God

a) The Existence of God

Modern unbelief is often the result of the pride or priggishness of the half-educated. It is seldom a forthright atheism; it is mostly a formless agnosticism. It is the ignoring of God rather than ignorance of God’s existence. No normal person can come to the full and practised use of his faculties and remain in utter ignorance of the existence of a supreme and infinite Being, nor can he fail to recognize something of God’s control of the world. The full proof of this assertion belongs to the philosophical sciences of Theodicy (or Natural Theology) and Apologetics. Here we offer only a brief summary of the traditional—and irrefutable—proofs for the existence of God.

1. The Argument from Sufficient Reason.— Everything that exists must justify its existence, that is to say, each thing that exists must have a sufficient reason for existing. Now, manifestly, this reason will be found either in the existing thing in question, or it will be found in some other thing. If the reason for existence is found in the existing thing itself, then this thing is so perfect that it involves existence in itself; it requires existence; it must exist and cannot be non-existent; existence is of its very essence; it is a self-existent thing. We call such a thing necessary. And, on the other hand, a thing which does not involve in itself the necessity for existence is called non-necessary or contingent. Now, contingent things justify their existence by other things, that is, by the things that give them existence. And if these latter things be contingent, then they justify their existence by yet other things. This dependency of contingent things on other contingent things cannot be an endless chain; at the beginning of it there must be a necessary being, a being so perfect that it must exist, a being that is self-existent. This being we call God. Since the things we see around us here on earth are contingent things (for they change and appear and disappear, which would be impossible if they had to exist), and since the world itself is contingent (for it is full of movement and change), we rightly conclude that the world and all things in it cannot justify their existence without an appeal to other being, and ultimately to necessary being. Now, necessary being is God. Therefore, God exists.

2. The Argument from Efficient Causality.— Every contingent thing is efficiently caused, that is to say, it is produced. This is obvious; it is the very definition of a contingent thing: for that which exists is either self-existing or it has been produced. The whole experience of life impresses upon us the existence and the operation of cause and effect. Since a contingent thing is produced, it is an effect, and that which produced it is its cause, or, more accurately, its efficient cause, that is, its making cause, its effecting cause. Now, if the efficient cause of a thing is itself the effect of a further cause, then we must seek that further cause; and if this also is found to be an effect, we press on to find a still further cause. The chain of cause and effect cannot be endless. The sane mind refuses to accept the possibility of an endless series of links beginning nowhere. And it is a defective mind that will accept as scientific a blind refusal to carry the quest of causes back to the beginning. In a word, the mind recognizes the necessity of a first cause. Now, this first cause cannot be itself an effect; else it is not first, for its own cause would be prior to it. The first cause must exist, and it must be itself uncaused. But an uncaused being which exists must have existence of itself; otherwise it would have existence from something else, from a further cause, and would not be first. Hence the first cause is a necessary being, that is, a being so perfect that it must exist and cannot be non-existent. This being we call God. Now, the world is a tissue of causes and effects; the world is contingent; the world is produced; the world and all things in it are effects. We must get back to the first and necessary cause, which is God. Therefore, God exists.

3. The Argument from Motion.—Motion is change from one state or condition to another. The most manifest kind of motion is the movement of a bodily thing from one place to another; this is called local motion. But there is motion other than that of bodies in space. There is motion in any change. Hence there is motion in learning, in thinking, in willing, for all these things involve change. There is motion when a substance changes from hot to cold, from small to large or large to small, from living to dead or lifeless to living. Now, wherever there is motion of any kind whatever, there is a source of motion; in a word, there is a mover. And the mover is something other than the thing moved. Motion is never self-originating. The world is full of motion; things move into existence and out of it; lifeless things are full of molecular and atomic motion; life itself is almost definable in terms of motion. This motion requires a mover distinct from the world and all that is in it. And, while one thing which is set in motion may at times convey this motion to other things, motion is not justified to the mind until it is traced to its first mover, itself unmoved. This will be found to be the necessary being and first cause> or God. Hence motion in the world demonstrates the existence of God.

