MODIFICATIONS IN THE IDEA OF GOD, ETC. 70 



What the theologians of 1871 feared — Darwin's Descent of 

 21aii Avas published in that year — was not science but speculation, 

 and that their fear was not groundless may be learned from 

 Darwin's own words in his life, p. 271 : " I must try not to fall 

 into my common error of being too speculative. But a drunkard 

 might as well say he would drink a little and not too much." As 

 Illingworth. has pointed out in Lux Mundi, the danger of 

 Darwinism was that it attacked final causes. The presence of 

 final causes or design in the univei'se has always been one of the 

 strongest supports for natural religion, " it is contained in the very 

 notion of a . . . creation by an Eternal Reason. And this 

 was supi^osed to be directly negatived by the doctrine of the 

 survival of the fittest through natural selection." If theologians 

 have ceased to quarrel with science, it is not so much that 

 theologians have changed their view of God, as that " scientists " 

 have, in many cases unconsciously, abandoned Darwin and retui-ned 

 to the idea of design. 



At the same time the last thirty years have undoubtedly seen a 

 •change in the theologian's view of God and of the working of God. 

 The operation of God by His bare " fiat " has been seen to be only 

 one view or only a partial view of His operation ; it has been seen 

 that " Let there be light, and there was light," may be compatible 

 with a very gradual dawn, a very gradual increase of light ; and 

 that much which Avas at one time accounted for by the mere 

 exercise of will on the part of the Creator is due also to His self- 

 limitation ; that not only the possession of free-will by man and the 

 existence of evil, but also the very existence of the universe, and 

 above all the Incarnation, is due to this power of self-limitation. 

 In other words it has been more plainly seen that the Latin 

 ^' omnipotens " and the English " almighty " do not accurately 

 represent the Greek Trav-roicjia-ncp, and this acknowledgment has 

 led to a more easy rapprochement of modern theology and 

 modern science. 



In alluding to the necessarily complex natui'e of God our author 

 gives, I think, only one of the three definitions of God found in 

 the writings of St. John : — 



" God is Spirit," thefoi'ce which lies behind all manifestations 

 of force, whether physical, moral, or sj)iritual, in other 

 Avords the " Father " ; 



