with the power to originate our own acts. (2.) A second objec- tion to the doctrine is that it is an attempt to explain the inexpli- cable. Not content with the simple and certain declaration of the Bible, that God does govern all his creatures and all their actions, it undertakes to explain how this is done. From the nature of the case this is impossible. We see that material causes act, but we cannot tell how they act. We are conscious of the power to guide our own thoughts, and to determine our own wills ; but how it is we exercise this efficiency, passes our comprehension. We know that the will has power over certain muscles of the body ; but the point of connection, the nexus between volition and muscular ac- tion, is altogether inscrutable. Why then should we attempt to explain how it is that the efficiency of God controls the efficiency of second causes ? The fact is plain, and the fact alone is impor- tant ; but the mode of God's action we cannot possibly understand. (3.) A third objection is that this doctrine multiplies difficulties. By attempting to teach how God governs free agents, that He first excites them to act ; sustains them in action ; determines them to act so, and not otherwise ; that He effectually concurs in the en- tity, but not necessarily in the moral quality of the act, we raise at every step the most subtle and perplexing metaphysical questions, which no man is able to solve. And even admitting the theory of coneursus, as expounded by the schoolmen and scholastic theolo- gians, to be true, what does it amount to ? What real knowledge does it communicate ? All we know, and all we need to know, is, (1.) That God does govern all his creatures ; and (2.) That his control over them is consistent with their nature, and with his own infinite purity and excellence.
As this doctrine of Providence involves the question of God's relation to the world, it is confessedly the most comprehensive and difficult in the compass either of theology or of philosophy. As the world, meaning thereby the universe of created beings, in- cludes the world of matter and the world of mind, the doctrine of providence concerns, first, the relation of God to the external or material universe ; and secondly, his relation to the world of mind, or to his rational creatures.
§ 4. Principles involved in the Scriptural Doctrine of Providence, A. The Providence of God over the Material Universe. So far as concerns the relation of God to the external world, the following facts appear to be either assumed, or clearly taught in the Bible.
606 PAET I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. XI. - Providence.
1. There is an external world, or material universe. What we call the world is not a phantom, a delusiv^e sliow. It is not our- selves, our own varying states, however produced. But matter is a real existence. It is a substance ; that which is, and continues, and has identity in all its varying states. This is of course op- posed to pantheism, which makes the external world an existence iPorm of God ; to idealism ; and to the dynamic theory which teaches that matter is merely force. This latter doctrine is intelli- gible, if by force be understood the constantly acting will of God, for that is the energy of the divine substance. But in the way in which the doctrine is commonly presented, force is taken as the ul- timate fact. Matter is force, it is not a substance, but simply ac- tivity, power. But it is self-evident that nothing cannot act, or cannot produce motion, which force does. It is just as plain that there cannot be action without something acting, as that there cannot be motion without something moving, as has been so often said. Force, therefore, does not exist of itself. It of necessity implies a substance of which it is an affection, or manifestation, or property. The real existence of the external world is one of those common sense and Scriptural facts, vouched for by the very con- stitution of our nature, and which it is uttei'ly useless to deny.
Mattej' is Active.
2. The second fact or principle recognized by Scripture, is that matter is active. It has properties or forces, which are the proxi- mate causes of the physical changes which we constantly see and experience. This is considered by scientific men almost an axio- matic truth. " No force without matter, and no matter without force." This is also the general conviction of men. When they take a heavy body in their hand, they attribute its weight to the nature of the body and its relation to the earth. When one sub- stance produces the sensation of sweetness, and another the sensa- tion of acidity, they instinctively refer the difference to the sub- stances themselves. So of all other physical effects ; they are always and everywhere referred to physical causes. Such is a law of our nature ; and therefore the theory which denies that any physical causes exist, and refers all natural effects or changes to the imme- diate operation of the divine will, contradicts our nature, and cannot be true. Besides, as we have already seen, that theory logically leads to idealism and pantheism. It merges the universe into God.
These physical forces act of necessity, blindly, and uniformly. They are everywhere and always the same. The law of gravita-