ATHEISM. AN ATHEIST'S DIFFICULTIES WITH THE BIBLE. MATERIALISM. AGNOSTICISM. PANTHEISM. DEISM.

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IN THE September, 1925, issue of The Herald Of The Epiphany (No. 32) we answered Mr. Clarence Darrow's objections to the Bible, urged by him against Mr. Wm. J. Bryan in their celebrated encounter at Dayton, Tenn., and sent a copy of our answer, accompanied with a letter, to Mr. Darrow. This led to several exchanges of letters, in one of which Mr. Darrow stated that if he would believe in a God, he would see no difficulty in adopting our explanations of his difficulties with the Bible. This led us to prepare for the following issue—No. 33—an article on the question, Is there a God? which we have made Chapter I in this volume. In that article we did not examine the claims  of atheism as proofs of its position. Rather, we gave the constructive arguments in proof of its opposite—the existence of a personal God. Many of our readers, writing to us on this matter, said that they were blessed by that article. Our constructive chapter on God's existence and attributes should better prepare us for our present study on infidelistic false views of God. In this chapter we desire to take up the arguments that atheists use as a proof of their position; and trust to show how each one of them singly, and all of them collectively, fail completely to give such proof. Their position is that there is no God. This is implied in the name of their theory. Atheism is derived from the Greek word atheismos, which in turn is derived from the Greek privitive a (no) and the Greek noun theos (God), the ending ismos standing for theory, i.e., no-God theory.

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Atheists first come to our view in Greek history, and  that in very isolated cases, e.g., Diagoras, Bion, Lucian, etc. The Greek considered atheism to be both an immoral and an irreligious thing, and therefore made infamous and banished atheists from their territory. There were also a few individual atheists among the Romans; but scarcely any since the Pagan Roman Empire merged into the Christian Roman Empire, until about the end of the seventeenth century, since which time atheism has been increasing. No nation, race, tribe or clan of atheists has ever existed; and we believe those are right who hold that atheism can only there exist where there is a lack in, or a perversion or degeneration of the human heart and mind. In the last 150 years atheism can be said to be increasing among a few philosophers, more scientists and a small number of the plain people. In America recently an atheistic society was incorporated, after at least one judge, on the ground that atheism was against public policy, refused it incorporation. This society is by lectures, correspondence, conversation, the press and organizations, seeking to spread its theory. It even asked President Hoover to dispense with the customary annual Thanksgiving proclamation, with which request he wisely declined to comply, knowing only too well that such a course, as well as the reason assigned for the omission, would be against public policy.

Among the few philosophers who have been atheists, we will cite two, with brief quotations of their views Feuerbach expresses himself on the subject as follows "There is no God; it is as clear as the sun and as evident as the day that there is no God, and still more, that there can be none; for  if there were a God, then there must be one; He would be necessary. But now if there is no God, then there can be no God; therefore there is no God. There is no God, because there cannot be any." The rattle-brained pretense at reasoning in the above quotation has in it nothing akin to logic

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and is self-refutative as logic. In another philosopher's view, set forth in his book, Christianity and Humanism, the following occurs: "Because there is no God, there can be no [real] object of [religious] belief. Man has placed himself in the shape of the ideal after which he strives, as a religious object outside and above his own consciousness, and worships the God whom he has thus set up." Thus he seeks on the ground of self-delusion unto self-deification to account for man's belief in a God. A critic of this  gentleman well remarked on his thought as follows: "Accordingly, the world is a great madhouse; by some unexplainable bewitchment man sees above himself his own shadow, and takes it to be his real creator."

We do not agree with those who hold that there can be no real atheists; for under the terrible effects of the fall on heart and mind even thorough-going atheists are possible and actual. But we do believe that there are very few real thinkers who are atheists, because atheism runs athwart normal human nature and the normal processes of thought and feeling, even under the limitation of the fall. Atheism as a matter of course denies a Divine revelation, thus the possibility of a real object to the religious feelings, and hence communion between man and God. With these goes the denial of a hereafter, while for all atheists virtue loses its strongest support and vice its greatest deterrent; and for many of them these lose their moral significance, since atheism is usually necessitarianism, and thus denies freedom of choice and moral responsibility. There can, of course, be no place for atonement in such a system. In a word, the fundamentals of religion—which is the best and highest activity of man—go by the board in atheism. In some atheism is a settled belief; in others a fixed doubt. Some atheists glory in their atheism; others are greatly saddened by their belief, and wish they could believe in a Supreme 'Being. We can in the present dispensation

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hope to do little to help a fixed atheist; for his belief is a prejudice in which his heart has first subdued his intellect and his intellect in turn has further hardened and blinded his heart; since neither such nor any other person can prove the non-existence of spirits. For such unfortunates in most cases we must wait until in the next Age faith gives way to sight. But the atheist who merely doubts God's existence and who is distressed by his doubts can be helped by the refutation of the considerations that cause his doubts. If this treatise falls into the hands of such an atheist, we may hope for his rescue; at any rate its exposure of atheism's fallacies will strengthen believers in God's reality. We will, therefore, examine the reasons that the more intelligent atheists give for their unbelief, remarking incidentally that in most cases it is indulgence in sin that primarily produces atheism, and in all of them it is illogical and shallow thinking.

The first reason that atheists usually give for their theory is that they cannot find God. Carneri puts it like this: "I do not find Him [God] either in the creation or in the government of the world." August Baur puts it as follows: "Neither in the use of the microscope, nor the telescope, the retort, nor the dissecting knife, has any investigator ever discovered a supersensuous [spirit] being." This is probably the strongest way of putting the first and main argument of atheism, and is calculated to deceive the unwary, as it has deceived some of them. To this we in the first place reply: All that an investigator can fairly say on this point is that he has not been able to find God by investigation. He cannot so speak for others; for many others claim that they have by their investigations found the supersensuous—God. Not only so, but these include the greatest philosophers and scientists who have lived, since in the seventeenth century atheism was reborn. The following list of names given by Dutoit-Haller and others, will prove this, Leibnitz,

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Wolf, Kant, Descartes, Amphere, Faraday, Fresnel, Brewster, De La Rive, Euler, Gauss, Wuertz, Chevreul, Biot, Justus von Liebig, Fehling, Morse, Kepler, Copernicus, Newton, Herschel, Alexander von Humbolt, Maedler, Gruner, Elie de Beaumont, Fraas, Pfoff, Favre, Linnaeus, Albrecht von Haller, Griesbach, Oswald Herr, Ehrenberg, Owen, Quatrefages, Isidore Geoffray St. Hilaire, Mivart, Agassiz, Le Creaux, Pasteur, Hyrtl, von Beneden, Claude Bernard, Romanes (for awhile an atheist, then after deeper study, a theist), Edison, Marconi, Bell, Millikan, and hosts of others. We are not of those who believe that great names prove truth, but we cite these philosophical and scientific investigators who by investigation have found God, to offset the claim of atheists who assert that they cannot find God by their investigations. Maedler, one of the greatest of scientists, says: "A true investigator of nature cannot be a denier of God. Whoever looks deeply into the workshop of God as do we, and has so much occasion to admire His omniscience and eternal order, must bow his knees in humility before the rulership of the holy God." Pasteur wrote similarly.

In the second place, we answer this argument by the statement that no amount of human investigation, which by necessity of human limitations must be limited, could prove that there is no God; for only one who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent could be powerful, knowing and ubiquitous enough authoritatively to say in truth from knowledge of the realities of the case that God is nowhere and hence is non-existent. Hence, to be in a position to demonstrate God's non-existence, if it could be done, one must have superhuman powers, i.e., must himself be God (which after all would prove there is a God); hence no human can prove God's non-existence. Even if the microscope and the telescope, the retort and the knife, the X-ray and the still more powerful Millikan ray, do not make

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Him visible and tangible, their failure therein does not prove Him non-existent.

In the third place, the very thing that the atheist- investigator seeks to make visible is dealt with contrary to the nature of that thing; for the supersensuous, which a spirit of necessity is, is not grasped by sense. As well require of water that it be dry, of heat that it be cold, of ice that it be hot, of darkness that it be light, of light that it be darkness, of material that it be immaterial, as to expect to find the supersensuous, which among other things is invisible, to become visible to our material eyes (1 Tim. 6: 16).

Fourth, such an investigator is conducting his investigations by inadequate instruments. His instruments are material and are usable on material substances and will give splendid information thereon, but are entirely inadequate and inapplicable to make tangible the supersensuous. The scientist who would seek to work with tools inapplicable and inadequate to the materials in question would of course fail to produce results. If atheists cannot conceive anything except in terms of the material, that is their unfortunate lack; but such a lack does not imply that realities must become unrealities, just because they lack the ability to conceive of anything supersensuous. But if there are supersensuous beings, it follows that other than material instruments must be used in their discovery.

Our fifth argument is that the supersensuous can be sought only by the mind and heart, as the instruments that can come into touch with it. Reflection and the faith, hope, love and obedience that are built upon such reflection, are the instruments that manifest God, not material instruments like the microscope and the telescope, the retort and the knife, the X-ray and the Millikan ray. Nor are spirits the only things intangible to material instruments like the above. Ether cannot be reached by our senses through these. Yet what investigator denies its existence, so necessary to

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explain many things in nature, yet itself invisible and intangible? Even so the existence of God, though invisible and intangible to sense, is, and is much more, required to explain all nature and its details. It is the real scientist's and philosopher's reflection on the universe as a whole and in detail, with its wonderful laws and order and marks of intelligence and wisdom, and on man and his history, that convinces them of God's existence. So we say to  the atheist, You are using the wrong instruments in your search for God. Use the right ones, if haply you might find Him.

Our sixth argument is that God is not only to be sought in the unusual, like miracles, fulfilled prophecies, etc., which the atheist insists he has not seen and hence denies their reality, but in the usual and ordinary workings of nature. In dealing with atheists, Christians have too frequently made mistakes on this point in pressing the extraordinary—like miracles, fulfillment of prophecy, etc.—as against atheism, thus arousing their opposition to greater heights, because of their rejection of such evidence, instead of meeting them where they cannot answer. We will do better to stress the ordinary and the usual in nature, in proof of God's existence, in dealing with such characters. The laws of nature imply a law-giver. The order of nature implies an orderer. Its infinite proofs of intelligence imply an intelligent maker. Its being the product of a succession of causes implies a first, and hence a causeless, eternal cause. Its wonderful and multitudinous designs imply a Designer. It is reflection on these things which convinces that there is a God and which disproves atheism. The atheist's position that the laws, order, etc., of nature make God unnecessary and disproves His existence, thus destroys his own position.

Our seventh argument against the atheist's argument that he cannot find God, is that he has sought God in the less findable place—the most unfindable place for the atheist. He has sought Him in miracles and other

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unusual things, and not finding any miracles and unusual things, except on the testimony of witnesses long since dead, he denies miracles and hence does not find God there. Let us, therefore, direct his attention away from these regions, as not conducive to his finding God there. Hence, in seeking Him and not finding Him in such realms, because to him these realms are non-existent, he has been making the mistake of not hunting for God in the place where, to the atheist, He is findable, i.e., in the right place for the atheist. Let him seek for "the footprints of the Creator" in nature and in human history and experience, not by material instruments, but by his mind and heart, i.e., by reflection, and by giving faith to the reasonable product of such reflection, which faith, in turn, will arouse his hope, love and obedience to go out to the God that these immaterial instruments will reveal to him. It is in this way that the scientists and philosophers above mentioned were convinced of God's existence and of His wisdom, power, justice and love (Rom. 1: 20). And the intelligent atheist in not imitating them has sought God in the wrong place as well as by wrong methods and wrong instruments.

The above seven reasons certainly prove the fallacy of the first argument of atheism—they cannot find God. The series of mistakes that these seven points reveal, as made by atheists in the use of their first argument, proves them to be shallow thinkers.

The second argument that atheists use to prove God's non-existence is that there are so many useless and unmeaning things in the world, which, they argue, would not exist, if there were an allwise Creator who made the universe; for such a Creator could not, they reason, make unmeaning and useless things. They have enumerated as some of such things the following: ice at the poles, intense heat at the equator, the vast deserts and seas uninhabitable by man, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, the existence of the moon, the

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great vacant spaces in the universe and diffusion of light therein, the excessive heat of Mercury and cold of Neptune, the fifteen years of alternating day and night at Saturn's poles, the spleen, the glands, the appendix, the wings of the ostrich, the antlers of the deer, the appearance of wings on many insects that do not fly, and the functionless mammae on the breasts of most mammalian males. This list suffices.

To this we give a number of replies: First, why find in these few allegedly useless or unmeaning things an argument that there can be no wise Creator who would make them, when there are in the universe literally billions of meaningful and useful things arguing that there is a wise and beneficent Creator? Would it not be more sensible to hold to the latter thought by reasoning on the acceptableness of the decidedly more probable view than to that of the decidedly less probable view? Secondly, this argument assumes that the reasoner really knows that what he calls useless and unmeaning things are really such. How does he know that they do not have and will not yet be proven to have a meaning and use?

Thirdly, since the list was first made, beside the general uses that we find for all of them, the direct uses of some of them have been found. E.g., ice stored at the poles has been found to aid in the cooling of the arctic streams that relieve the intense heat of the equatorial regions, as in turn the intense heat of the equatorial regions warms various oceanic streams to the help of the temperate and sub-frigid zones. If the vast deserts and seas are not conducive to habitation, they help prevent the too wide distribution of the race, which is advantageous to man in social, commercial, economic, political and other ways. Earthquakes and volcanoes are now seen to be related to preparing the earth for the Millennium, as well as preparing for more land to appear from the ocean's depths, which will be needed for the dead who soon

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will return. Again, the polar ices are breaking up and thus helping to right the earth on its axis, a thing necessary to effect an Edenic climate for the earth shortly. In the meantime they also had their uses in accelerating the curse in certain respects so as to relieve man of worse features. "Cursed is the earth for thy sake," is a statement that proves that these unfavorable conditions will work an ultimate blessing for man, which shows that they are not so useless as our atheistic friends assume. But more on this phase of the thought when we consider atheism's fourth argument. Hurricanes at least clear the atmosphere and the oceans for man's and fishes' advantage. The moon benefits man by giving light at night and marks seasons and (lunar) months for him. The vacant spaces in the universe are needed for the safe play of laws like gravitation, to keep planets from bumping into one another and causing all sorts of catastrophes. The wings of the ostrich help its flight. The antlers of the deer are its defense. Even if there are some things whose direct use and meaning we do not yet know, modesty should teach us to remember that, after all, we know but little. Furthermore, as the number of things  whose use and meaning are unknown is constantly decreasing, patience should move us to conclude that we will yet learn those not now known.

Fourthly, there are many general uses and meanings of things, whose particular use and meaning we may not yet know. To call such things unmeaning is allowable, if we would thereby indicate that we do not know why they exist. To call them useless because we assume for them a use to which they do not fit is revelatory, not of their alleged uselessness, but of the wrong end applied to them as to their use, and of the ignorance and folly of him that attempts such inadequate experiments. We should at most not call them useless or unmeaning; rather we should say

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that to us they are unmeaning and useless, if they be so to us. This would be both wise and modest, and will save us humiliations that might otherwise be ours when their particular meaning and use become known, as has been the case with others. Surely our interests are advanced frequently by a thing whose direct use and meaning are hidden from us; for these things are a part of that variety in nature that is the spice of life. Frequently they form parts in the scheme of the sublime and beautiful in nature, so elevating to man's contemplation and enhancing to his happiness. Sometimes they serve as deterrents to the too bold, and as warnings to the too daring. Hence it is folly to say that there is anything in nature that is useless and unmeaning. At the rate that such things are losing their seeming uselessness and meaninglessness, it will not be many years before perhaps the only seemingly functionless thing in nature will be the mammae on the breast of most mammalian males. Will our atheistical friends then still hold to this as a proof of their theory, with billions of designful things in nature proving the opposite? If so would not their course remind us of a sightseer at the Tower of London who, looking at the case wherein are held the crowns, jewels and other golden implements in use at royalty's opening and closing of parliament, overlooks these in the contemplation of a fly speck on the glass of the case?

Fifthly, such things have frequently a morally and religiously elevating effect. Who that sees the marvelous abandon of the hurricane-tossed ocean's wave, that hears the thunder's roar, that sees the lightning's flash, that contemplates the desert's waste, that views the canyon's depth or height, where nothing can grow, that notes the moon's orderly phases and that beholds space's wastes, but is filled with awe, reverence and humility? Who that considers organs of his and other beings, whose uses he does not yet recognize, and that beholds other things in nature whose meaning

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and uses he does not understand, but can derive a needed and wholesome lesson in humility and meekness? And who is he that would underrate the value of such lessons? Would he not be manifesting a sad lack of real practicability? And is not he to be commended as wise and practical who will derive the above-indicated benefits from things whose direct uses and meanings he may not know? And is not such a mind and heart better prepared to learn the direct uses and meanings of such things than those otherwise disposed? Surely our five reasons undermine the second argument of atheism.

Atheism's third argument is that there cannot be a Creator, because there is so much imperfection in the world, while an all-wise Creator, it claims, would have made everything perfect. Certainly, our earth and its inhabitants, not to speak of other spheres of being, are imperfect. Who would call perfect the earth's extremes of heat and cold, the barrenness of its frigid zones and numerous deserts, its swamps and wildernesses, its earthquakes and volcanoes, its tidal waves and floods, its hurricanes and tornadoes, its droughts and cloudbursts, its blizzards and hail storms, its famines and pestilences, its miasmic airs and dismal fogs, its unequal soils and drainage, its resources and distributions, and its noxious germs, beasts and reptiles? These conditions all too plainly prove the claim of earth's imperfection. And what shall we say of man, whose physical, mental, moral and religious imperfections, large in number and most diverse in kind, confront us at every turn? Surely it must be conceded that the earth and its inhabitants are imperfect; but just so surely is it folly to conclude from these imperfections that there is no God—no all-wise Creator.

In the first place, creation is not a completed work; therefore it is unwise to base atheism's third argument on what is an incomplete work. Most atheists are evolutionists who seek, yet vainly, by evolution to get

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rid of the idea of a God, but whose theory, of necessity, implies that the earth and its inhabitants are not yet a completed creation, and therefore cannot be a perfect creation. Hence they should be among the last ones  to claim that the imperfections in an incompleted creation prove God's non-existence. The Bible also teaches that the creative work on man and the earth is as yet incomplete. Hence it is unfair and illogical to charge an incompleted work with imperfection, much less its author with non­ existence because of such imperfections, since such is inevitably the condition of all incompleted works, and that without any fault thereby necessarily attaching to their authors. Thus the imperfections of God's incompleted work do not disprove His existence any more than the imperfections in an incompletely wrought piece of hide disprove the existence of the tanner. It proves the contrary.

In the second place, an objection to the Creator's existence based on imperfection in His work, proves no more than that the Creator might be imperfect, and not that He is non-existent, providing His creative work on earth and man were completed and were thereafter found to be imperfect; for the fact that He creates at all implies that He exists; for an imperfection in His completed work might imply inability to perfect it, or a shortsightedness in planning a work that He would fail or be unwilling to bring to completeness, or a lack of perseverance or ability to bring it to completion. In any case, only the imperfection and not the non-existence of the Creator might be inferred from a completed work that lacks perfection. But such a charge cannot be brought fairly and logically against the author of an incompleted work on which he is still active. Hence atheism's pertinent conclusion is false, illogical and unwise.

Atheism's fourth argument is that there are many harmful things in nature bringing suffering on man and beast; therefore there can be no Creator; otherwise

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He would put them aside. It must again be conceded to the atheist that there are harmful things in creation bringing suffering on man and beast. Many of the imperfections in nature noted under the preceding point bring suffering on man and beast. Frequently beasts, reptiles, fish and fowls war on one another and on man, while in turn man frequently wars on his fellows and on beasts, fish, fowl and reptiles, causing suffering right and left. Sickness, sorrow, pain and death are on all hands. Calamities, pestilences, famines and hostilities play havoc among men. Losses, disappointments, lacks, faults, failings, poverty and a more or less infertile earth make for much suffering. Insanity, error, wickedness and selfishness add to this bitter draught that man drains, and often to the dregs. It must be allowed that there is an abundance of harmful things in the earth. And poor atheists, burdened with more or less of these, think that they disprove God's existence! But, again, we claim for good and sufficient reasons that such harmful things do not prove that there is no God. These reasons we now proceed to give.

In the first place, none of these things imply God's non­ existence. They might impinge against the thought of His goodness and mercy, provided they cannot be shown to be instrumental in effecting ultimately more of good than they inflict of evil; but by no means do they imply that He does not exist, any more than the presence of the sick in a hospital implies that curative agencies do not exist, or any more than the presence of criminals in a country implies that civil officers do not there exist, or any more than the pains of a bad child undergoing chastisement from his father prove that he has no father.

In the second place, the good results effected by harmful things on some characters prove that they are wisely designed, at least for such characters; and hence, instead of implying God's non-existence, they

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are in line with both His existence and goodness. Often we see character good—the very highest form of goodness—as well as material good produced by the adverse environment in which some people find themselves. Mercy and sympathy are developed in some by the presence of suffering in the world. Unselfish service is woven into some characters by their beholding others in affliction. Generosity frequently rises to its highest flights amid calamities. The qualities of forbearance, longsuffering and forgiveness, have their sphere of operation in the experience of enduring wrong or they cannot be exercised and developed. Courage and tact naturally come into play amid the dangers incidental to harmful conditions. Friendships formed in the furnace of affliction are usually the most unselfish and abiding. Thus the sufferings of the present refine and ennoble some characters as nothing else can. Not only so, but some of man's highest physical and mental improvements are due to the conditions of suffering that surround him. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention. Our comfortable homes, with their many improvements and accessories, and a multitude of other useful things, have been developed in the need arising from the harmful conditions about man. Much of learning, of civilization, of progress in the arts, sciences and inventions, is due to the presence of these harmful things about us. They are, therefore, not unmixed evils to those who use them for their moral, mental and physical improvement. Hence from them atheism cannot even infer that God is malevolent, much less non-existent.