4. The Argument from Design.—The world and all things in the world are built upon plans that are most intricate, delicate, complex; plans that exhibit a wondrous power and intelligence in the mind which framed them. Harmony and order are here, unity and complexity, balance and poise amid the greatest variety. Now, where order and plan exist, design exists. And where there is design, we have the work of a designer. Ultimately we must trace design to a first designer, for design, like everything else, must have its first cause. And where design is the expression of a wondrous power and intelligence, these perfections must be attributed to the designer. Hence, there is a first designer of this wonderful world, a designer of surpassing power and intelligence. This designer we call God.

5. The Argument from Conscience.—All men of all times have a clear knowledge of a duty incumbent upon them to do good and to avoid evil. We call this the natural law, that is, the moral law as known by human reason or conscience. This is an indubitable law, and while men may violate it, they cannot be ignorant of it. Now, where there is an indubitable law, there is an indubitable lawgiver, and ultimately a first lawgiver. Convention or custom cannot account for universal moral convictions; for conventions can be changed, and it is unthinkable that the moral law should change; that murder, for example, should come to be universally recognized as good, or theft as virtuous. Laws passed by human legislatures or rulers cannot explain moral notions; for human law may be repealed and even reversed, and it is absolutely unthinkable that men should universally accept a law making treason a good deed or disobedience to parents requisite. Moral notions cannot be explained away by mentioning diverse interpretations or applications of the moral law. It does not affect the universality and changelessness of morality to instance the fact that the Kanakas of the Hawaiian Islands once regarded as evil the action of stepping upon the shadow of the king, or the fact that a Roman householder considered himself justified in killing a disobedient slave. The point is that men have always recognized the existence of good and evil, however wildly and perversely fallen human nature may have applied the moral law. All men have ever recognized the moral law as there to be applied, no matter what monstrous applications of it were made. If the Kanaka regarded the simple action of stepping on the king’s shadow as evil, it was because he knew that certain things are, as a fact, evil, and others good, and that evil is to be avoided. If the Roman householder felt that it was right and good to kill a slave, his conviction is absolute evidence that he had the concept of right and wrong— that is, of morality—however badly or stupidly he applied that knowledge. In a word, it was because the evil action was evil that the Kanaka was impelled to avoid it (independently of the question of penalty for offence), and it was because the Roman regarded the killing of a slave as within his rights that he could do such a thing with untroubled conscience. Back of these monstrous matters, the true light of morality is apparent, although it shines with distorted rays through man’s misapplication of its law. Thus, respect for authority is right and good, even though the observance of that respect take fanciful and ridiculous forms. And murder is always wrong, as the Roman would admit, even though blindness to the human dignity of all men can give rise to the stupid and inhuman conviction that killing an inferior is no murder. Examples to prove that moral notions have changed are always futile; they are always examples of varying applications of unchanging notions; they are always proofs of what they seek to disprove, namely, that man has always and everywhere known and recognized the existence of right and wrong, has felt the existence of the moral law, has recognized the authoritative voice of conscience. And, as we have said, if man has always recognized the existence of a law, he has perforce recognized the existence of a lawgiver, and must admit that ultimately there is a first lawgiver, distinct from man’s nature and superior to it, who requires of man’s will (although he does not compel or force it) changeless and absolute adherence to good, and changeless avoidance of evil. This lawgiver we call God. Therefore, God exists.

