PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Systematic Theology — Volume 1
Hodge, Charles, 1797–1878 · 293,425 words · 364 reading sections
§4, F.] MATERIALISM. ITS REFUTATION. 293
controlled by mind, — it has, as it Avere, a soul within it." ^ This illustration holds just so far as it was intended to hold. The intel- lect which controls the engine is not in it, nor is it affected hj its chanoes. Nevertheless, in the body, as well as in the engine, the controlling intellect is equally distinct fr…
928 wordsSECTION 182J4, F.] MATERIALISM. ITS REFUTATION. 295
Mr. Wallace. To quote only one more authority, we refer to the eminent nat- uralist Wallace, the friend and associate of Darwin, and the zeal- ous defender of his theory. " If," says he, " a material element, or a combination of a thousand material elements in a molecule, are alike unconscious, it is impossible for us …
891 wordsSECTION 183§4, F.J MATERIALISM. ITS REFUTATION. 297
ask : " Is it only this ? Is there not behind this material substance, a higher than molecular power in the thoughts which are immor- talized in the poetry of a Milton or a Shakespeare, the art crea- tions of a Michael Angelo or a Titian, the harmonies of a Mozart or a Beethoven ? Is there really no immortal portion se…
889 wordsSECTION 184§ 5, A.] PANTHEISM. 299
in the University of Edinburgh), " Mind and Brain ; " Huxley's " Discourse on the Physical Basis of Life ; " his " Evidence of Man's Place in Nature ; " and " Introduction to the Classification of Animals ; " and his " Lay Sermons and Essays ; " Professor Tyndall's " Essay on Heat ; " " The Correlation and Conservation…
841 wordsSECTION 185§ 5, A.] PANTHEISM. 301
in ray opinion, he cannot but produce, so that the creation ceases to be unintelligible, and God is no more without a world than a world without God." ^ It is one of the most familiar aphorisms of the German philosophers, " Ohne Welt kein Gott ; und ohne Gott keine Welt." Renan in his " Vie de J^sus," understands by P…
930 wordsSECTION 186§ 5, A.] PANTHEISM. 303
childhood disappeared. The personal God whom the Moravians worshipped was exchanged for the impersonal Divinity of philos- ophy. Nor did tliis theology seem impious. No, it was the very essence of true religion." There is good reason to believe that M'ith regard to the personal existence of the soul after death, Schlei…
1,396 wordsSECTION 187VOL. 1. 20
306 PART L — THEOLOGY. [Ch. m. — Axti-Theism. follow this impulse is not only a necessity but it is the right and the duty of every man, and every one should be reckoned an enemy who wishes to hinder another in the gratification of the impulses of his nature. The measure of every one's right is his power. The best rig…
504 wordsSECTION 188§ 5, A.] PANTHEISM. 307
pantheists allow or acknowledge) the sonl of man is the highest form of the existence of God. As the souls of men differ very much one from another, one being much superior to others, the greater the man the more divine he is, i. e., the more does he rep- resent God ; the more of the divine essence does he reveal. The …
915 wordsSECTION 189§ 5, B.] PANTHEISM. 309
changing manifestation. Pantheism admits of no freedom, no re- sponsibility, no conscious life after death. Cousin sums up the doctrine in this comprehensive paragrapli : " The God of con- sciousness is not an abstract God, a solitary monarch exiled beyond the limits of creation, upon the desert throne of a silent eter…
1,462 wordsSECTION 190Part 190
We have here the constantly recurring pantheistic formula, Thesis, Analysis, Synthesis ; Being, Development, Restoration. The Infinite, the Finite, and their Identity. The principal differ- ence between the Brahminical system and the theories of the later pantheists, is that the latter make the universe co-eternal with…
