In conclusion we may attempt to speak in a brief way of the present
relationship between the Creator and the things which He has made, and
if possible to dispel the sad confusion prevailing in many minds between
God's continued immediate action in certain departments of nature and
His action in other departments through the intermediate use of second
causes.
On every hand we hear proclaimed a form of the doctrine of God's
omnipresence (usually called the divine "immanence") which not only
denies all distinction between the original Creation and the present
perpetuation of the world, but a form which practically denies all
second causes, and which cannot well be distinguished from pantheism,
though it would be a spiritualistic or "idealistic" form of pantheism,
or "monism," to use the favorite modern term. These extreme advocates of
what they term the divine "immanence" go so far as to deny all second
causes. And while they are fond of proclaiming this idea as an entirely
new discovery, and proclaiming it with all the enthusiasm of proselytes
to a new religion, they are also prone to state the (seemingly) opposed
doctrine of second causes in such a way that it amounts to a mere
caricature, a burlesque, picturing a sort of "absentee" God, who started
the universe running and now merely stands by and watches it go. Thus
pantheism and deism are often spoken of as the only alternatives for the
choice of the modern man; for the real teachings of the Bible and of
Christian philosophy are as completely ignored as if they had never been
formulated or taught by intelligent people.
Let us first consider the scientific aspects of the doctrine of second
causes, and the doctrine of God's immediate acting in various
departments (or all departments) of nature.
1. We cannot deny that the will of man is a real cause, producing
continual changes in the world about us. More than this, if there are
not also second causes outside of the will of free intelligent
personalities, the whole universe must be a gigantic deception; for it
seems to be full of second causes. Long chains of what seem like second
causes exist, made up of infinite numbers of links, as when the sun
carries an amount of water up into the air, the latter dropping the
water upon a mountain in the form of rain, gravity rolling it down the
slope in vast force, sweeping away villages and towns, changing the
fates of individuals and of nations. To quote two familiar examples from
Stewart and Tait: "In a steam engine the amount of work produced depends
upon the amount of heat carried from the boiler into the condenser; and
this amount depends in its turn upon the amount of coal which is burned
in the furnace of the engine. In like manner the velocity of the bullet
which issues from the rifle depends upon the transformation of the
energy of the powder; this in turn depends upon the explosion of the
percussion cap; this again upon the fall of the trigger; and lastly this
upon the finger of the man who fires the rifle."[54] Thus even the very
strongest opponents of the idea of second causes never deny that the
latter seem to surround us on every side, and that it would be possible
to trace a continuous line of apparent effects and causes back to the
very beginning.
[Footnote 54: "The Unseen Universe," p. 184.]
This view of the matter, it is evident, readily leads to a deistic view
of the universe,--or to that burlesque of the Christian view spoken of
as the doctrine of an "absentee God," watching His universe run from the
outside, slightly concerned with what it does.
2. On the other hand, a careful study of the correlation of forces shows
us that the great First Cause is still very closely related to the
operation of His universe. We may start, for instance, with the old
argument from the evidences of _design_ in nature, which, though often
sneered at of late, cannot be cavalierly dismissed in this way; for, as
Dugald Stewart has well said, "every combination of means to an end
implies intelligence." But the direct or immediate action of the great
Intelligence behind nature is manifest in the marvellous behavior of
the cells; which, instead of behaving in a way to indicate that their
life processes are due to properties inherent in the atoms and molecules
composing them, show every appearance of being _mere automata_ under the
direct control of an intelligent, purpose-filled Mind,--a Mind external
to themselves, it is true, and gloriously transcending them, but
constantly, ceaselessly exercised by an immediate action which we may
well call "immanent," in the original and proper sense of this term. Yet
vital action is capable of exact correlation with the other forces of
nature; and thus the modern law of the correlation of forces teaches us
that the energy behind life must be the same as the energy pervading all
nature, the various manifestations of which we know as light, heat,
gravity, electricity, etc. Thus while the study of the behavior of life
or the doctrine of "vitalism" might encourage us to think that in the
cells and in the behavior of protoplasm we are witnessing the direct
action of an intelligent Creator; yet we find that by the correlation of
forces we must _say the same about all the physical and chemical
phenomena of nature_. In other words, while the study of mere physical
and chemical action might easily lead us to a strong belief in second
causes, or to the belief that in this department of nature at least
certain "properties" had been imparted to matter and it had then been
left to act largely by itself; yet, since the vital processes of living
organisms are capable of exact correlation with all other forces, such
as light, heat, and electricity, the direct action of this universal
all-controlling Mind in all the phenomena of nature seems demonstrated
beyond a doubt, leaving apparently little or no room for any action of
second causes.