6. The Argument from Universal Consensus,— All men of all times have an inevitable knowledge of the existence of divinity, or, in plain terms, of God. Even though this notion may be developed into absurd conclusions—such as the belief in many gods, or the belief that the world or the sun is divine— the basic notion is always there. Professed atheists are few, and even they are unable to state their position without implicitly denying it. The statement that there is no God cannot stand alone; the world must be explained, and the atheist is required to offer some reasons for its existence apart from the God whom he denies. He is thrown into the inescapable position of deifying the universe, or himself, or vague “energies” or “forces” or “nature,” and so to declare the existence of some inadequate divinity in place of the adequate God whose existence is distasteful to him. The study of history, of philology, of archaeology, evidences the fact that no race or tribe of men ever lived who were without what Cicero calls “deorum opinio ” or the conviction of existing divinity. Languages and cultures, monuments and temples, priesthoods and sacrifices, festivals and sacred rites, all give testimony that some idea of divinity has always and everywhere held captive the minds of men.—Now, what is the value of this universal consensus among men ? Can all men be wrong? They can, if their universal consent is a mere surface judgment upon the hidden causes or character of obvious physical facts. Thus all (or nearly all) men once believed that the earth is flat, and that the sun moves across the heavens every day while the earth stands still. But in a judgment of reason upon data that are clearly understood, all men cannot be wrong. If they could, then there is no value in human thinking at all, and all science perishes. In this case, all our certainties become mere opinions; and even then, believers in God have the best of it, for their opinion is a much pleasanter opinion than its ruinous opposite. But men, as a fact, cannot be universally in error in a judgment of rational nature. Men may be wrong in assuming that the sun moves about the earth; they cannot be wrong in concluding that motion requires a mover. Men may all be wrong in judging from appearances that a given triangle is equilateral; they cannot be wrong in the reasoned judgment that the angles of a triangle are equal to 18o°.—Now, the judgment of all men that divinity exists is a reasoned judgment. Manifestly, it is not a judgment about material or physical phenomena, such as the movement of the sun or the flatness of the earth. It is a judgment exacted by reason in the face of an existing world and of an obviously purposive human existence. It is a judgment reasoned with mathematical exactness from notions of necessity and contingency, from causality, from motion, from design in the universe, from moral notions and convictions, from human history. The data from which this judgment is deduced are certain, manifest, inescapable; the process of deduction is logical and exact; therefore, the judgment is a reasoned conclusion from certain data. And in such a judgment the universal consensus of mankind cannot be wrong. For such a judgment is the very voice of rational nature, and upon its validity depends all the value of human thinking. If such a judgment can be wrong, then nothing can be known with certitude, science is destroyed, and man must lapse into the imbecile and selfcontradictory silence of universal skepticism.—Reason, even in the uncultured man and the savage, requires the acknowledgment of an existing power, superhuman and supramundane, and ultimately selfsufficient. This is the basic judgment in which all men agree, and with this judgment alone is our argument concerned. It does not affect the argument in the slightest that some men have developed the basic idea of divinity into fantastic and absurd conclusions. For, although reason leads inevitably to the knowledge of existing divinity, it leads to detailed knowledge of God’s nature and attributes only by means of close and intricate thinking. Now man is mentally lazy and prone to avoid difficult thinking—for close and connected thinking is just about the hardest work that a person can be called upon to perform. Fallen man, injured in his mental alertness and industry by original sin, is all too ready to dispense himself from sustained effort of mind and to supply its lack by fancy and fable. The simple fact that some divinity exists is a judgment of reason that is almost obvious. The fact that God is one, infinite, all-perfect, is also a judgment of reason, but it is not simple and it is not obvious; it is rather like the judgment with which we conclude a demonstration in geometry. Hence, while all men are at one in acknowledging some divinity, their development of this idea is not always a consistent and a logical development. This fact explains the widely and wildly various conceptions of God and gods that have been held by different men of different places and different eras. But, as we have seen, the point of this present argument is the demonstrable fact that humankind as such has ever had some notion of divinity. This notion is the fruit of reaspned judgment drawn from certain data. Such judgment cannot possibly be erroneous; it is the unanimous consensus of humanity; it is the very voice of rational nature. Therefore, God exists.

7. The Argument from Practical Consequences.— History is our witness that belief in God is fundamental in the proper conception of human responsibility and of all that gives decency and nobility to human lives. Daily experience confirms the witness of history. Common sense bears out the testimony of both history and experience and declares that the thing must be so. Apart from the exceptional instances in which the idea of God was degraded and debased into a brutal polytheism (as among the Greeks in the days of decline and among the ancient Carthagenians) the influence of the concept of divinity has ever been as noble and beautiful as it has been powerful. Nay, even the exceptional cases prove our point by force of the ancient dictum, “corrupt™ optimi pessima” (which, freely, amounts to saying, “The finer a thing is, the more horrible is its abuse or its fall”); for belief in divinity, changed by human passion into something abominable, shows only what a noble thing has been overthrown. To see the beauty and the necessity of the worship of the true God, one has but to contemplate the horrible inhumanity of devil worship.—The denial of divinity reduces morality to a set of conventions to which human nature, with its prideful flair for utter independence, cannot long submit. Take away the creator and ruler of the universe, deny the judge of the world, and you rob human life of its meaning, its dignity, its value; you reduce moral conduct to a form of etiquette; you make of conscience a mere fear of the police. And why should men endure the irritating exactions of this etiquette and this servile fear of public authority? Indeed, men would not endure it for a fleeting moment, were it not for the fact, already instanced, that all men have a natural and normal conviction of divinity, no matter how loudly they disclaim it.

