THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

All men believe in the existence of God. The conviction that there is a superhuman Being on whom they are dependent, and to whom they are responsible is as wide-spread as the race. What is the origin of this idea? What produces a belief so universal? And what is this Being in whose existence the human family has such a wide spread faith?

A. Definition of God.

1. Aristotle defined God, as: "The first ground of all being; the divine spirit which, unmoved itself, moves all."

2. Hegel's definition: "The Absolute Spirit; the pure, essential Being that makes Himself object to Himself; absolute holiness; absolute power, wisdom, goodness, justice."

3. Kant: "A Being who by His understanding and will is the cause, (and by consequence the Author) of nature; a Being who has all rights and no duties (NOT TRUE); the supreme perfection in substance, the all-obligating Being; Author of a universe under moral law; the moral Author of the world; an intelligence infinite in every respect."

4. Westminster Confession: "God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth."

Dr. Hodge thinks this the best definition ever penned by man. Dr. Miley thinks, "Personality is the deepest truth in the conception of God, and with this should be combined the perfection of his personal attributes.1 1. Miley's Theology, Vol. I, pp. 59, 60.

Hence,

5. Miley's definition: "God is an eternal personal Being, of absolute knowledge, power and goodness"

Many more definitions might be given. These are sufficient to cover the field of thought, except some infidel theories to be discussed hereafter.

B. Origin of the Idea of God.

Intuition. The existence of God is an innate conviction of the soul. It is one of the primary and necessary ideas of the moral reason which affirms in every breast. THERE IS A GOD AND I AM RESPONSIBLE TO HIM. The existence of this belief seems to be universal and necessary. Like the idea of right and wrong, of space, and time, and the perfect; the axioms of geometry, and the idea of moral obligation, it seems to be a part of the natural equipment of the minds of men.

God never seems to try to prove His existence to us. The Bible always assumes that men know that there is a God and that they are the subjects of His moral government. There is no satisfactory way of accounting for this universal belief, except that such a belief is founded on the very constitution of our nature, a part of the essential make up of the mind.

It is objected that some disbelieve in God's existence and our accountability to Him.-The eye was manifestly made for light; but one can voluntarily make his eye diseased and blind. So, "speculative atheism, through a perversity of the feelings of the mind, may be so blinded as not to see the most certain moral truths, or so prejudiced as openly to deny them. But the same philosophy that denies the intuition of God also denies all other intuitive truths. Therefore neither the possibility nor the actuality of instances of speculative atheism can in the least discredit the truth that the idea of God is an intuition of the moral reason."1 1. Miley: Theology, Vol. I, p. 64.

Again, it is objected that some heathen tribes are without a knowledge of God. But the keenest scientific observers deny that there are any such tribes. The careless reports of sightseers and adventurers have been discredited.2 Moreover, if such a heathen tribe should be found, it might only prove that, like infants, they were not sufficiently developed to recognize their own moral intuitions. But the real proofs of the existence of such people are still wanting. Muller says: "We may safely say that, in spite of all researches, no human beings have been found anywhere who do not possess something which to them is religion; or, to put it in the most general form, a belief in something beyond what they can see with their eyes."3 2. John Paton's testimony of the Aborigines of Australia. 3. Miller: Origin of Religion, p. 76.

Mueller cites Professor Tiele: "The statement that there are nations or tribes which possess no religion rests either on inaccurate observations, or on a confusion of ideas. No tribe or nation has yet been met with destitute of belief in any higher being, and travelers who asserted their existence have afterward been refuted by facts. It is legitimate, therefore, to call religion in its most general sense, A UNIVERSAL PHENOMENON OF HUMANITY."4 4. Outlines of The History of Religion, p. 6.

Again evolutionists and the higher critics would find in fetichism the primitive religion, or at least some form of idolatry. But the facts of religious history forbid it. These facts point to primitive monotheism. The doctrine of St. Paul is fully vindicated that idolatry is born of religious degeneration from a knowledge of the true God.1 1. Miley, Vol. 1, p. 67.

"The universality of the idea of God means its NECESSITY, or that under the proper conditions it is SPONTANEOUS to the moral and religious constitution of the mind. Some would have us believe that the universality of the belief is accounted for by tradition. But man is depraved and "does not like to retain the knowledge of God in his heart." Were not the idea of God native to the human mind this antagonism, of the sensibilities, strengthened by vicious habits, would long ago have led most races to its utter abandonment. It is the innateness of the idea that has perpetuated it in human thought and feeling." Nothing else can account for its persistence and universality.

And it is to this that God always appeals in His other revelations. There must of necessity be something in man that can respond to the truth which God would reveal when He says, "Thus saith the Lord."

Conclusion. Our intuitions must give us objective truth. No mental faculty can be more trustworthy than the intuitive. If our intuitions are not truths, no results of our mental processes can be trusted. Our sense-perceptions can have no warrant of truthfulness. Men have found themselves mistaken in all their interpretation of sense-perceptions, and in mental processes, while no intuition has ever been found untrue. The idea of God is wrought into the very nature of man. Is it a delusion? It cannot be. Man is not so formed. His mental faculties are trustworthy, and he is capable of knowledge. The intuitions of his reason are absolute truths. Therefore, THE INTUITION OF GOD IN THE MORAL REASON OF THE RACE PROVES HlS EXISTENCE! 22. Miley, Vol. I, pp. 71, 72

C. Corroborating Proofs of Theism.

I. THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT.

The Ontological Argument for the existence of God, is made from the nature of being.

a. What kind of Being can subsist by himself independent of all other beings?

b. A secondary form of the argument is the proof based upon fact or nature of the idea of God as it exists in the human mind. It is an a priori argument akin to the argument from intuition. It is designed to show that the real objective existence of God is involved in the very idea of such a Being. It is commonly made to include all arguments which are not a posteriori; that is, which do not proceed from effect to cause.

