295 
since something’ has always existed. This cannot involve a 
contradiction, unless two distinct opposites can both be 
“unthinkable” eadem materia, which can only be here supposed 
by imagining that Nature itself suggests a contradiction, 
which is an idea wholly “unthinkable.” They who have 
affirmed it, must be at fault in their ontology. The Bible 
then opens with this 1 “ In the beginning God made the 
heavens and the earth.” The existing facts of the world, and 
our interest in them and their origin, are assumed, and God, 
the Creator, is pronounced. No definitions, no axioms, no 
arguments introduce this revelation. Here is Super-natu- 
ralism; and it must be frankly asserted, on the one side, 
and denied on the other, by those who differ ; else they are 
not dealing fairly with each other. 
This cannot be thought a mere opinion, or the isolated 
utterance of a debatable passage introducing the sacred 
volume ; for it entirely pervades the Bible. It is so inter- 
woven with its majestic monotheism throughout, that to deny 
God to be the Creator of all things, is to deny the foundation 
of the Christian Philosophy. And not only is there nothing 
whatever in nature or reason opposed to it, but its harmonious 
acceptance by our moral agency, and congruity with its^ needs, 
will give a direct answer to certain paralogisms as to a priori 
truths which are directed against it. There is a fine sentence 
of a writer already quoted which well completes all that we 
could wish to express as to our convictions here, — a sentence 
which may almost stand for a philosophical definition of Faith 
itself — “Besides that definite consciousness . of which logic 
formulates the laws, there is. also an indefinite consciousness 
which cannot be formulated,”* — and we have it here. . 
XI. (2.) Of course no other principle stands precisely on 
the same ground as this, but there are some which are 
scarcely less vital to the Christian position. We find that 
this Divine Creative Act proceeded gradually, and included 
in its series not only phenomenal and structural being, but 
forces or powers “invisible” save in their acts; so that while 
it is distinctive of some created beings to remain inert, it is 
an endowment of other beings to be, according to their nature, 
active, and that probably in countless ways ; for this “ life ” is 
undefined. We have the dry ground on the one hand, and the 
“ moving thing that hath life on the other.” It is represented 
to us, that this production and arrangement of our world and 
its present occupants proceeded, out of previous “ darkness ” 
and “confusion,” on to unconscious being set in a certain 
* First Principles, p. 88. 