209 wordsSECTION 191§5, B.] HISTORY OF PANTHEISM. 818
Relation of Pantheism to Polytheism. 8. The vast polytheistic system of the Hindus is founded on Pantheism and is its logical consequence. In the first place, as just remarked, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, commonly called the Hindu Trinity, are not persons, but personifications, or different aspects under which Infinite …
868 wordsSECTION 192§5, B.] HISTORY OF PANTHEISM. 316
salt thrown into the ocean, which immediately disappears. Its in- dividuaUtv is lost. This absorption of the soul is the highest beati- fication which Pantheism offers to its votaries. But this, in the case of the vast majority of men, can be attained only after a long process of transmigrations extending, it may be, t…
940 wordsSECTION 1938 5,B.] HISTORY OP PANTHEISM. 317
(to ovtws ov), they could not believe in the existence of this passing world. If the one existed, the other could only seem to exist ; if they lived in the one, they could not live in the other. Their ex- istence on earth was to them a problem, their eternal life a cer- tainty. The highest object of their religion was …
861 wordsSECTION 194§ 5, C] HISTORY OF PANTHEISM. 319
ruling things at will ; and, in fact, Aristotle also remarked of the old physiologists, that they had not distinguished the moving cause from matter."^ Of Heraclitus, Dollinger, in his able work " The Gentile and the Jew in the Courts of the Temple of Christ," savs he " meant by his ' fire,' an ethereal substance as pr…
900 wordsSECTION 195§ 6, C] HISTORY OF PANTHEISM. 321
poreal things, as our abstractions, space, time, etc., have merely an existence in our thoughts ; so all that I'eally exists can only be known through the senses." ^ This judgment, however, is modified by what he gays elsewhere. It is very plain that the later Stoics, especially among the Latins, as Seneca and Marcus A…
469 wordsSECTION 196VOL. I. 21
322 PART I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. IH. — Theism. forms himself once more by a general renovation into a world, in which the same events, under similar circumstances, are again to be repeated down to the minutest detail. Many of these great catastrophes have already happened, and the process, of burning by fire will follow a…
1,459 wordsSECTION 197Part 197
As Plato made ideas eternal and immutable ; as they were all included in the idea of God, i. e., in God ; and as they constitute the only really existing beings, all that is phenomenal or that affects the senses being mere shadows of the real, it can hardly be denied that his system in its essential character is really…
777 wordsSECTION 198§5, C.J . HISTORY OF PAITTHEISM. 327
principle of life, determining and mastering matter. Thus, the body is nothing of itself; it is what it is, only through the soul, the nature and being of which it expresses, to which it stands in the relation of a medium in which the object, the soul, is reahzed ; and so it cannot be imagined without the body, nor the…
874 wordsSECTION 199§5, D.] HISTORY OF PANTHEISM. 329
John Scotus Erigena. The most pronounced Pantheist among the schoolmen was John Scotus Erigena. Little is known of his origin or history. From his name Scotus and designation Erigena (son of Erin), it has been generally assumed that he was an Irishman. It is known that he enjoyed the protection and patronage of Charle…
854 wordsSECTION 200§ 5, E.] HISTORY OF PANTHEISM. 331
a highly finished education. He early devoted himself to the study of philosophy, and was at first a disciple of Des Cartes. Leibnitz characterizes the system of Spinoza as Cartesianism run wild. Des Cartes distrusted the testimony of the senses. His starting-point was the consciousness of existence, "I think." In that…
1,510 wordsSECTION 201THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.