8. The Argument from the Impossible Alternative.—Those who deny God inevitably set up something in His place. The denial of God is never a simple removal; it is always a replacement. Some god or other men must have, even though they refuse to have God.—The god of the moment may be mankind, and his religion humanitarianism. Modern sociologists like this divinity, but, as we have seen, it will not do. Humanitarianism is a sentiment which offers itself with silky persuasiveness to unwary minds, but basically it is a cruel thing; humanitarianism, in a word, is utterly inhumane.—The god of the moment may be self, and his religion hedonism, which, in plain language, means a high old time for everyone and all barriers down. This is indeed a doctrine more acceptable to normal minds than the Pecksniffian pretensions of humanitarianism, but it labors under one essential difficulty: human nature simply will not endure it. Apart from the chaos which such a doctrine, if generally adopted, would introduce into the world, it is unacceptable because it is insufferably fatiguing. There is no effort so full of dead weariness as the unbridled quest of a good time. Human life, thrown back upon itself for its end and aim, is quickly found to be insufficient; it is an end not worth pursuing. Obviously, the altar of this divinity cannot stand.— The god of the moment may be the man of the future, to whose development the present generation must bend every effort, sacrificing self and selfinterest. But only a very few men can be induced to give their lives and energies to the vague business of developing what they have no notion of how to develop, and what they would probably not like if it were here now. Men in general have not the slightest interest in a superman or super-race in whose existence they would have no remembered or recompensing part. This divinity satisfies neither mind nor heart; it is wholly unacceptable.—The god of the moment may be the clock and the calendar, and his religion the cult of modernity and prideful scientism. Proud men feel that we are coming to cope with the universe in quite adequate fashion, and they conclude, with almost idiotic inconsistency, that we therefore need no God. They think that belief in a personal God is outmoded, behind the times, not up to date. They experience a kind of shame for the human race in the fact that most persons persist in accepting so ancient a thing as belief in God. They feel that the acceptance of such a belief is unworthy of modern excellence and modern achievement. These proud and scientistic moderns are always talking of beliefs suited to modern needs, modern minds, modern advance in science—as though truth itself were a changing and evolving thing. They might as well talk of heads suited to modern hats, and require the shaping of human skulls to conform with the latest decrees of fashion in point of headgear. They are fond of murmuring, “But this is the twentieth century!” as a kind of mystical protest against the sane submission of minds to eternal truth. Of course, as one critic has pointed out, they might as rationally murmur, “But this is Thursday afternoon!” or, “But it is nine o’clock in the morning of December fourth!” Admitting, with praise and gratitude to God, that modern man has learned much about the world that his ancient brethren did not know, and that he has done many things that his ancestors could not do, even if they had thought of doing them, there is not the slightest trace of evidence in such things to carry us away from the idea of God and the conviction of His existence. On the contrary. For, surely, our increasing knowledge of the marvels of the universe must bring the normal mind to an increased appreciation of the power and wisdom of the Creator. If a fortunate family were given a beautiful and comfortable house to live in, they would be in no manner of doubt about the fact that the house had a designer and builder. And if the interested members of the family were to make almost daily discoveries of new parts and conveniences about the house, and of objects that could be turned to continual new uses, it is natural to suppose that their admiration of the foresight and thoughtfulness and skill of the builder would increase even unto amazement. But the modern exponents of scientism seem to conclude that the amazing number and intricate detail of the objects in this house of the world are evidence that the house had no builder at all! There is only one word to describe this attitude of mind, and the word is idiotic. And a religion that amounts to idiocy cannot stand.—All concepts of divinity except that of one, infinite, all-perfect, allpowerful, personal God, are wholly inadequate to meet the demands of reason in its inevitable effort to account for the universe. Besides the false gods already considered, there have been, in the course of ages, fantastic and even monstrous divinities set up for the adoration of men. To instance examples: Men have worshipped the universe itself (‘pantheism); they have bowed in adoration before graven images (idolatry); they have worshipped hypothetical spiritual powers in sticks and stones and plants and beasts (religious animism); they have adored brute animals as divine (zoolatry); they have worshipped charms and talismans (fetichism); they have adored the sun, the moon, and the stars (Sabdeism). In our own day, the worshippers of false and futile gods are largely devotees of the Clock and Calendar, of whom we have already spoken. These modern idolaters like to call themselves agnostics (that is, they profess ignorance about supramundane Divinity, and declare that what they will not know, no other person can know), and some of them claim to be atheists, sincerely perhaps, but with unconscious self-deception.—No matter what false beliefs men may hold, no matter what form false worship may assume, no matter what gods may be set up or knocked down, there is always one constant, inevitable notion of ultimate and all-controlling Divinity behind the gods, “like the sky behind the clouds.” Thus, alternative divinities are found to be no alternatives for God at all; they are mere misapplications, and futile limitations, and inadequate expressions of the notion of true and unique Divinity, that is, of the Infinite Supreme Being; and to this the questing mind, in its honest and logical inquiry, must ever ascend. A real alternative, a real rival for God, turns out to be an impossibility.

