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This seems to me to be destructive of Mansel’s position. It seems never 
to have occurred to the author of the work referred to, that the principle he 
lays down denies the possibility of man being made in the image of God, 
and even of the Incarnation. The Scripture tells us that J esus Christ is the 
moral image of God, and I wish to know how it is possible He can be the 
moral image of God if God as He really exists is absolutely and entirely un- 
knowable, and all our conceptions of Him are merely regulative. Dean Mansel 
ought to have seen that, if all real knowledge of God is impossible, it 
would be wholly impossible for Jesus Christ in human nature to be a revela- 
tion of the Invisible God. His positions, therefore, raise enormous difficulties, 
and I cannot help candidly admitting, on reading Herbert Spencer’s works, 
that, if the principles thus put forward are true, they lay the axe at the root 
of all possible religion. (Hear, hear.) When we come to look at the 
principles themselves, it seems to me that it cannot but be plain to the 
comprehension of the most ordinary person that they are without foundation. 
I am prepared to admit that no human faculty can penetrate into the great 
question of the ontology of God. So far, I believe, this discussion is showing 
us that there are things beyond which the human intellect cannot penetrate. 
These depths go beyond the powers of a finite intellect to fathom ; and pro- 
bably there will never be such an intellect in the universe as will be able to 
deal adequately with these points. But this does not prevent us from dealing 
with the facts treated of in this paper. It does not follow that, because I 
cannot grasp in the infinity of God, therefore I am unable to attain any 
knowledge of him which is real. I question whether it is right to apply 
the term infinite to the moral attributes of God ; but, if one says God is 
infinitely good, it does not follow that, because we cannot penetrate into the 
abstract idea of infinite goodness, therefore w r e cannot tell what the term 
“ good ” means when applied to God. Of course, I am aware that we have 
to encounter the objection of anthropomorphism when we apply these ideas to 
God ; but there is no idea we can have of God that is not anthropomorphic, 
and it cannot be otherwise, because we are human beings ; and all the ideas 
conceived by man must necessarily be anthropomorphic, because they are 
simply human ideas. When we use the term anthropomorphism in a 
derogatory sense is when we apply the imperfections and passions of man to 
God. This is what was done by the pagan mythologists. No doubt, this 
is most objectionable, but we can only conceive of God at all under 
human images, and consequently it is absurd to say that, because we use 
human conceptions, we are degrading the Deity. This objection charges us 
with applying human ideas to God ; but our reply is, We are able to conceive 
of Godj under human ideas and forms of thought because God made man 
in His Own Image. I defy any one to show that the difficulty is not quite 
as great on the one side as on the other. When we are told that we cannot 
form a true conception of God because He is Infinite, Absolute, and Un- 
conditioned, I reply that these are merely metaphysical conceptions that 
have no existence outside the human mind. The great thing is, to 
give up, once for all, all these cloudy metaphysics. Let us deal with facts, 