Having considered the arguments in favor of the doctrine that God is, and also the various systems opposed to Theism, we come now to consider the question, Can God be known ? and if so, How ? that is, How does the mind proceed in forming its idea of God, and, How do we know that God really is what we believe Him to be …
807 wordsSECTION 202§ 1, A.] GOD AS AN OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE. 337
think of a round square, or that a part is equal to the whole. But we can think that God is infinite and eternal. Crod Incomprehensible. 3. When it is said that God can be known, it is not meant that He can be comprehended. To comprehend is to have a complete and exhaustive knowledge of an object. It is to understand…
460 wordsSECTION 203VOL. I. 22
33S PAET I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. IV. — Can God be known ? thus partial and imperfect, no sane man would assert that we have no self-knowledge. The common doctrine on this subject is clearly expressed by Des Cartes : ^ " Sciri potest, Deum esse infinitum et omnipotentem, quanquam anima nostra, utpote finita, id nequeat co…
1,387 wordsSECTION 204§1, C] GOD AS AN OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE. 341
is not now the question. He admits that we are forced by the con- stitution of our nature thus to think of God. And by the funda- mental principle of all true philosophy, what we are forced to believe must be true. It is true, therefore, that God really is what we take Him to be, when we ascribe to Him the perfections …
937 wordsSECTION 205§ 1, C] GOD AS AN OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE. 348
morality or personality imply any limitation inconsistent with abso- lute perfection. We do not limit God when we say He cannot be irrational as well as rational, unconscious as well as conscious, finite as well as infinite, evil as well as good. The only limitation ad- mitted is the negation of imperfection. Reason is…
962 wordsSECTION 206§2.] GOD AS AN OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE. 346
is our ruler, and father, with whom we can commune. His favour is our life, his loving-kindness better than life. This sublime revela- tion of God in his own nature and in his relation to us is not a delusion. It is not mere regulative truth, or it would be a deceit and mockery. It makes God known to us as He really is…
899 wordsSECTION 207§2.] GOD AS AN OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE. 347
lectual intuition which is apart from sense, above consciousness, and released from the laws of the understanding, and which compre- hends the absolute by becoming the absolute, and thus knows God by being God."^ This assumption that man is God, shocks the reason and common sense of men as well as outrages their relig-…
910 wordsSECTION 208§ 8, A.] GOD AS AN OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE. 349
therefore, to say that God is eternal is to deny that He has either thought or consciousness. 7. Again, " Benevolence, hohness, justice, wisdom," says Man- sel, " can be conceived by us only as existing in a benevolent and holy and just and wise being, who is not identical with any one of his attributes, but the commo…
883 wordsSECTION 209§3, A.] GOD AS AN OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE. 361
that word and which produces a certain effect on the eyes of those who see. He may even understand the laws hy which the produc- tion of colour is determined. A blind man has written a treatise on optics. Thirdly, there is the ignorance under which the mind labors when it can prove contradictory propositions concei'nin…
902 wordsSECTION 210§ 3, A.] GOD AS AN OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE. 353
seeing that it cannot be. Hamilton and Mansel constantly assert that an absolute person is a contradiction in terms. And so it is, if their definition of the absolute be correct ; and if a contradiction, it is impossible. 2. If to our reason the personality of an infinite God be a con- tradiction, then it is impossibl…
494 wordsSECTION 211VOL. I. 23
354 PAET I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. IV. — Can God be known? includes the affirmation of the mind that a thing is true and trust- worthy. But it is impossible for the mind to affirm anything of that of which it knows nothing. Romanists indeed say that if a man believes that the Church teaches the truth, then he believes all t…
450 wordsSECTION 212JS,B.] GOD AS AN OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE. 35()
Objections to the Doctrine of Regulative Knowledge. 1. The first remark on this doctrine of reoulative knowledge is, that it is self-contradictory. Regulative truth is truth designed to accomplish a given end. Design, however, is the intelligent and voluntary adaptation of means to an end ; and the intelligent adap- t…
945 wordsSECTION 213§ 3, C] GOD AS AN OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE. 357
wliich is incapable of all relation, then it must be alone ; nothing but the Absolute can be actual or possible. Then it can neither know nor be known. And if the Infinite be all, then again there can be no finite. Then it is just as certain that the Absolute and Infinite cannot be cause, or conscious, or a person, as …
936 wordsSECTION 214§ 8, C] GOD AS AN OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE. 359
my mind's eye, I cannot make an image of it. This seems to be a materialistic way of looking at things. The same may be said of cause, substance, and soul, of none of which can we frame a mental image ; yet they are not unthinkable. A thing is unthinkable only when it is seen to be impossible, or when we can attach no …
935 wordsSECTION 215§ 3, C.J GOD AS AK OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE. 361
defence of what is, perhaps, infelicitously called the " Philosophy of Common Sense." The principles of that philosophy are : (1.) That what is given in consciousness is undoubtedly true. (2.) That whatever the laws of our nature force us to believe, must be accepted as true. (3.) That this principle appHes to all the …
927 wordsSECTION 216§ 3, C] GOD AS AN OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE. 363
Conscience, or our moral consciousness, is no less deceptive. Mr. Mansel admits that we are conscious of dependence and of moral obligation ; that this involves what he calls " the consciousness of God," i. e., that we stand in the relation to God of one spirit to another spirit, of one person to another pei'son ; a pe…
929 wordsSECTION 217§ 3, C] GOD AS AN OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE 365
The conclusion, therefore, of the whole matter is, that we know God in the same sense in which we know ourselves and things out of ourselves. We have the same conviction that God is, and that He is, in Himself, and independently of our thought of Him, what we take Him to be. Our subjective idea corresponds to the ob- j…
337 wordsSECTION 218CHAPTER V.
NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. § 1. Definitions of Grod. The question whether God can be defined, depends for its answer on what is meant by definition. Cicero^ says, "Est defi- nitio, earum rerum, quae sunt ejus rei px'opriEe, quain definire vol- umus, brevis et circumscripta queedam expHcatio." In this sense God cann…
1,268 wordsSECTION 219§2.1 DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 369
The perfections of God, therefore, are attributes, without which He would cease to be God. Relation of the Attributes to the Essence of G-od. In attempting to explain the relation in which the attributes of God stand to his essence and to each other, there are two extremes to be avoided. First, wg^JIiust not represent…
847 wordsSECTION 220§2.] DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 371
It is evident that this question of the relation of the divine attributes to the divine essence merges itself into the general ques- tion of the relation between atti'ibutes and substance. It is also evident that this is a subject about which one man knows jast as much as another ; because all that can be known about i…
947 wordsSECTION 22151.^ DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 87S
The Divine Attributes not to he resolved into Causality. It amounts to much the same doctrine, to resolve all the attri- butes of God hitp causality. It was a principle with some of the schoolmen, " AfFectus in Deo denotat effectum." This was so ap- plied as to limit our knowledge of God to the fact that God is the cau…
912 wordsSECTION 222§8.] CLASSIFICATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 375
2. Others arrange the attributes according to the mode in which we arrive at the knowledge of them. We form our idea of God, it is said, (1.) By tlie way of causation ; that is, by referring to Him as the great first cause ev'ery virtue manifested by tlie effects which He produces. (2.) By the way of negation ; that is…
889 wordsSECTION 223§4, A.] SPIRITUALITY OF GOD. 877
taken in the sense in which those who employ them know they will be understood, they fail of their design. The sacred writings being the words of God to man, we are bound to take them in tlie sense in which those to whom they were originally addressed must inevitably have taken them. What is the meaning of the word "sp…
929 wordsSECTION 224§4, B] SPIRITUALITY OF GOD. 379
bulk nor form. The Bible everywhere recognizes as tnie the intuitive convictions of men. One of tliose convictions is that spirit is not matter, or matter spirit ; that different and incompati- ble attributes cannot belong to the same substance. In revealing, therefore, to us that God is a Spirit, it reveals to us that…
920 wordsSECTION 225§ 5.] INFINITE. 381
space is not ; it is "negation defined by boundaiy lines ; " others, with Kant and Hamilton, say that it is "a condition of thought," " the subjective condition of sensibility ; " others that it is an attribute or accident of God; others that it is that in which real ex- istences can act and move. Notwithstanding; thes…
969 wordsSECTION 226§ 5, B.] INFINITY. 383
It has already been remarkerl in a previous chapter, in reference to this mode of reasoning, tliat it proceeds on a wrong idea of the infinite. A thing may be infinite in its own nature witliout pre- cTuduTg tlie possibility of the existence of things of a different na- ture. An infinite spirit does not forbid the assu…
949 wordsSECTION 227§ 6, A.] ETERNITY 385
sented as a spiritual Being, without form, invisible, whom no man hath seen or can see ; dwelHng in the light which no man can approach unto, and full of glory ; as not only the creator, and pre- server, but as the governor of all things ; as eveiy wiiere present, and everywhere imparting life, and securing order ; pre…
450 wordsSECTION 228VOL. I. 25
386 PART I. — THEOLOGY [Ch. V. - Divine Attributes. same, and thy years shall have no end." (Ps. cii. 25-27.) He is " The high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity." (Is. Ivii. 15.) " I am the first and. I am the last ; and besides me there is no God." (Is. xliv. 6.) " A thousand years in thy sight are but as yester…
447 wordsSECTION 229§ 6, B.] ETERNITY. 387
