RATIONALISM AND IDEA OF GOD 223 



Put broadly and roughly, there are, then, three 

 main accounts possible, or at any rate actually found 

 in occidental civilization to-day, of the phenomena 

 generally known as religious. The first is that of 

 the out-and-out sceptic — that they are all illusions, 

 imaginations of the childhood of the race. This is 

 an extreme view which I do not feel called upon to 

 discuss. The second is the view of almost every exist- 

 ing religious denomination in Europe — that God is a 

 personal being. And the third is one, only j ust beginning 

 to take shape, which I have endeavoured, with every con- 

 sciousness of inadequacy, to outline — the account made 

 possible by a radically scientific view of the universe. 



Those who adopt the third attitude believe that 

 the second is a purely symbolic and not very accurate 

 presentation of certain fundamental facts, of which 

 they are attempting to give what seems to them an 

 account which is closer to reality. Before the scientific 

 work of the last three or four centuries, it was im- 

 possible to attempt what we may call a realistic 

 account of this nature, so that symbols were perforce 

 adopted. In Christian theology man formulated a 

 coherent scheme, which, however, was purely sym- 

 bolic, to account for the facts we have just been con- 

 sidering. The chief feature in any such scheme 

 must be the conception of the powers with which 

 man feels himself in relation ; and in this particular 

 formulation his conception of these powers was that 

 of a God who was also a person. 