b) The Nature of God

We have learned something of God’s nature in our study of His existence, for it is impossible to recognize, or even to conceive, the existence of a thing without knowing, in general terms, what it is that exists. Thus we know that God is the First Cause, the First Mover, the Producer and Designer of the Universe, the Ruler of Men by conscience, the Necessary Being. Turning our attention to what we thus know of God, we may bring to explicit knowledge further facts about the Divine Nature.

1. God is Self-Existent.—Reason requires that the chain of causality (of cause and effect) which is observable all about us, must lead back to a First Cause Itself Uncaused. Now the existence of a truly First Being can be traced back to no other being—* there is no other being beyond the First. Hence the First Being must exist of itself; it must be Necessary Being; it cannot be non-existent; it is subject to no causation; it is self-existent Being.

2. God is Infinite.—A being which is not subject to causation can have nothing added to it and nothing taken away, for such addition and subtraction are effects and imply causation. Nor can selfcausation be adduced to account for possible increase or diminution in such a being; for self-causation is a contradiction in terms. Further, there is nothing outside such a being to be added to it, for it is First Being (which produces all other being); and such a being can have nothing taken away from it, for there is no existing cause outside the First Being to affect it by such subtraction: besides, such a being is necessary and can lose nothing. Now, a being which cannot be decreased or added to, a being which is the producing (creating) cause of all other perfection or being; a being which is so perfect that it must exist—such a being has the fulness of all perfection; such a Being is absolutely without bounds or limits in perfection. In a word, such a Being is infinitely perfect, or, more simply, is infinite.

3. God is Unique.—To say that God is unique is to say that there is only one God and that He is without an equal. God is infinite, and there cannot be a plurality of infinite beings. For consider: should there be two such Beings, there would be a distinction, a line of demarcation, a limit, between them; the perfections of Being-A would be its own and distinct from those of Being-B. Being-A would lack the perfections proper to Being-B, and such perfections could conceivably be added to Being-A. But an infinite Being has no limits; by definition it is such Being as cannot conceivably have anything added to it; it cannot conceivably lack any perfection. Thus, either Being-A and Being-B are identified (and hence are one, and not two Beings), or neither A nor B is infinite. There can be only one infinite Being. God is infinite. Hence, there can be only one God. Hence God cannot have an equal.— We know from Revelation (which can be scientifically shown to be the actual word of the all-perfect God, who, being Infinite Truth, cannot deceive) that in the one God there are Three Distinct Divine Persons. Reason, however, is powerless to deal directly with this matter; reason cannot prove or disprove the Trinity. But reason, recognising the infallible character of the known word of God, is furnished with incontestable evidence of the truth of Three Distinct Persons in the God who is one in essence, nature, and attributes. This is a point to remember, and to call to the wandering attention of such illeducated persons as indulge in bromidic falsehoods about Faith being blind and servile. This is not the place to develop the point, but it is demonstrably certain that nothing is so completely and perfectly reasonable, nothing so free from blindness and servility, as our Faith.