eternity is arrived at from our idea of time. We are conscious of existence in space, and we are conscious of protracted or continu- ous existence. The ideas of space and duration are necessarily- given in the consciousness of continuous existence. We see also that events succeed each other, that their occurrence is se…
958 wordsSECTION 230§ 6, B.] ETERNITY. 389
ence is concerned. It is not impossible that, hereafter, memory may become a consciousness of the past ; that all we ever thought, felt, or did, may be ever present to the mind ; that everything Avrit- ten on that tablet is indelible. Persons who, by long residence in foreign countries, have entirely lost all knowledge…
903 wordsSECTION 2311 7.] IMMUTABILITY. 391
like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." (Is. xlvi. 9, 10.) Those passages of Scripture in which God is said to repent, are to be in- terpreted on the same principle as those in which He is sai…
913 wordsSECTION 232§ 8, A.] KNOWLEDGE. S93
untrue. It is to be remembered that God is infinite and absolute as a spirit, and a spirit from its nature is living, active, intelligent, self-conscious, and personal. § 8. Knowledge. A. It8 Nature. By knowledge is meant the intellectual apprehension of truth. It supposes a subject and object ; an intelligent subje…
806 wordsSECTION 233S 8, A.] KNOWLEDGE. 896
says : " Deus est ipsum esse subsistens, omnibus modis indetermi- natum." ^ " Solus Deus summe simplex est, ut nee actus et poten- tiae, nee esse et essentige compositio ipsi competat." ^ " Essentia, bonitas, potentia, sapientia, justitia, et reliqua attributa omnia sunt in Deo realiter unum.^ He also says : " In Deo i…
950 wordsSECTION 234§ 8, B.] KNOA¥LEDGE. 397
(Prov. XV. 3.) " Hell and destruction are before the Lord ; how much more then the hearts of the children of men ? " (Prov. xv. 11.) " Great is our Lord and of great power : his understanding is infinite.'* (Ps. cxlvH. 5.) " O house of Israel, .... I know the things that come into your mind, every one of them." (Ezek. …
904 wordsSECTION 235§ 8, C] KNOWLEDGE. 399
had failed to escape from Elba, the state of Europe would have been very different from what it is at present. God, it is assumed, knows what would have been the sequence of events on any or every possible hypothesis. It is therefore said that there must be in God, besides the knowledge of simple intelligence by which …
889 wordsSECTION 236§ 8, E.] KNOWLEDGE. 401
acts can be foreknown. As the omnipotence of God is his abil- ity to do whatever is possible, so his omniscience is his knowledge of everything knowable. But as free acts are in their nature uncertain, as they may or may not be, they cannot be known be- fore they occur. Such is the argument of Socinus. This whole diffi…
917 wordsSECTION 237§ 9, B, C] THE WILL OF GOD. 403
they should exist. Although the theologians start with the wide definition of the word, yet in the prosecution of the subject they regard the will as simply the faculty of self-determination, and the determinations themselves. That is, the power to will, and voli- tions or purposes. It is altogether better to confine t…
865 wordsSECTION 238§9, F.] THE WILL OF GOD. • 405
lute. If He purposes that a man shall reap, He purposes that he shall sow ; if He purposes that he shall be saved, He purposes that lie shall believe. Antl-Augustinians, on the other hand, regard the piu'poseg of God as conditional. He purposes the salvation of a man, if he believes. But whether he believes or not, is …
917 wordsSECTION 239510,B.] THE POWER OF GOD. 407
and we can move the voluntary muscles of our body.. Beyond this our direct power does not extend. It is from this small measure of efficiency that all the stores of human knowledge and all the wonders of human art are derived. It is only our thoughts, voli- tions, and purposes, together with certain acts of the body, t…
1,399 wordsSECTION 240Part 240
Potentia Ahsoluta and Potentia Ordinata. There is a sense of the terms in which absolute power is gen- erally recognized among theologians. A distinction is commonly made between the potentia ahsoluta and the potentia ordinata of God. By the latter is meant the efficiency of God, as exercised uniformly in the ordered o…
437 wordsSource & rights
Public-domain historical edition (1877). Text from OCR of an original Internet Archive scan; OCR may contain recognition errors.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.