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 again upon this regeneration, and so on ad infinitum.^
This system as well as every other form of Pantheism, excludes all moral freedom ; everything is under the law of absolute neces- sity. It therefore precludes the idea of sin. " Acts of vice, Clirysippus said, are movements of universal nature, and in con- formity with the divine intelhgence. In the economy of the gteat world, evil is like chaff falling, — as unavoidable and worthless. Evil also was said by this school to do the service of making the good known, and yet at last all must resolve itself into God." ^
Thus the Ionic, the Eleatic, and the Stoic forms of Grecian phi- losophy were in their fundamental principles pantheistic. The two great philosophic minds of Greece, and of the world, however, were Plato and Aristotle, the one the philosopher of the ideal world, and the other of the natural. The latter was the disciple of the former, although in most points of doctrine, or at least of method, his antagonist. It is only with the views of these mind- controlling men, concerning the nature of the supreme Being, and of his relation to the phenomenal world, that the theologian as such has anything to do. And this, unfortunately, with regard to both, is the point in regard to which their teachings are the most obscure.
Plato.
Plato united in his comprehensive intellect, and endeavoured to harmonize the elements of the different doctrines of his predeces- sors in the field of speculation. " The Socratic doctrine of the absolute good and beautiful, and of the Deity revealing himself to man as a kind Providence, formed the basis on which he started. As ciiannels for the Heraclitic doctrine of the perpetual coming into being and flux of all things, together with the Eleatic one of the eternal immutability of the one and only Being, the dogma of Anaxagoras of a world-ruling spirit was serviceable to him, and ■with it he had the. skill to connect the Pythagorean view of the universe, as an animated intelligent whole, in a spiritualized form."^ These are sufficiently incongruous materials. An intelli- gent Deity exercising a providential control over the world ; the Heraclitic doctrine which involved the denial of all reality and re-
1 The Gentile and the Jew, vol. i. p. 351. 2 JbU. p. 351. 8 Jbid. p. 307.
§ «, C] HISTORY OF PAi^ITHEISM. 323
solved everything into a perpetual -flow of phenomena ; the Eleatic doctrine of a one and only Being ; and the Pythagorean idea of the universe as an animated and intelligent whole. It was not possible but that first one, and then another of these elements should be made the more prominent, and consequently that the great philosopher should speak sometimes as a Theist and some- times as a Pantheist. Neither was it possible that these incon- gruous elements should be moulded into a consistent system. It is not, therefore, a matter of Surprise that Dollinger, one of the greatest admirers of Plato and one of the ablest expounders of his writings, should immediately add to the passage above quoted. " Plato never arrived at a finished system, rounded off and per- fect in itself; nevertheless there is unmistakable evidence in his works of a continual progress^ an effort after an increasing depth of foundation, and a stronger internal articulation, joined to a won- derful exuberance of ideas, often excessively bold." ^
Plato was not a Theist, in the ordinary and Christian sense of that word. He did not recognize the existence of an extramun- dane God, the creator, preserver, and governor of the world, on whom we are dependent and to whom we are responsible. With him God is not a person. As Anselm and the Realists generally admitted the existence of " rationality " as distinct from rational beings ; a general principle which became individual and personal in angels and men ; so Plato admitted the existence of an universal intelligence, or vow, which becomes individualized in the different orders of intelligent beings, gods, demons, and men. God with him was an Idea ; the Idea of the Good ; which comprehended and gave unity to all other ideas.
Ideas. What then were ideas in Plato's sense of the term ? They were not mere thoughts, but the only real entities, of which the phenomenal and sensible are the representations or shadows. He illustrated their nature by supposing a man in a dark cave entirely ignorant of the external world, with a bright light shining behind him, while between him and the light there continually passes a procession of men, animals, trees, etc. The moving shadows of these things would be projected on the wall of the cavern, and the man would necessarily suppose that the shadows were the realities. These ideas are immutable and eternal, constituting the essence or real being of all phenomenal existence. " Plato teaches that for as 1 The Gentile and the Jew, p. 307.
324 PAET I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. m. — Anti-Thkism.
many general signs of our conceptions as we have, there are so many really existing things, or Ideas, in the intelligible Avorld cor- responding : to man these are the only solid and worthy objects of thought and knowledge ; for they are eternal and immutable, ex- isting only in themselves, but separate from all things and individ- ual, while their manifold copies, tlie things perceptible by sense, are ever fluctuating and transitory. Independent of time and space, as well as of our intellect and its conceptions. Ideas belong to a world of their own, of another sphere, transcending sense. They are not the thoughts of God, but the objects of his thought ; and, according to them. He created the world in matter. They only and God are really existing beings ; and therefore earthly things have but the shadow of an existence, and that only derived from a cer- tain participation in the Ideas, their types." ^
The Relation of Ideas, in Plato's Philosophy, to Grod. What is the relation of these ideas to God ? This is the deci- sive question so far as the theology of Plato is concerned. Unfortu- nately it is not a question easily answered. It is a point about which the commentators differ ; some saying that Plato leaves the matter undecided, sometimes identifying ideas with God, and at others representing them as distinct ; others say that he clearly identifies ideas with God, or includes them in the divine essence ; while others again understand him as making a marked distinction between God and the ideas after which the universe was moulded. It is not easy to reconcile what Dollinger says on this subject. In the passage above quoted he says that ideas are not the thoughts of God, but the objects of his thought. But on the same page ^ he says, " These Ideas are not to be conceived as beside and external to God. They are founded in God, and God is the all com- prehensive Idea, embracing all partial archetypes in an unity." He had before said, that with Plato Ideas and God are the only "really existing beings." If this be so, and if God is "the all- comprehensive idea, embracing all others in unity," then God is the only really existing Being ; and we have pure Pantheism. According to Cousin, Plato not only gave ideas a real and proper existence, but, "en derniere analyse il les place dans la raison divine: c'estla qu' elles existent substantiellement." ^ Dollinger, in commenting on a passage in the Timaeus, in which " God is styled the Father, who has begotten the world like a son, as an image of
1 The Gentile and the Jew, vol. i. pp. 308 and 309. 2 Jbid_ p. 309.
' Eistoire Gmerale de la rhilosaplde , ^ari.-^, ItiU^J, \>. 12'2.
§5, C] fflSTORY OF PANTHEISM. 325
the eternal gods, i. e., ideas ; " says, " Had Plato really intended here to explain the idea of procreation as a communication of essence, he would have been a pure Pantheist." ^ Plato, how- ever, he says 2 "is no Pantheist ; matter is, with him, entirely dis- tinct from God ; still he has a pantheistical bias in his system ; for all that there is of intelligence in the world, down even to man, belongs, in his view, to the divine substance." Plato, therefore, escapes Pantheism only by admitting the eternity of matter ; but this eternal matter is as near nothing as possible. It is not cor poreal. It is " something not yet entity."