Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural LawsBuchanan, James
Religion
Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws
Buchanan, James
Atheism
sees in the very processes by which it is brought to pass some of the
most signal proofs of these Divine perfections.
Now, as this method is followed in the work of Providence, which may be,
and often has been, described as a _continuous creation,_ and yet has no
tendency to destroy, or even to diminish, the evidence of a presiding
Intelligence in Nature, so no good reason can be assigned why it _might_
not also have been adopted in the production of planets and astral
systems, if so it had seemed good to Supreme Wisdom. If this method was
adopted for the propagation of plants and animals, no reason can be
given why it might not also have been adopted for the production of
planets and moons; nor would it in the latter case, any more than in the
former, impair the evidence of God's creative wisdom and power. For,
suppose it be possible that, by a marvellous process of self-evolution,
the material elements of Nature might assume new forms, so as to
originate a succession of new worlds and new planetary systems, without
the _immediate_ or _direct_ interposition of a Supernatural Will;
suppose that the earth and the other bodies now belonging to our own
system, were generated out of a prior condition of matter, existing in a
gasiform state and diffused through space as a Fire-Mist, subject to the
ordinary action of heat and gravitation; suppose, in short, that there
were LAWS FOR THE GENERATION OF WORLDS in the larger cycles of time,
just as there ARE LAWS FOR THE GENERATION OF ANIMALS in the short ages
of terrestrial life;--would a provision for such a succession of
marvellous developments necessarily destroy, or even impair, the
evidence for the being and perfections of God? Does the generation of
the animated tribes diminish the evidence of design in the actual
constitution of the world? And why should a similar provision, if any
such were found to exist, for the generation of stars and systems, be
regarded in any other light than as an exhibition, on a still larger
scale, of "the manifold wisdom of God?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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