IN THE FORM OF EDUCATION AND RELIGION 15 



i 



ence and denies reality to the world of things and events; it becomes 

 pantheism or Orientalism; it denies creatorship in the first prin- 

 ciple. 



(3) The result of the first insight into the presupposition of de- 

 pendent being has reached an independent being which is devoid of 

 true causality and which does not impart its true being to a derived 

 world; this is pantheism. But, again, this result contradicts the 

 presupposition on which the insight into the second order is based. 

 For unless there is presupposed a true originating causality, a self- 

 determining One, the higher order of being exists only in itself and 

 not for itself; its causality is not real to itself; if its causality pro- 

 duces only a world of phenomenality and illusion, then the result of 

 its causality is only to reveal to the independent being its own 

 inefficiency as a cause; it is a cause which cannot produce anything 

 real, hence it is not a true cause. 



(4) The history of the religions of Asia is a history of the discovery 

 of the self-contradictions of pantheism -- of a true causal being 

 which does not truly cause. It is also a series of attempted solutions 

 to introduce true causality without destroying the transcendence or 

 sovereignty of the First Cause. For to introduce any finite motive, 

 that is to say, any motive depending upon another underived being, 

 would destroy the perfection of the first original cause and reduce 

 it to a secondary cause and thus throw back the entire investigation 

 to the stage of ancestor-worship. The escape from this dilemma, 

 which offers a choice between the destruction of the imperfect world 

 and the destruction of the perfect world, i. e., its renunciation by 

 philosophic thought, is found in the doctrine of the Logos and its 

 complete exposition in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. 



(5) True causality is the self-revelation of the highest order of 

 being. But it does not in its pure self-determination reach second- 

 ary causes. Its action in itself is the revelation of a perfect in a 

 perfect; this is the doctrine of the Logos. Perfect self-determina- 

 tion results in perfect revelation in another, an eternal object becomes 

 an eternal subject whose thinking and willing are one, and hence 

 goodness and righteousness. Through this thought it is explained 

 how the primary causality in the Logos becomes secondary causality 

 through the contemplation of goodness and righteousness as the 

 inner essence of causality. 



(6) The Christian view of the world, therefore, does not com- 

 promise its idea of the transcendency or sovereignty of the First 

 Cause, but preserves it perfectly and at the same time introduces 

 transcendency into the world-order by the doctrine of the immortal- 

 ity, freedom, and responsibility of the human soul who, through 

 religious insight, interprets the entire world-order as a process of 

 creation and salvation; the process of creating souls with inde- 