Still, from another standpoint the presence of suffering even unto death in the world is not an unmixed evil, and therefore does not justify atheism's conclusion now under examination. Consider what would be the result, if suffering and death would not be the portion of the wicked and selfish. Could it be otherwise

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than worse than conditions now are? If in such a short span of life now allotted to man, many of our kind develop such cunning as to be able to overreach their fellows, to the great detriment of the latter, what would conditions be, if these lived millenniums or forever? If in a few years some can become multimillionaires and even billionaires, sometimes to the great detriment of the masses, what would they do in the way of acquiring during millenniums or forever? Consider the exploiting and enslaving effect of this on the less acquiring members of the human family. If conquerors like Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, etc., could go on for ages in their course, what intolerable conditions would this mean to most of the rest of mankind! If the tyrannous, the murderous, the thievish, the adulterous, the covetous, the slanderous, the rebellious, the unduly ambitious, the fraudulent, etc., could go on indefinitely in their wrong— doing, to what intolerable existence would the rest of mankind come! At what a desperate disadvantage would the young, the inexperienced and especially the upright be, under such conditions! They would be a thousandfold worse off than the young, the inexperienced and the upright now are. Accordingly, it is a blessing for the rest of mankind that the wicked and selfish do suffer and die in a comparatively brief time. The two above reasons—(1) that the good and enterprising are bettered by their experience with evil, and (2) that the wicked and selfish are the more quickly cut down by evil—show that sufferings and death have a ministry of good in them; and thus they neither militate against God's goodness nor His existence, despite atheism's claims.

We present a fourth reason refutative of atheism's fourth argument—that harmful things in the world disprove God's existence: It is the ultimate Divine design in the permission of evil, so far as the wicked and selfish are concerned. Above we showed the ennobling effects of the experience with evil on the good. Now

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we would show it as to the wicked and selfish. While atheism scoffs at the Biblical teaching of man's fall from perfection into sin and suffering conditions resulting in death, it must concede the fact that man is now in a condition in which he does experience evils of all kinds culminating in death, regardless of how he entered this condition. All benevolent hearts lament, even as all clear heads perceive the fact. Atheism acknowledges the fact of the present evil conditions; but has no real solution as to how it came about, as to why it is continued, as to what will cure it, and how the cure will come about. Such being his perplexed condition, would it not be wise for him to give an attentive hearing to the solution that clarifies to the satisfaction of head and heart this whole problem of evil? We now proceed to explain the Biblical solution of the problem: Evil is permitted to the wicked and selfish to teach them by experience what they would learn in no other way—that sin is bad in its nature and terrible in its effects, and therefore should be hated and forsaken. To this brief statement we would add a few particulars. The experience with evil is one (the first) part of God's creative process in bringing the race to perfection and happiness. A subsequent experience with righteousness will be the other part of His creative process to bring the race to perfection and happiness. He set out to create a race of free moral agents, who, intelligently appreciating sin from an experience of its nature and effects, and who, intelligently appreciating righteousness from an experience of its nature and effects, would as a result of these two experiences as their teachers, hate and have nothing to do with sin and love and practice righteousness. Foreseeing that inexperienced Adam, though perfect in faculty, but untried in evil, would under temptation fall into sin, God determined to permit it, but did not force it, seeing that by Adam's forfeiture of life and perfection he would be unable to transmit these to

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his descendants, but on the contrary would transmit to them what he had—death and imperfection. Thus the race was without its fault—simply by the law of heredity—brought under an experience with evil, in which it would learn by experience as a teacher the hatefulness of sin and the desirableness of avoiding it under all circumstances.

By becoming Adam's substitute in death and righteousness, Jesus became the possessor of a needed asset—life and righteousness—for the race, equal to the things that were forfeited by Adam and that involved the race into the experience of evil. This asset He will use as the indispensable thing to bring the race—dead and living—out of the experience of evil and into an experience with righteousness. As through the physical, mental, moral and religious degradation wrought by the experience of evil, prevailing through Adam's sin and death, the race will learn the exceeding hatefulness of sin; so through the contrasted physical, mental, moral and religious elevation that will be wrought by the experience with righteousness, brought about by Christ's death and righteousness, when all the evils and sufferings of the present time will cease to be and their opposites will be made to prevail, man will learn the loveableness of righteousness. Then the race, so educated in head and heart by the best of teachers— experience—as to sin and righteousness, will be given crucial tests to demonstrate whether it will permit moral law freely to control it, so that God may get what, in undertaking the creation of the race, He designed to bring into existence—a race of free moral agents who, intelligently appreciating sin and righteousness, will hate and avoid the former and love and practice the latter. These crucial tests will manifest the heart's attitude of each toward sin and righteousness, and will be followed by the eternal annihilation of those who will break down under them, as thus proven to be unwilling to let moral law control them,

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and by the everlasting preservation in blessedness and goodness of those who faithfully stand the trial, as willing to be controlled by moral law. We may hope that these two experiences will determine the bulk of the race against sin and for righteousness, with the result that when the creative process is finished God will obtain what He started out to create—a race of free moral agents who intelligently appreciating sin and righteousness, will hate and avoid the former and love and practice the latter. So viewed, present evils are a part of the creative process for the human family. This is the Bible solution of the problem of the permission of evil; and, so viewed, it destroys utterly the force of atheism's fourth argument: that the evils prevalent in the earth disprove God's existence. On the contrary, viewed as above, they imply God's existence and His benevolent and practical design in permitting them to prevail temporarily and thereafter in destroying them eternally.

It is atheism's fourth argument—weak as it is—that appeals to shallow thinkers more than its other three arguments. We believe that our four answers to it take all of its force away and that our reasons against atheism's other three arguments make them powerless. And by this the theory's arguments are overthrown. But there are many other things that might be said against it. Some of these we will briefly point out. The impossibility of its proof by a finite being tells against it. Its leaving uncultivated some of the highest and noblest faculties of the human brain— spirituality, hope and veneration—tells against it. Its removing the main support—reverence for God and respect for man as God's highest earthly creature—from others of man's highest faculties: conscientiousness, benevolence, firmness and continuity, also counts heavily against it. Its being against public policy and individual good, its encouraging in some pride and arrogance, in others gloom and despair, also counts

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against it. It robs life of its greatest joys, blessings, experiences and attainments, and shuts the door of hope to a blessed hereafter. It cuts off from fellowship with God and the godlike. It blinds the mind against the noblest and most elevating truths; binds the hands against engaging in the most elevating service—drawing others to God; and shackles the feet from running the ways of life. Its hollowness is unrelieved; its shallowness is unhidden; its fruitlessness is undeniable; its unwisdom is undesirable; its falsity is unrivaled; its inducements are unpersuasive; and its victims are of all men the most unenviable.

As an illustration of an atheist's difficulties with the Bible we will here review those of Mr. Clarence Darrow, a professed atheist. One of the most extraordinary scenes in religious controversy was enacted on the Court House lawn at Dayton, Tenn., July 20, 1925, when Mr. Clarence Darrow, one of the leading trial lawyers of America, questioned the late Mr. William Jennings Bryan in an attempt to prove the Bible erroneous. Some of Mr. Bryan's answers seem not to have been convincing, though we greatly admire the strength of his confidence in the Bible. Mr. Darrow brought forward the usual skeptical objections to various Biblical matters—objections that seem strong to those only who are not well informed on such points. Frequently Mr. Darrow's difficulties were not clearly put, because the answers given him took his attention away from his points. Mr. Darrow, or any other inquiring man, should receive polite and correct information in connection with his difficulties on the Bible. We regret that Mr. Bryan, though a brilliant orator and a devout Christian whom we greatly admire, failed to answer convincingly on some of them. We sympathize deeply with Mr. Darrow and others like him, who have difficulties with the Scriptures, but who do not usually receive from Christian apologists the kindly, patient and intelligent answers

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that they should receive, and that can be given. Not a few of our readers who have studied our answers to the objections urged by the Modernist, Dr. Potter, against the infallibility of the Bible, in his debate with Dr. Stratton, the Fundamentalist, Dec. 20, 1923, have spoken and written to us asking that we consider Mr. Darrow's difficulties with the Bible. We are pleased to accede to these requests, the more so, because we believe that most skeptics are made so through the creedal errors which are falsely claimed to be the Bible's teachings, the fumbling efforts of their defenders and the unhappy translations of our Biblical versions on some of these points. This is true of a number of the points involved in Mr. Darrow's difficulties. Accordingly, we will take up these in the spirit of helpfulness and not in a partisan or controversial spirit. And we trust that a blessing will come to the heads and hearts of all who will read these lines.

Mr. Darrow's first difficulty concerns the story of Jonah and the great fish that swallowed him. He did not get a chance to state what we believe are his main objections to this story—those usually given by skeptics: (1) that a whale's throat is too small to swallow a man and (2) that a man could not have lived three days in the belly of a great fish. On the first point several remarks may fittingly be made. In Jonah 1: 17 the Hebrew reads, a great fish, not a whale. The Septuagint's translation of this expression into Greek is, a great ketos, which last word is the one used in Matt. 12: 40 in the Greek and is translated into English by the word whale. Greek lexicographers, e.g., Lidell and Scott, Thayer, etc., define the word as: any sea monster, huge fish, like whales, sharks, dolphins, tunnies, etc. Accordingly, this word in Matt. 12: 40 should have been translated great or huge fish, as in Jonah 1: 17. Even if it were rendered whale, in the absence of a specific statement to that effect,

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it should not be inferred that it was a whale of the kind whose throat is too small to swallow a man; because the spermaceti whale, for instance, which has been found in the Mediterranean, has a throat large enough to receive a man. But this great fish might have been a huge shark, some of which have been known to swallow a man. One of such sharks—sixty feet in length—was washed ashore near Sidon in 1877, whose carcass Dr. Thompson, the celebrated author of the three-volume work, The Land And The Book, the most popular work on Palestine, sought to get for his college at Beirut, Syria. Some of the Mediterranean sharks, e.g., the white sharks, have only cutting teeth, and therefore have no choice except to swallow their prey whole or to cut off a portion, since they cannot hold their prey or swallow it piecemeal. Mr. Mueller, a most trustworthy naturalist, tells of an experience in the Mediterranean in 1758 on the part of a sailor who was seized by a shark, which had him already in its throat when the immediate shot of a whale gun struck it and forced it to disgorge the man alive. The sailor later traveled over Europe exhibiting this huge fish. A great fish captured near Miami, Fla., a few years ago,  had within its stomach another fish weighing 1500 pounds. This great sea monster is still on exhibition. It has been shown in various cities, and seen by thousands of people. Its picture showing its large mouth was shown in newspapers throughout the country. This shows that this objection to Jonah and the great fish does not hold.

The second objection—that a man cannot live three days in the belly of a fish—is based upon the denial of the reality of miracles. We sympathize with those who cannot bring themselves to believe in the miraculous. They miss much necessary for peace of heart and mind. Certainly the creation and the maintenance of the universe in its orderly arrangement, its movements, the relations of its parts, etc., are by far greater

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miracles than any others mentioned in the Bible; yet all must admit their reality. Why then might not lesser miracles be wrought? Perhaps when the object of Jonah's being swallowed and of his being preserved alive three days in the belly of the sea monster and of his deliverance therefrom is understood, the reasonableness of this purpose will make the miracle seem unobjectionable. Jesus clearly teaches (Matt. 12: 40) that in this transaction a prophetic type of His death and resurrection was furnished by Jonah. It was in part this type that enabled our Lord to know that he would be put to death, and then be raised on the third day, as it in part enabled St. Paul to state that Christ arose the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15: 4). The death and resurrection of Christ are the central facts of the Bible; and we should therefore expect them to be referred to in all seven lines of Scriptural thought, i.e., in its doctrines, precepts, promises, exhortations, prophecies, histories and types. And the story of Jonah and the great fish is one of the types to teach Jesus' death and resurrection. While, apart from this purpose, this story may seem ridiculous to the skeptic; to the Christian it is, as a typical prophecy of Christ's death and resurrection, a strong proof of the Bible as being a Divine revelation, since such a prophecy is evidently Divinely inspired. At any rate, a candid consideration of this fact should make the story lose its objectionableness to a skeptic.

Mr. Darrow's second difficulty with the Bible is based on Joshua's prayer and its answer as these have been translated by the Authorized Version (Josh. 10: 12, 13). He is not at all to be censured for having difficulty with the thought conveyed by this translation, for as it reads it plainly teaches an untruth. But this raises the question of the correctness of the translation of these verses, and as a student of the Hebrew we unhesitatingly charge the A. V. with mistranslating

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several words in these verses and, as a result, with giving a wholly erroneous impression of what was prayed for, and what was given in answer to the prayer. The words translated "sun," "moon," "stand still," and "whole," should have been translated, "sunlight," "moonlight," "be inactive," and "perfect," respectively. The following is offered as a correct translation of these verses: "Sunlight be inactive on Gibeon and moonlight [be inactive] in the valley of Ajalon. And the sunlight was inactive and the moonlight stood [inactive] until the nation took vengeance on its enemies. Is not this written in the book of the Righteous? And the sunlight stayed in the midheavens [remained in the atmosphere above the clouds from which the great hail was falling] and did not hasten to come [from the midheavens upon the surface of the mountain] as on a perfect day." So far the corrected translation with a few bracketed comments.

Our answer to Mr. Darrow's difficulty on this point is, therefore, the following: It was the sunlight that Joshua desired not to shine on Gibeon; for he knew that the sun itself never had been nor could be on that mountain, but that its light had been and could be there. It was the moonlight that Joshua desired not to shine in the valley of Ajalon; for he knew that the moon itself never had been nor could be in that valley, but that its light had been and could be there. The facts of the case make plain Joshua's meaning: The hail falling upon, confounding and killing the Amorites was so dense as to darken during the day the entire mountain and at night the entire valley where the Amorites successively were; and Joshua desired that condition to be continued, because thereby the foe was being overthrown. And for that he prayed. In effect his prayer was this: "O Lord, continue to cause the hail to fall in such dense masses upon Thy and our enemies as to darken the mountain by day and the valley by night, and thus overthrow Thy and our

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enemies." In other words, if the hail would fall so densely upon the Amorites as to shut off the sunlight by day and the moonlight by night during the day and night of that battle, the Amorites would surely be completely overthrown; and for that Joshua prayed and his prayer was granted. In the poetic form with which the prayer was uttered, he tersely stated the accompanying phenomena and not the desired cause and effect—the great hail and the overthrow of the Amorites. The several unhappy translations  above corrected have occasioned the widespread misunderstanding of this passage. Again we call attention to the last part of verse 13. It should read: So the sunlight stayed in the midheavens and hastened not to come [upon Mt. Gibeon] as on a perfect day. See Young's and Rotherham's translations. Additional to this and the correction above made on sunlight and moonlight, we would add the remark that the Hebrew word dum translated in the A. V. "stand still," primarily means to be silent and secondarily to be inactive. Joshua wanted the sunlight (not the sun) and the moonlight (not the moon) to be inactive that day so far as lighting up Mt. Gibeon and the valley of Ajalon was concerned, because that was the accompaniment of the dense masses of hail falling on the Amorites, which dense falling of hail he wished continued, until the enemy was overthrown. He did not desire the sun and the moon themselves to cease in their course that day, as so many, like Mr. Darrow, deceived thereto by the above mentioned mistranslations, have assumed. There is, therefore, no conflict between the Bible and Science on Joshua's dark day. But, on the other hand, Mr. Darrow and like thinkers are, on account of the mistranslations above pointed out, absolved from all censure; and by the above corrections of the translation the Bible and Science are shown to be in full harmony on this point. What a pity that the translators blundered so greatly! The Bible sometimes has to be saved

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from its friends—in this case, its translators; for Truth is often wounded in the house of its friends.

The third difficulty that Mr. Darrow has with the Bible is its teaching on the length of time the human family has been on earth. According to the Biblical chronology, Adam was created Oct., 4129 B. C., or about 6067 years ago. Mr. Darrow thinks the human family is much more ancient than this; and in proof of his opinion he cites the civilizations of China, Babylon and Egypt, which according to not a few archeologists and historians reach back to nearly 6000 B.

C. On this point we believe we can offer some suggestions that will bring the chronology of these nations into substantial harmony with that of the Bible, so far as man's antiquity is concerned. Let us take up the Egyptian record. Egyptologists have unearthed many genealogical and historical tablets giving lists of what are considered to be those of Egypt's rulers. These lists, to the perplexity of the ablest Egyptologists, vary greatly in the number of rulers that they give. Most of the lists contain the names of gods and demigods among these rulers. But one of these tablets, and that the most reliable of all of them—the Abydos tablet—omits the mention of the gods and demigods, and gives those whom the Egyptians supposed to be the human Pharaohs only. The Abydos tablet most remarkably confirms the Bible genealogies as given in Genesis 4 and 5. Comparing this list with the lists in the other tablets, we find that they substantially agree with the first ten Pharaohs given in the Abydos tablet. Thereafter the larger lists give a number of names of gods and demigods omitted in the Abydos tablet. Directly following these they next give the names that immediately follow the first ten in the Abydos tablet.

The first twenty Pharaohs in these tablets (omitting those of the gods and demigods in the non-Abydosian tablets) are most interesting; for they, in so far as they agree with the Abydos tablet, correspond exactly with

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the twenty men introduced in the Genesis record up to and including Noah. It will be recalled that Adam and his firstborn descendants by and including Cain up to Jabal, who must have perished in the flood, since he is the last  one of Cain's descendants named, number exactly ten; while Abel and Seth and the latter's firstborn descendants up to and including Noah number ten. The Abydos tablet gives these twenty persons their Egyptian names: first in the order of Adam and Cain and the latter's firstborn descendants, and then in the order of Abel and Seth and the latter's firstborn descendants up to and including Noah. Thus Adam under the name of Mena is called Pharaoh I. Noah under the name of Norfu is called Pharaoh XX. The gods and demigods are introduced in the other tablets after Jabal, Cain's last firstborn descendant, who in the tablets is called Kakan. This is just the Biblical time and place for them to appear; for these gods were the angels—"sons of God"—who just before the flood married women and by them generated the giants—the demigods (Gen. 6: 2-4; Jude 6, 7). We have treated in detail of these angels and their giant sons in H. E. '21, 5, 6, to which we refer our readers for these details. Pharaoh XXI is Ham, Hebrew Cham, called in the tablets Chamu and Chufu. Remembering that Ham's, not Shem's or Japheth's, descendants settled in Egypt, Ham is just the one that we should expect to appear in this list of so-called Pharaohs after Norfu—Noah.

There are some other interesting items in the Abydos tablet: Mena's (Adam's) wife is Shesh (Hebrew, Isha) meaning woman. Pharaoh II is called Teta—Khent, meaning guilty one in allusion to Cain's guilt of Abel's blood. The tablet portion for Abel represents him as the non-resistant one. The Abydos tablet was made by Seti I, who is supposed to have been the Pharaoh that had Joseph as his prime minister. Seti I had a shaft sunk 60 feet deep through solid rock. At that depth his masons cut out the stair case on which

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the Abydos tablet was then inscribed. An exact copy of it is in the British Museum. This tablet is highly confirmatory of the Biblical chronology, if we keep in mind that, like the Bible, it gives two contemporaneous lines of genealogy, first one and then the other, to a completion. This would require us to count 1656, and not over 3300 years, from Mena (Adam) to Norfu (Noah) and the flood. Reducing the longest Egyptian chronology for this period into half its length, as required by this consideration, and then omitting the chronology of the gods and demigods—for these were also contemporaneous with the two genealogies involved, we find that the Egyptian chronology as given in the Abydos tablet, and as compared with the other tablets, and the Biblical chronology are substantially alike for the time before the flood. We may further add that the Babylonian, Chinese and Indian records, from which certain archeologists claim notices of persons living from 6000 years before Christ onward, have the same fault of counting as successive genealogical lists or dynasties those that were in fact contemporaneous, even as certain Egyptologists have done with the Abydos and other tablets. The fact that the Bible introduces the two genealogies involved separately, but does not require that their chronology be given as successive, but as contemporaneous, proves that it is reasonable to do this with the names in the Abydos tablet. The above considerations prove that reasonably we may harmonize the Egyptian, Babylonian, Chinese and Indian chronologies with that of the Bible, which assigns the period of about 6067 years to the human family's stay on earth thus far. Thus the most reliable tablet of Heathen antiquity corroborates substantially the Bible chronology.

Before leaving this point it will not be amiss to call our readers' attention to the fact that there are really no chronological notices given in the Egyptian chronologies previous to the eighteenth dynasty, which flourished

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from the end of Joseph's time until about Moses' time. Egyptologists have had to guess on the chronology previous to that dynasty. The following table will show how the greatest of them differ in their guesses of the date for Mena, the first so-called Pharaoh, who was really not a Pharaoh—rather he was Adam, but the Egyptians claimed him as a Pharaoh. These guesses were made before 1912, when the above identification of the first 20 names of the Abydos  tablet  was  made  with  the  20  names  of  the two genealogical trees of Gen. 4 and 5. 

Mariette and Lenormant 5004 B. C. 

Brugsch and Budge 4400 B. C. 

Lepsius 3892 B. C. 

Bunsen (earlier view) 3623 B. C.

Bunsen (later view) 3059 B. C. 

Breasted 3400 B. C. 

Stewart Poole 2717 B. C.

G. Wilkinson 2691 B. C. 

G. Rawlinson 2350 B. C. 

‍

We need only add that the greatest archeologists and historians are as divergent in their views on the antiquity of the Babylonians, Chinese and Indians. Surely the clear chronology of the Bible should not be set aside by such divergent guesses as prevail among the ablest archeologists and historians. Let its deniers first bring forth agreed certainties, if they would have us accept their theories. In the meantime we do well to disregard them, since they are admittedly guessing.

Mr. Darrow finds another difficulty in the Bible claim that there was a flood that covered the earth. Yet he mentions a thing that implies the fact that there was such a flood—the Glacial Age. The glaciers were caused by the freezing of the flood waters north of the temperate zone. The best scientific opinion is favorable to the flood's actuality, and that along the lines laid down in the Bible. We refer to the Vailian theory of a canopy of water that surrounded our

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earth, as Saturn's rings surround Saturn, and as Jupiter's watery canopies surround it. This is in harmony with the Bible, which speaks of God separating the waters on the earth from those above the earth by the expanse (whose place is taken by our present atmosphere), improperly translated in the A. V. by the word firmament (Gen. 1: 7). In fact there were many of these canopies—seven in all— around our earth, held off by the heat and motion of the primeval earth at varying distances, dependent on their density. Each of these fell to the earth at the end of its age- day, and these successively formed the strata of the earth  on top of the original igneous mass now represented in the granite formed from the molten mass, when all its carbon was burned out. These seven strata are very plainly seen in immense layers in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado river. The last of these canopies was of pure water (the heavier minerals, etc., being in the various lower canopies according to their varying weights) and fell to the earth in the deluge of Noah's day. All ancient nations have preserved accounts of this flood, which accounts, however differing in details, agree substantially with the Biblical flood.

