COSMIC THEISM 



is, therefore, neither more nor less than Theism, 

 in its most consistent and unqualified form. It 

 is quite true that the word " theism," as ordi- 

 narily employed, connotes the ascription of an 

 anthropomorphic personality to the Deity. But 

 in this connotation there has been nothing like 

 fixedness or uniformity. On the other hand the 

 term has become less and less anthropomorphic 

 in its connotations, from age to age, and in the 

 sense in which it is here employed the deanthro- 

 pomorphizing process is but carried one step 

 farther. There was a time when theism seemed 

 to require that God should be invested with a 

 quasi-human body, just as it now seems to re- 

 quire that God should be invested with quasi- 

 human intelligence and volition. But for us to 

 concede the justice of the latter restriction would 

 be as unphilosophical as it would have been for 

 the early monotheists to concede the justice of 

 the former. Just as the early Christians persisted 

 in calling themselves theists while asserting that 

 God dwells in a temple not made with hands, 

 so may the modern philosopher persist in call- 

 ing himself a theist while rejecting the argu- 

 ments by which Voltaire and Paley have sought 

 to limit and localize the Deity. Following out 

 the parallel, we might characterize the doctrine 

 here expounded as the " higher theism," in 

 contrast with the " lower theism " taught in the 

 current doctrine. Or in conformity with the 

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