4. God is a Spirit.—By spirit we do not mean a vaguely pervading atmosphere of sentimental minds. By spirit we mean a substance that is not made of bodily parts. Since God is infinite, He is simple (that is to say, uncomposed, free from the limitation of dependence upon a union of parts). Now every bodily being has parts, and is the sum-total of its parts. Every bodily being is, therefore, a thing made of a number of limited parts, for a part as such is limited. But God is without limits, and no number of limited parts can equal His infinity. Hence God is not bodily. He is a non-bodily, infinite substance. In other words, God is a Spirit infinitely perfect.

5. God is Eternal, Immeasurable, Everywhere

Present, and Changeless,—Since God is perfectly infinite, it follows that He is without limit or boundary in time, space, and place. Further: since He is infinitely perfect and admits neither addition nor subtraction in His Being, He is without change, for every change is a loss or subtraction of a previous state and the acquisition (addition) of the subsequent state; every change involves loss and gain, which is unthinkable in an infinite being.

6. God is All-Knowing and All-Wise.—God is infinite in all perfection; and knowledge and wisdom are perfections. Hence God is all-knowing or omniscient, and all-wise. To say that God is all-knowing is to say that nothing actual or possible is hidden from His complete and perfect understanding. To say that God is all-wise is to say that God knows most perfectly how best to attain the achievement of His holy will and to direct all things in His universe.

7. God is Perfectly Free, All-Powerful, AllHoly.—All these perfections follow upon God’s infinity. Boundless in all perfection, He has these perfections in an infinite degree. Since God is infinitely free, He is not forced to create or to do that which He chooses, in boundless wisdom, to perform. Since God is all-powerful or omnipotent, He can do all things in which there is no self-contradiction (selfcontradictory things are really not things, but denials of things, and amount to nothingness: “a square circle,” for instance, is a circle that is not a circle; its parts cancel one another; the result is zero). Since God is all-holy, He is infinitely just, truthful, and faithful, as He is infinitely good and merciful.

8. In God, Essence and Perfections are Identified.—When we say that God is infinitely perfect, we do not mean that He has or possesses perfections, but that He is His perfections. Nor are His perfections really distinct from one another, but all are one with one another and with His one undivided essence and nature. This follows upon the fact that God is Self-Existent Being, One, Indivisible, absolutely Simple.

c) The Action of God

Here we study the action of God upon His world. God acts upon the world by producing it, by preserving it in existence, and by governing it. God produced the world by creation; His preservation of it is called conservation; His government of it is called providence. With reference to the last-named action {vis., providence), it is more accurate to say that providence is God’s plan and purpose for the directing of all things to their due ends by suitable means, while the actual carrying out of the plan and purpose in this world is God’s government of the world.

1. God Created the World.—The world is changing, and hence is contingent and not necessary being. Only necessary being explains itself; contingent being must be referred to its causes, and ultimately to the First Cause Itself Uncaused, i. e., God, Hence the world must be referred to God, its First Cause. Now, the First Cause is really first; there is no preexisting matter out of which things could be made under the action of the First Cause: for nothing preexists to that which is first. Therefore, God must have made the world in one of two ways: (a) out of His own substance or (b) out of nothing. But He could not have made it out of His own substance, for He is infinite, spiritual, indivisible, all-perfect, and therefore not perfectible by assuming new forms. Pantheism, which makes the world an outpouring or emanation of God, is therefore inadmissible. It remains that God must have made the world out of nothing. But to make a thing out of nothing is to create that thing. Therefore, God created the world. Creation is “the producing of a thing in its entirety without use of any already existing materials; it is the production of a thing out of nothing.”—Even if the world has gone through a long series of changes, even if it has been gradually developed from some sort of primeval matter, there is still the same necessity of asserting that God created that primeval matter and gave it the power to develop as it has done.—Creation is a productive action which requires infinite power, for only boundless power can call things into existence, out of nothingness, by a simple, non-laborious act of the will.