There are certain facts that necessitate the acceptance of a sudden flood covering the earth. The following will show this: With a canopy of water surrounding this earth, the earth itself would be a huge hot-house with evenness of temperature everywhere, making the climate at the poles the same as that at the equator. Thus the same vegetation would be found at the poles as would be found at the equator. How do we know this? Because huge mammoths, antelopes, etc., have been found in frozen Siberia embedded in the fields of ice—glaciers—with undigested grass in their stomachs. These while grazing in the far North were suddenly overwhelmed by the flood's descending waters, which quickly froze. The resultant ice or glaciers held them for millenniums in their secure

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embrace until lately they were discovered and gave us the factual proof of the flood's reality. Geology tells the same tale, according to the testimony of such eminent Geologists as Dawson, Dana, Wright, etc. Thus the Bible, the history of all ancient nations, the Glacial Age, Zoological finds in frozen Siberia and Geology, all prove the reality of the flood; and the Valian theory gives it a scientific explanation.

The fact of a universal flood will enable us to assist Mr. Darrow out of his difficulty with the confusion of languages at the time of the Tower of Babel. According to the real Bible chronology, Noah's flood occurred 2473­ 2472 B. C. This is just about where the Abydos tablet, compared with the Bible, would place it. All accounts of the flood preserved by the ancient nations speak of but one family as rescued from the flood by a specially constructed ship. Accordingly, there was but one language brought over to this side of the flood, even if more than one had been previously used, which is doubtful. But the historical features of all ancient nations, as separate and distinct from one another, become chronological and reliable as such only at a period later than 2472 B. C. This fact would imply that nations as such came into existence only after the flood, even as the Bible teaches. We must, therefore, look for the rise of various languages as synchronous with the rise of various nations. Hence this must be looked for about the time of the building of the Tower of Babel, in Nimrod's days (Gen. 10: 8-12; 11: 1-9), about 2400 B. C. Thus the facts of the case put the origin of the nations from one family and thus the rise of national languages where the Bible teaches both came into being.

The confusion of languages was a fact; but additionally it was a Divinely arranged occurrence for prophetic purposes, which when seen makes the confusion of languages a reasonable thing to accept. In this picture we understand Nimrod to type Satan; the

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city of Babel, the present evil world; the tower, a false religion—Papal Churchianity; the pride of the people in building the tower, the pride of papal sectarianism in developing their system; the expectation of the people of safety from another flood in building this tower, the expectation of papists that they had a refuge against the curse in their system; the one language of the tower builders, the papal creed; the confusion of tongues, the creedal confusion of the sectarian systems that papal errors and wrongs have occasioned to rise—the conflicting theories of Protestant creeds. The inability of the Babelites to understand one another types the inability of the holders of each creed to appreciate the contrary teachings of other creeds. Thus viewed, the confusion of languages at Babel was wrought by God as a miracle to prophesy the confusion of creedists as a result of papal perversions. This prophetic character of the event is the Divine attestation of its truthfulness.

Mr. Darrow finds difficulty with the Bible teaching of the age of this earth. Mr. Darrow is right in objecting to the teaching that the earth and its creatures were made in six days of 24 hours each, as many of the creeds unfortunately and erroneously teach. Since the sun and moon did not shine through the earth's canopies until the fourth creative day, evidently the days and nights implied in the previously mentioned three mornings and evenings could not have been days and nights of our kind. On the contrary, we understand that the six creative days were each of 7000 years' duration. Our reason for this is that the seventh day, following the six creative days, is a period of 7000 years, and therefore by parity of reasoning the preceding six days must each have been of 7000 years also. Before proving this proposition from the Bible, we will note how the Hebrew word yom (day) and the Greek word hemera (day) are in the Bible used to designate varying periods of time: such as a

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period of twelve hours (John 11: 9), of 24 hours (Num. 13: 25), of 40 years (Ps. 95: 8, 9), of 1845 years, i.e., the Jewish Age, from Jacob's death to Jesus' death (Rom. 10: 20), of the Gospel Age, which has lasted over 1900 years (2 Cor. 6: 2; Heb. 3: 14),  of the Millennial  Age—1000  years (Is. 11: 10; 25: 9) and of the entire creative period (Gen. 2: 4). We frequently use the word day in ordinary English to designate periods of many years, as the day of Caesar, of Napoleon, of Washington, of Lincoln, etc. Thus we see that the Bible uses the word day to designate periods and ages as well as a time of twelve or twenty-four hours.

In the following way we prove that each of the six creative days was a period of 7000 years: The seventh day, the day on which God rests, is a period of 7000 years. St. Paul in Heb. 4: 4 says that on the seventh day God rested from His creative works as respects man. In verse 5 he shows that God's rest was unbrokenly continuing unto and in his day. In verse 7 he shows that this rest covers the entire Gospel Age; and therefore it extends to our own day, over 6000 years from its beginning. During the Millennium, into which we have already entered, God will continue to rest; for Christ will then work for Him toward humanity, while He rests. It will be only at the end of the Millennium, after having subdued all things unto Himself, that the Son will deliver up the Kingdom to God. Then God working again toward man, His rest will be ended. Hence the rest day—the seventh day—of God is a period of 7000 years. But this seventh day of rest is spoken of as a day in the same connection as the six creative days are (Gen. 1: 3­ 2: 3). Thus they must be days in the same sense as the seventh—each of 7000 years' duration. Such periods permit of sufficient time for all the changes, deposits of strata, formation of fossils, etc., that Geology, etc., have brought to our attention. Geology, by

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its seven geological ages, corroborates the seven periods since the original creation of the heavens, and earth, which of course were in existence before the first creative day began, but how long before we cannot tell. It is one of the secret things on which we will do well to refrain from speculation, since speculation, is guessing.

Mr. Darrow has another difficulty: Eve's creation from a rib of Adam. Almighty power in making of one blood all human beings (Acts 17: 26) could, of course, easily create Eve from a rib of Adam, as well as out of any other part of his body, since to be flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, she had to be made out of some part of his flesh and bones (Gen. 2: 23). This unusual thing will become reasonable when we understand that by this act God gave a typical prophecy of how from Christ's humanity and spirit the Church would be formed. We are familiar with the fact that the Bible uses Adam and Eve as types of Christ and the Church (1 Cor. 15: 45; 2 Cor. 11: 2, 3; Eph. 5: 31, 32; Gen. 2: 23, 24).  The  following  will  show  this  in  type  and antitype: Adam types Jesus; Eve types the Church. Adam had no real helpmate before Eve's creation; neither does Jesus before the Church's creation. Adam was put into a deep sleep preparatory to Eve's creation. Jesus was put into the sleep of death preparatory to the Church's creation. As from the sleeping Adam were taken a rib and some flesh  for the creation of Eve; so from the dead human Jesus were the life-rights and the right to life taken to justify the Church to life; and the transformation of the rib and flesh into Eve corresponds to the transformation of certain justified human beings into the Divine Bride of Christ, the sinless Second Eve who, united to the sinless Second Adam, will with Him in the Millennium regenerate (Matt. 19: 28) the race in righteousness and life, in contrast with the sinful Adam and Eve generating the race in sin and death. So viewed, instead

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of Eve's being formed from a rib and some flesh of Adam being ridiculous, it is a beautiful prophecy of one of the most glorious of all Biblical truths.

Where Cain got his wife likewise troubles Mr. Darrow. This question is very easy to answer: He got her from his father's family; for he married one of his sisters. We are told in Gen. 5: 4 that Adam begat sons and daughters. When the latter were begotten we do not know since the Bible, as usual in the case of daughters, does not say; but we do know that Cain married one of these; because the Bible teaches that all men came from one blood—Adam's (Acts 17:  26;  Rom. 5: 12, 15-19;  1 Cor. 15: 22).  Mr. Darrow's difficulty on this point arises from a misunderstanding of the language of Gen. 4: 16, 17: "And Cain went out from the presence [favor] of Jehovah and dwelt in the land of Nod [Hebrew for wandering] on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Enoch." This language is understood by Mr. Darrow to mean that Cain went into a far distant country, and there became acquainted with a woman whom he never before saw and married her and by her became a father. This is not the sense of the passage. The passage does not say that he became acquainted in the land of Nod with a woman and there married her. He took his wife with him from his and her father's home to the land of Nod. While there he knew her in the sense of cohabiting with her, and from this act she conceived and bore a son. The word "know" among the Hebrews very frequently was used to mean cohabit, and the connection clearly proves that such is its sense here. The following are some passages that use the word in this sense: Gen. 4: 1, 25; 24: 16; 38: 26; 1 Sam. 1: 19; Judges 19: 25; 1 Kings 1: 4; Luke 1: 34; etc. One may object that it is unhealthy to marry a sister. To this we agree in so far as concerns the present fallen condition of humanity; but such was not the case before human blood and

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health were so much corrupted as they have become. Early in human history the blood and health were very much better than now, evidenced by the longevity of the antediluvians. In view of the above cited facts, it is evident that there is no difficulty in answering the question as to where Cain got his wife.

Further, Mr. Darrow experiences difficulty with Eve's temptation by the serpent. In explanation we would say that it was not really the literal serpent that tempted Eve. It was Satan who spoke through the serpent, even as he now speaks through mediums, for Satan was the speaker and deceived Eve, even as Jesus, Paul and John teach—Gen. 3: 4, 5; John 8: 44; 2 Cor. 11: 3; Rev. 20: 2, 3, 7.

Next, Mr. Darrow is troubled about the curse placed on the serpent, as though it had previously walked on its tail, and after the curse crawled on its belly and consumed more or less dust (Gen. 3: 1-14). His difficulty is due to his misunderstanding what is meant by the serpent. It is Satan. Through introducing sin into the world he can no more stand erect in the true nobility of a righteous character like other sons of God—the good angels; but he grovels— crawls—in things low, degraded and degrading, and appropriates them to himself, to his continually increasing degradation. Thus does he figuratively crawl and eat dust. The literal serpent was used by Satan, "that old serpent" (so called because of deceitfully using the literal serpent as a medium through which he spoke and acted), and is not at all meant in Gen. 3: 15. We will quote the passage and briefly explain it in brackets: "I will put enmity between thee [Satan] and the woman, and between thy seed [Satan's human servants] and her seed [Christ and the Church— Rom. 16: 20]; it shall bruise thy head [destroy thee], and thou shalt bruise his heel [by opposition and persecution make the Faithful figuratively limp, inflict a not vital injury, but not destroy them]."

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Then, too, Mr. Darrow finds difficulty with the part of the curse placed on woman: sorrow, multiplication of conception, sufferings in child birth, and the husband's headship over her, often expressing itself in tyranny. At least it must be admitted that these evils are a fact in the average woman's experience. The curse upon the earth has more or less embrutened men, and from the severities of nature and man's hardness of heart have these evils mainly come upon womankind. Had she not in Eve sinned, sin would not have come, and she would have enjoyed paradise continually, even as the man also would have done. But sin caused the loss of the state of innocence and paradise and caused justice to drive them into the untoward—cursed— earth, where the severities of nature effected in man and woman such changes as have made her suffer the above- cited evils, even as man has had to suffer his peculiar part of the curse—heavy labor. The facts—dire as they are— prove God's statement to be true.

Finally, Mr. Darrow seems to have difficulty in the rainbow first appearing after the flood. This difficulty is readily explained. Before the last earth canopy, which consisted of water, was precipitated on the earth, rain had never fallen; because no clouds could form under this canopy. The Bible tells us that the earth was made moist by a mist arising from the earth, which had many underground streams, lakes and seas, whose beds, drained, made many of our caves (Gen. 2: 6). In some cases these huge reservoirs reached the surface and formed streams (Gen. 2: 10). When, however, the canopy of water engirdling the earth broke and precipitated itself on the earth in Noah's flood, the sun could produce clouds by its direct heat acting on the water, and as a result rain was made possible. And when for the first time the sun's rays struck the descending rain at the proper angle with man's sight, man for the first time saw a rainbow. It is also easy from

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these facts to see how the first rainbow was a pledge that the earth would never again suffer a universal deluge: Its presence was a proof that there was no more a canopy of water engirdling the earth, and therefore it could not precipitate itself upon the earth in a universal flood. This fact, combined with that of the earth's traveling around its orbit, also accounts for the variation of the seasons, etc., as long as the earth lasts.—Gen. 8: 21, 22; 9: 8-17.

We have finished our brief review of the difficulties that Mr. Darrow and many others have with the Bible. Our review is now too long to take up at this time his views on evolution, which we will later do. We have found his difficulties in nearly every case to be based upon a misunderstanding, which we trust we have been enabled by the Lord's grace to clear up. We trust this study will prove a blessing to many who have difficulties with the Bible. We desire to assure these dear troubled souls that there is help for them out of these difficulties; for the Bible rightly understood is the best science, the noblest instruction and the clearest truth.

We have studied atheism as the first false view of God; and now we proceed to a study of materialism as the  second false view of God. Atheism and materialism are really twins; for in almost all cases materialists, like atheists, deny the existence of a God. All strict materialists are avowed atheists. The exceptions to this rule are the few materialists who deify the universe as such, and give the worship of admiration to the laws, order, beauty, sublimity and power that are manifest in nature as a whole. But there is a marked distinction between atheism and materialism when they are contrasted; for atheism is an exceedingly crude and superficial denial of God's existence, while materialism is from the intellectual standpoint a keen- witted attempt philosophically and scientifically to account for the universe and its contents on the sole basis of matter and its inherent forces. Hence few

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thinkers espouse atheism as distinct from materialism, while many of the educated and scientific for the last 80 years have espoused materialism, though during the last twenty-five years a distinct reaction has set in against this theory. Philosophical and scientific materialism usually in our day takes on the form of evolution, though Darwin was not a strict materialist, believing that a Creator started the first and lowest forms of life; but most of his disciples have disbelieved this; but as a theory, without the thought of evolution, it existed from the days of the ancient Greek philosophers, e.g., the Epicureans and Skeptics. And in all times, those who have lived the life of the flesh only, the life of the senses only, the life for this earth only, have been practical, even if not theoretical, materialists.

But, one may ask, what is meant by materialism? In answer, we might say that it is the theory that reduces all existing things to matter and its inherent forces. It denies the existence of any substances other than matter. To it matter alone is substance, and substance is that which is tangible to one or more of our five senses. It therefore denies the existence of things intangible to sense. Hence to the materialist spiritual substances do not exist. The thorough—going materialist claims that by matter and its inherent forces he can explain the origin, development and present state of all nature, including animal existence and powers; but, as we will see, this claim breaks down at every turn and leaves unsolved the very problems that materialism sets out to explain. Modern materialism is a reaction against the excessive idealism that prevailed in philosophy, especially in Germany, during the first five decades of the nineteenth century. As a testimony to the correctness of the above definition and brief explanation of materialism, we quote the word of Wilhelm Strecker, one of the foremost of modern materialists. He says: "That which distinguishes materialism from every other view of the world is that it traces

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all being and all events in the world [universe] to matter and the forces inherent in matter, and denies the existence and operation of any power outside of nature. All events are, according to materialism, the necessary effects of definite causes; and this necessity exists, not only in our thinking, but is founded in the things themselves. Even life and the phenomena of consciousness materialism regards  as but phenomena of matter which appear under given conditions—which, however, are not certainly known—and which will cease with the conditions that attended them." "According to this view all events in the world come to pass in accordance to eternally valid and inflexible laws which cannot be abolished or changed by any arbitrary will [not even by the will of a God] but to whose might all will is subject." So far Strecker, whose explanation of his theory is clear.

Materialism, in its strict form, is therefore in striking contrast with Christianity. It deprecates the idea of God and denies His existence, ridicules faith as superstition, denies a Divine revelation, free will and moral responsibility, claiming that all act as they must, forced thereto by physical causes, and estimating virtue and vice as of equal worth or worthlessness. Of course, this theory disallows a personal hereafter, affirming that the only eternal life that man can have is by propagation or by the elements of his body entering food substances and becoming through assimilation parts of others' bodies. Spirit substances and beings, of course, cannot, according to this theory, exist. Some materialists, recoiling from some of these teachings, have introduced elements contradictory of materialism into their theory of materialism; but, of course, in so doing they have contradicted the theory itself.

We now proceed to a refutation of this theory, which is today in the scientific world the most prevailing one. Our first argument against it is that it fails of its professed purpose, i.e., to explain all being and

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events by matter and its inherent forces. It fails utterly to explain the nature of matter and the nature of force, which it confesses it cannot understand. It completely fails to explain how motion in matter first started; for it must assume that matter's inherent forces were at first quiescent, i.e., potential, not active, i.e., kinetic. It fails utterly to explain how consciousness—thought, feeling and will— arose out of matter and its inherent forces. It fails to explain the origin of life and of the various species of animal life. It breaks down in its attempted explanation of the origin of the difference between man's powers and those of the brute creation. Thus the very problems that it starts out to explain and that it boasts it can explain by matter and its inherent forces, it completely fails to explain. Hence it is a failure as a theory in the purpose of its existence—the explanation of all being and events by the sole agency of matter and its inherent forces. Hence its profession that it explains all being and events is false. Even Strecker, after asserting that it explains all being and events, is forced to admit that it does not do so in many cases, but that it is forced to concede that there are many gaps in knowledge for which it resorts to assumptions, since it lacks proofs for them. This is bad on this theory.

This brings up another consideration against it: It assumes and takes for granted as matters of faith some very important things that should be proved in order to establish itself as a theory, i.e., it is in important particulars based on faith. For example, it assumes that matter is eternal, that its inherent forces as potentialities are also eternal. According to the materialist's principle that the proof of a thing depends upon its being sensibly observed, neither he nor anyone else could by the senses have observed their eternity. How then, we ask, does he in view of his principles know that these are eternal? It also assumes the reality of time and space and their being without

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beginning and without ending. Have materialists been everywhere and always, that they know this by sense? How, then, according to their principles, do they know this? Again, materialism believes in atoms. How does it know that they exist, since they are not cognizable by sense, its indispensable test of existence? It also believes in the invariable operation of cause and effect. How can it prove this? It cannot prove it, because no one has observed all causes and all effects. Yet materialism assumes it. It also believes the doctrine of the conservation of energy—a thing not only impossible of proof, but also a thing that is now much doubted by the greatest scientists, e.g., Millikan. It assumes spontaneous generation as the origin of life; but all scientific demonstrations and experience disprove such a thing. There are other gaps in the proof for this theory, some of which were pointed out in the preceding argument. All of these views it accepts on faith. Thus its main fundamentals are matters of assumption, i.e., faith, and not of proof. This proves that materialists' flings at faith in believers in the Bible are entirely inconsistent with their own course. Scoffers at others' faith as faith, when they themselves base their main principles on faith, should remember the proverb on glass-house dwellers not throwing stones. But such little considerations as this seem negligible for those who perceive no difference between virtue and vice except in the atoms of the pertinent bodies, as strict materialism teaches there is none.

Again, materialism's denial of the reality of spirit substances is contrary to fact; for facts demonstrate that there are spirit substances. The following spirit substances and others exist and certainly are not matter: life-principle, light and ether. Hence the theory that denies the existence of everything except matter and its inherent forces must be false. Life-principle pervades the air and every living thing. Ether and light pervade space. The existence of these substances,

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which are intangible to sense, is undeniable. Therefore, their existence disproves materialism, which denies the existence of spirit substances as well as spirit beings.

So, too, facts demonstrate the existence of spirit beings, whose existence materialism denies. By spirit beings we mean superhuman persons whose bodies consist of spirit,  as distinct from material, substances. The phenomena of spiritism demonstrate the existence of spirit beings. While we admit that there is much fraud designedly worked as such for selfish considerations by some mediums, there is such a multiplicity of demonstrable facts on the activity of spirits in spiritistic phenomena, with no evidence of human fraud against them, proven by human fraud-excluding conditions used to test the phenomena, that the existence of spirits is properly accepted as a scientifically demonstrated fact. While we so speak, we are not to be understood as endorsing the characters of the genuine spirits that operate in spiritistic phenomena. On the contrary, while we believe these agents to be genuine spirits, we believe them to be demons, the fallen angels, who with almost unbelievable deceitfulness palm themselves off as dead humans existing as spirits. Thus the numerous facts of spirit activities in spiritistic phenomena prove materialism to be false; for it denies the existence of spirit substances and beings, which spiritistic phenomena prove to exist.

The fact that there is no known example of thought, feeling and will, without the union of life-principle and substance organized into bodies, disproves materialism. Inorganic matter does not feel, think or will. As a primary condition of thinking, feeling and willing—in a word, of consciousness—substance must be arranged into an organism, a body. But a mere organism cannot exercise thought, feeling and volition, else dead bodies and some automatons that have been constructed with proper chemically constituted and arranged organs, blood, etc., like those of a human body, would exercise

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these. There must be a union of such an organism with life- principle by means of the blood. Such life-principle is Biblically called spirit—not a spirit; for there is no spirit being within man, according to Scripture, reason and fact; but there is in man a spirit substance called life-principle, and the union of this with man's organism, the blood acting as the point of contact for the union, produces personality—does not give man a soul but makes him a soul. Materialism is at an utter loss to explain the existence of human and brute souls without the union of the spirit substance, life-principle, with a human or brute organism. On this subject the Bible, reason and facts are in most exact harmony, as can be seen in the story of Adam's creation:

(1) a body—an organism—was formed; (2) life-principle—derived from the air, which is accordingly called, "the breath of life"—was blown into it and (3) their union by means of the blood produced a third thing—a living soul, an energetic person (Gen. 2: 7). It is because materialism denies spirit substances that it cannot explain how matter was first put into motion and how life and consciousness originated. Without this spirit substance there can be no life, no thought, no feeling and no volition—no consciousness. This fact is annihilative of materialism. To these considerations no materialist has been able to make a satisfactory answer. To them this is one of their insoluble riddles, of which DuBois Reymond, one of the ablest scientists, acknowledges seven.

