CHAPTER V

ORTHODOX THEISM

We have seen that Pantheism fails to satisfy, inasmuch as itrequires us to mean something different by the word "God" fromwhat we have been in the habit of meaning.I have already said-Ifear, too often-that no conception of God can have any value ormeaning for us which does not involve his existence as anindependent Living Person of ineffable wisdom and power,vastness, and duration both in the past and for the future.Ifsuch a Being as this can be found existing and made evident,directly or indirectly, to human senses, there is a God.Ifotherwise, there is no God, or none, at any rate, so far as wecan know, none with whom we need concern ourselves.No consciouspersonality, no God.An impersonal God is as much a contradictionin terms as an impersonal person.

Unfortunately, when we question orthodox theology closely, wefind that it supposes God to be a person who has no material bodysuch as could come within the range of any human sense, and makean impression upon it.He is supposed to be of a spiritual natureonly, except in so far as one part of his triune personality is,according to the Athanasian Creed, "perfect man, of a reasonablesoul and human flesh subsisting."

Here, then, we find ourselves in a dilemma.On the one hand, weare involved in the same difficulty as in the case of Pantheism,inasmuch as a person without flesh and blood, or somethinganalogous, is not a person; we are required, therefore, tobelieve in a personal God, who has no true person; to believe,that is to say, in an impersonal person.

This, as we have seen already, is Atheism under another name,being, as it is, destructive of all idea of God whatever; forthese words do not convey an idea of something which humanintelligence can understand up to a certain point, and which itcan watch going out of sight into regions beyond our view, but inthe same direction-as we may infer other stars in space beyondthe farthest that we know of; they convey utterly self- destructive ideas, which can have no real meaning, and can onlybe thought to have a meaning by ignorant and uncultivated people. Otherwise such

foundation as human reason rests upon-that is tosay, the current opinion of those whom the world appraises asreasonable and agreeable, or capable of being agreed with for anytime-is sapped; the whole thing tumbles down, and we may havesquare circles and round triangles, which may be declared to beno longer absurdities and contradictions in terms, but mysteriesthat go beyond our reason, without being contrary to it.Few willmaintain this, and those few may be neglected; an impersonalperson must therefore be admitted to be nonsense, and animmaterial God to be Atheism in another shape.

On the other hand, if God is "of a reasonable soul and humanflesh subsisting," and if he thus has the body without which heis-as far as we are concerned-non-existent, this body must yet bereasonably like other bodies, and must exist in some place and atsome time.Furthermore, it must do sufficiently nearly what allother "human flesh" belonging to "perfect man" must do, or ceaseto be human flesh.Our ideas are like our organisms; they havesome little elasticity and circumstance-suiting power, somelittle margin on which, as I have elsewhere said, side-notes maybe written, and glosses on the original text; but this power isvery limited.As offspring will only, as a general rule, varyvery little from its immediate parents, and as it will faileither immediately or in the second generation if the parentsdiffer too widely from one another, so we cannot get our idea of- we will say a horse-to conjure up to our minds the idea of anyanimal more unlike a horse than a pony is; nor can we get a well- defined idea of a combination between a horse and any animal moreremote from it than an ass, zebra, or giraffe.We may, indeed,make a statue of a flying horse, but the idea is one which cannotbe made plausible to any but ignorant people.So "human flesh"may vary a little from "human flesh" without undue violence beingdone to our reason and to the right use of language, but itcannot differ from it so much as not to eat, drink, nor waste andrepair itself."Human flesh," which is without these necessaryadjuncts, is human flesh only to those who can believe in flyinghorses with feathered wings and bills like birds-that is to say,to vulgar and superstitious persons.

Lastly, not only must the "perfect man," who is the second personof the Godhead according to the orthodox faith, and who subsistsof "human

flesh" as well as of a "reasonable soul," not only mustthis person exist, but he must exist in some place either on thisearth or outside it.If he exists on earth, he must be in Europe,Asia, Africa, America, or on some island, and if he were met withhe must be capable of being seen and handled in the same way asall other things that can be called perfect man are seen;otherwise he is a perfect man who is not only not a perfect man,but who does not in any considerable degree resemble one.It isnot, however, pretended by anyone that God, the "perfect man," isto be looked for in any place upon the surface of the globe.

If, on the other hand, the person of God exists in some sphereoutside the earth, his human flesh again proves to be of anentirely different kind from all other human flesh, for we knowthat such flesh cannot exist except on earth; if in spaceunsupported, it must fall to the ground, or into some otherplanet, or into a sun, or go on revolving round the earth or someother heavenly body-or not be personal.None of thosewhose opinions will carry weight will assign a position either insome country on this earth, or yet again in space, to JesusChrist, but this involves the rendering meaningless of allexpressions which involve his personality.