(1) St. Augustine, taking a hint from Plato argued from the existence of a finite and imperfect human truth and reason, that perfect truth and reason must exist somewhere by which it can be measured.1 1. Webster's Dictionary, 1910 edition.

(2) Anselm argued thus: "We have an idea of an infinitely perfect Being; but actual existence is included in infinite perfection. Because, if actual existence be a perfection, and God is not actually existent then we can conceive of a being greater than God. An imaginary or ideal being however perfect in conception, cannot answer to the idea of the most perfect. Hence, we must admit the actual existence, for only so can we have the idea of the most perfect Being. This most perfect Being is God. Therefore, God must exist.2 2. Hodge, Vol. I, p. 205.

(3) Argument of Des Cartes: "I find in me the notion of God which I cannot have formed by my own power, since it involves a higher degree of Being than I possess. It must have for its author God Himself, who stamped it upon my mind, just as an architect impresses his stamp on his work. God's existence also follows from the very idea of God, since the essence of God involves existence- eternal and necessary existence.3 3. Miley, Vol. I, p. 74.

(4) Dr. Samuel Clarke argued as follows:

1. Something has existed from eternity. As something now is, something always was; for otherwise, present things must have been produced from nothing, which is absolutely impossible.

2. There has existed from eternity some one unchangeable, independent Being; for, otherwise, there must have been an eternal succession of changeable and dependent beings which is contradictory and absurd.

3. The independent unchangeable eternal Being must be self-existent, or exist necessarily. This necessity must be absolute, as originally in the nature of the thing itself.4 4. Miley, Vol. I, p. 75

(5) Kant's argument: Necessary existence is the only ground of possible existence; therefore some being must necessarily exist. The necessary Being is single; is simple; is immutable and eternal; is the supreme reality; is a Spirit; is God."1 1. Miley, Vol. I, p. 76.

The worth of these arguments depends on the aptness of the mind who reads them for metaphysical discussion. To some they are the strongest of all arguments for the existence of God. To others they have much less value.

II. THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT.

This is an argument for the existence of God, the basis of which is the necessity of inferring an Infinite Being as the only rational cause of the world-Cosmos.

Stated as a syllogism, the argument stands thus: Every effect must have an adequate cause- The world is an effect. Therefore, the world must have had a cause outside of itself, and adequate to account for its existence.

The worth of this argument depends on the truth of three things: 1. The principle of causation; 2. the dependence of the Cosmos upon a Creator; 3. the inadequacy of the forces of nature to its formation.

1. The doctrine of Causation.

It is the doctrine or law of causation that every phenomenon or event must have a cause. This cause must be something-a real existence that has adequate power or efficiency, appropriate to the effect, and that to which the effect is due. But this is one of the primal, intuitive truths of reason. It is self-evident and needs no proof, the contrary of which one cannot rationally think. Every man in the right use of his reason affirms it. It is futile to even attempt to empty the mind of the principle of efficient causation.

This idea of cause to be complete must demand that the cause be original, back of which there was no preceding cause,

As nothing could never produce something, there must have been eternal being. The idea of adequate causation applied to the world and the universe leads us logically and inevitably to an Eternal, Original, Self-existent Being.

2. The dependence of the Cosmos. The world shows that everything in it is dependent and mutable, and as a whole it cannot be self-existent and eternal. Man was but a creature of yesterday. Geologists point us to the azoic rocks in which there was no life. All of vegetable and of animal life is of modern origin. Neither experience nor science, neither fact nor reason, justify the assumption of spontaneous generation. And when life is started, genera and species are permanent. Now man, animals, plants, rocks, all had a beginning. They all began to be. "Who made all these?" said Napoleon Bonaparte. "Who laid the foundations of the earth, and covered it with beauty and life? Who spread the heavens above it as a curtain? Who created the hosts of heaven, and leadeth them out, and knoweth their number?"

These things all began to be. A beginning is an event which had a cause. They, therefore, had a creator. He must be an infinite God.

3. The forces of nature are utterly inadequate to produce the world. The cosmos is too vast and complex and wonderful for us to believe that it was produced by blind force. Mill, arguing this question against the evidence of a God, talks glibly about "the eternity of matter and force, the conservation of energy, the eternal sameness of force in quantity." He says: "There is in nature a permanent element and also a changeable: the changes are always the effect of previous changes; the permanent existences, so far as we know, are not effects at all." "There is in every object another and a permanent element, namely, the specific elementary substance or substances of which it consists and their inherent properties. These are not known to us as beginning to exist: within the range of knowledge they had no beginning, consequently no cause; though they themselves are causes or con-causes of everything, that takes place." "Whenever a physical phenomenon is traced to its cause, that cause when analyzed is found to be a certain quantum of Force, combined with certain collocations. There exists in nature a fixed quantity of force which is never increased or diminished. Here then we find, even in the changes of material nature; a permanent element; to all appearance the very one of which we were in quest. This it is, apparently, to which, if to anything, we must assign the character of First Cause, the cause of the material universe."1 1. Mill's "Three Essays on Religion," pp. 142-154.