Materialism cannot bridge the gulf between matter and mind. Not only does it fail to understand the nature of matter and its inherent forces; but it cannot from these two things deduct mental processes; for mental processes cannot be deducted from material conditions. Materialists have wrestled with this problem unto exhaustion and have left it in despair of solution. Here the greatest of them after the hardest endeavor have had to admit that they could not explain

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mental processes with only material substances and their inherent forces to work with. To the theist their failure is self-evident; for their denial of spirit substances, and hence the spirit substantiality of life-principle, leaves out of consideration the one indispensable thing for mental processes and hence for the solution of the problem here discussed. While the function of the brain is that of an instrument which the person—the soul—uses for thinking, feeling and willing, it is the union of the life-principle and the brain, the latter endowed with personal capacities, that produces the soul—the person—which, so produced, by the brain does the thinking, willing and feeling.

Another matter counts strongly against materialism: it denies the freedom of the will. Materialists think, as Strecker puts it, that man's will is controlled by physical law. Hence he of necessity acts as he does, though they concede that he fondly imagines that he is free because he chooses as he likes. But, they say, he likes as he likes under the unalterable law of his being, which forces him to choose according to the composition of his atoms. This certainly is untrue, and that for many reasons, e.g., he frequently chooses from principle to do what he does not like, and frequently likes to do what he does not choose to do, as he also frequently changes into disliking what he formerly liked and into liking what he formerly disliked, and, again, without dislike becomes indifferent to what he once disliked and liked. We are conscious of freely choosing, sometimes solely by principle, sometimes solely by prejudice and sometimes by a mixture of these; and in all cases we know that we could have chosen otherwise, had we so desired. Again, our regretting on further consideration a former choice and reversing it, proves our free will. In all cases we are conscious of our freedom of choice, even if unable at times to execute the choice. But materialism, denying this, reduces man to a machine, or, as some

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of them have called him, a conscious automaton, forced to choose and do by blind physical law. So to degrade human nature, and that contrary to the facts of experience and consciousness, is a strong count against it.

As a logical consequence of its denying man's freedom of choice, materialism denies moral responsibility. The more consistent materialists do not hesitate to deny man's moral responsibility, though some materialists shrink from this position and, inconsistently with materialism, seek to hold man responsible for his acts, at least to the extent that his conduct must be subject to the demands of society's needs. But consistent materialists deny that the virtuous man is any better morally than the vicious man. Blind nature, they say, works in one the same as in the other, forcing each of them to act as they act because of the material constitution and bent of their atoms! Therefore materialists insist that difference of conduct is due to a different distribution and quality of one's atoms, not to the varying degrees of people's sense of responsibility and character status. Therefore they have justified all the crimes of the calendar. Hume, e.g., justified suicide. Darwin, who was only partially a materialist, speaks disapprovingly of man's allowing the weaker members of the race to propagate. Almost all of them have justified the indulgence of man's baser propensities. To them sin is due to a diseased brain, though facts deny such a thought. Such a theory certainly is dangerous to the individual, to the family, to society, not to say anything of character and religion; for low ideals are always degrading and injurious to the individual, to the family, to society, to character and to religion. And the wickedness and degrading influence of practical, as distinct from theoretical, materialism, is manifest in our day in the increase of sin, vice and crime, by those who regard the material things of life as the highest good.

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Again, materialism fails to account for religion as the highest practice and attainment of man. It is a peculiar phrenological fact that the higher the office of the brain faculties, the higher are they located in the brain; and the lower the office of the brain faculties, the lower are they located in the head. Thus the social—worldly—and selfish faculties of the human brain are situated in the lower parts of the brain; next come the intellectual faculties; still higher come the artistic faculties; the next higher are the moral faculties and, finally; the highest are the religious faculties. Using the picture of a four-storied house to illustrate the brain we might say that those who live only in their selfish and social—worldly—propensities dwell in the cellar of their brains; that those who live only in their intellectual faculties—"all head"—dwell on the first floor of their brains; that those who live in the artistic sentiments dwell in the second story of their brains; that those who live in their moral sentiments dwell in the third floor of their brains; and that those who live in their religious faculties dwell in the highest floor of their brains—farthest away from the dust and clatter of the street and nearest the pure air and light of heaven. In strict materialism there can be no religion, since it denies God's existence. In less strict materialism there is a deifying and worshiping of nature. Hence there can be no exercise of the religious faculties in strict materialism; and in less strict materialism there is a degradation of them by perverting them to wrong objects. This means that materialism leaves uncultivated the highest and noblest faculties of the human heart, as well as degrades them. It therefore is a degrading and injurious thing. But it must also be an untrue thing, as an explanation of all being and events, for as all our other faculties have objects to which they are adapted, whose existence, therefore, they necessarily imply; so our religious faculties must have objects to which they are adapted and whose

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existence, therefore, they necessarily imply. But materialism, in denying God's existence, is untrue as a theory and degrading as a practice. And its irreligion and false religion make it an exceedingly evil thing.

A contrast between materialism and theism is in every way unfavorable to the former and favorable to the latter; and, therefore, it proves the superiority of the latter to the former as to the creation, preservation and rulership of the universe. Theism is the doctrine that God exists as a Spirit Being independently of, but works creatively, preservingly and executively throughout, the universe. The eternity of God is a much more reasonable assumption than is that of the eternity of matter and its inherent forces, which at first could only be potential, but not active; for the first cause must be causeless and therefore eternal. But a motionless first cause (which matter at first must have been, if it assumed to be the first cause) cannot be the first cause; for something else had to cause it to begin to move. But this objection does not hold against a conscious first cause; for it could start motion in itself and outside itself. The billions of evidences of order—the reign of law—in the universe imply that the first cause was intelligent, which God is, while the facts of the case, if materialism be regarded as true, require us to ascribe to matter and its inherent forces the very highest and greatest imaginable attributes of mind—which they certainly do not have. The billions of evidences of design and adaptability in the creation, preservation and government of the universe, imply a conscious, wise and practical inventor, preserver and ruler, such as God is; whereas we can by no means account for these evidences of design and adaptability on the assumption that matter and its inherent forces, of necessity working blindly, are the only creative, preserving and ruling agencies; for this would be ascribing the very highest and greatest imaginable attributes of volition to matter and its

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inherent forces—things that these do not have. To account for the existence, preservation and government of the universe in any other way than as the work of an intelligent, wise and powerful conscious personality, is utterly impossible, and inorganic matter and blind force are utterly wanting in every particular in capacities commensurate to the gigantic job of creating, preserving and ordering all nature animate and inanimate. Thus from the standpoint of the origin, preservation and rulership of the universe, theism is a most reasonable theory, while materialism is a wholly inadequate explanation of these wondrous phenomena.

Leaving inorganic nature as unexplainable by materialism and as reasonably explained by theism, let us compare these two views as to their adaptability to the explanation of organic nature. At the threshold of this question we are confronted by that of the origin of life. Here materialism breaks down completely; for it is unable with its materials—matter and its inherent forces—to bridge the chasm between the lifeless and life. It has resorted to spontaneous generation as an attempt to bridge this chasm; but by its own principle, that what is in the effect—here life—must be in its cause, it is estopped from logically using this hypothesis. Moreover, if the theory were true, we would find examples of spontaneous generation about us—which neither we nor anybody else ever found. Moreover, the efforts of scientific experiments have failed to prove it, every one of them breaking down in the effort to produce spontaneous generation. Scientists are now a practical unit in asserting its unprovableness. Thus materialism restricted to the use of its tools for the explanation of the problem cannot explain the origin of life in an alleged previously lifeless universe. Theism beautifully explains it in plant, animal and spirit life—in plant life by the union of a vegetable body and life- principle, with sap as the means of contact, in animal life by the union of an

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animal body and life-principle, with blood as the means of contact, and in spirit life by the union of a spirit body (a body consisting of a spirit substance or of spirit substances) and life-principle, with no agency (so far as we know) as the means of contact apart from these two things themselves. Thus materialism breaks down as an explanation of the origin of life; while theism succeeds in explaining it. Hence from this standpoint theism is superior to materialism.

Again, materialism breaks down in its attempt to explain the origin of the various species in plant and animal life. It has sought to explain this problem by the theory of evolution; but apart from proving that within each species of plant and animal life there is a change either to higher or to lower forms (Haeckel, who has out-Darwined Darwin himself, claims that a deterioration from a higher to a lower form is the course of nature—devolution, if we may be permitted to coin the term—not a development from a lower form to a higher form), the theory of evolution, or devolution, has failed materialism in the solution of this problem; for no fossil nor historical record of the past nor living example of the present has been found to show that a change from one into another species has ever occurred, one of which must be proven, if evolution is to be proven true. Efforts to breed between members of two species have always produced sterile offspring, e.g., crossing the horse and the ass produces the mule, which lacks power of propagation. This completely disproves the transmutation of species by propagation; thus materialism breaks down in the attempt to explain the origin of species. We might add that increasingly is evolution being discarded by the abler scientists. Theism completely solves this problem in the creation of "every seed after its kind," "every beast after its kind" and "man after his kind."

Again, materialism breaks down in its attempt to cross the bridge between brute and human beings. It

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has attempted this, too, by the theory of evolution, or devolution. It has spoken much of the "missing link"; and time and again it has announced its discovery, only later to discard each one of its foundlings as illegitimately born and as unworthy of rearing. The reason is plain: the difference between the lowest human and the highest brute is so great that the chasm between them is unbridgeable. Vircow, who was undoubtedly the greatest scientist of the second half of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century, said of evolution in its form of teaching man's descent from brutes that "it is nothing but a windy hypothesis in proof of which not one fact of nature has been produced and against which all the discovered fossil remains, the records of history and the observed facts of nature testify." He further added that "'the missing link' has not been found, nor," said he, in his opinion, "would it ever be found, for the good reason that it does not exist." In vain does materialism point out the evidences of intelligence; feelings and volition in brute life as a proof that man was evolved from the brute. We concede that brutes have such; but these are limited to the needs of brute life and go no further. But the powers of the human are immeasurably higher. His intellect searches out the solution of multitudinous problems involving God, other spirits, the universe and animate and inanimate nature on earth—spheres utterly foreign to brute intelligence. His affections reach out to objects immeasurably above those that are the objects of the brute's feelings. His will works  on problems and destinies here and hereafter; and he is capable of development along physical, mental, moral and religious lines, with which it would be errant nonsense either in thought or in practice even remotely to connect beasts. And some humans—the faith class—have possibilities, under Divine favor, of change from human to various spirit natures, in some cases even to the Divine nature. All these facts—summarized

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briefly into classes—prove that there is an impossible chasm between the human and the brute creation; and materialism has utterly broken down in attempting to bridge this chasm, and must break down, for it is indeed a fixed gulf that is impossible to span by materialism. Theism bridges this gulf by a separate creative act by which, as distinct from brutes, man was made by God in His image and likeness, which accounts for every factor in the involved problem.

In a word, materialism breaks down at every new turn in creation, in failing completely to explain the riddle of the universe and of existence. Theism, on the contrary, is equal to the solution of every riddle of creation, and not only so, but also of the preservation and rulership of creation, in which materialism also breaks down as a solution. Hence theism, as a view of the universe and living beings, is a reasonable solution of every involved problem, while materialism, whose exponents continually ridicule believers in theism, as credulous and superstitious, is demonstrated as requiring a larger and at that an unreasonable faith at every new step in creation. Thus materialists, as glass­ house dwellers clumsily throwing stones at their theistic neighbors' strongly built house, have missed their aim and devastated their own fragile dwelling. They are the credulous and superstitious theorists, believing nonsensical and unprovable things, while theistic believers hold a theory at once reasonable and efficient in explanation of all the involved questions.

Agnosticism is a word invented by Prof. Huxley to express his mental attitude toward all theories of being, especially that of God. Hence he held this attitude toward atheism, theism, pantheism, deism, materialism, Christianity and idealism. Etymologically, agnosticism would mean the theory that the existence of God and the problem of being are unknowable. Many use the word to mean the theory that the existence of God and the problem of being are not

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known, but do not assert that these are unknowable. But this latter thought should, according to the usage of the Greek language, be expressed by the word agnosticism. The use that the two leading agnostics, Messrs. Huxley and Spencer, make of the word agnosticism as respects God's being, proves that they view agnosticism as the theory that claims that God is unknowable. It, therefore, claims not only to be ignorant of God's existence, but also that knowing of His existence is impossible to us. It, therefore, differs from atheism, which claims to know that God does not exist, and which theory we have above proven to be a self-refutive proposition: since to be able truly to say that there is no God one must be an eternal, infinite, omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent spirit, i.e., one must himself be God, which would prove that there is a God. But while there is a difference between atheism and agnosticism, atheists do not have much to say against agnosticism, which in turn has greatly helped and strengthened atheism. The genuine agnostic would object, if we should say that we know there is a God and a spiritual world, but would not object, if we should say that we believe there is a God and a spiritual world.

We might profitably take from Mr. Huxley's own words his explanation of agnosticism: "Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle." He then explains this principle: "Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of intellect follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable." According to this, reason is the source and rule of intellectual matters and is to be followed regardless of where it leads us, even if it should lead us, as he said it did him, nowhere else

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than "into the dark depths of a wild and tangled forest." Yea, he says we are even "to go straight on until we either come out on the other side of the wood or find there is no other side to it, at least, none attainable." This explanation proves that agnosticism rejects the Christian principle that the Bible is the source and rule of faith and that it sets up in its stead reason as the source and rule of faith. This prompts us to say that if Mr. Huxley's statement that agnosticism is not a creed, but is a method of investigation into matters of the intellect, it will have to be conceded that this method has as its basis a creed, i.e., that reason is the source and rule of knowledge.

We presume that Mr. Huxley uses the word reason in the sense of: (1) our intuitions whereby we recognize the truth of certain principles as self-evident without the process of reflection; and (2) the knowledge that we gather by the exclusive and proper use of these intuitions. These intuitions arise out of the nature of the congenital endowments of our mental, moral and religious faculties as these occupy themselves with the objects to which they are adapted—self, the world and God—and the conditions in which they are. Thus by self-consciousness we know intuitively that we exist and by world-consciousness we know intuitively that other persons and created things exist; and our God-consciousness makes us know intuitively that God exists; for our mental, moral and religious faculties by their very nature intuitively know these as existing; hence the congenital nature of these faculties make these intuitively known to us (1 Cor. 2: 11). We are aware of the fact that the creeds decry reason in the two senses used above and will have none or almost none of it in the domain of religion. But the Bible does not share in this decrying and ignoring of reason. It appeals to it to judge; and it sanctions its use; else how could God ask us to reason together with Him? (Acts 17: 2, 11; 24: 25;

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Is. 1: 18). Nowhere and on no subject does the Bible teach anything contrary to these intuitions of the human heart and mind nor the knowledge gathered by their exclusive and proper use, however much the creeds teach things contrary to them. God desires that we test His thoughts with the severest exactions of reason in these senses of the word, well knowing that His thoughts will appeal to it, if the heart is rightly disposed toward truth and justice.

Nevertheless, this the Bible does teach: that our individual and collective reason is not a sufficient source and rule of intellectual matters, that it needs teachers to give it knowledge that it cannot of itself gain. Comparatively this is seen by our reason needing human teachers in earthly matters to supplement the lacks of our individual reason. Furthermore, the Bible teaches that through depravity our individual reason is unable of itself alone and unaided to comprehend even all earthly things (John 3: 12). Experience also proves this to be true. Finally, the Bible teaches the inability of our individual and collective reason unaided and alone to discover the Truth of the Divine Plan (1 Cor. 1: 21; 2: 14; Eph. 4: 18). Experience proves this proposition to be true, in that men left to their unaided individual and collective reason reach contradictory religious views, manifest in the many religions of the world. That the bulk of the members of each religion more or less agree does not impinge against this fact, because for the most part without using their reason they accept on authority, and usually against reason, the tenets of their creeds. Consequently we need something more than general and individual reason to get the necessary Truth as to God and ourselves in relation to Him and to others. Hence reason helps us only part of the way. Revelation, which is in complete harmony with reason in the two senses above used, helps us all the way and commends itself to the individual reason in the

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properly disposed person. Therefore agnosticism, relying solely on an insufficient guide, cannot lead us to satisfactory views as to the being of God or the problem of existence. Hence it, as a method creedally based on reason as the source and rule of intellectual matters, is insufficient for the task of solving the problem of God and the universe. Therefore it is foredoomed to failure as to determining the Truth respecting God. And as a misfit for the solution of the problem at hand it is a discredited theory.

In the preceding paragraph we used the expression, general and individual reason. By the former we mean reason as a power inherent in all and by the latter we mean this power as it is in each individual. As an inherent power it is a remarkable thing and is the instrument for all advances in intellectual matters. But as a matter of fact this power, while existing in all, appears in experience only as an individual matter; and because more or less imperfection mars this power in all of us, individual reason differs in every individual, dependent on heredity, environment and training. We, therefore, know of no example of imperfect men whose individual reason is infallible, and, therefore, can be depended upon as the source and rule of intellectual matters. On the contrary, we are on all sides met with abundant examples of fallible reason, for every individual's reason is fallible. Consequently we would be foolish to take reason, general or individual, as the source and rule of intellectual matters; for by it we are from the outstart doomed to error. But this aside, agnosticism plays a trick on its upholders. It professes to follow general reason—the rational intuitions and its knowledge acquisitions as these appeal to all; while, as a matter of fact, it follows individual reason—only that which appeals to an individual, with the result that each individual's reason, differing from that of all others, becomes the source and rule of intellectual matters for him. He

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is thus enthroned as his own source and rule of faith, which we must all acknowledge is a most unsatisfactory thing. How much we therefore need an infallible Revelation to correct man's universal fallibility! Otherwise we cannot attain religious Truth on God's being, the world, self and their interrelations. This consideration exposes a fatal lack in agnosticism.

Furthermore, Mr. Huxley's proposition that one must as an agnostic follow reason, regardless of consequences, is unscientific, and is also foolish in the ordinary affairs of life. If a scientist finds that what seems to him to be a reasonable hypothesis leads him into inextricable confusion, furthermore, if he finds that it leads him to no practical results, and, finally, if he finds that it results in damage, regardless of how reasonable it seems to him, instead of his following it regardless of any other consideration, he discards it as inapplicable to the task at hand. Hence hypotheses which have seemed very reasonable, but have led to such results, are thrown out of the scientific laboratories upon the numerous and large scientific rubbish heaps. No progress would have been made in science, if hypotheses, in theory seeming reasonable, but in practice found to be unfruitful, unsatisfactory and dangerous, had been clung to with the dogmatic determination with which Mr. Huxley held to agnosticism. In the daily concerns of life practical and wise people do not hold to attractive theories which prove under experiment to be unfruitful or harmful. How long do we keep up using dieting systems which, however promising they may seem as theories, make us weak or sick? How long will a wise person continue with some exercising fad, however reasonable it might seem, if it exhausts instead of invigorating, or injures instead of strengthening him? How long does a wise parent continue to use child training methods that are theoretically most charming, but that in practice ruin his children? If they would on these matters "follow

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reason as far as it would take them, without regard to any other consideration," they would ruin their stomachs, bodies and children. If by following reason alone we are  led nowhere else than "into the dark depths of a wild and tangled forest" and cannot by following reason alone get "to the other side," we should draw the conclusion that we have been following an insufficient guide and should look for another. This, then, is the conclusion that practical people will draw from the basis of agnosticism's creed— reason as the sole source and rule in matters of intellect.

We should also consider somewhat Mr. Huxley's negative principle of agnosticism: "Do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable." This rule also proves to be a bad one for everyday life; for we certainly do not follow it in the most important concerns of life. People marry without being able to demonstrate whether they will prove properly mated. Nor is this a demonstrated or a demonstrable thing, except by years of experience in married life. Nor do they refuse to assume the responsibilities of parenthood until it is demonstrated or is demonstrable that they will make good parents and raise good children—a thing not demonstrated or demonstrable apart from years of experience in parenthood. In entering business people believe they will succeed; and only because of such belief do they enter business, though it is not then demonstrable or demonstrated that they will succeed. The greatest discoveries in science and invention have been made on matters that were neither demonstrated nor demonstrable that they would bring success, yea, they often dealt with things at the time not clearly understood. As a matter of fact, practically all human advancement is attained by entering experimentally the domain of undemonstrated and hitherto un-demonstrable things and by feeling, with much doubt, one's way to success. It is a safe rule in physical, mental,

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moral and religious matters when one lacks the power of demonstration or to see what is demonstrable, that he work with the probable and credible until he is led on to the demonstrable and the demonstrated. The sinner with excellent results does this as he starts out to feel after God; and if his heart proves true, he will by and by reach a state in which what before was unclear becomes demonstrated and demonstrable by experience, which gives him certainty that he is dealing with realities in his contacts with God. Nor can the millions who have passed over this road of experience and found the way out of "the dark depths of a wild and tangled forest" to the "other side," to which Mr. Huxley never found himself able to come, allow  themselves to accept Mr. Huxley's proposition, which they see cannot bring them to "the other side."

Not only in the practical concerns of life which must be met without being demonstrated and demonstrable, does Mr. Huxley's negative principle find itself impractical and unadaptable, but it has this defect in it, that it gives us and can give us no criterion as to what is demonstrated or demonstrable, for with the individual reason as the source and rule of knowledge, what is demonstrated or demonstrable to one is not such to another. General reason is abstract. It is the composite idea of the intuitions that are common to normal individuals. Therefore it has no concrete existence except as an idea. What actually exists is individual reason. But because of the varying degrees of hereditary imperfections the abilities of individual reason greatly vary, and that in imperfection. Moreover, these differences are further modified by environment and training. Consequently in individuals individual reason varies greatly in insufficiency as the source and rule of knowledge. Hence individual reason necessarily varies in almost all individuals. This raises the question, If reason alone is to be the source and rule of knowledge, whose reason is it to be? The reply,

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of course, must prove that no man's can it be. But apart from an idea reason in the abstract does not exist. In the concrete it is always individual. Hence we see that Mr. Huxley holds up to us a guide that is an impossible one. Surely this consideration should lead us to discredit Mr. Huxley's views on agnosticism.