The Christian conception, therefore, of the Deity proves whenexamined with any desire to understand our own meaning (and whatlawlessness so great as the attempt to impose words upon ourunderstandings which have no lawful settlement within them?) tobe no less a contradiction in terms than the Pantheisticconception.It is Atheistic, as offering us a God which is not aGod, inasmuch as we can conceive of no such being, nor ofanything in the least like it.It is, like Pantheism, anillusion, which can be believed only by those who repeat aformula which they have learnt by heart in a foreign language ofwhich they understand nothing, and yet aver that they believe it. There are doubtless many who will say that this is possible, butthe majority of my readers will hold that no proposition can bebelieved or disbelieved until its nature is understood.

It may perhaps be said that there is another conception of Godpossible, and that we may see him as personal, without at thesame time believing that he has any actual tangible existence. Thus we personify hope, truth,

and justice, without intending toconvey to anyone the impression that these qualities are women,with flesh and blood.Again, we do not think of Nature as anactual woman, though we call her one; why may we not conceive ofGod, then, as an expression whereby we personify, by a figure ofspeech only; the thing that is intended being no person, but ourown highest ideal of power, wisdom, and duration.

There would be no reason to complain of this if this manner ofusing the word "God" were well understood.Many words have twomeanings, or even three, without any mischievous confusion ofthought following.There can not only be no objection to the useof the word God as a manner of expressing the highest ideal ofwhich our minds can conceive, but on the contrary no betterexpression can be found, and it is a pity the word is not thusmore generally used.

Few, however, would be content with any such limitation of God asthat he should be an idea only, an expression for certainqualities of human thought and action.Whence, it may be fairlyasked, did our deeply rooted belief in God as a Living Personoriginate? The idea of him as of an inconceivably vast, ancient,powerful, loving, and yet formidable Person is one which survivesall changes of detail in men's opinion.I believe there are afew very savage tribes who are as absolutely without religioussense as the beasts of the field, but the vast majority for along time past have been possessed with an idea that there issomewhere a Living God who is the Spirit and the Life of all thatis, and who is a true Person with an individuality and self- consciousness of his own.It is only natural that we should beasked how such an idea has remained in the minds of so many - whodiffer upon almost every other part of their philosophy-for solong a time if it was without foundation, and a piece of dreamymysticism only.

True, it has generally been declared that this God is an infiniteGod, and an infinite God is a God without any bounds orlimitations; and a God without bounds or limitations is animpersonal God; and an impersonal God is Atheism.But may notthis be the incoherency of prophecy which precedes the successfulmastering of an idea? May we not think of this illusoryexpression as having arisen from inability to see the whereaboutsof a certain vast but tangible Person as to whose existence menwere

nevertheless clear? If they felt that it existed, and yetcould not say where, nor wherein it was to be laid hands on, theywould be very likely to get out of the difficulty by saying thatit existed as an infinite Spirit, partly from a desire to magnifywhat they felt must be so vast and powerful, and partly becausethey had as yet only a vague conception of what they were aimingat, and must, therefore, best express it vaguely.

We must not be surprised that when an idea is still inchoate itsexpression should be inconsistent and imperfect-ideas will almostalways during the earlier history of a thought be put togetherexperimentally so as to see whether or no they will cohere. Partly out of indolence, partly out of the desire of those whobrought the ideas together to be declared right, and partly outof joy that the truth should be supposed found, incoherent ideaswill be kept together longer than they should be; neverthelessthey will in the end detach themselves and go, if others presentthemselves which fit into their place better.There is noconsistency which has not once been inconsistent, nor coherencythat has not been incoherent.The incoherency of our ideasconcerning God is due to the fact that we have not yet trulyfound him, but it does not argue that he does not exist andcannot be found anywhere after more diligent search; on thecontrary, the persistence of the main idea, in spite of theincoherency of its details, points strongly in the direction ofbelieving that it rests upon a foundation in fact.

But it must be remembered there can be no God who is not personaland material: and if personal, then, though inconceivably vast incomparison with man, still limited in space and time, and capableof making mistakes concerning his own interests, though as ageneral rule right in his estimates concerning them.Where, then,is this Being? He must be on earth, or what folly can be greaterthan speaking of him as a person? What are persons on any otherearth to us, or we to them? He must have existed and be going toexist through all time, and he must have a tangible body.Where,then, is the body of this God? And what is the mystery of hisIncarnation?

It will be my business to show this in the following chapter.