Pantheism, as the etymology of the term indicates, signifies that system which maintains that all phenomena of every class known to man, whether spiritual or material, are to be referred to but one substance, and that the universal substance of God ; and thus, matter and mind being declared to be only different modifications of one substance, Pantheism, from different points of view, assumes sometimes a materialistic and at others an ideal- istic complexion. The Atheist says that there is no God, the Pan- theist that every thing is God. The Materialist says that all the phenomena of the universe are to be referred to one substance, which is matter. The Pantheist says that they are all to be re- " ferrecl to one substance, and that the absolute substance of God. Yet the Pantheist differs from the Atheist and Materialist more in the color and tone than in the essence of his creed. The Pan- theist's God is not a self-conscious, voluntary person, separate from his creation, but he is that infinite, original, self-existent, uni- versal, unconscious, impersonal essence to which all proper attri- butes belong, intelligence as well as the attraction of gravitation, whose infinitely various and ceaseless modifications of substance, by a necessary law of eternal self-development, constitute all things as they succeed each other in the universe of existence. God is neither sun nor star, ocean nor mountain, wind nor rain, man nor beast, but these are all fleeting modifications of God. God is ever eternally the same himself, but he is eternally, and by a necessary movement running through these endless cycles of self-modification, coming to self-consciousness only transiently in individual men, as they are born and die — and in the highest sense of all coming to himself in the greatest men, those heroes in whom all lesser men see and worship God.
This general system, modified endlessly as to special characteris- tics, has prevailed from the dawn of speculation as the necessary goal of those proud intellects which maintain their capacity to appre- hend directly, and to philosphize worthily, upon the essential mys- teries of infinite and absolute being. It was for ages before Christ the dream of the Hindoo theosophist, and of the Grecian Eleatic philosopher. In modern times, from the days of Spinoza to the pre-
36 THE BEING OF GOD.
sent, it has been taught, among others, by Schelling, Hegel, Cousin, Carlyle, and Ealph Waldo Emerson. Among the ancient Greeks, and to the present day among the Hindoos, the popular accompani- ment of this abstruse and atheistical speculation has been Polythe- ism. The Pantheistic philosopher, by a sweeping generalization, referred all the powers of universal nature to one subject, the All. Their uneducated co temporaries, unable to reach so wide a general- ization, recognized a separate God in every energy of nature, and thus worshipped Gods and Lords many. In modern times, on the other hand, Polytheism having been for ever made impossible by Chistian- ity, the popular accompaniment of Pantheism in Germany, France, England, and America is the worship of man — sometimes hero- worship, or the worship of great heroic men — sometimes of mankind in the mass, as the highest form into which the deity is ever devel- oped, the clearest manifestation of God. This heresy is disproved —
1st. By the whole truth of human consciousness. If con- sciousness teaches us anything clearly it is that we ourselves are distinct individual persons. Pantheism teaches that we are only " parts or particles of God," springing from him and returning to him, yet always part of him, as the waves are part of the sea.
2d. By the truth of all the judgments of conscience with re- gard, first, to sin; second, to moral responsibility. Pantheism, by making every thing alike a necessary self-development of God, makes sin impossible, destroys all distinction between good and evil, and by denying the personality of God, and by making the fleeting personality of man an illusion of his own consciousness, it of course makes moral responsibility a myth.
3d. By the whole argument from Design, (see above, question 23,) Design proves intelligence and free will, self-conscious pur- pose, and therefore personality.
4th. Pantheism, by referring the phenomena of mind and of matter to one substance, must oscillate between the absurdities of Materialism and of Idealism. There is a choice of follies, but no middle ground.
5th. By the whole system of historical testimonies and ex- perimental evidences that establishes the truth of Christianity.
6th. By the uniformly degrading influence which this system has always exercised upon the morals of every community that has drunk deeply of its spirit.
CHAPTER II.
THEOLOGY AND ITS SOURCES.
1. How may religion be defined ?
1. In the abstract, religion signifies the relation which man as an intellectual and spiritual being sustains to God.