Mr. Huxley's individual reason is certainly not the one for us to take as reason, because it led him to reject as not demonstrated and not demonstrable some propositions that the reason of all normal persons—those who are not in head or heart degenerate or abnormal—tells them is demonstrated and demonstrable—e.g., the existence of God. Furthermore, he himself admitted that his own reason never led him into a certain view on the being of God and on existence in general. The reason of others makes them certain that their congenital intuitions are right in implying that there is a God. Their reason, led by its intuition of cause and effect, makes them certain that there must be a first Cause, which is therefore causeless and hence eternal. Their reason makes them certain that the almost infinite expressions of intelligence, adaptation and design in the universe imply that that first Cause is intelligent and purposeful and hence is endowed with personality. Their reason, led by the intuitions of conscience and veneration, congenitally universal, makes them certain that there is a God. And the reason of multitudes, led by their intuitions of contact with God in their most intimate relations and experiences, makes them certain that there is a God. Their reason, led by their intuitions of consciousness of God, makes them certain that there is a God. And certainly some of them by using their reason on the Biblical solution of God, man and the universe, have obtained a solution of these in themselves and their mutual relations that no sophistries of individual reason alone can refute or find a flaw in.

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We ask, whose reason, as to what is demonstrated or demonstrable, should we follow, since individual reason, left entirely to itself, is almost as diverse as there are individuals who use it? Should not the fact of this diversity move us to the reasonable conclusion that unaided reason cannot in man's present imperfect condition be accepted as a sufficient and satisfactory guide? And should this fact not move us to be open to help from other sources than unaided reason? Since heredity, environment and training make reason in many cases approach a subject with wrong and insufficient data and presuppositions, how could we be sure of what is demonstrated or demonstrable by fallen individual reason? Is it not therefore, if certainty is to be reached, reasonable to expect from an infallible and benevolent Power, if such exists, the aid so desperately needed by unaided individual reason? If not, then the quest for Truth is vain; and we will always have to remain with Mr. Huxley in the "dark depths of a wild and tangled forest" doomed "never to find the way out." If such outside aid does come to reason, we may be sure that it does not stultify our God-given reason, as the creeds do, but completely satisfies it by supplying just what it lacks and then lets it test such supplies with every intuition and other power that it has and comes out of the test fully satisfactory to reason. This the writer desires to give as his personal experience in the use of his reason on Biblical data, which, under as thorough and searching a test as he could apply, have always proven themselves both reasonable and complementary of what his reason has lacked. So we say in real friendliness and good will to our troubled agnostics: Come with us and see whether the Bible does not supply the reasonable solution of God's being and of the problem of existence, which the word agnosticism itself implies it cannot of itself attain. Many agnostics to their head's and heart's blessing have found it to give that solution. And, approached in the

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right spirit, it will always so do; for He who alone had an infallible reason said of such: "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6: 37).

Another evil that is associated with Mr. Huxley's negative principle of agnosticism—"in matters of intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable"—is its practical outcome: it always leads into the miasmic swamp of unbelief. Never has there been an agnostic who, given time enough, did not advance from the proposition: God's existence cannot be known, to the proposition, I do not believe in God's existence. Such retrogression lies, not accidentally, but essentially in a long abiding in agnosticism. Hence every thoroughgoing agnostic became an unbeliever in the God of the Bible. Messrs. Huxley, Spencer and Ingersoll are familiar examples of this fact. Accordingly, agnosticism is not a helper Bibleward, but is a turner away therefrom and is in practice essentially anti-religious. It, therefore, creates a condition that makes it unlikely that one will get the help that his reason needs to supplement its lacks; and it draws one away from the congenitally created quality—faith— indispensable for an approach to God and Truth on God's existence and the problem of being. And this (unbelief, irreligiousness) is the greatest evil that it inflicts on its votaries, whom, like the man that fell among thieves, it strips, wounds and leaves half dead, without encouraging, but seeking to prevent, the good Samaritan to come to their succor. This evil alone, apart from any other consideration, makes it a culprit at the bar of Divine and human justice. And with this remark we leave the Huxleyan form of agnosticism as an unsatisfactory theory.

We would now devote our attention to Mr. Spencer's form of agnosticism. Mr. Spencer's agnosticism may be summed up in the following statement of his: "The Power that the universe manifests to us is utterly

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inscrutable." He thus admits that there is a Power back of the universe which the universe manifests to us. Thus he advances from the Huxleyan incomprehensible universe to a Power to which incomprehensibility is attributed. Moreover, Mr. Spencer holds that religiousness is an essential constituent of man's nature; and therefore he accepts the reality of its object—a higher Power, however inscrutable. So far we can walk hand in hand with Mr. Spencer. But Mr. Spencer then says that religion has erred in ascribing anything except existence and inscrutability to this Power. Therefore, he denies personality to this Power, claiming that thought can never reach the reality back of phenomena. This would mean that because God is the First Cause, the Infinite and the Absolute, He cannot be known. Mr. Spencer puts it like this: "Though the Absolute cannot in any manner or degree be known, in the strict sense of knowing, yet we find that its positive existence is a necessary datum of consciousness; that so long as consciousness continues we cannot for an instant rid it of this datum, and that thus the belief which the datum constitutes has a higher warrant than any other whatever." These words prove that his agnosticism is not irreligious, though unchristian. Indeed his position is that religion always has been, is and will be necessary to man's nature, though he claims that in all forms it is as near an approximation to Truth as man's imperfection will allow, none of its forms (hence, the Bible's form of religion) being the real and full Truth. Therefore, Mr. Spencer would tolerate all religions as attainments needed by the condition of their respective votaries. Mr. Spencer's and Mr. Huxley's agnosticism differ in this: whereas the latter insists on the limitation of our faculties, the former insists on the transcendent nature of the Object of religion. Yet they come to the same conclusion—it is impossible for man to know God.

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We would not quarrel with Mr. Spencer if, when he speaks of God as inscrutable, he means that we cannot fully comprehend God; for we certainly do not comprehend His nature. We know not the shape of His body, the sound of His voice (John 5: 37), nor do we know the substance or substances of which His body consists. The Bible teaches that our knowledge of Him, instead of being complete, is decidedly piecemeal (1 Cor. 13: 12). The heights and depths, the lengths and breadths of His qualities are beyond our power of comprehension. With the Psalmist we must confess that these are too much and too wonderful for us. The following passages prove this thought abundantly: Job 5: 8, 9; 26: 14; 11: 7-9; 37: 23; 1 Cor. 2: 16; Ps. 139: 6; 145: 3; Eccl. 11: 5; Is. 40: 28; Eph. 3: 8. If our inability thoroughly to fathom God were the thing that Mr. Spencer affirms, we would say, Amen to his thought, as taught in the above-cited passages. But Mr. Spencer means more than this. He denies that we know or can know anything of this Great Power, except that It is the First Cause and is infinite and absolute. While many of the Lord's children have professed to know practically everything about God and have gone in this belief far beyond that which is written, and while Mr. Spencer's position conveys to them a needed rebuke, still to affirm that we know only of the existence of the Great Power and Its Infinity and Absoluteness is going too far in the other extreme. Mr. Spencer's error is basically the identification of two distinct propositions: (1) we do not and cannot know all about God; (2) we do not and cannot know anything about God. The first is true; the second is false, and is not to be allowed to be substituted for the first, as Mr. Spencer does.

Jesus taught us that God is a Spirit and frequently dwelt on many of His attributes of being and character, and on His relation to mankind and the world. Above we treated  on God's attributes of being and

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character, in which we cited multitudes of pertinent Scriptures. We can, therefore, see that Mr. Spencer's form of agnosticism denies very much of God as set forth in Scripture. It equally denies very much that we learn of Him from that other book that He has furnished us—nature, which is replete with thoughts of Him that are more than those of a great infinite and absolute Power. St. Paul tells us that His Eternal Deity, which includes personality, as well as power, are taught by nature (Rom. 1: 20). And the Psalmist tells us that the heavens declare the glory [the character, especially its wisdom, power, justice and love] of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork (Ps. 19: 1).

But what right has Mr. Spencer to limit our knowledge of God to His being an infinite and absolute Power? Surely neither our reason, nor nature, nor experience, nor the Bible, so limits our knowledge of Him. For our intuitions invest Him with personality, spirituality, omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, as well as with benevolence and justice. In this nature also agrees; so does the Christian's experience and, assuredly, so also does the Bible. His only ground for so doing is his agnosticism—we cannot know any more of Him, or "It," as he would say. But why can we not? To this he has and can have no real answer, except that this is his belief. But others, with the intuitions of reason, the books of nature and Revelation and many experiences as their guarantees, affirm that they can and do know more of this Power than that. Certainly on such bases these have a better right to ascribe other attributes to that Power than he has to limit them as he does. He claims that there can be a higher mode of existence than that of personality and that our inability to grasp it is no proof against it, rather the reverse. This actually resolves itself into a mere evasion of the unanswerable arguments for God's personality given above. He thereby asks us to believe in a higher mode of existence than personality,

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because we cannot conceive it. But the absurdity of such a position is evident; for it makes incomprehensibility a proof of truth. On this ground the incomprehensibility of transubstantiation would be a proof of its truth. The incomprehensibility of the creedal, as distinct from the Bible Trinity, would be a proof of its truth. The incomprehensibility of God's love and His providing for eternal torture would be a proof of the latter's truth. In other words, the inconceivability of any absurdity would be a proof of its truth, if Mr. Spencer's logic on this point were true.

It is a law of our thinking to ascribe personality to any cause that shows intelligence and design; and we do it because our minds are so constituted as to force us so to do. When we see intelligence and design in any human cause, our minds by their very nature cause us to ascribe personality to that human cause; and that same nature of our mind when we see a non-human cause that exhibits intelligence and design compels us to assign to that non­ human cause personality. Hence only those thinkers who deny intelligence and design in the world can escape attributing personality to their source. But such a denial is first-class proof of the folly and unreasonableness of the deniers, and is corroborative proof of the truth of that  which they deny. Hence, thinking according to the laws of our mind, which is the only way normal people can think, we are compelled to attribute personality to God. And this for normal thinking people refutes Mr. Spencer's view on God's personality.

We have examined the theories of the two main agnostics and have found their theories untenable; but additionally there is another form of agnosticism that denies that we can be sure of anything and that affirms that nothing can be known. But these theories are self­ refutative; for if we can not be sure of anything, we can not be sure of the certainty of this theory, otherwise certainty would exist on that proposition.

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Again, if we can know nothing, we can not know that we know nothing, since knowledge would exist on that proposition. Hence both of these agnostic theories are self- annihilative. We may therefore well leave the subject of agnosticism as a thing that hardly rises above quibbling with words, and whose fundamental thoughts when analyzed are found to be quite inconsistent, illogical, fruitless and negative.

So far in studying false views of God we have considered atheism, materialism and agnosticism. These more or less seek to set aside the existence of God. As to agnosticism, its influence has been decidedly favorable as an impetus to atheism. Mr. Huxley drew his principles largely from atheistic views, while Mr. Spencer drew his more from pantheistic theories. The word pantheism, like the words atheism and agnosticism, is a Greek derivative. It is compounded—from the words pan (all) and theos (God). Etymologically it means all—god. It is used to designate the theory that everything is God, i.e., God is the sum total of all things. God and the universe, in the sense of all things, according to pantheism, mean the same thing. Each and every thing is a part of God. Accordingly, the planets and suns of all solar systems and whatever is in, or connected with them are God.

The inventor of pantheism in Christendom was Baruch Spinoza, a Jew, who was born in 1632 and died in 1677 and who while a young man for his unorthodox opinions was excommunicated from Jewry. While he claimed to accept both the Old and New Testaments, this was with reservations very much like those of our modern higher critics, whose father he might with propriety be called. Pantheism underlies Buddhism and Hindooism; and Averroes, the greatest philosopher of Mohammedanism, was a pantheist. It, therefore, is a plant foreign to Christian soil and is in violent opposition to the Biblical view of God. Casting away our glance from its heathen and Mohammedan

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forms, we will view it as it appears in Christendom; though we may say to the credit of the Nominal Church that it never sanctioned it; nor has orthodox Jewry ever approved it. Its theory is, therefore, contrary to the views of God entertained by both fleshly and spiritual Israel. Spinoza as a philosopher sought to reduce all things to a single substance in order to attain, as he thought, to simplicity in philosophical thought. This one substance he called God, and claimed that He or it has two attributes: extension and thought. This one substance is the whole of being, and as such is God, whose irreducible attributes are extension and thought. Some pantheists look upon this one substance as spiritual and some consider it as material; but most of them evade a definition of it as one or the other—a fact which greatly militates against their doctrine that there is but one substance.

Their view compels them to deny the personality of God and even that of man, since they claim that the all—their God—is a numerical unity. Humans they teach have no individuality and therefore no personality. They also deny to their God the possession of intelligence. Their view denies, not only God's personality and intelligence, but in consequence of that denial, as well as of the nature of their view, it also denies His freedom of will and also man's freedom of will. Defining God as all, of course nothing outside of Him could affect the kind of freedom they ascribe to Him; for nothing, according to their view, is outside of Him—all things being parts of Him. They claim that He is free because He acts out the law of His being and therefore has no liberty of choice, but does what He does from the necessity of His essence, the essence of the universe. Hence blind necessitarianism, not free choice, is His freedom, which is no freedom of will, since the latter implies liberty to choose or reject this, that or the other thing. This same necessitarianism makes man do as he does; hence he has no free will.

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As a result, they also deny moral responsibility in man and consequently affirm that the good and bad acts, motives, thoughts and words of men are alike God's, since men are parts, in fact the highest modes, of God. Consequently they make no difference between good and evil as qualities, except that they may have pleasant or unpleasant effects as between man and man. Such is a brief explanation of pantheism as a theory of God, which, as unbiblical, unreasonable and unfactual, we reject. We will now proceed to a refutation of this false view of God, as we have of other such views.

First of all, we hold against it that it is merely an unproved supposition. Contrary to the facts that we gave it our discussion of materialism, it denies that there are two substances, spirit and matter, and posits but one substance: some claiming it to be spirit, others matter and most of them evading a decision as to what it is. This condition is the factual refutation of their claim than substance is a numerical unity. Their desire that there be but one substance, so as to make it easier and pleasanter for them to think on the philosophy of being, of course cannot be accepted as proof of the truth of their foundation principle. Self-evident principles may in an argument be assumed without proof; but not so may we do with principles that are not self-evident, as in the case under discussion. For principles that are not self-evident we are warranted in demanding proof; and none has ever been offered for their foundation principle. It is therefore an unproven supposition set up against the proposition that there is a personal God, which has many cogent proofs in its favor, while this contradiction of it has none in its favor, it being nothing more than a mere proofless assumption—guess; which as thinkers we should reject.

Furthermore, not only is its foundation principle, that there is but one substance, an unproven guess; but the theory that all is God, built upon that supposition,

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is also a supposition for which not one proof has been forthcoming. How do they know that the universe is God? To know such a thing one must be omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, and from the exercise of these qualities be able to say with knowledge of all facts and all existence that nothing else except the universe and its belongings are God. Of course no pantheist has these attributes and therefore cannot have the knowledge that proves the universe and its belongings to be God. Their denial of will as the power of choice, i.e., will in the true sense of the word, is equally unprovable. The same thing may be said of their denial of intelligence in God. The universe is replete with proofs of the contrary of these two denials. Thus, too, they can advance no proof that we are not individuals and that we do not have personal wills. What proof can they offer for their mischievous thought that there are no such differences as virtue and vice, good and bad? Yet there are views that logically flow from their groundless assumptions that there is but one substance and that all is God. Given these unproven assumptions and the rest of their errors logically follow. Should we not rather reason that assumptions that carry with them such erroneous consequences must themselves be thoroughly erroneous?

The opposites of their assumptions and implied conclusions are proven to be true. The underlying principle of pantheism, that there is but one substance, is contrary to facts. Experience and observation prove that there are two substances: spirit and matter. We instance the undoubted facts of spiritistic phenomena in innumerable cases proven beyond doubt by being subjected to the severest scientific tests on the part of such scientists as Sir Oliver Lodge and Professors Hyslop and Lombardo, as proofs of the reality of spirit beings. The existence of spirit substances like life- principle and ether are other proofs of the reality

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of spirit substances, while the objects palpable to sense about us are proofs of the existence of material substances. These facts destroy the fundamental assumption of pantheism, that all substance is one. Moreover, the fact that no thought is possible in the animal creation without the union of the spiritual substance called life-principle and an organized material organism (since  unconsciousness always is in, and follows on their separation), is another proof that there are two substance realms: spirit and matter. Thus facts prove that the foundation principle of pantheism is an unfactual supposition, instead of being a self-evident truth. This, of course, refutes the entire theory; for it leaves it without a foundation upon which it may rest its unsteady feet.

Their view that God, being identical with the universe, is inseparable from the universe, is also unfactual; for this implies that He made Himself, i.e., the universe. If anything is scientifically true, it is the proposition that a cause precedes, produces and is different from the effect. But  here we find a theory that identifies cause and effect, which implies that nothing produced everything, and that it acted before it existed and existed before it existed. The formula of pantheists, set forth in their Latin expression, natura naturans et natura naturata, i.e., nature making nature and nature made nature, as an attempt to explain the being of their God, is as remarkable a piece of nonsense as can be found in the whole realm of philosophy falsely so-called. This formula in ultimate analysis implies that nothing made everything, and that a thing existed before it existed. The proofs from facts that we gave above for God's eternal existence, His personality, His independence of, and activity in the universe—all contradict the view that the impersonal universe is God. Innumerable facts of nature prove His exercise of volition and therefore contradict the assumption of His having no power of

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choice. The facts of our consciousness and experience prove the personality of humans; for our self-consciousness is the primary fact of our knowledge and of our relations to others and the universe.

And the same kind of facts proves our having the power to choose—ability to exercise volition. The same kind of facts plus our consciences prove the actuality of moral responsibility and the worldwide difference between the good and the bad, the virtuous and the vicious, which pantheism with its all-God must deny on pain of making its God sinful. Hence, since facts disprove the main super­ structural principles, as well as the foundation principle of pantheism, it must be a wrong theory of God; for there is not one single fact that proves this theory, which, accordingly, is nothing more than a baseless assumption. Of course if we should concede their two main principles, that all substance is a numerical unit and that it is God, we would have to concede their other principles; but principles having such consequent principles as these two have cannot be true, and of course only a most careless opponent of pantheism would concede these two unproven and unprovable principles, so violently contradicted by all the pertinent facts.

Again, this theory makes God an errorist and sinner. If everything is God, then we, as pantheists hold, are parts or "modes" of God. Therefore, when we think, it is not we (who according to the theory have no personal and independent existence) who think, but it is God who thinks. Hence God thinks all the errors that have been among men from mankind's beginning until now; and He will continue to think all future errors! This implies His contradicting Himself as often as men contradict one another. This makes Him think out and palm off all the false religions and contradictory creeds of the past and present. This makes Him the inventor of all the contradictory theories of philosophy, science, art, literature and sociology,

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from the beginning of these to the present, as well as future ones. This also makes Him the inventor of everything true in religious, philosophical, scientific, literary and sociological theories. Hence He is a mixed God, not perfectly inerrant, but a muddler, who hits and misses the truth and who hits and misses error, a vast giant wandering through the realm of thought, usually erring and sometimes gaining a glimpse of truth, but never attaining the full truth on any one subject. What a sham God of sham truth is the pantheists' God; for He is the greatest conceivable intellectual muddle and self-contradiction!

But the matter is worse yet when we come to the realms of moral and religious motives and acts. It is really God, according to pantheism, who worships and serves the gods of polytheism, pantheism, deism and theism, as well as abhors these gods in atheists, materialists and agnostics! It is really God who offered the human sacrifices that have defiled heathen altars, including the horrors of Moloch worship! It is really God who engages in the senseless and injurious rites of false religions! It is really God who prostrates Himself before the idols of heathenism and Christendom! It is really God who engages in the various rites of self-expiation to Himself in heathenism and Christendom! It is really God who takes His name in vain in the perjuries, blasphemies, sorceries and profanities of men! It is really God who exercises the unbeliefs in Himself rife among mankind! It is really God who disobeys and disrespects Himself in the disobedience and disrespect that children give their parents! It is really God who murders Himself in the human murders and devastates and kills Himself in the wars and executions among mankind! It is really God who commits adultery, and that with Himself, in the marital infidelities among mankind! It is really God who hates, scorns, despises, envies, cherishes resentment, revenge and implacability, and that toward

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Himself, in the pertinent acts of His human "modes"! It is really God who steals, defrauds, cheats, counterfeits, forges, plunders, swindles, and that against Himself, in the pertinent acts of His human "modes"! It is really God who misrepresents, defames, slanders, falsifies and deceives in the pertinent acts of mankind! It is really God who exercises covetousness, avariciousness, miserliness in the self-seeking! It is really God who indulges in drunkenness, gluttony, narcotic drugs, laziness, pride, vanity, cowardice, hypocrisy and temper, in the pertinent acts of His human modes! In a word, it is the God of pantheism who has been indulging in the terrible list of sins mentioned by St. Paul in Rom. 1: 29-31; for if humans are merely modes of God, parts of God, God in them does all the wickedness that they do. What an abominable God the God of the pantheist is! He is even worse than the gods of Greek mythology; for with all their shortcomings, they were rather decent gods compared with the God of pantheism. Certainly, such an erroneous and sinful God as the God of pantheism is one repulsive to our Christian moral and religious sentiments and we would have none of Him as a God, because of His ungodlike thoughts, motives, words and acts.

Another argument against pantheism is its degradation of man. We have just seen that it degrades God. We now proceed to show that it degrades man. It degrades him by denying personality to him; for, according to it, men are not individuals who, as such, are separate and distinct from one another, and, as such, have self-consciousness, as well as consciousness of others. Man, according to pantheism, is only a mode or part of the non-self-conscious universe. This results in negativing much of man's knowledge, e.g., self-knowledge and knowledge of others as separate and distinct. Pantheism also degrades man's moral powers through its denial of his freedom of choice. According to it, the good man acts, feels and speaks

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according to an irresistible principle which makes him act, feel and speak the good he does. This of course robs him of all real moral power, which expresses itself in its choosing the good from an appreciation of its intrinsic worth and rejecting the bad because of an abhorrence of its intrinsic worthlessness. Again, it makes guiltless the vilest of sinners, because it denies him freedom of choice and ascribes to him the natural enslavement of his motives, words and acts, and the compulsory character of these expressing itself as it does, makes the wicked characterless automatons who perforce do evil. Accordingly, it makes automatons of both the good and the wicked and thus degrades mankind to the condition of the brute creation. Of course: for does not this theory make them all alike so many modes of their God, parts of their God?