But this view of the matter, as is very evident, is liable to lead to a
pantheistic view of the universe, than which nothing could be more
horrible.
How then shall we reconcile these conflicting views?
In this case, as in so many others, the Bible comes in to show us the
rational _via media_, the straight path of reason and sound philosophy
which avoids the absurdities of both extremes.
The plain and unambiguous teaching of the Bible is that God, the
Creator, is a being, a person, infinite in all His powers and
perfections, omnipresent throughout the universe; yet that there is a
place in which He is to be found, or where He abides, in a sense in
which He is not to be found in any other place. This paradox is easily
understood when we realize that God is present everywhere throughout His
universe _by His word and by His Spirit,_--His word being as effective
throughout the remotest corners of His universe as near at hand, for the
very simple reason that matter has no "properties" which He has not
imparted to it, and therefore it can have no innate inertia or
reluctance to act which God's word would need to overcome in order to
induce it to act, even when this word operates across the boundless
fields of space. He has created free personalities, and He leaves the
mind of each of His creatures free to serve Him or not to serve Him,
these free intelligent beings becoming thus true second causes. More
than this, provision for almost innumerable second causes seems to have
been made even among other departments of nature, without however
interfering with the direct action of the word of the Infinite One in
guiding and controlling them all.
Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior, was associated with the Father in all
the primary work of Creation; and He came to earth to show us what God
the Father is like, that mortals might behold their Creator without
being consumed. In Him we are to behold as much of the Deity as it is
for our good to know; beyond that we must trust the hand that never
wearies, the mind that never blunders, the heart that never grows cold.
In reality the seeming conflict between the doctrine of second causes
and that of God's omnipresence is closely analogous to the old
(imaginary) conflict between the Law and the Gospel, read from the book
of nature instead of from the Bible. The reign of second causes is the
reign of law; but God's immediate action brings in the supernatural, the
miraculous, or the Gospel. Each has its proper place; and neither must
be dwelt on to the exclusion of the other. We are all under the hard
exactitude of the law, with its irrevocable condemnation, until the
Gospel intervenes, and not only pardons the past, but enables us to
fulfil the law's requirements for the future. The reign of second causes
alone would take away man's moral responsibility, making us all mere
creatures of our environment, the victims of a merciless determinism,
and death would be the inevitable result of the violation of the
slightest physical or physiological law. But we are all given power to
live above environment, and a beneficent healing power is constantly
intervening to save us from the consequences of our errors, healing our
wounds and curing our diseases, in this giving us an object lesson of
the forgiveness of sin and a promise of our ultimate conquest over all
its power. We are all ineluctably bound about by countless chains of
second causes, "awful with inevitable fates," until we see through them
all the close providential working of our Creator, who is also our
Saviour, and who is in no way shackled by His own laws, but conducts all
things according to the counsel of His own will.
The Bible teaches us of a Creation as a definite act, completed at a
definite period in the past, and it gives us the Sabbath as the divine
memorial of this _completed_ Creation. We have seen how science also
points backward along the various diverging lines of the great
perspective of the ages to the vanishing point whence they all begin,
the birth-day of the world; and we say that thus science confirms the
Bible record of Creation. But we also know that when Christ was being
examined by the Sanhedrin for healing on the Sabbath, He defended
Himself by saying, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." That is,
although "the works were finished from the foundation of the world," and
second causes are now largely operative in nature all around us, still
there is everywhere manifest an active energy, a presence, an
Intelligence, "in Whom we live, and move, and have our being."
That we cannot comprehend all this, that we cannot set definite
boundaries to these seemingly conflicting views, is not at all
surprising; for we are but finite.[55] Even His universe partakes so much
of His prerogative of infinity that it is utterly beyond the compass of
our finite minds. Indeed, if either the Bible or the book of nature
contained nothing beyond what we could easily comprehend, would it not
diminish our reverence and awe for the One behind them, Whom we now
regard as infinite in power and in wisdom?
True, the natural human heart cannot bear this thought of the direct
acting throughout nature of the infinite Creator. It brings us too close
beneath His gaze in our sinful shortcoming and nakedness.