God alone is infinite power. Therefore, God alone can create. Thus, then, does our strict reasoning proceed: The world was created; God alone can create; therefore, God created the world.

2. God Preserves the World.—What is drawn out of nothingness by the creative act has its only basis of being in the power that drew it forth. In a word, what is created cannot endure unless that power which gave it being keeps it in being. A created thing has no reality except such as is given to it, and it has no capacity in itself (since it has no necessary existence) to hold fast to the existence it has received; existence must be preserved in it. Hence it follows that the power which made the world preserves the world. For the existence of a contingent thing (and the world is contingent) involves essential dependence upon that which gives it existence, and when this latter withdraws its power, the contingent thing must cease to be. For this reason the preservation of the world has been accurately, if somewhat poetically, described as “a continuous creation.”—The creative power belongs to God alone. The creative power is necessary to conserve the world in being. The world is here; it endures. Therefore, God preserves the world.

3. God Governs the World.—God created the world. Now, God is boundless wisdom, and hence does nothing without a purpose and means for achieving that purpose. In other words, God made the world for an end (i. e,, an end in view, a purpose), and He, the Infinite Wisdom, must therefore have arranged means for achieving that end, and must apply these means to their function. But to arrange means and apply them is to govern. Therefore, God governs the world.—We see order and regularity in the world around us: in the movements of the earth and heavenly bodies, in the succession of seasons, of night and day; in the physical laws of cohesion, gravity, inertia; in the constancy of structure and tendency in plant, beast, and man. Everywhere we behold harmony, order, balance, although the world is most various and amazingly complex. Hence, the government of the world is a fact—a fact of universal experience.—God governs the bodily world of lifeless things by physical laws, and by the same laws he governs living bodies. But among living bodies there is one that is more than a body; there is man, who is made of a body and a spiritual soul. As a bodily being, man is subject to physical laws. As a being with understanding and freedom (by reason of his soul) man is governed by the natural law, that is, the moral law, which puts him under obligation to do good and avoid evil, although it does not coerce or force him to obedience.—The existence of what we call evils and imperfections in the world is in no sense an argument against God’s absolute government of the world unto its final end. To the agnostic the physical evils of existence (such as sickness, famines, death) and the so-called imperfections of the world (like deserts, malarial swamps, harshness of climate) present an insoluble mystery. But to the Christian these evils are perfectly explained: they are the outcome of the primal sin which hurt the world. And they are not really evils or imperfections at all, but fresh evidences of Divine Government in the world. For, were the world now free from physical evils and so-called imperfections, it would keep fallen man from attaining his true end. Its very beauty and satisfactoriness would so delight man that he would forget the purpose of his existence, which is to know, love, and serve God, and to attain to happiness with God in Heaven. We need the whip of adversity across our shoulders; we need harshness in nature. By these things we find our dull minds constantly taught that we have not here a lasting abode, but seek one that is to come; by these things our weak wills are steeled against sin, and made to cling to ennobling hope and saving labor.— Moral evil or sin is man’s work; it is not to be ascribed in any manner to God. Sin is a possibility inevitably bound up with man’s freedom, of which it is not the use, but the abuse. Yet even the dark realm of sin evidences God’s government of the world. Out of sin God frequently draws great benefits for mankind. Thus, out of the sin of persecutors He draws the heroic virtue of martyrs, which means salvation for the martyrs and a powerful good example for all men. Thus, out of the treason of Judas, God drew the Redemption of the human race. And the sociologist, of all men, should know how the injustice of men (for example, of certain employers) gives occasion for the exercise of the highest social virtues in the opportunity it furnishes for bestowing care and love upon its victims.

Summary of the Article

In this rather lengthy Article we have studied matters absolutely essential for the sociologist. Without the knowledge of these truths, the sociologist has no true “background” for his science; without them, the sociologist works blindly, guided only by sentiment or prejudice or unthinking allegiance to some set of arbitrary rules. The first lesson the sociologist must learn is that there is a God, to whom the world, including man, belongs by absolute right of ownership. If the justice of this primal claim be unrecognized, how shall the sociologist know what is justice for man? We have studied and proved the existence of God. We have investigated His nature. We have discerned His action upon the world as creation, preservation, and government or providence.