Furthermore, this degradation is religious, as well as mental and moral. Of course such a theory makes man a religious automaton and, according to it, there can be no virtuous difference between religionists and religionists. Religiously, the saintly person is of no more worth than the most depraved fetish worshiper—each is forced to religionize as he does, without being able to exercise choice in the matter at all. But in a fuller sense pantheism degrades one religiously; for it makes him incapable of exercising Godward some of the highest religious faculties of the human heart. Its identification of God and nature works ruinously on some of the religious qualities of man. The one idea of pantheists flowing from the consideration of nature is that of power. Nature is replete with evidence of power. Its lack of personality and the manifestations of the curse make it seem to the natural man to lack decidedly in wisdom, justice and love, though vestiges of these can be seen in nature about man; but under the limitation and conditions of the curse these are to the natural man poverty- stricken. Accordingly, the pantheist offers us power in God as the object of the

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religious feelings. Certainly the God of pantheism, nature, does not call forth the exercise of devotion, sacrifice and disinterested love; for what is there in power to call these forth in our hearts? Power, therefore, of itself does not so act on such of our religious faculties. Nor does it arouse gratitude in us; for there is nothing to be grateful to and for. It is powerless to effect in us the desire of intimate fellowship and communion with such a God; for He offers us no basis of fellowship and communion; for these can go out only to a person, which the pantheists' God is not. Nor can it give us the sense of reverence; though it can, and often does, arouse in us the feeling of fear and dread. Again, such a God cannot arouse in us the sense of duty- love to God, which also requires personality in the one toward whom it expresses itself as a God. Accordingly, failing to call forth the highest religious qualities and to develop them, its effect on man religiously is not of an uplifting, but a degrading character. All of its religious tendency, therefore, at its best is on a very low level and at its worst is almost as bad as atheism and materialism.

If we look at the religious qualities that it can arouse by the sense of power that it impresses, we will readily see that it cannot raise man very high religiously. What are the feelings in us that go out toward power? One of the finest of these is admiration, which does go out to those of its expressions that do not harm the observer of power's phenomena. But this is as much an aesthetic as a religious feeling. Wonder is another of the feelings that the sense of power can arouse. Others are awe and sublimity. But all of these are mainly artistic emotions and may be felt apart from any religious sentiment. When power is exercised to our injury it naturally arouses fear and terror, which certainly are not religious feelings in the true sense of the word, according to the express statement of Holy Scripture (1 Tim. 1: 5), with which

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statement certainly our Christian experiences are in harmony. Certainly mere power of an impersonal character will not lead to worship and adoration, which requires a person as their object. We can exercise a certain phase of hope and faith toward certain manifestations of power; but if their source is impersonal such a hope and faith fall far short of the hope and faith that true Christians experience. Even such a low degree of faith and hope the atheist can and does exercise. In fact, the atheist and pantheist hold the same notion of the power that is in the world; only the atheist does not stultify himself by calling it God, as the pantheist does. If the pantheist divests himself of every iota of theism, which in practice he holds, then there is no difference between him and the atheist, except in words. While contemplating the universe the atheist feels the same admiration, wonder, awe, sublimity, fear, terror, hope and faith, as does the pantheist in the contemplation of the universe—the pantheists' God. On the other hand, the true child of God, with the theistic belief, gives the aroma of religiousness to the above feelings, and additionally exercises worship, adoration, devotion, consecration, disinterested and duty love, fellowship and cheerful obedience to the Biblical God on account of His personality, and thereby reaches the highest degree of religious development, from which, of course, the pantheist's faith cuts him off.

Pantheism is false because it teaches that the All is a numerical unity. Modern pantheists, like Haeckel, Carus, Hoeffding, Forel, etc., are wont to call themselves monists and their theory monism; but they mean by it exactly what former pantheists meant by pantheism. Carus, speaking of it, says that it "means that the whole of reality, that is everything that is, constitutes one inseparable and indivisible entirety. Monism accordingly is a unitary conception of the world. … The All being one interconnected whole,

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everything in it, every feature of it, every relation among its parts, has sense and meaning and reality only if considered with reference to the rest of the world and to the whole itself. In this sense we say that monism [pantheism] is a view of the world as a unity." This language proves that pantheists hold that the All is a numerical unity; for they claim that only the whole is a reality and that its parts, considered separately, are only abstractions, mental ideas, but not realities. A numerical unity cannot have within itself differences of kind; for these would make it a duality or plurality of realities, which pantheism denies. But such a theory of the All as being a numerical unity that has in itself no differences in kind contradicts every known fact of existence. This contradicts the known facts of physics, which proves that matter varies in molecules, atoms and electrons. It contradicts chemistry, which classifies chemical elements into at least ninety-two kinds. It contradicts astronomy, which not only differentiates billions of suns and tens of billions of planets from one another, but also billions of solar systems from one another. It contradicts biology, which differentiates genera from genera and species from species throughout the animal, insect and bird world. It contradicts geology, which differentiates earth's strata, fossils, etc.; and mineralogy, which does the same with earth's minerals. It contradicts physiology, which differentiates the various elements of our bodies. It contradicts dendrology, which differentiates trees. It contradicts botany, which differentiates  flowers and plants. It contradicts carpology, which differentiates  the fruits and vegetables. It contradicts anthropology,  which differentiates human individuals, as well as races  and nations, from one another. It contradicts medicine, which differentiates remedies from one another. It contradicts psychology, which differentiates the minds of individuals, all having as the faculties of mind intellect, sensibilities and will.

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It contradicts phrenology, which differentiates the various organs of the brain. It contradicts ethics, which differentiates between the good and evil. It contradicts theology as the doctrine of God in distinction from all His creatures. In a word, it contradicts the facts of every science, everyone of which proves, and that by observation and the mind's intuitions, the separateness and distinctness of being in the various spheres of existence. It contradicts the intuitions of the mind, which differentiate self, world and God from one another. Therefore pantheism, or to use its more modern name, monism, is a theory contradictory of every realm of knowledge based on reason, sense and intuition; for according to all realms of knowledge the world is an aggregation of individual things, more or less related, and not a numerical unit; since manifoldness is the voice of all creation and not a numerical unity. This proves that pantheism is a false view of God and the world and man.

The doctrine of pantheism intrinsically contains not a few absurdities, which of course make it unworthy of acceptance. According to it all is God and God created all. This analyzed proves that God made Himself; hence He must have existed before He came into existence; for a cause precedes its effect. This is further absurd, because it implies that the first cause was not causeless. But denying His personality denies that He could have created all; for existing before creation He must have been personal to bring it into existence; since it is replete with expressions of personality—wisdom, power, purpose, beneficence and justice. Hence these being in the effect must have been in the cause and they imply personality. Their doctrine of nature making nature (natura naturans) is absurd, because it implies the existence of the thing made before it was made, and while it was so non-existent it busied itself creatively on itself. Why nothing was the product of this non-existent

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creator, we cannot figure out, nor, we opine, can pantheists. As an absurdity this one surely is worthy of the chief booby prize and deserves for its holder the high seat in the schoolroom's corner, with the dunce cap on his head and his back turned toward the school and teacher. To deny personality to man when man has the very things that constitute personality—self-consciousness and others- consciousness, which all sentient beings have, is certainly a transparent absurdity. To assert, as pantheism does, that man, considered as a part of the all, is a mere abstraction and not a reality, is another absurdity, since abstractions are only ideas, while it takes real existent and sentient beings to feel, know and will, as man does. To assert that there is no real difference or differing worth between good and evil, the saint and the sinner, is not only intellectually absurd, but is as morally absurd as it is morally mischievous. These considerations prove pantheism to be as absurd as it is untrue.

Another argument against pantheism is its insufficiency to explain the involved phenomena that it professes to explain. Its explanation of the nature of God is insufficient to account for His existence and work; in fact it explains neither. Its making Him His own Creator is insufficient to explain either Himself or His creation. Its denial of personality to Him leaves Him as an abstraction before our mind and an incompetent and insufficient originator of all things. Explaining Him to be the universe and the universe to be Him leaves both unexplained to us. Positing a numerical unity for the universe as against the unity of a systematic aggregation of diverse individual things, and reducing all the parts of this universe separately considered to mere abstractions, ideas, neither explains the universe nor its real parts; but does reduce the universe to mere abstractions, ideas, since, if all its parts are abstractions its whole of necessity is such. Doubtless it was for this very reason that

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the leading pantheistic philosophers of the nineteenth century, like Fichte, Schelling, Jacobi, Hegel, etc., were idealists, i.e., those who held that not real entities but only ideas exist, e.g., what we see about us are not realities but figments of our minds. Finally, the denial of man's personality and his liberty to choose cannot explain man in his nature, structure, qualities and activities toward himself, his fellows, the universe and God. Accordingly, pantheism is a stupendous failure as an explanation of the problem of God, the universe and man. Hence it is a discredible and discredited theory that soon will be cast away onto the rubbish pile of outgrown and outworn speculations.

Thus reason and facts are in most violent opposition to pantheism. To the true Christian, steeped in the Spirit of God and having intimate union and communion with God, not only in prayer and contemplation, but in the varied experiences and providences of his life, pantheism has not only the above considerations against it, but the facts of his personal and intimate life are to him a most striking contradiction of it. The marvelous enlightenment that he receives from God and that satisfies his head and heart refutes for him this theory. His experiences in justification deepen this refutation. His experiences in sanctification, especially his new-creaturely experiences in the developing of God's Spirit in Him and in its contacts with God heighten to him this refutation. And finally, his experiences in deliverance composed of his rescues by the Lord from Satanic traps and of his victories over sin, error, selfishness and worldliness in his battles under God's directions against the devil, the world and the flesh, widen this refutation, so that to him pantheism appears in the light of Scriptures, reason and fact to be a demonstrated false view of God, in proof of whose falsity everything within him, about him and connected with him, others and the world, prevails with unanswerable power and demonstration.

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Our previous examination of false views of God has brought before our view: atheism, materialism, agnosticism and pantheism, all of which deny the existence of a personal God. In this particular deism differs from them in that it accepts the idea of a personal God. Deism stands for three views that are opposed to Christianity, each one of which we should examine in these discussions. Deism stands for a false view of God, of man and of the hereafter; that is to say, those who hold to the false view of God that is espoused by deists also entertain as a part of their view of God a false view of man and of the hereafter. It is because the errors on these two subjects are derived from the deist's false view of God that properly to understand the deist's view of God we must also understand his related view of man and the hereafter. Accordingly, these three phases of deism call for a review, if the deistic system is to be understood and properly appraised. We will discuss these three in the order named.

First, then, a study of deism's view of God and a refutation of it will engage our attention. The deist confidently asserts the personality of God and to his claim on this head we respond with a hearty amen. He by preference refers to this great Person as the Great First Cause; and on this point we can also grasp his hand in harmony. And by that appellation he properly asserts God's eternity and His separateness from creation; and on these points we also agree. He loves to expatiate on the numerous evidences of design, wisdom, power and beneficence as these are manifest on all hands in nature. And in this we are glad to own him as right. Accordingly, the deist believes in God as a great, mighty, wise and loving personal Creator, who, they say (here we must begin to dissent), made everything perfect and subjected everything to the sway of perfect laws and then left His creative work as a perfect thing to take care of itself without any further

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interposition from Him. According to deism it would be wholly superfluous for God to occupy Himself any more with His creation; for, they allege, having made it perfect and subjected it to the reign of the perfect laws of nature, it no more needs, and therefore no more receives, any attention from Him. He has, according to deism, shut Himself off from His works, not only as something distinct from Himself, but also as something with which He is forever done, and therefore as something with which He neither needs, nor does concern Himself. He is like the watchmaker who, having made a good watch out of good materials and in workmanship manner, on selling it, winds it up and says to it, Good-bye forever. This is in brief the deist's view of God, who therefore is not only absolutely separate, but also absolutely separated from the world in the fullest sense of the word.

As we contemplate this view of God, we find it quite good up to the place where creation is claimed to be perfect and therefore is no more a concern of God. From there on we find it lacking. Our first objection to it, then, is this: It teaches that creation is perfect, while the Bible, reason and facts are to the contrary. This earth is a part of creation; but while the Bible teaches it will sometime be perfect—when the whole earth will be a paradise (Ezek. 36: 30, 34-36; Is. 35: 1, 2; 65: 21-35)—it distinctly teaches that both the earth and its animate beings are imperfect (Gen. 3: 17-19; Rom. 8: 19-22). A little consideration will show that facts are in harmony with these Scriptures. Certainly, the vast barren parts of the earth, like the deserts of Sahara, Gobi, Arabia, America, etc., are far from perfection. The vast ice fields of Arctica and Antarctica present a very imperfect part of the earth to our view. The vast swamps and marshes of the tropics and of some sections of the temperate zone do not strike the thinking mind as parts of perfection. The prevalence of disease-creating conditions in a

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large part of the earth, directly due to the condition of the pertinent parts of the earth, their climate, and their atmosphere, do not agree with the thought of nature being perfect. Then, when we see the vast evidence of physical, mental, moral and religious imperfection among mankind, and the still greater evidence of imperfection in beast, fowl, insect, reptile and fish, we must concede to nature's being far from perfect in these respects. The earthquakes, volcanoes, droughts, famines, explosions, pests, blights, diseases, pestilences, tornadoes and tidal waves are another indictment of the doctrine of nature's perfection. Certainly, the monstrosities of some births, the selfish struggle for existence and the rule of might prevalent throughout nature, justify our questioning this doctrine. So far as we know, by reasoning from analogy, apart from God's and the angels' abode, the planets of our solar system and the planets of all other solar systems are, like ours, far from perfect.

To the objection that our understanding implies that the Creator's work is imperfect, we answer: Yes and no. That part of His creative work which is completed is doubtless without flaw (Deut. 32: 4). But, so far as our knowledge goes, there is as yet but one star in the universe wherein the Creator's work is completed—that star on which God and the angels dwell, and which God has promised, as heaven, to the Faithful. It would be as foolish to demand that we believe that God's incomplete work is perfect as it would be to require us to believe that a watchmaker's incompleted watch, an automobile-manufacturer's incompleted machine, or an electrician's incompleted dynamo, were perfect. No incomplete invention or creation can be perfect. The imperfections above pointed out in the earth and doubtless similar ones prevailing in other planets are present because the Creator's creative process is not yet complete in them. When such processes are complete this earth and they will be perfect,

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as the Scriptures teach they will become. And there are hints in the Bible that Jesus and the saints will have as their eternal work the task of bringing one planet after another in the universe, with their inhabitants, to perfection (Rom. 8: 17; Is. 9: 7). This is quite a different prospect as to how the Faithful will spend eternity from that held out to us in hymn-book theology—"loafing about the Throne, killing time and playing on golden harps!"

But with matters viewed as above, we see at once on the one hand the unfactualness and unscriptualness of the deist's view of nature's perfection and on the other hand the factualness and Scriptualness of the Christian's view of nature and the appropriateness of Jesus' statement: Hitherto My Father worketh (John 5: 17), i.e., the Father was working right along, even if He had temporarily ceased His creative work with the earth and man from the entrance of the curse up to the present, a cessation which will end with the Millennium. Consequently we say to the deist, Friend, "God's creative work with the universe and man is not yet complete; hence He cannot have withdrawn Himself from His work but partially done. His perfection argues that He must continue with His work until it is complete." If this be so, the entire viewpoint of the deist, both as to God's present relation to the universe and man and nature's perfection must be erroneous.

As the deist's view of God cuts Him off from all providential care of His creatures, we must also on this ground take issue with him. The very fact of an incomplete universe implies providential preservation exercised over its incompleted parts, that the past gains of the creative processes be not lost and that they may be maintained as a foundation for the remaining advancing stages of the creative processes. Furthermore, such preservation of past gains in the creative processes cannot be left solely in the hands of nature's laws, because nature's laws like all other laws are not

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self-enforcing. There must be a ruler to order and enforce these; so that they are kept continually adjusted and re­ adjusted in proper coordination and super-ordination and subordination to one another for the harmonious attainment of predesigned results. Even man does to an extent manipulate laws of nature so as to bring about certain beneficial results, e.g., electrical laws to produce light, heat, sound (in telephone and telegraph), etc., and radio laws to send us music and messages through the ether; and he can also manipulate these to produce disaster, e.g., explosions, electrocutions, etc. And just as there is a continual adjustment on man's part of various natural laws required to insure such results, and a preservation of the operation of just such laws of nature as man desires to use; so the Creator must also act as the preserver and manipulator of nature's laws to keep them at work to produce His various designs throughout the universe. These facts further undermine the deist's view of God, according to which He is an absentee and unconcerned God. As little as it is possible for various laws of nature producing uniformly the beneficial or harmful results above indicated without man's manipulation of them, so little and much less is it possible for the laws of the universe to operate with their designed objects without the manipulation of a King, who must be infinitely more powerful and wise than the men who in very limited fields manipulate the laws of nature above referred to. Therefore, the Christian's view of God's providential preservation and control of nature's laws for the preservation and government of the universe, is seen to be reasonable, and this refutes deism from another standpoint of its creed.

The condition of the curse, in which both Scripture and facts prove man to be, creates the necessity of the intervention of a wise, just, loving and powerful Creator, lest man become utterly and eternally ruined. Hence the necessity of God's intervening, in order

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both to show man a way out of his ruined condition and to help him avail himself of that way out. The former implies a Divine revelation, which the Christian believes he has in the Bible; and the latter implies a Divinely ordained and efficient Savior, whom the Christian believes God arranged for him to have in Jesus Christ, "the fairest of the children of men." But deism's absentee and unconcerned God in the nature of the case can give no Divine revelation nor send a Divinely appointed and efficient Savior, just because He can have nothing more to do with the works of His hand after bringing them into existence. Accordingly the deist denies the possibility of a Divine revelation on God's part, and as we shall see when we consider deism's view of man, he denies the necessity of such a revelation on man's part, claiming that man within himself has all the possibilities of saving himself. This consideration bares the inherent infidelistic character of deism. To his position we have several objections. A God like his who is so impotent as to be unable to communicate with His creatures surely must be too weak to have brought the universe into existence and to have put it under the reign of law. But if He was powerful enough to do the harder thing—create the universe and give it effective laws—certainly He must be powerful enough to be able to do an easier thing—to communicate with His intelligent beings. Again, if He was wise enough to plan and to produce the universe and work out laws for its preservation and government, He must be wise enough to plan and produce a communication of His Will to His creatures; for the latter is a less intricate thing than the former. Further, if He was beneficent enough to create man for man's happiness and well-being, as the deist claims, He must be beneficent enough to help man by a communication of ways and means to attain that happiness and well-being; for evidently the former was the more beneficent of the two. Accordingly,

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from the nature of the Divine attributes that the deist claims that his God in creation had, we must conclude that the deist's idea of an absentee and unconcerned God is incompatible with his view of that God's attributes as these are displayed in His creative work. These considerations at once prove the reasonableness of a Divine revelation and the unreasonableness of the deist's denial of its possibility, viewed from the standpoint of his position on the attributes of God as displayed in creation.

A further consideration connected with the necessity of God's communicating His Will to man is found in man's evident inability to attain such needed knowledge as a Divine revelation could impart. We may as much as we please expatiate and that at great lengths on man's wonderful abilities, as the deist loves to do, and that even to excess; the stubborn fact yet remains that such knowledge is beyond man to attain by his own unaided powers. This is manifest from a number of considerations. The prevalence of so many mutually contradictory religions and of so many self-contradictory religions, each teaching a  different theory of man's relation to God and of the securing of harmony with God, proves man's inability of his own powers to reason out a correct diagnosis of the condition of the race in relation to God and the way of salvation from his condition physically, mentally, morally and religiously. Not only so, but this is proven by the further fact that even with a Divine revelation—the Bible—in their hands, the vast majority of those who look upon that Bible as the Divine revelation misunderstand it, as is evident from the clashing creeds of Christendom, parts of which, like the creedal trinity, the God-man, etc., etc., etc., their adherents frankly admit they cannot understand. Man's inability to solve the problem of his relations to God and to amend them, makes necessary a Divine revelation, if such needed knowledge and accompanying help are to come

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to man. But deism's God cannot give man this sorely needed knowledge, much less this sorely needed help. It cannot, therefore, be a view of God that can satisfy our head's exactions and our heart's needs as to a worth-while God.

Deism's absentee and unconcerned God makes the deist deny the possibility of the miraculous. His view of the laws of nature as being unchangeable because perfect, and his God's leaving everything to these laws of nature for management, make him deny the possibility of the miraculous. With this view the deist sweeps aside with one stroke the possibility of a Divine revelation and, therefore, also denies anything to be a Divine revelation that has the miraculous connected with it. This, of course, implies the deist's rejection of Christianity, which has much of the miraculous connected with it. We think this position of the deist is as untenable as his position on the perfection of the universe, on God as the Preserver and Governor of the universe that He has created and on the untenability of a possible Divine revelation. Having proven the possibility and necessity of a Divine revelation from the operations of the Divine power, wisdom and love and from the inability of men's heads and hearts, we have advanced a considerable distance on the journey in proof of the possibility of the miraculous. Against the claim of the deist we desire to state that miracles are not to be regarded as violations of the laws of nature. Their operation is along the lines of nature's laws controlled by knowledge. A hundred years ago it would have been said that it is contrary to the laws of nature for a man in New York to carry on a conversation with a man at Moscow and the defender of that proposition would refer to the curvature of the earth, the resistance of the atmosphere, etc., etc., as manifesting laws of nature contrary to the procedure. Now, we are able to do this both by telephone and by radio. We have learned to manipulate

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certain laws of nature so as to supersede the operation of other laws of nature that were supposed to make impossible, as against the laws of nature, a man in New York conversing with a man in Moscow. The chemist and physicist are constantly using one law of nature to accomplish a thing that is under other conditions opposed by some other law of nature. And, thus, we have learned of a co-ordination, a super-ordination and a subordination among the laws of nature. And in this fact lies the possibility of the miraculous. God knows all about the working of the laws of nature in their co-ordination, super- ordination and subordination, and works the miraculous by acting along the lines of these three facts.

