Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3)Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Religion
Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3)
Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Baptists -- Doctrines; Theology, Doctrinal
Saisset, Pantheism, 148—“An imperfect God, yet perfection arising
from imperfection.” Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 1:13—“Pantheism applies
to God a principle of growth and imperfection, which belongs only
to the finite.” Calderwood, Moral Philos., 245—“Its first
requisite is moment, or movement, which it assumes, but does not
account for.” Caro’s sarcasm applies here: “Your God is not yet
made—he is in process of manufacture.” See H. B. Smith, Faith and
Philosophy, 25. Pantheism is practical atheism, for impersonal
spirit is only blind and necessary force. Angelus Silesius: “Wir
beten ‘Es gescheh, mein Herr und Gott, dein Wille’; Und sieh’, Er
hat nicht Will’,—Er ist ein ew’ge Stille”—which Max Müller
translates as follows: “We pray, ‘O Lord our God, Do thou thy holy
Will’; and see! God has no will; He is at peace and still.”
Angelus Silesius consistently makes God dependent for
self-consciousness on man: “I know that God cannot live An instant
without me; He must give up the ghost, If I should cease to be.”
Seth, Hegelianism and Personality: “Hegelianism destroys both God
and man. It reduces man to an object of the universal Thinker, and
leaves this universal Thinker without any true personality.”
Pantheism is a game of solitaire, in which God plays both sides.
2. Its assumed unity of substance is not only without proof, but it
directly contradicts our intuitive judgments. These testify that we are
not parts and particles of God, but distinct personal subsistences.
Martineau, Essays, 1:158—“Even for immanency, there must be
something wherein to dwell, and for life, something whereon to
act.” Many systems of monism contradict consciousness; they
confound harmony between two with absorption in one. “In Scripture
we never find the universe called τὸ πᾶν, for this suggests the
idea of a self-contained unity: we have everywhere τὰ πάντα
instead.” The Bible recognizes the element of truth in
pantheism—God is “_through all_”; also the element of truth in
mysticism—God is “_in you all_”; but it adds the element of
transcendence which both these fail to recognize—God is “above
all”_ (Eph. 4:6)_. See Fisher, Essays on Supernat. Orig. of
Christianity, 539. G. D. B. Pepper: “He who is over all and in all
is yet distinct from all. If one is over a thing, he is not that
very thing which he is over. If one is in something, he must be
distinct from that something. And so the universe, over which and
in which God is, must be thought of as something distinct from
God. The creation cannot be identical with God, or a mere form of
God.” We add, however, that it may be a manifestation of God and
dependent upon God, as our thoughts and acts are manifestations of
our mind and will and dependent upon our mind and will, yet are
not themselves our mind and will.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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