[Footnote 55: A recent clever writer likens some of these metaphysical
speculations to the act of a baby sucking at a nursing bottle. So long
as there is any milk in the bottle, the baby sucks with pleasure and
profit. Unfortunately the little fellow does not always stop sucking
when the supply of milk gives out, but still keeps on sucking empty air,
with resulting discomfort and colic. We all need to recognize the limits
of the intellectual milk supply, and not keep on trying to solve
problems that are in their very nature beyond the limits of the human
mind.]
And so men draw the veil of their pantheistic or monistic philosophy
over their hearts, to hide them from His all-searching gaze. In ancient
times they seem to have done the same, as the monuments of Egypt and
Babylonia declare; and the intimate knowledge of Nature and its Creator
which they had in the morning of our world, degenerated into the nature
worship and polytheism which we find so nearly universal at the first
dawn of secular history. It is only the child of God, the redeemed man,
who can view without flinching the sublime fact of a direct Creation, or
face the other great fact that what we call second causes are not the
real causes of natural action, that the ordinary phenomena of light,
heat, gravity, vital action, etc., do not occur because certain
"properties" have been once imparted to matter and it then left to act
of itself, any more than the child of God is left to struggle along with
the supply of divine grace which was imparted to him at his conversion.
The Christian feels his constant dependence upon his Creator for
overcoming power day by day, and he sees the whole universe just as
momently dependent upon the tireless watchcare of the great Sustainer of
all. The Christian alone delights to look upon the ceaseless service of
his Father's love, perpetually ministering to the needs and even to the
whims of His creatures. But if this tireless ministry reminds man of his
own spiritual nakedness and insular selfishness, it serves also to
remind him that it is only the free gift of a righteousness not his own
that can clothe the ashamed soul cowering beneath the eye of infinite
Purity and unselfish Love.
In our natural state we are like the dead, inorganic matter. Only by a
new life that must be imparted to us from above, a real, individual, new
creation, can we become alive spiritually. And then only by constant
dependence for spiritual life and growth upon the word of the One who
first created us can we hope to develop into His true sons and
daughters, whose continuous care is momently exercised in controlling
every particle of our bodily frame, and by whose continuous guidance in
the development of character we hope to become worthy of a place in His
presence forevermore.
V
Our Lord Jesus once said to the leaders of the Jews, "If ye believed
Moses, ye would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not
his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" (John 5: 46-47). In our
days is certainly consistent and appropriate that those who have had
their faith revived in the first chapters of the Bible should also have
renewed confidence in the last part of the Bible. A belief in a real
Creation of the world, as recorded in the book of Genesis, naturally
implies a belief in the end of the world as predicted in the book of
Revelation. A belief in the former destruction of the world by water is
in accord with a belief in its coming destruction by fire, each of these
destructions being not absolute but regenerative.
This is in fact the line of argument used in that remarkable prophecy of
2 Peter 3: 3-7:
"In the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their
own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For, from the
days that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from
the beginning of the creation. For this they wilfully forget, that there
were heavens of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst
water, by the word of God; by which means the world that then was, being
overflowed with water, perished; but the heavens that are now, and the
earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved
against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men."
Two points in this remarkable prophecy deserve special attention:
1. It is a description of the religio-scientific problems of the "last
days"; and the class of people referred to are represented as "mocking"
at the second coming of Christ, because they have grown accustomed to
denying, or "wilfully forgetting," the former destruction of the world
by the waters of the Flood. This prediction, as we have seen, is in
complete and accurate accord with the present situation; for the
doctrine of Evolution is chiefly supported by the accepted theories of
geology that there never was a universal Flood. Belief in the current
theories of geology and in a universal Deluge cannot be held by the same
mind, for they are mutually exclusive: either one makes the other
meaningless. And as the popular geology is the foundation of the
Evolution theory, so does the latter render useless and incredible what
the Bible calls "that blessed hope," the second coming of Christ and the
purification of the earth by fire.
2. The mockers here described certainly talk exactly like our modern
_uniformitarians_; for they argue that "from the days that the fathers
fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the
creation." They imply that in the days of "the fathers" some people were
foolish enough to believe differently; but since they "fell asleep" we
have learned better. It should also be carefully noted that their theory
of uniformity stretches back, not to the _close_ of Creation, but to
"the _beginning_ of the Creation." Plainly, then, _Creation itself is
embraced in their scheme of absolute uniformity_; and according to their
view all distinction is smoothed out between Creation and the present
perpetuation of the world by second causes. How could we ask for a more
accurate word picture of the modern popular doctrines of the
evolutionists and their characteristic methods of reasoning than is here
given us by an inspired prophecy nearly two thousand years ago?