this
day. The very grotesqueness of the idea, as it appears to the mind of
a philosopher, is an index of the ease with which it satisfies the
mind of an uneducated man. Many persons, no doubt, have entertained
this idea of God without ever giving it very definite shape, and many
have recognized it as in great measure symbolic: yet nothing can be
more certain than that untold thousands have conceived it in its
full intensity of anthropomorphism. Alike in sermons and theological
treatises, in stately poetry and in every-day talk, the Deity has
been depicted as pleased or angry, as repenting of his own acts, as
soothed by adulation and quick to wreak vengeance upon silly people
for blasphemous remarks. In those curious bills of expenses for the
mediæval miracle-plays, along with charges of twopence for keeping up a
"fyre at hell mouthe," we find such items as a shilling for a purple
coat for God. In one of these plays an angel who has just witnessed
the crucifixion comes rushing into Heaven, crying, "Wake up, almighty
Father! Here are those beggarly Jews killing your son, and you asleep
here like a drunkard!" "Devil take me if I knew anything about it!" is
the drowsy reply. Not the slightest irreverence was intended in these
miracle-plays, which were the only dramatic performances tolerated
by the mediæval church, for the sake of their wholesome educational
influence upon the common people. In the light of such facts, one sees
that the representations of the Deity as an old man of august presence,
with flowing hair and beard, by the early modern painters, must have
meant to all save the highest minds much more than a mere symbol. Until
one's thoughts have become accustomed to range far and wide over the
universe it is doubtless impossible to frame a conception of Deity that
is not grossly anthropomorphic. I remember distinctly the conception
which I had formed when five years of age. I imagined a narrow office
just over the zenith, with a tall standing-desk running lengthwise,
upon which lay several open ledgers bound in coarse leather. There
was no roof over this office, and the walls rose scarcely five feet
from the floor, so that a person standing at the desk could look out
upon the whole world. There were two persons at the desk, and one of
them--a tall, slender man, of aquiline features, wearing spectacles,
with a pen in his hand and another behind his ear--was God. The other,
whose appearance I do not distinctly recall, was an attendant angel.
Both were diligently watching the deeds of men and recording them in
the ledgers. To my infant mind this picture was not grotesque, but
ineffably solemn, and the fact that all my words and acts were thus
written down, to confront me at the day of judgment, seemed naturally a
matter of grave concern.
If we could cross-question all the men and women we know, and
still more all the children, we should probably find that, even in
this enlightened age, the conceptions of Deity current throughout
the civilized world contain much that is in the crudest sense
anthropomorphic. Such, at any rate, seems to be the character of the
conceptions with which we start in life. With those whose studies
lead them to ponder upon the subject in the light of enlarged
experience, these conceptions become greatly modified. They lose their
anthropomorphic definiteness, they grow vague by reason of their
expansion, they become recognized as largely symbolic, but they never
quite lose all traces of their primitive form. Indeed, as I said a
moment ago, they cannot do so. The utter demolition of anthropomorphism
would be the demolition of theism. We have now to see what traces of
its primitive form the idea of God can retain, in the light of our
modern knowledge of the universe.