All this sounds very brave and smart. It is so much nobler to say that "within the range of our knowledge Force never had a beginning; therefore it never had a cause; therefore we will spell it with a capital letter, and try to believe that Force and certain collocations, made the material universe, than to admit that there is a God."

But it will be noticed that his argument is founded on the baseless assumption of the eternity of matter, because his matter and Force could not come from nothing. It is an intuitive and necessary truth that every effect must have a cause and that ex nihilo nihil fit-out of nothing nothing comes. His theory cannot bear the tests of reason.

a. How is this world constructed by the operation of blind, unthinking force? He says there is a long succession of changes. "The changes are always the effects of previous changes." This runs us into the old unthinkable and self-contradictory absurdity of an endless chain of causes with no first link and hanging upon nothing!

b. But the world bears all the marks of being a new, and lately made world. If matter and "Force" made it and they are eternal, why did not the world come into being an eternity earlier than it did? Or was the "Force" eternally quiescent before it began to make the world? If so, what aroused it and started it in motion and guided it in its cosmical work?

c. Perhaps this eternally active "Force" was doing something else for countless ages before it began to make the world, or it did not "combine with certain collocations." Why didn't it? Why did it abandon its previous job? How could blind force move out upon a new line of operation?

d. Inertia is one of the unquestionable laws or qualities of matter. All activity of physical "Force" is conditioned on the proper conjunction or collocation of material elements. But matter being inert, how could the peculiar collocation of it ever come about that would start Force to making this wonderful world? How did matter get into action?1 1. See Miley: Vol. I, pp. 82-83.

The truth is, the whole theory is an unphilosophical and irrational assumption and fabrication of Mill's brain. As an explanation of the existence of this world and an orderly universe, it is a dismal failure.

HUME succeeds no better. He reasons thus:

1. All our knowledge is founded on experience.

2. We have certain impressions made by external things, and certain passions and emotions; these are the only sources of our ideas, and therefore of our knowledge.

3. When he applies this principle to our idea of causation, he says, all we can know on the subject is that one object or event is contiguous and antecedent to another. This is all we perceive, and all of which we can have an impression.

4. We have no impression of power, efficacy, energy, force, or whatever equivalent term we may choose to use. Therefore, there is no such thing. There is no such thing as efficacy or power either in mind or matter. "When we use such words we have really no distinct meaning." "Of all the paradoxes which I have had occasion to advance, the present one is the most violent, and only by solid reasoning can I hope it will overcome the inveterate prejudices of mankind."1 1. Hume: "Treatise of Human Nature," Vol. I, pp. 216-220.

5. "We can never have reason to believe that any object exists of which we cannot form an idea."

6. "According to the precedent doctrine, there are no objects which, by the mere survey, without consulting experience, we can determine to be the causes of any other; and no objects which we can certainly determine in the same manner not to be causes. Anything may produce anything. Creation, annihilation, motion, reason, volition, all these may arise from one another, or from any other object we can imagine."2 2. Hodge: Vol. I, pp. 212-214.

We forbear quoting any more such nonsense.

1. Such foolish assertions mock intelligence and insult reason. If "anything may produce anything," then a lump of dirt may create the planet Jupiter, or the Constellation of Orion.

2. He contradicts himself. He says there is no such thing as efficacy or power; and then says "anything may produce anything."

3. What he calls "inveterate prejudices," are really laws of belief, the primary truths of reason, which God has impressed on our nature, and which all the sophistry of infidels can never take from us. Hume discredits them simply because they lead us to a belief in God.

4. The thoughtful reader will notice that Mill says that "Force" has created the universe. Hume says "there isn't any such thing as power or force, or efficacy or energy." Thus these men unite in rejecting the idea of God, but annihilate each other. It is amazing what insensate folly men can be guilty of who set themselves against the truth and God.

These are great men, if measured by their intellectual power. But a noble professor in one of our greatest educational institutions says: "It takes a great man to make a great fool of himself."

The universe is a fact and must have had an adequate, intelligent cause. The starry heavens reveal a master mind and omnipotent hand. Our sun is 866,000 miles in diameter, and is some 1,400,000 times larger than this world. With its eight planets, twenty-six moons, eight hundred asteroids together with an unknown .number of comets and meteors, it is sweeping through space at the rate of twelve miles a second off toward the great star, Vega, and has been doing so for millions of years. The sun moves 400,-000,000 miles a year, and it would take it five hundred thousand years more to pass Vega.

Astronomers tell us that the largest telescopes now bring into view one hundred million such suns, many of them inconceivably vaster than our King of day, and "this number is multiplied a thousand times by the photographs of the heavens." The North Star is nearly one hundred times larger than our sun. It is really composed of three suns, two of them waltzing around a central third once in twelve years. It is forty years distant from us measured by the flight of light.

But Sirius is 5,000 times larger than our sun and is speeding through space, ten miles a second. Rigel is 8,000 times larger. Alcyone is 12,000 times larger. Betelgueze is 22,000 times larger.

Arcturus, spoken of in the book of Job is more than 86,000,000 miles in diameter, and one million times larger than our sun. It is sweeping through space with its vast retinue of lesser suns at the amazing speed of two hundred and sixty miles a second. Light is one hundred and sixty years coming from it to our little world.

And what of the giant sun Canopus? It is 134 times greater in diameter than our sun, or 116,000,000 miles. It is 18,000 times larger in surface than our sun. It is 49,000 times brighter than our sun. It is 2,400,000 times larger than our sun.

