OH. III.1 COSMIC THEISM. Alb 



intelligence and volition. But for ns to concede the jus- 

 tice 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 dM^ells in a temple not made with hands, so may 

 the modern philosopher persist in calling himself a theist 

 while rejecting the arguments by which Voltaire and Paley 

 have sought to limit and localize the Deity. Following out 

 the parallel, we might characterize the doctrine here ex- 

 pounded as the " higher theism," in contrast with the " lower 

 theism" taught in the current doctrine. Or in conformity 

 with the nomenclature which has already done us such good 

 service, w^e may still better characterize it as Cosmic Theism, 

 in contrast with the Anthropomorphic Theism of those theo- 

 logians who limit the Deity by an " objective datum." 



This happy expression of Mr. Martineau's lays bare the 

 anthropomorphic hypothesis to the very core, and when 

 thoroughly considered, lets us into the secret of that super- 

 ficial appearance of antagonism between Science and Eeligion 

 which has disturbed so many theologians and misled so many 

 scientific inquirers. Though as an act of lip-homage an- 

 thropomorphism asserts the infinitude and omnipotence of 

 God, yet in reality it limits and localizes Him. Though it 

 overtly acknowledges that "in Him we live and move and 

 have our being," yet it tacitly belies this acknowledgment by 

 the implication, which runs through all its reasonings, that 

 God is a person localized in some unknown part of space, and 

 that the universe is a "datum objective to God" in somewhat 

 the same sense that a steam-engine is an " objective datum " 

 to the engineer who works it. I do not say that such a con- 

 ception would be avowed by any theologian : as thus overtly 

 stated, it would no doubt be generally met with an emphatic 

 disclaimer. Nevertheless this conception, whether avowed 

 or disclaimed, lies at the bottom of aU the arguments which 