A few examples will suffice. Peter's mother-in-law had a fever. Fever in ultimate analysis is due to insufficiency of iron in the blood to resist some intruder. If that deficiency can be supplied to a sufficient degree the fever subsides. Jesus, whose miracles of healing were wrought by His taking out of His own body the thing that was deficient in the patient and putting that into the patient's body, thereby effecting the cure (Mark 5: 30; Luke 6: 19; 8: 46) in a way unknown to us, but known and enacted by Him, wrought the cure of the fever in Peter's mother-in-law, by giving her some of the iron in His body. The laws of nature turn the moisture and certain ingredients of the earth into sap. Other laws of nature produce therefrom grape blossoms, which in due course, by nature's laws, turn into luscious grapes. Their compressed juice is by other laws of nature turned into wine. But Jesus turned water into wine, not by violating these laws of nature, but by using certain of these in a way we do not understand to accomplish by one act what various laws of nature produce by a series of acts stretching over a considerable length of time. Again, it is a law of nature that each structure has its rate of vibration. It is another law of nature that if that same rate of

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vibration acts sufficiently from the outside on that  structure, the latter will break down. This accounts for many bridges in Switzerland breaking down when Napoleon's armies, while passing over them, kept step at a speed that produced the same rate of vibration as that of the bridges, which experiences resulted in a general order requiring the French soldiers to break step when crossing bridges. As a result no more bridges fell, though crossed by the same or larger numbers of men.

This fact enables us to understand several of the strangest miracles of the Bible—the fall of Jericho's walls by trumpet blasts and shouts, and the confounding of the host of Jehoshaphat's enemies by the songs of the temple singers. God, knowing the rate of vibration of Jericho's walls, had the priests blow the trumpets and the people shout at that same rate of vibration, which caused Jericho's walls to fall. Human brains under excitement of the war spirit have a certain rate of vibrations. God knew this rate as it existed in the host of Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites (2 Chro. 20: 14-25) and by having the temple singers produce sound of the same rate, the crazing of the opposing hosts set in; and in their insanity they destroyed one another. Scientists are just beginning to see the immense power shut up in an atom and are beginning to accomplish gigantic works of destruction by the concentrated application of the electrons of but one atom. God always knew this, and used this knowledge in the working of miracles. To those ignorant of the method, at times His miracles seemed to violate nature's laws. We feel confident that when science has sufficiently advanced in its knowledge of manipulating certain of nature's laws we will learn to explain every Biblical miracle along the lines of higher laws of nature displacing lower laws of nature and thus accomplishing the miracle. A miracle—the word means wonder—is such, not to God, but to man in his ignorance of the

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process, which, though wrought by supernatural agents, worked along perfectly natural lines. We venture to say that there is scarcely a miracle set forth in the Bible that would have surprised its witnesses more than a man in New York conversing with a man in Moscow, or than a man by television seeing another man at a great distance with walls and other obstacles intervening. Why people living in the twentieth century, with all its scientific miracles, some of them as wonderful as many recorded in the Bible, should think Bible miracles impossible is one of the wonders, but not one of the miracles, of our times! Surely, we of all generations, seeing the wonders operated by manipulating certain laws of nature in the displacement of others, should not object to the miraculous.

On the contrary, as experience and observation prove, the co-ordination of some laws of nature to others, and the super-ordination and subordination of some laws of nature to others, with the result that usually the super-ordinated ones displace subordinated ones, so under manipulation subordinated ones at times overrule super-ordinated ones. We may be sure that man's manipulating such laws to secure the miracles of electricity, radio, steam and various rays, implies God's ability to perform more than such miracles. In the balloon and heavier-than-air planes we have splendid illustrations of how certain laws of nature under manipulation overcome the laws of gravity enough to allow man to attain immense heights. In diving suits and submarines, we see the manipulation of certain laws in ways to set aside the operation of other laws of nature. This principle is also manifest in the shooting of projectiles high into the air, yea, even in the lifting of a foot. If man in a variety of ways can thus manipulate the laws of nature so  as to displace the operation of others for the purpose at hand, how much more could the Infinite Author of nature and nature's laws so manipulate them! Surely,

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these considerations abundantly and satisfactorily dispose of the position of the deist on his absentee and unconcerned God being tied hand and foot by the laws of nature, when it comes to the miraculous. Let us, therefore, set aside the silly twaddle that superficially conjures up the supposed invariability of the laws of nature as a sure disproof of the miracles of the Bible.

This absentee and unconcerned deistical God certainly comes far short as a character developer and a piety producer in us. Such a God can arouse belief in His existence; but certainly not the kind of faith that trusts God as an unfailing Friend and Father, reliable Helper and Deliverer and steadfast Stay and Comforter. In the nature of such a God, tied hand and foot by nature's alleged unchangeable laws, we could not exercise hope in His interposing on our behalf in the changing and evil conditions that accompany more or less of our experiences; for He is a God who most leaves us in the lurch when we most need Him. The matter is still worse when we contemplate the inability of this God to draw out and develop our love. While He can elicit some of the minor features of duty-love from the standpoint of gratitude for His creative blessings, He is helpless to do this from the standpoint of providential, redemptive, instructional, justifying, sanctifying and delivering blessings, which develop duty-love to higher degrees than creative blessings can. But such a God can barely call forth even the lowest degrees of disinterested love and is helpless to do so in its higher degrees. Thus, He can fall forth very little of appreciation toward Himself, no sympathetic oneness and sacrifice. He is powerless to elicit from us whole-hearted consecration of ourselves to Him as a reasonable, wise, just and energetic service. As He is incapable to elicit such responses in us toward Himself, He cannot do it in us toward our Lord Jesus. Moreover, He is almost helpless to empower us out of devotion to Him to exercise duty-love, not to mention

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disinterested love to the brethren, the world of mankind and our enemies. These are only the four main things in the truly godly life, wherein the deist's God breaks down as a real God. What shall we say as to His inequality to the task of developing in us other graces, like self-control, patience, humility, modesty, peace, joy, industry, longsuffering, forbearance, forgiveness, sincerity, liberality, self-denial, sacrifice, etc.? Here He suffers a darker eclipse than on the graces before considered. How could such a God draw out such a devotion toward Him as enlists all our time, strength, health, talents, means, position and influence, to enhance His Name? Surely, here is an utter breakdown in Him. And how could He strengthen us to suffer and die in His service? In all candor we would have to answer: Not at all! Hence, the deist's God is not the kind that we need, to live, serve and suffer aright; and hence He is not the kind of a God that fills the requirements of a satisfactory God for the Church or World.

Such a God is one who is not a prayer-heeding and prayer-answering God. This lies in the nature of an absentee and unconcerned God, as well as in the nature of a God who is tied hand and foot by alleged invariable laws of nature. Do our hearts crave and cry out for fellowship with Him as by their constitution they naturally do? The deist's God deigns not, nay, is incapable of entering into a relation with us, wherein He might heed and answer our prayers. Furthermore, His aloofness estranges us from Him so that we do not feel drawn toward Him in prayer; for a prayer- eliciting God must be powerful, approachable, sympathetic, kind, winsome—in a word He must be one who has the good will and the ability to help us. He must be gracious enough to invite us to approach Him for help, good enough to promise to give us a favorable hearing, kind enough to respond according to our needs, and wise enough to supply them aright and to

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deny our whims, whose satisfaction would prove to the injury of others as well as ourselves. Such the deist's God cannot be. As a result deists do not pray; and why should they? Is their God not tied hand and foot by alleged perfect and invariable laws of nature? Assuredly they so teach and as a result do not come in prayer with petitions, believing Him too indifferent, far away and circumscribed to make favorable response. In other words, considered from every standpoint in which we look for God to be, the deist's God breaks down. He cannot be the God that corresponds to the deepest physical, mental, moral and religious needs of mankind; and therefore He cannot be mankind's God. As an all-around God He is a failure for human needs and aspirations, a misfit.

Contrast with such a God the God of the Bible, and the incomparable superiority of the true God as able to fulfill all man's needs is apparent. As a progressive, not a presto­ chango Creator, He stands forth, and that in harmony with all observed facts that the condition of the universe requires. He is the Preserver and Governor in His domain, though He temporarily permits, because of ultimate good coming therefrom, a rebellious and evil condition in a part of it. He made the laws of nature, but not so that they all work mechanically without the interrelations of co— ordination, super-ordination and subordination and not so that He is their ignorant slave, but that He is their intelligent Manipulator and Regulator. He has the power to communicate with man and does so through the Bible, His revelation. He is wise and powerful to use the laws of nature to accomplish His good will toward man. He is such a Being as elicits the good in mankind for character development, supplies the good mankind lacks and prompts Him to reformation. Moreover, He is so gracious as to invite man to approach Him in prayer, is able to supply his needs, promises to supply them and keeps His word of promise so to do. Hence

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He is the kind of a God that we need and that all the universe needs. This proves His incomparable superiority to the deist's conceptions of a God.

Next in order let us consider the unsatisfactoriness of deism's view of Man and the Hereafter. This will dispose of the three tenets of deism which its advocates usually put as: God, Virtue and Immortality.

Foregoing we set forth deism's view of God and then refuted it from Scripture, reason and facts, and came to the conclusion from all three of these standpoints that the deist's God is a failure as a God for human needs. On every hand His deficiencies as a God stand out, and that to a degree that makes both head and heart turn from Him as unsatisfactory to both. His unsuitableness for the purposes of a God further becomes apparent when we consider deism's view of man as a creature of God; for man in his creation is perfect, according to deism; but this claim is as false as the deist's other claim that nature is perfect. This latter thought we sufficiently refuted above. As superficiality marks this latter thought, so does it also mark the thought that man is perfect. The deist has a too optimistic view of man. According to deism man is really good, both in head and heart. He intends well. There is really no root fault in man; at worst he lacks some in knowledge and is in some cases weak in good; but he is not really evil and corrupt, since his intentions are good and always would be realized had he in every case the necessary knowledge. Give him time enough, and he will develop into the highest heights of character. In the meantime, like a good-natured father, God looks upon his deficiencies as negligible, his ignorance as excusable and his faults, if he have any, as trivial, and therefore to be good-naturedly ignored. Therefore He does not hold him strictly to account, blaming not him, but his environment and training, for these blemishes, if they are such. But as to man's being radically evil—evil in

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nature—the deist will have none of such a thought. The above brief sketch of deism's view of man is unscriptural, unreasonable and unfactual; accordingly it implies a gross defect in God, especially in justice, though also in power; and it is because of this defect that we discuss deism's view of man as a thing implying a defect in its view of God, and as therefore fathering a false view of God.

But before pointing out the erroneousness of this view  of man, and thus of God, we would say something in extenuation of deism's view of man. This view of man was undoubtedly elaborated in antithesis to the view of total depravity, which especially Calvinism has championed. In these two views we meet two extremes, both of which are incorrect. Man by nature is neither so bad as Calvinism makes him out, nor so good as deism sets him forth. Neither the expression nor the thought of the total depravity of fallen man is Biblical, reasonable or factual. If fallen man were totally depraved, he would not have one vestige of God's image remaining in him. Hence he would have no conscience Godward nor manward, nor any proper feeling and quality Godward and manward; hence he would not only lack all faith, hope, justice, love, etc., but would have their opposites. He would have no conjugal, parental, nor neighborly love. Such a condition the Bible clearly denies. How completely does Jesus overthrow this thought when He says, "If ye, being evil [fallen], know how to give good gifts to your children" (Matt. 7: 11; Luke 11: 13). Hence to say that man is totally depraved in his faculties, feelings and qualities, is unbiblical, unfactual and unreasonable. The Bible, reason and facts teach that there is depravity in all of these, not that they are totally depraved. Such depravity varies in degree in various people. Only in actual death can total depravity exist. Even Satan is not totally depraved; for his faculties are yet perfect, though his moral and religious character

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may be called totally depraved—irreformably fixed in sin. The character of the second death class may be called totally depraved Godward, but not necessarily manward. But such exceptions, in which total depravity exists within certain limits, but not throughout the entire being, do not touch the question of the race's alleged total depravity; for the vast bulk of the race is outside of the second death class—the irreformably wicked—and often do good things.

Above we pointed out the fact that deism's view of man is the natural revulsion to the extreme view of present human nature as being totally depraved, held especially by Calvinism. Man, as a rule, is a creature of extremes; few indeed are they who, opposing an extreme of error, keep the golden middle between it and the opposite extreme. Deists are no exception to this general rule. Avoiding the error of total depravity, they have jumped to the opposite extreme and, theoretically at least, predicate man's perfection as a creature of God, a perfection that they hold, despite ignorances and weaknesses that they concede to exist in man. Too superficial to see a contradiction between man's alleged perfection and his acknowledged ignorances and weaknesses, they let their optimism blind them to realities, losing themselves in the delusions of such optimism. Like the ostrich, they cover their eyes of understanding with the sands of oblivion. The falseness of this view is apparent in the light of Scripture, reason and fact. As Calvinism fixes its eyes on some exceptional human monsters and from them concludes that human nature as now existing under the fall is totally depraved; so deism fixes its eyes on a few exceptionally fine specimens of human nature and from them concludes that present human nature is good—perfect. It must be conceded that the deist is right in claiming that there are some very fine specimens of human nature and that in all generations there have been such. But it is fallacious to conclude

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that these are perfect, and more fallacious to conclude that all others are more or less like them. All are imperfect: some more so, some less so.

In harmony with facts and reason the Bible recognizes this variety in mankind. Indeed the Bible, roughly  speaking, divides the race into two classes—the faith class and the unbelief class. Some are born so depraved that under the untoward conditions of the curse they cannot exercise the faith now needed to come to God. Moreover, these have been under such environment and training as to increase their natural incapacity to come to God. On the other hand, some are born so as to make them capable of exercising the faith now needed to come to God; and their good heredity is reinforced by favorable environment and training. These two classes are brought to our attention by Jesus in Mark 4: 11, 12, and Matt. 13: 10-13, where also their different treatment from the Lord is set forth. And in each one of these two classes there are variations of faith or unbelief. So in other good qualities there are naturally great differences between people. But under the limitations of the curse there is depravity in all, but total depravity in none. It is by superficially fixing his eyes on the good qualities in people, and optimistically shutting his eyes to the bad qualities in people that the deist takes his seat on the opposite side of the question from that where the Calvinist has seated himself. The truth is midway between them: All humans under the curse are varyingly depraved in all their faculties, but none are therein totally depraved; all have some of the vestiges of God's image in all their faculties; some have very much of these in them; others have very little of these; and between these extremes in mankind as at present constituted are all sorts of variations in the degree of such vestiges.

Certainly the Bible teaches the depravity of all mankind in all its faculties under the curse. "The imagination

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of man's heart is evil from his youth" (Gen. 8: 21). Surely "all flesh had corrupted his way" (Gen. 6: 12). The claim to be perfect is a proof of perversity, depravity (Job 9: 20). This depravity is transmitted by heredity (Job 14: 4). "There is none that doeth good [perfection]" (Ps. 14: 1). All have gone astray and become filthy, without exception (Ps. 14: 3; Is. 55: 6). Even the best have been conceived and born in sin (Ps. 51: 5), let alone the wicked, who are estranged from God before birth (Ps. 58: 3). Men's thoughts are vain (Ps. 94: 11). There are no exceptions to such depravity and its effects (Ps. 130: 3; Eccl. 7: 20). In God's sight no living person can justify himself as sinless (Ps. 143: 2). Even the delay in executing punishment incites the fallen race to sin (Eccl. 8: 11). Even the heart is filled with evil (Eccl. 9: 3). "The whole head is sick; and the whole heart is faint. From the soles of the feet even unto the head there is no soundness [perfection] in it; but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores" (Is. 1: 5, 6). All of us are unclean and all our righteousness more or less polluted (Is. 64: 6). All have transgressed against the Lord (Jer. 2: 29). The Ethiopian's inability to change his skin and the leopard's inability to change his spots illustrates man's inability to do perfectly, since he by nature and practice is sinful (Jer. 13: 23). "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked" (Jer. 17: 9). Fallen man as prone  to all sorts of evils is graphically described by the Lord (Mic. 7: 2-4).

The above are some Old Testament teachings on this subject. Now for some witnesses thereon from the New Testament. "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies" (Matt. 15: 19). Sin made the world incapable of recognizing Jesus (John 1: 10). It is depravity that makes men love evil rather than good (John 3: 19). Certainly the Apostle Paul gives

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fearful descriptions of human depravity (Rom. 1: 21-32; 3: 9-19). "All have sinned and come short of the glory [perfection] of God" (Rom. 3: 23). Such depravity makes us weak as to righteousness (Rom. 5: 6; 8: 3). Most graphically is our inability to do perfectly described in Rom. 7: 5, 11, 13-15, 18-25. Our depravity makes us disposed to further depravity and to enmity and disobedience toward God, and makes us unable perfectly to please Him (Rom. 8: 5-8). Such depravity makes people think that spiritual things are foolishness (1 Cor. 2: 14). Without God's help we are unable to think aright of Divine matters, much less to do them (2 Cor. 3: 5). Man's good works, because imperfect, cannot justify him before God, on account of man's depravity (Gal. 3: 11; 22). There is a continual conflict going on between the spirit and the flesh, because the latter is depraved, making one unable to do perfectly (Gal. 5: 17). The following are the effects of human depravity: "adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, revellings" (Gal. 5: 19-21). This depravity leads to darkening of the understanding, alienation from the Divine life, ignorance of the Divine Truth, blindness of heart and corruption by lust (Eph. 4: 18, 22). It puts humans under the power of darkness and makes them enemies of good works and lovers of evil works (Col. 1: 13, 21). It brings one into the captivity and snare of  Satan (2 Tim. 2: 26). It makes people foolish, disobedient, dupes, slaves of evil, malicious, envious, hateful and offensive (Tit. 3: 3; Jas. 3: 2). It fills us with things alien to God (1 John 2: 16). It makes the whole world lie in wickedness (1 John 5: 19). And it makes people spiritually wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked (Rev. 3: 17). Surely these Biblical teachings prove that the human family is fallen—depraved.

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And facts fully corroborate these Scriptural teachings. If human nature were perfect, why do we not see perfect humans—people who are physically, mentally, morally and religiously flawless? Only one such human being has appeared on this earth since sin entered into the world; and one of the strongest fundamental proofs of the fallen condition of human nature is the fact that He was not only not understood and appreciated by His fellows, but was most ignominiously rejected and most foully and wickedly put to death by some of those who considered themselves, deistically like, "not sinners like other men," and were by common consent considered among the best of mankind. The gross mistreatment that all, and the cruel tortures and deaths that some of God's servants have received from their fellow men, are further evidence of the fallen condition of the race. The rejection and persecution that God's Truth has always received from the bulk of the race and the espousal of error by the great majority of mankind attest the same fact. When the varying degrees of degradation in such rejections and espousals are considered, they add further proof of the fallen condition of man. How could the superstitious religions rampant in the world be accepted as true and right, unless their votaries were mentally and religiously degraded—fallen from God's image?

The fearful wrongs prevailing between and against many husbands and wives, between and against parents and children and brethren and brethren, show degradation— depravity—in the family life. The fearful wrongs of many governments against their citizens, and of many citizens against their governments, and the violations of international rights among the nations, show that such depravity marks national and international life. The gross iniquities that prevail in business, industry, finance and labor, show an appalling amount of depravity in the commercial world. The

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professions are full to overflowing of examples of wrong and sin. In man's social relations the same depravity is illustrated. Our penitentiaries, jails, reformatories, asylums, hospitals and detentionaries give unanswerable evidence of human depravity. Each clear-thinking person who has made an honest and deep study of himself knows that there are depraved tendencies, motives, thoughts, habits, words and acts in his life. Each such thinker who has sought to stem the tide of depravity in himself knows that his best efforts are imperfect, knows that to will is present in him, but to perform perfectly he is unable. With the best of the fallen race he must in keenest anguish cry out, "Wretched man that I am; who shall deliver me from this dead body" of corruption!

We ask the deist: How can you think of most men as perfect and the rest of them as nearly so, suffering only from inconsequential ignorance and weakness? Do the sin- wrecked homes, so numerous in our times, imply this thought? Do the scoffers of our time exhibit the qualities of human perfection? Do the murders, social, religious, civil, international, commercial and professional, imply any such a thing? Do the hatreds, envyings, jealousies, feuds, cruelties, heart-lessnesses, rivalries and vengeances, that thrust literal or figurative daggers into their victims, argue for man's perfection? Do the stock frauds, gamblings, waterings and manipulations, the legal technicalities, delays and miscarriages, the price fixings, the monopolistic and competitive cut-throat acts, the adulterations of materials and foods for profit, the class control of the press, the landlordistic exactions, the dishonesties of bank and trust officials, the juggleries in bookkeeping, the briberies, the tax dodgings, the freeings of rich criminals, the frauds with trust funds, the scandals of big finance and business, the corruptions of civil officials, the battles of financial giants, the election frauds, the manufacturing of panics and wars

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for gain, the robberies and crookedness, the racketeerings of all kinds, the bootleggings, the gangsters, etc., etc., etc., demonstrate man's actual or near perfection? Do the adulteries, the fornications, the brothels, the white-slavers, the white-slaves, the debauchees, the seducers, the rapers, the libidinous, the sodomists and self-abusers, suggest the actual or near perfection of our race? Do the slanderers, the libelers, the gossips, the reputation assassins, the whisperers, the falsifiers, the perjurers and the traitors, conduce to the proof that human nature is perfect or nearly so?

Let the deist face these things as actual facts of human character and human actors, not as he is wont, like the ostrich, hiding them from his sight, but let him look them in the face as revelatory of actual conditions and facts, and he must give up his theory that mankind is perfect in its bulk and nearly so in its remaining numbers. Christianity apart, these facts and conditions give the pessimist a hundred times more arguments for his pessimism than the superficial inductions from a few exceptionally fine specimens of humanity give arguments to the deist for his optimism. The Christian, in contrast with the theoretical pessimist and optimist, is a realist as to present conditions, which unanswerably prove varying degrees of human depravity as the golden middle between Calvinistic total depravity and deistic optimism, while as to the future with its prospective Millennial restitution work, he is an optimist of the first water, and that because of his confidence in God's Oath-bound Covenant to bless with restitution opportunities all the families of the earth, and in Christ's ransom sacrifice as giving Him the power and authority to uplift to human perfection whosoever will of the depraved human family.