Astronomers tell us, it is distant from us 489 light years away, and that Canopus is the center of streams of millions of suns revolving about this stupendous orb. One photograph of a part of the sky twice as big as the moon's surface showed 65,000 of these suns, 40,000 years distant from us, measured by the speed of light.

A noted French astronomer, Charles Nordman, told us in 1919, that our Milky Way comprises fifteen hundred million suns. And there is an enormous class of stars or suns which do not belong to our Milky Way. They are known as the spiral nebulae. These are in appearance little vapory spots, formed by two spirals. But each is in itself precisely a Milky Way, an isolated universe with millions of suns, and billions of planets, that are 70,000 light years distant from us.

The French astronomer Laplace estimated that the probability that the forty-three independent motions of the bodies of the solar system known in his day should coincide in direction by chance would be 4,400,000,000,000 times to 1 in "favor of some common cause for the uniformity of direction" or in favor of purpose or design."

If the evidence of probability for the controlling hand of God in our solar system is so vast, what would be the greatness of the probability of the controlling hand of God in this vast universe, with billions of suns going in flocks across the infinite fields of space, in different directions, and different rates of speed without disaster or collision? Throughout the universe perfect order reigns.

In the midst of endless diversity there is harmony and unity. The same laws of gravitation, light and heat prevail. Such law and order, on a scale so vast, give overwhelming evidence of the control of an infinite and beneficent mind.

When we turn from the infinite to the infinitesimal, we are equally filled with wonder. A 3/8-inch cut of a clematis vine shows 40,000 holes or pores beautifully arranged. A spider's web almost invisible is woven of 3,000 strands. A million feathers are on the wings of a butterfly, and 40,000 lenses are in its eyes. Whales one hundred feet long live on the microscopic animals in water in Northern seas, millions in a single drop. We are told, there are forty billion shells of animals in one cubic inch of limestone rock, underlying Columbus, Ohio and the strata of rock is three thousand feet thick.

And as if this were not bewildering enough to a reflecting mind, Sir Oliver Lodge adds the following: "The atom of hydrogen, the smallest and lightest of all known atoms, is now believed to be made up of some seven hundred "electrons"-a name given to the ultimate particles of matter, each of which is charged with electricty. He asks us to consider an atom as an infinitely little solar system. If the electron be conceived of as having the size of a period, at the end of a sentence, the relative size of an atom of hydrogen would be that of a church one hundred and sixty feet long, eighty feet broad and forty feet high. Less than a thousand electrons occupy the atom, in the sense that an army occupies a country. They prevent anything else from entering, although they do not fill a trillionth part.of the space. They are in violent motion, yet there is little danger of collision, for the electrons are much farther apart in proportion to their size than are the planets of our solar system, and having a speed probably one tenth that of light" ("The First Chapter of Genesis," by Albert L. Gridley, A. M., p. 59).

Now we say, when men, living in the midst of such astounding revelations of the sciences, assume infidelity and deny the existence of an infinitely wise God, and substitute dead matter and blind "Force" in His place, they are playing the fool with their own intellects. Our indignation finds vent in the language of the Psalmist: "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." Even Cicero was wise enough to say that it is as impossible that an ordered world could be formed by the fortuitious concourse of atoms as that a book could be composed by throwing about letters at random."

Conclusion. In spite of all these infidel sophistries this argument for God will stand. The principle of causation remains true. Every event must have a cause. The universe is a fact and must have had an adequate intelligent cause. Such a cause reason cannot find in Collocations of matter and blind force. It does not help any to spell it with a capital "F." That is only intellectual trickery, promoted by a carnal heart. Reason declares that there must have been a sufficient, spontaneous, self-energizing power, with intelligence and omnipotent will. All these facts point to a personal, rational cause. THE WORLD'S EXISTANCE, so reason affirms, DEMANDS A PERSONAL GOD.

III. THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT.

This argument, stated as a syllogism, is the following:

Design supposes a designer.

The world everywhere exhibits marks of design.

Therefore the world owes its existence to an intelligent Author.

Teleology (telos and logos) means the doctrine of design or of rational purpose. Design means (1) the selection of an end to be attained. (2) The choice of means suitable for its attainment. (3) The actual use of the means to accomplish the given end.

So in this argument for the existence of God it is the doctrine of a rational purpose or design displayed in the creation of the cosmos, exemplified in the order and adjustment of parts, and the foresight and choice of ends, and the use of appropriate means for their attainment. Such a design proves intelligence, will and power.

1. Consider the evidence of design in the preparation of the earth for the abode of man. First the matter of the earth had to be thrown out at a proper distance from the Sun. It had to be sent spinning around in its orbit at exactly the right degree of speed, its centrifugal and centripetal forces so exactly balanced, that it will not fly off on a tangent away from its orbit, nor be drawn by attraction back to the sun.

Then it was so hot that no life could exist on this planet, and it had to be cooled. The early fire-formed rocks have no traces of life in them. Furthermore, an atmosphere had to be formed and light, heat, electricity and magnetism were utilized. Provision was made for the orderly succession of the seasons, and their annual return. Soil was prepared by the disintegration of the rocks, and water was created to do it. Clouds rode in the sky and carried the rain, and the dew was deposited.

