The Philosophical Basis of Theism

A CHRISTIAN man knows God in his own experience; all that is of highest worth to man in life rests on his experience of God's gracious presence and power in his own moral and spiritual development. In the strength of such knowledge many a Christian has lived a life of Christ-like love or gone to a martyr's stake, who never attempted to define or defend the articles of his belief. And the spontaneous religious beliefs of ruder men rest on what they have felt and known of the presence and power of the supernatural in and about them. Thus the knowledge of God begins, like the knowledge of nature and of man, in experience.

But since man is rational he cannot rest permanently in this spontaneous belief. As he advances in intelligence and intellectual development, he must reflect on what he thus believes, must define to himself what it is, and interpret and vindicate it to his reason as reasonable belief and real knowledge. This must be done if religious belief is to commend itself to thinking persons; it must be done anew from generation to generation if, in every period of intellectual activity and of advance in knowledge and culture, Christianity is to retain its preeminence as the light and inspiration of human life and the universal religion of mankind. The knowledge of God, like the knowledge of man and nature, begins in experience, and is ascertained, defined and systemized in thought. Even where God transcends our knowledge, we at least mark definitely the limits of the known. In this transition from spontaneous to reflective knowledge, questions of two classes arise. First are the questions: Have we

knowledge of God? What are the sources of this knowledge? How can we vindicate its reality and validity against objections? Then come questions of a second class: Admitting that God exists, what do we know of him, and what is the practical significance of the reality known of him to us and to mankind? The answers to these questions of reflective thought constitute Systematic Theology. Accordingly this is naturally and conveniently treated in two parts: Fundamental Theology, which answers the questions of the first class; Doctrinal Theology, which answers the questions of the second class.

But in answering these questions we find underlying them fundamental questions which must be answered and fundamental principles which must be ascertained. If the student begins with asking, Why am I a Christian? he is forced back on the question, Why am I a theist? For Christianity presupposes the existence of God, and declares that he has revealed himself in redemptive action coursing through human history, and especially in Jesus the Christ. And when he asks, Why am I a theist? he is forced back on questions which reach to the profoundest depths of human thought. Among these are questions as to the reality, the processes and the possible sphere of human knowledge; the principles and laws of thought; the capacity of man to know God; the distinction between empirical science, philo sophy and theology, and their necessary harmony; the basis and nature of moral distinctions and of moral law and government; the capacity of man as a free agent to be a subject of moral governmen and to love, trust and obey God; the distinction of the personal and the impersonal, the natural and the supernatural, spirit and matter the real existence of personal beings and the materialistic objection thereto; the synthesis of the personal with the absolute; the reality the two systems, the physical and the moral, and their harmony an unity in the universe of God. These and similar questions necessaril arise in the attempt to translate our spontaneous, indeterminat unreasoned knowledge of God into knowledge rationally define interpreted and vindicated; for God is the absolute Ground of t universe, and the rational setting forth of our knowledge of him ar the vindication of it as real knowledge must bring us down to t principles which are at the foundation alike of all thought and of: things. Christian faith in God may exist without answering or ev asking these questions. But when skepticism forces them on thought, it is necessary to investigate and answer them in order t the intellect may thread its way through the labyrinth, into whic! finds itself thrust, of doubts, perplexities and objections confused tortuous and mazy ways, and may come, with faith now illumi through and through with intelligence, to the presence and vis

of God, to an intelligent and restful conviction that the universe is grounded in Absolute Reason energizing in perfect wisdom and love, and that this Energizing Reason is God.

The examination of the personality of man is necessary also in answering theological questions of the second class and setting forth what we know of God and of his relations to the universe. Accordingly theologians in their system of doctrine have their chapters of anthropology not less than of theology. Communion between God and man is of the essence of religion. Therefore the knowledge of man, not less than the knowledge of God, is necessary to the right understanding of religious truth. Misapprehension of the personality of man and of the rational principles involved in it has always been a fruitful source of erroneous theological doctrine.

This volume is not designed to present in detail the evidence of the existence of God; it is designed to examine the constitution of man as a personal being in order to ascertain his capacity to know and serve God, to answer the philosophical questions involved in the controversy with skepticism, agnosticism and materialism, and to set forth, clear from misapprehension, and vindicate the principles on which the defence of theism must rest. It is not intended to be a treatise on psychology, ethics or metaphysics. I have given psychological definitions and classifications so far as they are necessary to explain my use of terms. Aside from this I have confined myself to those topics, the right exposition of which is of critical significance in deciding the controversies now rife between Christian theism and unbelief in its various forms, and in the discussion of which I have hoped to contribute something to the clear and exact apprehension and the true and convincing answer of the questions at issue.

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2. Necessity of this Investigation.

It has been already said we see urgent reasons for this investi-
Its necessity is further evident from the following consid-

The fundamental question of theology is, does a personal God st? Preparatory to even asking the question the theologian must ertain what personality is. But man cannot have even the idea of ersonality unless he has first found the elements of it in his own eing. Therefore he cannot inquire respecting the personality of God, ll, by studying the constitution of man, he has found out that man is person, and thus has ascertained what personality is and what is the istinction between persons and impersonal beings.

II. The question with the atheist is ultimately the question as to the eality of knowledge. Atheism, in its usual forms, is founded on the

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science of the atheist; for if he desat in he does not know may be God, or the end one of God's existence which would convince the atheist surdity cannot enter the field of intent use. It is the atheism A pada in iving such abof ignorance, prejudice and passion.

Atheism, which rests on intelligence suently to simit debate, can go no further than to deny the capacity of man to know God, to declare that therefore the existence of God is not a legitimate object of inquiry or investigation. from theology as inaccessible to knowledge and shut against exploraWe are met at the threshold and warned off tion. When we discuss a question of history or astronomy, both parties appeal to knowledge, examine facts, and decide according to evidence. But in discussing the existence of God, the atheist admits no appeal to knowledge and to evidence. If God exists, no idence can prove his ever idea we way form of him cannot be the correct idea He is out of all relation to our fa formed by our faculties cannot be the true idea of a realit

existence to us.

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Thus atheism forces us at once on the investigation of the otween and extent of man's capacity of knowledge. The question bon that theism and atheism is not the question whether there is evidence › it to God exists; it is the question whether the human mind is competerfi

know Him.

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The theories of knowledge, on which atheism, in its different form churests its denial that man can know God, are various. They are ally theories denying the knowledge of God but admitting the realitite of knowledge in other spheres. Such are the various forms of ph. iny. nomenalism: the theories of the relativity of knowledge; the physiolaedit gical psychologies, which, crediting man's lower powers to the discred sione ne haly of the higher, regard the senses as the only source of knowledge; th

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The Philosophical Basis of Theism: An Examination of the Personality of Man ...