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must correspond with the objective revelation of God in the world around 
us.* In other words, faith and right reason must correspond. The scientific 
argument for God, which is the main subject of this paper, must answer to 
the internal conceptions we form of Him. This scientific argument rests 
upon high authority. The greatest of the schoolmen, Thomas Aquinas, 
writes : “ It is a common sentiment of the fathers and other theologians 
that God can be demonstrated to exist by natural reason, though always 
a 'posteriori , and through that which He effects.” And a greater than St. 
Thomas Aquinas has told us that “ the invisible things of Him from the 
creation are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.”t 
There are only two other remarks on my paper to which I need refer. 
They occur in the speech of Prebendary Row. In answer to his criticism 
that I did not touch upon the Revelation of God through the manhood of 
Jesus Christ, I would refer him to paragraph 34. I would willingly have 
enlarged on the subject, but it is to be remembered that my task was 
simply to indicate the various lines of argument open to us on the subject; 
had I followed them out, my paper must have become, not merely a volume, 
but a library. 
Another remark of Prebendary Row’s fills a chasm in the paper, which I 
observed on reading it over, and which was due to my desire to keep within 
considerably narrower limits than on the last occasion on which I addressed 
the Institute. He spoke of the interminable debates on metaphysical 
subjects which occupied the Eastern Church in the fourth century and 
those which immediately succeeded it. I myself have had a little 
experience of this fact, through my presence at the conference held at Bonn 
in 1875, where many Eastern theologians were present, and where the 
metaphysical subtleties in their disquisitions were inexhaustible. From the 
time of Origen to our own, the attempt to form correct abstract conceptions 
of God has been the parent of controversy, and the chief point which now 
prevents the Churches of the East from brotherly intercommunion with 
their brethren in the West is one which is chiefly concerned with such 
abstract conceptions. The “ perplexities ” of which I spoke in paragraph 
15, as arising from the attempt to base our theological systems on abstract 
ideas of God, have taken sixteen hundred years to unravel, and they are 
not unravelled yet. 
I proceed to make a few remarks supplementary to the paper. And, first, 
I would point out the precise point on which I venture to join issue with 
Mr. Spencer, since, perhaps, the difficulty of the subject may cause some 
misapprehension ; he appears to regard all phenomena as surrounded by a vast 
background of what is unknowable ; man is like one bearing a lantern and 
surrounded by a ' fog ; his lantern enables him clearly to discern objects a 
few paces around him, but beyond is a vast impenetrable background of fog ; 
* Objective, be it explained, refers to that which exists outside of us ; 
subjective, to the ideas we ourselves form on any point. 
t Rom. i. 20. 