Then God created plant life. It could not have sprung from inorganic matter. The earth was amply supplied with vegetation; then animal life succeeded, which depended on plants for food. Even higher and nobler forms of life appeared. By upheavals and submergences of the earth's surface the precious metals were brought within reach, and mines of coal were stored up in the bowels of the earth for the fuel of man. By the inclination of the earth's axis and by the flow of the warm ocean currents the fruitful portion of the earth was greatly increased. By mountain ranges and valleys, and rivers and lakes and moving rain-clouds the continents were prepared. No earthly father ever more thoughtfully built a home for the children of his love, than God prepared this world for the home of men. Last of all, he created man in his own image to have dominion over the earth. The evidence of thought and loving design is in it all.

2. Design is seen in the organs of our bodies. No work of art can compare with them for delicacy of construction in view of a definite use. A telescope is a marvelous instrument of mechanical skill designed to aid man in seeing distant objects. No one dreams of disputing the skill of the maker or the design of its designer. But it is incomparably inferior to the human eye, which suggested the principles of its construction. In the eye is the only nerve in the entire body susceptible to light and color. That nerve is spread out on the retina. The light is admitted through an orifice in the ball, which by the most delicate arrangement of muscles is enlarged or contracted according to the degree of the light. Here are perfect lenses to focus the light. The inner chamber is lined with a black pigment to render vision possible. A delicate muscular arrangement enables the eye to instantly adjust itself to the distance of objects. These are a few of the wonders of the eye. And before birth it was formed in darkness, with a self-evident reference to the properties of light and the purpose of vision of which the little unborn creature for whose use it was fashioned knew absolutely nothing. If the eye does not prove an intelligent designer, then no work of man can indicate thought and purpose.

The same may be said of the ear. In its cavity lies the auditory nerve, the only nerve adapted for hearing. Here are the passage through the skull, the peculiar adjustments to report the vibration to the brain. All is most scientifically arranged to promote intercourse between animals and man. Through it the marvels of speech, and the charms of eloquence and music can get access to the human mind.

We cannot live without oxygen to vitalize the blood. The infant comes into the world with an apparatus all prepared to meet its necessity. There are the nostrils and the air-passage and the marvelously constructed lungs for the purification of the blood and the vitalizing of the whole body. In its formative state the infant did not breathe, other provision being made for it. But its foreseen necessity was provided for, by lungs, ready made and air for their use.

Food is as necessary as air. Therefore there must be a stomach as well as lungs. The unborn child needs no food; other provision, for the time, being made for it. But all the organs are made ready for the future need. The provision for teeth, the salivary glands to furnish the fluid, the oesophagus to convey it to the stomach, the gastric fluid found nowhere else, capable of dissolving and digesting it. Then what is good for nourishment is absorbed and all the rest is rejected. Truly we are "fearfully and wonderfully made." Loving forethought and design is seen on every hand. The whole body is a marvel of mechanical contrivances, and all the separate organs present incontestable evidence of foresight and wisdom.

3. Design is seen in the construction of animals as a whole, and their adaptation for their future life. The organs of sight, hearing, breathing, digestion and locomotion are so arranged and adjusted as to answer a common purpose. If the animal is to live in the sea, it has a different method of breathing and locomotion. If it is to be a bird moving through the air it has hollow bones, and wings. If its flight is to be especially rapid it has very large muscles on the breast to move its wings. If it is to be a waterfowl, it has a flat breast and webbed feet and very thick feathers impenetrable by water. Birds which wade have long necks, long legs and long bills. The bird that climbs is peculiarly adapted for climbing. Every thing is foreseen and provided for.

4. Design is seen in the instincts of animals. There is an unfailing correspondence between the instincts and the organs with which animals are endowed. The duck takes to water by an unfailing instinct, and land-birds avoid it. Birds and beasts of prey have an instinct to feed on flesh, and all the organs requisite to satisfy their craving. And the supply for their wants is at hand. Others feed on vegetation and their organs and instincts are provided accordingly. The instincts did not create the organs; nor did the organs create the instincts. The only rational conclusion is that an all-wise Creator adapted them to each other.

5. The provision of nature for the wants of the young is unanswerable evidence of design. As the young babe is about to be born, food is prepared for it beforehand, and the table is spread in its mother's breasts. As the young animals come to the world they find the most suitable food prepared for them that the world contains. If this does not prove a foreseeing mind and providing care, nothing could.

6. Nature as a whole, throughout the world is full of such adaptations. There is a provision, vast and ample, for the necessities of vegetable and animal life. Both plants and animals must have air, light, heat, water and soil to produce the common food of all living things. Who created the light and the heat? Who made the sun and filled it with those life-giving rays that "go out through all the world and nothing is hid from the heat thereof"? Here is one great system of beneficent adjustments, harmonious and complete, all together filling the world with life and beauty and happiness. The honest mind looks upon it all with reverent wonder, and joins the men of old, who were not fools, in saying: "In wisdom hast thou made them all." "For thy glory they are, and were created." No wonder it takes a fool to say in his heart, "There is no God." Even Cicero was wise enough to say that it is as impossible that an ordered world could be formed by the fortuitous concourse of atoms as that a book should be composed by throwing about letters at random.

