320 MAN AND GOD. 



ate a process which cannot be completed at once. 

 But no such suppositions will apply to an infinite 

 Deity, who does not require to economize his forces. 

 For what novel perfection could he reveal to a 

 world already perfect, or how could one thing 

 reveal his will more than another, when all have 

 been sealed with the approval of infinite might ? 

 All things would reveal his will equally, and would 

 be equally perfect and equally remote from the 

 necessity of revelation. 



§ 7. We have considered so far the contradic- 

 tions in the current theological conception of God, 

 and pointed out that they could be easily removed 

 by omitting the attribute of infinity. But it must 

 appear astonishing that so simple a solution was 

 not adopted, especially when we consider the 

 history of the conception. The monotheistic con- 

 ception of God has existed in the world for nearly 

 3,000 years, and yet it has never been purged of 

 so fatal a contradiction. Shall we then suppose 

 that mankind takes a perverse pleasure in contra- 

 dictions for their own sake, or rather admit that 

 there must have been good reasons why so contra- 

 dictory a conception was originally devised and has 

 survived so long and on the whole so successfully ? 



A brief historic retrospect may clear up matters. 

 The God of the theologians is, and has always 

 been, a mass of contradictions, and the reason is 

 that he is a hybrid between the God of the philo- 

 sophers and the God of the people. Theological 

 Monotheism is a compromise between Pantheism 

 and Polytheism which has arisen but once in the 

 history of the world, a marvellous accident in the 

 development of the religious consciousness, which 

 may well be esteemed divine by all who recognize 



