344 ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



it has become plain that a moral governor cannot 

 create his free subjects by efficiency, nor, accord- 

 ingly, his being be proved by reasoning from pro- 

 duced effect to producing cause ? 



In coming to grapple with this question, let us 

 understand that the principle of efficient causality, 

 as an expression of Divine relations, once it is set- 

 tled that all Divine relations are moral, must be dis- 

 carded in every form. Long ago the rising Christian 

 consciousness abandoned the elder Oriental forms of 

 it, as also the crude forms of Western paganism, ac- 

 cepting instead the doctrine of " creation out of 

 nothing" by the yf«/ or "word" of God. For that 

 consciousness, accordingly, the pantheistic interpre- 

 tations of efficiency, such as production by emana- 

 tion or by extrusion from the Eternal Substance, 

 gave way to a conception certainly higher, in the 

 sense that creation hy fiat disenthralled the creature 

 from entanglement with the Creator, and gave him 

 an existence in some sort distinct, A similar gain 

 was made over the polytheistic notions of creation, 

 under which neither gods, nor men their work, were 

 delivered from the thraldom of eternal matter and 

 omnipresent Fate. 



Still, despite the gains, in abandoning pantheism 

 and polytheism historic Christian thought did not 

 clear itself of the category of efficiency. Its dualism 

 between the Creator and the creation still held fast 