7. Notice the argument from the rational processes of nature. "If the cosmos were a resting existence," says Bowne, "we might possibly content ourselves by saying that things exist in such relations once for all, and that there is no going behind this fact. But the cosmos is no such rigid economy, but a process according to intelligible rules; and in this process the rational order is perpetually maintained or restored. The weighing and measuring continually goes on. In each chemical change, just so much of one element combines with just so much of another. In each change of place the intensities of attraction and repulsion are instantaneously adjusted to correspond. The qualitative and quantitative adjustment of all things, according to fixed law is a fact of the utmost significance. The displacement of an atom by a hair's breadth demands a corresponding re-adjustment in every other within the grip of gravitation. But all are in constant movement, and hence re-adjustment is continuous and instantaneous. The single law of gravitation contains a problem of such bewildering vastness that our minds faint in the attempt to grasp it; but when the other laws of force are added, the complexity defies all understanding. In addition we might refer to the building processes in organic forms, whereby countless structures are constantly produced, or maintained, and always with regard to the typical form in question. But there is no need to dwell upon this point."

"Here, then, is a problem, and we have only the two principles of intelligence and non-intelligence, of self-directing reason and blind necessity, for its solution. The former is perfectly adequate and is not far-fetched and violent. It assimilates the facts to our own experience, and offers the only ground of order of which that experience furnishes any suggestion. If we adopt this view all the facts become luminous and consequent.

"If we take the other view, then we have to assume a power which produces the intelligible and the rational, without itself being intelligent and rational. It works all things, and in each with exact reference to all, yet without knowing anything of itself or of the rules it follows, or of the order it founds, or of the myriad products full of seeming purpose which it incessantly produces and maintains. If we ask why it does this we must answer, BECAUSE IT MUST. If we ask how we know that it must, the answer must be, BY HYPOTHESIS. But this reduces to saying that things are as they are because they must be.. That is, THE PROBLEM is ABANDONED ALTOGETHER.

The facts are referred to an opaque hypothetical necessity." That is the folly to which any one is driven who attempts to explain the processes of nature without God. There is no explanation why an oak tree grows instead of a beech tree, or why both grow side by side in the same soil, except in theism.

But materialism looks upon all these wonderful organs, and their adjustments to each other, and their combinations in living beings, sees all these living processes going on producing their appropriate results with an accuracy that no man-made machine ever approached, and denies any purpose, and all finality in their formation. It declares that eyes were not made for seeing, nor ears for hearing, nor feet for walking; nor hands for cunning achievement and skill, nor a stomach for digesting, and so on. We happen to have eyes and so we see; ears, and so we hear; feet, and so we walk; hands, and so they perform their deft ministries; a stomach conveniently located and we devote ourselves to feeding it, and, lo! by a combination of these and a hundred other organs, by chance there comes to be a seeing, hearing, walking, toiling, effective man. But in no instance was there any foresight or intent or purpose in any organ or the combination of them. The creation of a man was not thought of or intended. It all just happened! Such philosophy is consummate irrationalism, bordering on the insane or the idiotic.

Objections to This Argument.

1. It is objected that there are malformations in organic structures. We may answer that these can be accounted for by secondary causes which the doctrine of final purpose in a Creator does not exclude.

2. There are sometimes organs that are seemingly useless. We answer: They are few in number; and the most that can be said is that their use is not apparent. The use of the spleen in higher animals is unknown; but it may have a use yet undiscovered. It may not be absolutely essential to life; yet it may have a beneficent subordinate use.

3. It is objected that there are rudimentary organs. It is sufficient to answer, that there-are two sorts of finality-"that of use and that of plan, neither of which contradicts finality of end. Such organs may be left to show the unity of type in creation- a souvenir of the primitive plan." There may also have been an atrophy of the organs from disuse.

4. It is objected that animal instinct is a blind impulse, without prevision or plan and yet it works to ends. But animal instinct, instead of warranting any inference adverse to the doctrine of finality, demands finality, or a divinely planned end as the only rational account of the many offices which it so wonderfully fulfills in the economy of animal life. Besides, it is only an assumption that animals do not do what they do from intelligence,-an assumption which never can be proved.

5. It is objected by Kant that, admitting the evidences of design in nature, it would only prove a demiurgus, or world-builder, and not an extra-mundane God, or, at least, it would not prove Him to be infinite.

We answer, the immensity of the universe, through the whole of which design is manifest, proves that its cause must be adequate to such an effect. This with the cosmological argument proves Him to be a creator; and creation of such a universe, so filled with evidence of design and skill, implies the work of an infinite God. The universe proves the purposive agency of a divine mind. The creation of stars inconceivably vast in size, and the placing of them billions of miles from each other in perfect order, and keeping them there, implies an extra-mundane, infinite, personal God.

III. THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL ARGUMENT.

This is an argument in logical form much like the Cosmological and Teleological Arguments. But it is an argument derived wholly from the nature of man and brings up considerations and proofs not heretofore presented.

We have already observed that every man has in his own nature the evidence of the existence of God, which can never be obliterated and which will force conviction upon the most unwilling.

"It is no less true that every man has in himself the same irresistible evidence that God is an extra-mundane personal Being," that He is intelligent, voluntary and moral; that He knows; that He has the right to command"; that we are under obligation to obey.

Then it may be asked, "If every man has in his own nature a witness whose competency he cannot question, and whose testimony he cannot ignore, why need we argue matter at all?" Three reasons may be given.

(1) Men of a speculative turn of mind deny even the primary truths of reason.

(2) Because the carnal mind is strongly tempted to deny the existence of God.

(3) Because infidels are continually making efforts to undermine the faith of men in the existence of God.1 1. Hodge, Vol. I, pp. 233, 234.

1. Notice the Constitution of Man as a Whole.

Here we have a peculiar proof of divine purpose in his construction. He stands at the, head of the animal kingdom. In complexity and completeness of structure and symmetry of form he is the wonder of science. His body is so wondrously fitted to be the instrument of his indwelling mind that he gives abundant evidence of a rational intelligence in the Author of his being.

