The Idea of God as Affected by Modern Knowledge — John Shaqi
The Idea of God as Affected by Modern KnowledgeFiske, John
Religion
The Idea of God as Affected by Modern Knowledge
Fiske, John
God (Christianity)
kind of "pull" between the two bodies, is not science, but metaphysics.
An atheistic metaphysics may imagine such a "pull," and may interpret
it as the action of something that is not Deity, but such a conclusion
can find no support in the scientific theorem, which is simply a
generalized description of phenomena. The general considerations
upon which the belief in the existence and direct action of Deity is
otherwise founded are in no wise disturbed by the establishment of any
such scientific theorem. We are still perfectly free to maintain that
it is the direct action of Deity which is manifested in the planetary
movements; having done nothing more with our Newtonian hypothesis than
to construct a happy formula for expressing the mode or order of the
manifestation. We may have learned something new concerning the manner
of divine action; we certainly have not "substituted" any other kind
of action for it. And what is thus obvious in this simple astronomical
example is equally true in principle in every case whatever in which
one set of phenomena is interpreted by reference to another set. In no
case whatever can science use the words "force" or "cause" except as
metaphorically descriptive of some observed or observable sequence of
phenomena. And consequently at no imaginable future time, so long as
the essential conditions of human thinking are maintained, can science
even attempt to substitute the action of any other power for the direct
action of Deity. The theological objection urged by Leibnitz against
Newton was repeated word for word by Agassiz in his comments upon
Darwin. He regarded it as a fatal objection to the Darwinian theory
that it appeared to substitute the action of physical forces for the
creative action of Deity. The fallacy here is precisely the same as in
Leibnitz's argument. Mr. Darwin has convinced us that the existence of
highly complicated organisms is the result of an infinitely diversified
aggregate of circumstances so minute as severally to seem trivial or
accidental; yet the consistent theist will always occupy an impregnable
position in maintaining that the entire series in each and every one of
its incidents is an immediate manifestation of the creative action of
God.
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