COSMIC THEISM 



thinking of God as surrounded and limited by 

 an environment or " objective datum," will urge 

 that the doctrine here expounded is neither 

 more nor less than Pantheism, or the identifica- 

 tion of God with the totality of existence. So 

 plausible does this objection appear, at first 

 sight, that those who urge it cannot fairly be 

 accused either of dulness of apprehension or of 

 a desire to misrepresent. Nevertheless it needs 

 but to look sharply into the matter to see that 

 the doctrine here expounded is utterly opposed 

 to Pantheism. Though the word " pantheism '* 

 has been almost as undiscriminatingly bandied 

 about among theological disputants as the word 

 " atheism," it has still a well-defined metaphy- 

 sical meaning which renders it inapplicable to a 

 religious doctrine based upon the relativity of 

 knowledge. In the pantheistic hypothesis the 

 distinction between absolute and phenomenal 

 existence is ignored, and the world of pheno- 

 mena is practically identified with Deity. Of this 

 method of treating the problem the final out- 

 come is to be seen in the metaphysics of Hegel, 

 in which the process of evolution, vaguely ap- 

 prehended, is described absolutely as a process 

 of change in the Deity, and in which God, as 

 identified with the totality of phenomenal exist- 

 ence, is regarded as continually progressing from 

 a state of comparative imperfection to a state 

 of comparative perfection. Or, in other words 

 249 



