Evolution of Theology. 247 



them, in logical form. With these we have not to do, other- 

 wise than in their relation to the conception of a Deity. 

 Discussion of the specialized dogmas of the Christian creeds 

 belongs to the domain of Christian Dogmatics. 



But in stating that modern theism, so far as developed 

 into existing ecclesiastical institutions, rests upon these 

 ideas, we do not ini])ly that further evolution has not taken 

 place in religious thought. In OTir previous examination 

 we have shown how the mind has, by slow successive stages, 

 risen from i)arti('ulars to generals, and have reached the 

 monotheistic (Christian idea of a Divine Personality charac- 

 terized by self-conscious intelligence. But there have been, 

 at all times, some who have objected to any conception of 

 Deity under any limitations of Personality, subjective as 

 well as objective. God conceived as a Personality, under 

 any implications of that word, or conceived as in any wise 

 consciously existing as a separate Entity apart from the 

 totality of things, or as operating upon matter external to 

 himself, has been and is, to them, not only intellectually 

 impossible but morally objectionable, as a limitation of 

 Infinite Power, and derogatory to the idea of an Infinite 

 Deity. The evolution of the various forms of Pantheism 

 has been the result, both materialistic and idealistic ; the 

 former merging all existence, and thought as Avell, in 

 matter; the latter resolving everj-thing into the ideal, or 

 into forms of thought. The Pantheist is forced into his 

 position by the same impulse of the educated mind towards 

 wider generalizations which compels fetishism to yield to 

 mythology and the latter to monotheism. In other words, 

 the Pantheist claims that the prevailing monotheism is, in 

 fact, a dualism and not a proper monotheism at all ; that Deity 

 on the one side and the Universe of Matter and Man on the 

 other is really no advance, philosophically, upon the Gnostic 

 or Neo-Platonic theory. Pantheism, by merging the two, 

 endeavors to arrive at the conception of the All-God, as the 

 word strictly implies, and seeks for a basic Monism as the 

 ground of all existence and phenomena. Pantheism, to the 

 mind of many, is synonymous with ungodly atheism. But 

 something closely allied to I^antheism must be the true, 

 rational and reverent theism, unless we choose to rest in 

 such partial and limited ideas, descriptive of the Infinite, 

 as those which abound in the current theology. The fact 

 is, however, that not a creed has ever been formulated which 



