Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3)Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Religion
Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3)
Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Baptists -- Doctrines; Theology, Doctrinal
Not only force but also intelligence must be attributed to atoms,
before they can explain any operation of nature. Herschel says not
only that “the force of gravitation seems like that of a universal
will,” but that the atoms themselves, in recognizing each other in
order to combine, show a great deal of “presence of mind.” Ladd,
Introd. to Philosophy, 269—“A distinguished astronomer has said
that every body in the solar system is behaving as if it knew
precisely how it ought to behave in consistency with its own
nature, and with the behavior of every other body in the same
system.... Each atom has danced countless millions of miles, with
countless millions of different partners, many of which required
an important modification of its mode of motion, without ever
departing from the correct step or the right time.” J. P. Cooke,
Credentials of Science, 104, 177, suggests that something more
than atoms is needed to explain the universe. A correlating
Intelligence and Will must be assumed. Atoms by themselves would
be like a heap of loose nails which need to be magnetized if they
are to hold together. All structures would be resolved, and all
forms of matter would disappear, if the Presence which sustains
them were withdrawn. The atom, like the monad of Leibnitz, is
“parvus in suo genere deus”—“a little god in its nature”—only
because it is the expression of the mind and will of an immanent
God.
Plato speaks of men who are “dazzled by too near a look at
material things.” They do not perceive that these very material
things, since they can be interpreted only in terms of spirit,
must themselves be essentially spiritual. Materialism is the
explanation of a world of which we know something—the world of
mind—by a world of which we know next to nothing—the world of
matter. Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 297, 298—“How about your material
atoms and brain-molecules? They have no real existence save as
objects of thought, and therefore the very thought, which you say
your atoms produce, turns out to be the essential precondition of
their own existence.” With this agree the words of Dr. Ladd:
“Knowledge of matter involves repeated activities of sensation and
reflection, of inductive and deductive inference, of intuitional
belief in substance. These are all activities of mind. Only as the
mind has a self-conscious life, is any knowledge of what matter
is, or can do, to be gained.... Everything is real which is the
permanent subject of changing states. That which touches, feels,
sees, is more real than that which is touched, felt, seen.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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