From Shakespeare to Daniel Webster, men have described in eloquent strains man's erect form and noble presence, so appropriate to his higher mission and destiny as ruler of the world. Volumes have been written about the human hand as a miracle of deftness and strength and cunning. Back of all the wonderful machines that the brain of Edison ever conceived there must be the constructing and managing human hand. Added to all the sublime artistic conceptions of Angelo and Raphael there must be the skillful hand to wield the brush and chisel. Evolutionists place the skeleton of the ape beside the skeleton of man and tell us there is not much difference between the hands of the two. But the Duke of Argyll has well observed that to get the real difference between the two we must compare the work of one with that of the other. The difference is well-nigh infinite. With only ape's hands we should never have attained the rudiments of civilization.

As much may be said of the human voice, so adapted to the expression of human thought, so responsive to every emotion and sentiment and feeling of the soul. Had we been given for voice and language the squealing of pigs, or the lowing of cattle, or the chattering of monkeys, how contemptible must have been the fate of our race! One has said that the organ which makes possible this voice, in all its high and soulful uses, is as wonderful as the voice itself.

The truth is, every organ of man, considered by itself, and all of them combined in a human being, call forth the inspired exclamation, "we are wonderfully and fearfully made" for dominion and power. The combination of such organs in a structure so peculiarly fitted to be the temporary home of a God-like mind, is no accident, or product of blind, unintelligent force. Fortuity as a cause is too absurd and unthinkable for consideration. The only other explanation which reason can suggest is the ruling mind of an ALL WISE CREATOR.

2. THE ARGUMENT FROM THE EXISTENCE OF MIND.

Every man's consciousness tells him he has a mind. He knows that he is an intelligent, personal being. He is perfectly sure that his personality does not dwell in his body, but in his soul. Consciousness makes him aware that his soul and body are distinct, and that they are entirely different substances having attributes radically unlike and incompatible. This consciousness shows itself in the common thought and speech of mankind and in the universal belief of existence after death.

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

Nobody ever thinks of denying this but some speculative theorist, who seems ambitious to acquire a reputation for infidelity.

Now the question inevitably presents itself to the mind, how is the existence of this immaterial, thinking, immortal substance which we call self to be accounted for? It has not always existed. It began to be. Then its cause was outside of itself; for it could not cause itself to be before itself existed. How then came it to be?

1. It cannot be conceived of as being derived from an unending series of ancestors. The unending series argument is an absurdity.

2. It cannot be conceived of as having no origin. Thought, feeling, willing, hoping, fearing, consciousness, are phenomena which must have a ground in essential being. "Outright nihilism is outright hallucination."

3. It cannot be conceived of as being a product of the body, or of physical forces. The properties of matter and mind are too unlike. The properties of matter are extension, figure, weight, divisibility, inertia, and the like. The properties or attributes of mind are thought, reason, reflection, consciousness, choice, spontaneity.

The two classes of phenomena and attributes have nothing in common. You cannot put weight and thought in the same category, or divisibility and memory, or inertia and free will. Mental facts cannot be the predicates of matter, because they are contradictory to its nature; matter cannot be the ground of mental facts. Intelligence cannot be the product of what is unintelligent. Spiritual mind must be the ground of mental facts.

4. Some have sought the solution of the problem in the theory of naturalistic evolution. Of this theory even Tyndal speaks in no flattering terms as follows: "For what are the core and essence of this hypothesis? Strip it naked and you stand face to face with the notion that not only the more ignoble forms of animal life, not alone the noble forms of the horse and lion, not alone the exquisite and mechanism of the human body, but that the mind itself-emotion, intellect, will and all their phenomena-were once latent in a fiery cloud. Surely the mere statement of such a notion is more than a refutation."

"These evolution notions are absurd, monstrous, and fit only for the intellectual gibbet, in relation to the ideas conceiving matter which were drilled into us when young."1 "But the hypothesis would probably go even farther than this. Many who hold it would probably assent to the position that all our philosophy, all our poetry, all our science, all our art-Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, and Raphael-are potential in the fires of the sun." 1. Tyndall, Fragments of Science, pp. 453, 454.

Now the common-sense of mankind pronounces this notion a monstrous absurdity." It asks the pointed and unanswerable question, "How could this primordial fire-mist evolute itself into intelligence, sensibility and will,-into personality-and betake itself to the study of philosophy, and the construction of the sciences, so as to trace its own lineage back through an unbroken series of casualities to the firemist of which it was born?" How can nature, without any conception of an end, produce a man that has such an idea of final cause, and purposed result? With a divine Creator of mind, we have a sufficient account of its origin and personality. This is the only sufficient account. Human minds, with their only possible origin in a creative agency of God, affirm the truth of this existence.1 1. Miley, Vol. I, pp. 102, 103.

3. The Argument from the Capacities and Wants of the Soul.

Two facts seem to rule in Nature universally. The first of these is that whatever capacity, necessity, or desires exist, or are found in any organism, adequate provision is made for their satisfaction.

Plants need light, moisture, air, and soil; there is provided for them an adequate supply of each. Every necessity is met. The same is true of the animal kingdom. There is light for the eye: there is water for the fins of a fish: there is air for the wing of a bird: there is a supply for the wants of every living thing.

The other law is that all these living organisms reach perfection, and fully accomplish the end of their being. They reach their full development, and, that too, in their immediate environments.

