What, on this hypothesis, do we mean when we say that God made the material world? That he caused, and, having begun, continues to cause, created intelli- gences to receive certain impressions, under certain laws of sequence and coexistence. But more than this. We mean also that God himself, when he created, began to perceive certain ideas as real. Now this is almost shock- ingly contradictory to the generally-received notion of an eternal present in the divine mind ; and it is hard to see that it does not contradict the doctrines of his eternal foreknowledge and immutability. Doubtless God began (on this hypothesis) to be conscious of the world at his own mere will, and not, as we do, from an external cause. But his nature seems lowered, if we confess that by his creating we mean that he caused certain ideas to become present to his mind, which there- fore were not present to it before. We have, in fact, a curious converse of pantheism. Pantheism (as the term is commonly used) merges the personal God in union with the universe, a universe consisting of matter, or spirit, or both. Here the personality as well as the spir- ituality of the Eternal is preserved; but instead of his being so merged in the world as to deify it, the world is so merged in him as to introduce its own finite and mu- table qualities into his nature.
Creation is a mystcr^^ on any hypothesis. On any hypothesis. God. at some finite time, came into new re- lations with things that are not God. He assumed new characters (as those of Creator, Preserver, Kuler, Judge) which he had not before; and we must believe this to be without any change in his nature, or even in his pur- pose. Whether this necessary difficulty is aggravated by the above form of stating it; whether the theory of creation in the divine mind implies more of a change of nature than that of a creation of things external to it, may be a question. It is one that at least deserves to be stated. If it be admitted that idealism is not logically opposed to Christianity on this ground, there remain only two slighter objections to it.
MATTER
884
MATTER
Existence has, on this hypothesis, a twofold aspect. Thin<TS material exist, absolutely as being perceived by God relatively as being caused by God to be perceived bv his sensitive creatures. Now if, to avoid the objec- tion above stated, it be said that while creation existed eternally in the purpose of God, so that his works were always "known to him, yet it may be said that crea- tion had a beginning in time, when God first made it known to other intelligences than his own. In itself, no doubt, this would be inadequate as an account of creation, however fair a defence it might be against the charge of introducing change into the divine purpose or thought. And it just stops short of making the world eternal, though it comes dangerously near to it. It may be added that the hypothesis of a subjective creation is not invented on behalf of this system. One of the rec- ognised explanations of the double account of the crea- tion in Genesis is that the former or Elohistic narrative describes the order in which God's purpose was made known to the holy angels, the second that in which it was executed.
But the reality (in whatever sense) of the material universe is presupposed, hot only in the doctrine of the creation, but in that of the sacraments, insomuch that •■ matter" is used as a technical term in relation to them, describing one of their essential requisites. Speaking generally, any hypothesis that allows the reality of mat- ter would be sufhcient, and therefore the idealistic, since it does make matter, in an intelligible sense, real. The command to use certain material substances, and the promise of certain spiritual effects to follow on their use, is not evacuated if we describe their use as '• taking the known means to occasion, to our own mind and others, including the divine, certain states of consciousness." But it seems hard to see how the theory can fail to af- fect the doctrine of the holy Eucharist. If the pres- ence of a body means the fact that its bodily properties are manifest to all intelligences capable of observing them, then a presence of a bodj', real but not sensible, becomes self-contradictory. If, however, the point be urged with sufficient boldness, that absolute truth is not •■ truth relative to all intelligences," but truth relative to the Infinite intelligence, then it is of course possible to believe that God regards that as present which man does not recognise as present by the ordinary test of manifesting the properties, in manifesting which bodily presence consists; and this will, by an adherent of the system, be regarded as constituting a real but not sensi- ble presence.
II. Whether matter- exists only in virtue of minds to which it bears relation, or whether it exists in itself, the source of its being must be determined. For not even, if it be said that matter is a mode of the mind of a spirit, is it yet proved that matter is not self-caused or eternal: it might be a necessary mode of an eternal Spirit's thought, and so coeternal with his being. How- ever, the motives that have led to the belief in the eter- nity of matter have been, in general, such as woidd in- volve a belief in its independence. It is conceding cither too much or too little to make matter merely the thought of God, yet a thought which he never was without, and without wliich he could not have existed. Eternal matter was usually conceived as an antitheistic power, whether active or passive ; sometimes so passive as to be no more than an imperfect medium for the di- vine operation. It is hariUy worth while to frame a system in which matter should have a subjective eter- nity, since such a system has never yet been received. It iias already been pointed out, however, that sucli a system is a conceivable corollary of Berkeley's. I5ut, supposing matter to be something external to the di- vine mind which (all theists will probably admit)"knows or contemplates it, what is tlie relation li^tween the two V Is one the work of the other, or are they both iudqiendent?