Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3)Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Religion
Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3)
Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Baptists -- Doctrines; Theology, Doctrinal
essence identical (371); it is my larger self (372); and this
larger self alone _is_ (379). It includes all reality, and we know
other finite minds, because we are one with them in its unity”
(409).
The experience of George John Romanes is instructive. For years he
could recognize no personal Intelligence controlling the universe.
He made four mistakes: 1. _He forgot that only love can see_, that
God is not disclosed to the mere intellect, but only to the whole
man, to the integral mind, to what the Scripture calls “the eyes
of your heart”_ (Eph. 1:18)_. Experience of life taught him at
last the weakness of mere reasoning, and led him to depend more
upon the affections and intuitions. Then, as one might say, he
gave the X-rays of Christianity a chance to photograph God upon
his soul. 2. _He began at the wrong end_, with matter rather than
with mind, with cause and effect rather than with right and wrong,
and so got involved in the mechanical order and tried to interpret
the moral realm by it. The result was that instead of recognizing
freedom, responsibility, sin, guilt, he threw them out as
pretenders. But study of conscience and will set him right. He
learned to take what be found instead of trying to turn it into
something else, and so came to interpret nature by spirit, instead
of interpreting spirit by nature. 3. _He took the Cosmos by bits_,
instead of regarding it as a whole. His early thinking insisted on
finding design in each particular part, or nowhere. But his more
mature thought recognized wisdom and reason in the ordered whole.
As he realized that this is a universe, he could not get rid of
the idea of an organizing Mind. He came to see that the Universe,
as a thought, implies a Thinker. 4. _He fancied that nature
excludes God_, instead of being only the method of God’s working.
When he learned how a thing was done, he at first concluded that
God had not done it. His later thought recognized that God and
nature are not mutually exclusive. So he came to find no
difficulty even in miracles and inspiration; for the God who is in
man and of whose mind and will nature is only the expression, can
reveal himself, if need be, in special ways. So George John
Romanes came back to prayer, to Christ, to the church.
On the general subject of intuition as connected with our idea of
God, see Ladd, in Bib. Sac., 1877:1-36, 611-616; 1878:619; Fisher,
on Final Cause and Intuition, in Journ. Christ. Philos., Jan.
1883:113-134; Patton, on Genesis of Idea of God, in Jour. Christ.
Philos., Apl. 1883:283-307; McCosh, Christianity and Positivism,
124-140; Mansel, in Encyc. Brit., 8th ed., vol. 14:604 and 615;
Robert Hall, sermon on Atheism; Hutton, on Atheism, in Essays,
1:3-37; Shairp, in Princeton Rev., March, 1881:264.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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