ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM 



From the Jotuns and Vrltras of early Aryan 

 mythology down to the multiform Manichaeism 

 of later times may be seen the innumerable 

 vestiges of her fruitless attempts to reconcile the 

 fact of the existence of evil with the hypothesis 

 of the infinite power and benevolence of a per- 

 sonal Deity. 



It is not for the theologian to seek to stifle 

 such objections by telling us that, in raising 

 them, we are blasphemously judging of the char- 

 acter of the Deity by human standards.^ Nor 

 is it for him to silence us by pointing to the 



Mill's Autobiography y p. 40. For those who may wish to 

 revive the Manicheean doctrine, an excellent point of depar- 

 ture has been afforded by Mr. Martineau, in his suggestion 

 that the primary qualities of matter constitute a ** datum ob- 

 jective to God," who, **in shaping the orbits out of immen- 

 sity, and determining seasons out of eternity, could but follow 

 the laws of curvature, measure, and proportion." Essays, 

 Philosophical and Theological, pp. 163, 164. In this way 

 Mr. Martineau preserves the quasi-human character of God in 

 the only way in which (as I maintain) it can be preserved, 

 — namely, by sacrificing his Omnipotence. In seeking to 

 escape from Mr. Spencer's doctrine of the Unknowable, Mr. 

 Martineau succeeds only in positing, in his ** objective 

 datum," an ulterior Unknowable, by which God's power is 

 limited, and which ex hypothesi is not divine. This brings us 

 directly back to Ormuzd and Ahriman. See Mr. Spencer's 

 remarks. Fortnightly Review, December, 1873 ; vol. xiv. 

 N.S. pp. 726-728. 



^ [On the sentence which here follows, and Fiske's later 

 use of it, see § 34 of Introduction.] 



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