This is true of all known beings but man. It is true of man's physical being. He has his wants satisfied and his bodily necessities are met, and he attains his normal development.

But this is not true of his soul. It has capacities which are not fully developed in this world and never can be. It has desires, aspirations, and necessities for which the world does not furnish the appropriate objects. (1) It has intellectual powers capable of indefinite expansion, which in this world never reach their utmost limit. With these is connected a desire of knowledge which is never satisfied. (2) It also has a capacity for happiness which this world can never fill. (3) The soul has aspirations which reach out beyond its environments, beyond human companionships and all earthly helps and helpers, and never cease their seeking flight until they reach the throne of the Eternal. The soul has wants deep as the depths of being which only God can supply. It needs support which finite strength cannot give; sympathy which finite beings cannot impart; forgiving, healing, cleansing, redeeming love which only the Infinite Father in Heaven can bestow. Now, as certainly as the webbed foot and flat breast of the water fowl betoken the existence of water, and the eye is a prophecy of light, and the lungs are an evidence of air, and the instinct of the migratory bird is a prophecy of a sunny South for its Winter home, so is the thirst of the Soul for God an undeniable evidence that there is a God for the soul. "Such a being as man necessitates the assumption of such a Being as God."2 2. Hodge, Vol. I, pp. 23S-237.

4. The Argument from The Moral Nature of Man.

The idea of obligation, or of oughtness, is an idea of the pure reason. It is a simple, rational conception, and, like other primary truths, does not admit of a definition. No being could be made to understand it who has not felt it. Obligation is the term by which we express a conception that all men have of right and wrong, and the duty to do right. This idea finds expression in every human language, and no conception is more common or universal in the minds of men.

Now the familiar facts of consciousness on this subject may be brought together as follows:

(1) By the very constitution of our nature we have an immediate perception of right and wrong. We know, without instruction, that some motives and states of heart are right and others are wrong. It is an infallible judgment, from which there is no appeal.

(2) These moral perceptions are distinct from all other notions or judgments of the mind. They cannot be confused with the axioms of mathematics, or the ideas of beauty, or of the true. They form a class by themselves. Something in us asserts that we are bound to approve and do the right, and disapprove and turn away from the wrong.

(3) These moral judgments are spontaneous, and self-originated. They are not under the control of the understanding or of the will. Just as no man will deny that a whole is equal to all its parts, so no man will deny or question the verdict of his moral nature about his own inner state. He cannot argue himself into a conviction that he is right, if the inner voice declares him to be wrong.

(4) This faculty of the soul with its sense of obligation, its endorsement of right and condemnation of wrong and foreboding of punishment is called Conscience. Dr. Samuel Harris, of Yale, denned Conscience as, "Right reason recognizing itself as law." It has an authority from which we cannot emancipate ourselves. We cannot deny or ignore it. It is a sovereign which we are bound to obey. It is a judge whose verdict we cannot but fear; for it can reward or punish. Its reward of approval is an unspeakable blessing: its condemnation is the direct curse.

(5) Such a moral judge involves the idea of moral law- There must be some fixed standard of duty, some measure and test of obligation, to which life and conduct must be conformed. That inward purpose or state of heart is right which conforms to this standard or moral law: that purpose is wrong which does not conform to it.

(6) But such a moral law involves the idea of a lawgiver. This law did not originate with us. We instinctively, inevitably feel that the lawmaker was a Someone outside of ourselves.

(7) And this moral law, and this lawgiver, outside of ourselves, involve the idea of responsibility to God. For this Being to whom we are responsible must be a Person with a moral nature like our own, "who knows us altogether," what we are, and what we ought to be, and ought to do. One of old said, "He that made the eye shall He not see? He that made the ear can He not hear?" and we may add, He that gave us intellect, sensibilities and free will, the essential faculties of personality, hath He not the same? He that made that Conscience that is present in all minds and asserts its right to rule all lives, and exerts itself magisterially in every breast, has He no conscience, no sense of duty, no knowledge of right or wrong?

Kant said: "Every man has conscience, and finds himself inspected by an inward censor, by whom he is threatened and kept in awe; and this power, watching over the law, is nothing arbitrarily adopted by himself, but is interwoven with his substance."1 Again Kant exclaims, "Duty! thou great, thou exalted name! Wondrous thought! that workest . . . merely by holding up thy naked law in the soul, and so extorting for thyself always reverence, if not obedience-whence thy original? and whence find we the root of thy descent?" I. Kant: Metaphysics of Ethics, p. 245

The only answer which reason, and sound philosophy can give to this question is-"God,"-the great moral lawgiver, who made and inhabits the mind of man. Some one has said: "It is not so much that we have a conscience, as that conscience has us," in its relentless grip.

While thus conscience is the central fact and proof of a moral personality in man, it is also the clearest proof of a moral personality in God.

(8) It is this awful moral nature of man as revealed in conscience that furnishes unanswerable proof of the moral character of God. If God had been an unrighteous Being, would He have given to man so distinct and authoritative a witness on the side of righteousness? Would He have put an inward monitor in every breast whose legislative mandates and judicial decisions were all in favor of virtue and holiness, which He Himself did not possess? It is unthinkable; and so conscience remains, amidst all the disorders of society, and the follies of man, a steady, silent, unswerving and incorruptible witness to the holiness of God.

Conclusion. The cumulative proof of these several arguments becomes irresistible. We rest assured that there is an eternal personal God, over and above all His works,-the Creator of the Universe, infinite in power, wisdom, goodness, truth and holiness.