What conclusion do the above Scripture proofs and facts of experience on man's physical, mental, moral and religious condition warrant us in drawing? Undoubtedly

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they warrant our drawing the conclusion that human nature as it is now is not only imperfect, but fallen, depraved, corrupt. They argue that man is a diseased being, that this disease does not only affect his body, but also, and especially, his intellect, sensibilities and will, both as faculties and as contents of such faculties. In intellect it makes him more or less blind or obtuse as to truth, especially as to religious truth, and easily susceptible to error, especially religious error, in which he habitually lives. In sensibilities it makes him prone to more or less of insensibility to the good, especially to the religious good, to detach his affections from the good, especially from the religious good, and to attach his affections to the evil, especially to the religious evil. In will it makes him more or less weak or powerless to determine to do the good, especially the religious good, and weak or powerless in determination against the evil, especially the religious evil, and strong in determination for the evil, especially the religious evil. Its effects in these respects vary in individuals; but even in the best of them it effects the condition that St. Paul accurately describes in the language of Rom. 7: 15, 19: "For that [imperfection] which I do I allow [approve] not; for what [perfection] I would that I do not; but what [imperfection] I hate that I do … for the good [perfection] I would I do not; but the evil [imperfection] which I would not that I do"; while for the others in varying degrees they more or less hate and avoid the good and delight in, and practice the evil. Hence man sins as naturally as the sparks fly upward. Such being the case, the deist's view of human nature is not only not approved by the Bible and facts, but is thoroughly overthrown by these.

But one may ask: Why discuss deism's view of man while discussing deism as a false view of God? Is such a discussion not foreign to the announced subject? We reply, No; because the attitude that

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deism claims that God maintains toward "human imperfection," which expression deism prefers to that of "human sin." The attitude that deism ascribes to God as to human sin may best be set forth in part under the similitude of an over-indulgent and thoughtless father who sees in his son's derelictions things, not so much to call for his disapproval and correctional chastisements, as to wink at, to smile at and even to chuckle over, as proving his son to be "a chip off the old block," and in part under the similitude of an easy-going and careless father who sees in his son's derelictions, not sins to be retributively corrected, but ignorances and weaknesses that his son will later on, through enlightenment, of his own accord put off. That God should become displeased with, resent and punish human sin is as far from the deist's creed of God as the East is  from the West. "O," exclaims he, "God is too good, wise and loving for that; for such a course is foreign to God's character!" This proves that according to deism God is neither wise, just nor loving; for a wise, just and loving God could not treat human sin with such indifference. Deism's view of God's attitude toward human sin proves it to be unbiblical and unfactual. We will now, first, proceed to prove that deism's view of God's attitude toward human sin is an unbiblical teaching as to God's character and then, second, we will proceed to prove that deism's view of God's attitude toward human sin is an unfactual teaching as to God's acts toward human sin.

Wisdom tactfully applies efficient means to secure good ends; but deism's God neither uses such means nor does He secure such ends; for His treatment of human sin according to deism is pure indifference, neglect and laziness; hence He is not only not wise, but most unwise toward human sin; for His attitude is one that encourages sin. Nor is deism's God just; for justice is the quality that rewards righteousness and punishes sin, not indeed with eternal torment, as

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many blasphemously assert, but with death, which is efficient to stopping the sinner's wicked course and depriving him of the existence that he refuses to use righteously. Nor is deism's God loving; for love is neither mushy nor sentimental, but the unselfish goodwill that delights in good, abhors evil, and labors to advance the former and to repress the latter, while the deist's God not only lacks this Divine quality, but pursues a course that discourages the good and advances the evil. Hence the deist's God in his attitude and acts toward sin is a God unworthy of our appreciation, reverence and  obedience, and is a failure as to being a wise, just and loving God. How differently does the Bible describe God's attitude toward human sin. It proves that it is repugnant to, and is punished by Him. It so grieved Him as to bring the flood upon the antediluvian world (Gen. 6: 6, 7). It grieves Him to such a degree that it makes the sinner an abomination to Him (Deut. 25: 16). He does not refrain from such displeasure with the best men and nations, e.g., David and Judah, when they commit sin (2 Sam. 11: 27; 1 Kings 14: 22). Abhorrence is a state of mind that it works in God (Ps. 5: 4-6; 10: 3; 78: 59). Such abhorrence is what the Bible means when it speaks of God hating the wicked (Ps. 11: 5; 106: 40). Seven of the main sins are enumerated in Prov. 6: 16-19 as being especially abominable to God. So much is God displeased with the wicked that their sacrifices, prayers and religious thoughts are abominations to Him (Prov. 15: 8, 9, 26; 21: 27). Sins are burdensome and wearisome to God (Is. 43: 24). They anger Him and provoke Him to punishment (Jer. 25: 7; 44: 4, 22). He can in no wise look upon sin with favor, since it merits His hatred (Hab. 1: 13; Zech. 8: 17). Nor are such thoughts peculiar to the Old Testament; for the New Testament expresses the same sentiments (Luke 16: 15; Rev. 2: 6, 15). These Scriptural delineations thoroughly show that God

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does regard sin with repugnance and punishes it, and therefore prove that the God of deism in His attitude toward sin is unbiblical and unacceptable.

Furthermore, the Scriptures plainly teach that God punishes sin correctionally and, when correction is rejected, executes the extreme penalty of death upon the sinner. One of the forms of punishment that He inflicts is to cut off the sinner from His favor and fellowship. This is repeatedly set forth in the Bible (Deut. 31: 17, 18; 2 Chro. 24: 20; Job  13: 24; Is. 59: 2; Micah 3: 4). Sin is punished by the woes of the curse (Gen. 3: 16-19). It led to the destruction of the human race, except one family, in the flood (Gen. 6: 7). Sodom, Gomorrah and the other cities of the plain were given over to destruction because of it (Gen. 18: 20; 19: 13). It brought upon Israel many a chastisement (Ex. 32: 33, 34; 34: 7; Lev. 26: 14-21; Num. 15: 30, 31; 32: 23). It led to the exclusion from Canaan of the generation that left Egypt, except two individuals (Ps. 95: 10, 11). It also led to the driving out from Canaan of everyone of them for 70 years (Jer. 42: 2-6). It also led to their being cast off from God's favor and to their abandonment unto much sufferings throughout the Gospel Age (Rom. 11: 25; Dan. 9: 26, 27). These teachings and facts are in strictest contradiction of deism's view of God's carelessness as to human sin. Then, too, the Bible teaches that as a final penalty God imposes death upon the incorrigible sinner. The following passages directly prove this: Gen. 2: 17; Jer. 31: 30; Rom. 1: 32; 5: 12, 17; 6: 16, 21, 23; 7: 5; 1 Cor. 15: 21, 22, 56; Jas. 1: 15; 1 John 5: 16. The following passages imply death as sin's final penalty: Gen. 3: 19; Rom. 1: 18; 5: 16, 18, 19. Thus God's imposing death as the extreme penalty of sin shows that He is quite a different God from deism's God as to sin.

The facts of human experience also prove that God is not indifferent to human sin, but first undertakes

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to correct it with instruction and chastisements; and when the correction will not be accepted, He puts the sinner to death. The extra-Biblical history of Gentile nations during Biblical and post-Biblical times is replete with illustrations of this fact. In Egypt, in Assyria, in Babylon, in India, in China, during Bible times, we have records of sin chastised and destruction wrought at its being clung to. This is apparent in the records of these nations brought recently to light through archeological research, wherein is described how in the domestic, commercial, imperial, religious and social order, sufferings came upon wrong-doers. In Persia, Greece, Rome and its successor nations the same principle manifested itself times innumerable. Within Christendom this principle can be observed as working as markedly at least as in Israel. What have many of Christendom's innumerable wars, revolutions, plagues, pestilences, earthquakes, volcanoes, droughts, famines, tidal waves, panics, etc., with much of their accompanying miseries and deaths, been other than chastisements for its sins? Our penal institutions, insane asylums and hospitals are more or less in existence because of sin's chastisements. Much of sickness is directly traceable to the effects of sin, and all of it is indirectly traceable thereto. Frequently sin is its own punisher in the physical, mental, moral and religious degradation and suffering which it directly entails. All about us we see the wrath of God against sin operating directly or [by heredity] indirectly. We witness it in our aches and pains and decays. We see it in every drug store, physician's office, hospital and undertaker's establishment. The quarantine notices, the crapes on our doors, the funeral processions and cemeteries, one and all, reveal it. Every institution of the healing art, every nurse, every surgical instrument, every dentist's parlor, manifest it. Surely God's displeasure at the original sin and frequently for subsequent transgressions, is seen with an impressiveness

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second perhaps to nothing else in the world. All these facts, therefore, inculcate the lesson of God's displeasure at, and punishment of sin. And, therefore, they disprove deism's view of God as to human sin.

As the final point against deism's creed on human sin as viewed by God, we would point out its demoralizing effect on human character. For the proper development of our characters a true view of God's character is necessary. If we think God to be in any way unwise, unjust and unloving, we lose for character development all the inspiration coming from an appreciation of the thought and example of His perfect wisdom, justice and love. If we conceive of God as being in any way unwise, unjust and unloving, we must fail to take Him as an ideal example for our imitation, and will take Him in these respects as an example for imitation far below a proper ideal, with the result that we will develop more or less in unwisdom, injustice and selfishness; for people never rise in character above their ideals. How could we really respect, let alone reverence such a God as that of deism, as manifested by His attitude toward man's sin? How could we appreciate Him from a delight in good principles? How could we really trust one with such a weak character, especially amid trials in which our circumstances seem not in harmony with His promises? How could His weak character draw out our obedience? Who would ever think of consecrating himself wholly to such a Being? And how could He influence one to carry out his consecration to Him? Such a weakling of a God is a failure as an inspiration to moral and religious development of a worth-while kind. Herein He fails us at a most vital point; therefore we must say such a God does not correspond to mankind's deepest needs, and cannot fit in with the aspirations of the saintly, which things disprove the actuality of such a God. His unsatisfactoriness as a God will become all the more

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apparent when we come to consider the third principle of the deist's creed—human immortality.

Deism's view of the hereafter for man, implying such a false view of man's nature as to be opposed to a right view of God and as to advance a false view of Him, justifies our study of its hereafter for man. As to man's hereafter, some few deists deny it altogether, thinking that death ends all  for man. Then there are deists who hold that the most degraded of mankind will have no hereafter, but they expect a hereafter for the others. But the large majority of deists believe in natural inherent human immortality, according to the teachings prevalent in all heathen lands, to the effect that man does not really die, but at what seems to be death he changes into a spirit being and lives on. According to this view, he seems, it is true, to die, but by the necessities of his constitution he actually lives on in a changed form. He now, according to this view, has become a spirit and as such lives on endlessly. The fact of there being wicked, as well as good humans, has moved the few deeper-thinking deists to reject this view, as necessarily involving the eternal torment of the wicked; while the shallow and optimistic deist, who accepts his longings and desires for mankind's eternal happiness as proofs of the fact of such a happiness, and who does not bother his brain as to the requirements of justice against the wicked, holds that all having suffered much in this life, and that largely without their fault, it coming to them mainly by heredity and environment, God is in justice obligated to give dead humans a compensation for these earthly sufferings by bestowing eternal felicity upon them. These deists have no faith in a resurrection, which is the last thing they want, since they believe the weaknesses of human character are due to the corrupt tendencies of the body, of which if one is freed, his character blemishes no more exist. Hence they claim that all the dead can and do enjoy eternal

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felicity in virtue. Fundamental to this view of man's natural immortality in eternal felicity is the wrong view of God implied in His being obligated in justice to give man endless, death-proof and happy life in righteousness for man's suffering while in this life. Against this view of mankind's inherent immortality and certain eternal happiness as spirits, allegedly necessitated by the justice of God, there are many cogent reasons which in brief form we will here present, hoping later to give this subject more detailed examination.

Against such a view the silence of the Bible and opposing passages of the Bible may be argued. Certainly the writers of the Old Testament are entirely silent on the subject, their only hope for a hereafter being based on their belief in a resurrection and not on man's not actually dying. The same silence of the Bible applies to the teachings of Jesus, the Apostles and the non-apostolic writers of the New Testament, despite opposing teachings of sectarianism set forth by literal interpretations of parables and visions, none of which without travesty may be interpreted literally, since they are of necessity by their very nature expressed in symbolic language. Such a view of man is contrary to numerous Scriptures. Of these the following are some samples, which prove man to be dead and not alive, while in death: Josh. 20: 3, 9; Job. 36: 14; Ps. 56: 13; 78: 50; 116: 8; Ezek. 18: 4, 20; Matt. 26: 37; Jas. 5: 20; Rev. 8: 9; 16: 3.

This doctrine of man's inherent immortality and of his consequent living when dead, is contrary to the passages that speak of dead souls. This is shown in proper translations as given in the A. V., as the following passages by their contrasts show: Ps. 22: 29; 30: 3; 37: 18, 19; 66: 9; Is. 56: 3; Ezek. 13: 18, 19; 20: 27. This is likewise shown in passages in which in the Hebrew the expression, dead souls, is translated in the A. V., dead bodies: Lev. 21: 1; Num. 6: 6; 9: 6, 7, 10; 19: 13;

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Hag. 2: 13. The contrariety of this doctrine to the Scriptures is further proven by those passages which teach that wicked souls are destroyed (Lev. 23: 30; Josh. 10: 28, 30, 32, 35, 37, 39; Ps. 35: 17; 40: 14; 63: 9; Prov. 6: 32; Ezek. 22: 27; Matt. 10: 28; Luke 6: 9, 56; Acts 3: 23; Jas. 4: 12). It also contradicts the Scriptures that teach that wicked souls are consumed (Is. 10: 18), devoured (Ezek. 22: 25), perish, which word in the Bible means to die (Job 31: 39; Matt. 10: 36; 16: 25, 26; Mark 8: 35, 36; Luke 9: 24), and are cut off (Ex. 12: 15, 19; Lev. 22: 3; Num. 15: 30, 31). These proofs sufficiently show that deism's doctrine on the hereafter as being, apart from a resurrection, a conscious one due to man's alleged immortality, is unscriptural.

Again, such a view is contrary to God's character and Christ's ransom. It blames God for making man sinful, which would make Him the cause of sin and, therefore, unjust; whereas God originally made man good and man made himself bad by the fall into sin (Eccl. 7: 29), which by heredity has been transmitted from generation to generation, to man's increased depravity. Man's original good creation likewise clears God's character from the charge of injustice, in that it proves, as against deism's claim that sin is due exclusively to the body, that it is due to a fall in man's disposition (Matt. 15: 19). It also charges God with injustice, in making man suffer in this life without his fault and giving recompense for this injustice in the next life; for recompensing for a former injustice implies the commission of such an injustice, of which God is incapable. Certainly the whole view involving injustice in God from various standpoints likewise involves unwisdom, lovelessness and weakness in God, which contradicts His character as being wise, loving and powerful. This teaching likewise impinges against the ransom (Matt. 20: 28; 1 Tim. 2: 5, 6). The Bible teaches that Jesus gave His soul as the

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ransom, which the Greek of Matt. 20: 28 expressly says, and which 1 Tim. 2: 5 shows, for it says He gave Himself (the soul, not the body, is the real person) a ransom for all. The same thought is taught in Is. 43: 4 (see margin); 53: 10, 12. The same is also shown by the Greek of John 10: 11, 15, 17; 15: 13. Accordingly, Jesus' soul died as the ransom, which proves that men's souls died; otherwise to become their ransom Jesus' soul would not have died, which proves that the soul is not alive when dead.

This teaching is also contrary to the development and practice of godliness. If God were, as deism holds, responsible for imprisoning the real man in a "clod of earth," as they speak of man's body, making ignorance and imperfections inevitable, why should one desire to become godlike and imitate Him? If one will become rid of all such ignorance and imperfections immediately on or by leaving his body, why should one not wait for the deliverance from ignorance and imperfection then coming, rather than undergo the inconveniences, losses and sufferings due to fighting against error, ignorance and sin now? And if riddance of error and imperfection is accomplished by deliverance from the body, why not suicide and thus gain the coveted deliverance? Not only so, but why not begin a suicide propaganda world-wide in scope and show the easiest means of suicide so as to make the attainment of almost omniscience and perfection attractive? If deism's view of the hereafter were true, certainly the above would be the logical course to advocate and practice. But this very fact proves that it is inimical to the development and practice of godliness and therefore must be wrong. Certainly its belief in its cure for all evils and in its door to all good—death—must have the effect on the average person to make him postpone the difficult task of cultivating godliness until at death it can be attained without effort! It cannot but lead to disrespect for God and

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for our parents as the ones responsible for our ignorance and imperfections. As a hope it leads to pride, as Eve under the influence of its deception through Satan exemplifies, in her grasping for its hope in self-exaltation. And without doubt it undermines the sense of moral responsibility. All these considerations prove it to be a teaching subversive of godliness and, therefore, it is an erroneous teaching.

Furthermore, deism's view of the hereafter is both incapable of proof and is a baseless assumption. None of the methods whereby facts are proven as such can be used to prove it. Facts are proven by the senses, rational intuition, experience and competent testimony. Our senses do not inform us that people become spirits, and that death- proof in addition, when they die. There is nothing in our rational intuitions that supports such a thought. A few persons have died and were shortly afterward, before the blood could begin to separate into clot and serum, resuscitated, and their testimony is that they were unconscious while dead. Accordingly, experience does not only not prove, but actually disproves, this view. Nor is there any one who has testified to such a thought from observation of the facts of the case. Spiritism purports to give such testimony; but its testimony is demonstrably unreliable, because most of its suggested proofs have been demonstrated to be slight-of-hand tricks in which the mediums have taken a guilty and fraudulent part, and because of the rest of its proofs being demoniac frauds in which demons—the fallen angels, the lying spirits described in the Bible—palm themselves off as the dead. And certainly the Bible, as the source and rule of proof to the Christian, does not prove it, but contradicts it from every Biblical standpoint, as we have in part seen and shall for the rest yet see. Hence deism's view of the hereafter is unprovable. As it is unprovable, so is it also a baseless assumption. There is nothing in nature to suggest it; there is nothing in

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the death of any being on any plane of existence that suggests it; there is nothing in reason that implies it. There is no analogy that requires it. It has simply been assumed as true, because people shudder at the thought of death being extinction, and because they long to continue to exist. Fear and hope, not reason and truth, make some people believe it. And certainly, fear and hope are poor, baseless and delusive foundations for truth and faith.

For the Bible believer deism's view of the hereafter is untrue because it is contrary to many Bible doctrines. We will briefly set forth with terse proofs some of these doctrines that are contrary to deism's view of the hereafter. First, the Bible teaches that only beings who have the Divine nature are immortal. By immortality we understand a death-proof condition to be meant, a condition in which it is impossible to die. In the Bible it is defined as life in oneself, self-existing life, a life that depends on no external condition or thing for continuance (John 5: 26; 6: 53). Immortality, which is the equivalent of Divinity, was originally in God alone (1 Tim. 1: 17; John 5: 26). Then He offered it to Jesus on condition of His being faithful unto death (John 5: 26, 27; Heb. 1: 3; 12: 2). Hence before the resurrection of the saints Jesus is the only one given it (1 Tim. 6: 16). In their resurrection the saints, but no one else, will be favored with it (2 Pet. 1: 4; 1 Cor. 15: 53, 54; 2 Cor. 5: 4; 1 John 3: 2), because it is a thing not inherent in man, but must be sought as a reward by patient continuance in well doing; hence it is a thing given only to saints (Rom. 2: 7). Since, generally speaking, deism predicates immortality of all humans, it does this contrary to the Bible, which says that God alone originally had it and then gives it as a reward to Jesus and His faithful followers only. Since, then, only Divine beings have immortality, it is no inherent possession of humans; and this proves deism wrong. Again, the

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Bible contradicts deism on this point, because it teaches that the truth on immortality was first revealed by our Lord through the Gospel (2 Tim. 1: 10), while the error of deism on a conscious immortal existence for all men in death was believed in for over two thousand years before Christ came until He came, and since, as is evident in the false religions of Egypt, Babylon, India, China, Persia, Greece, Rome, etc., which fact is another disproof of deism's hereafter. This doctrine of deism is contrary to the Bible teaching that death, extinction, is the penalty of sin, whereas deism, instead of teaching extinction to be the wages of sin, holds that sin and righteousness are alike rewarded with eternal, immortal and blissful life at death, apart altogether from a resurrection. That death is the wages of sin, the Scriptures quoted above abundantly prove. Hence on this point the Bible contradicts deism's view of the hereafter.

There are numerous other Biblical doctrines that contradict deism's hereafter. The Bible teaches that eternal life—everlasting, perfect, blissful existence—is a gift conditioned on faithfulness to God through Christ's merit and ministry. The following are a few from among many passages that give us this thought: Matt. 19: 29; Rom. 2: 6, 7; 5: 21; 6: 23; 8: 13; Rev. 2: 10. But deism, in contradiction to these and numerous other Scriptures, asserts that eternal, immortal, perfect and blissful existence is a natural endowment of man and is realized at death. Again, it contradicts God's judicial statement that the sinner will really die—not seem to die, but actually live on when he dies (Gen. 2: 17). It also contradicts the clear Scriptural statements that death is an unconscious state in which men know nothing, do nothing, remember nothing, think nothing, feel nothing and will nothing (Ps. 6: 5; 146: 2,3; Eccl. 9: 5, 6, 10; Job 14: 21; Is. 63: 16; Dan. 12: 2; John 11: 11-14; Acts 7: 62; 1 Cor. 15: 6, 18, 20, 51). It likewise contradicts the true view of

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what dies. The Scriptures teach that it is the soul, the person, who dies  (Gen.  3: 19; Job 36: 14 [margin]; Ps. 56: 13; 116: 8; 78: 50; Is. 53: 10, 12; Ezek. 18: 4, 20; Matt. 26: 37; Jas. 5: 20), while deism claims that the soul does not die but, on the contrary, lives on in eternal immortal bliss. Hence it is unbiblical. In contradiction of deism, which teaches that the reward comes at death, the Bible teaches that the reward is given at the resurrection (Is. 35: 4; 62: 11; Dan. 12: 1, 3; Matt. 16: 27; 19: 29; 25: 14-23; Luke 14: 14; John 14: 3; Rom. 8: 23; 1 Cor. 5: 5; Col. 3: 4; 2 Tim. 4: 8; 1 Pet. 1: 3-8, 13; 1 John 3: 2; Rev. 11: 18; 22: 12). Deim's view of the hereafter also contradicts the Bible view that a hereafter is entirely dependent on a resurrection; for the Bible teaches that if there is no resurrection there is no hereafter (1 Cor. 15: 18, 32). It also contradicts the idea of a resurrection, which implies the restoration of the soul to life in a body suited to its character (1 Cor. 15: 35-38), a thing completely at variance with deism's view of the hereafter as a conscious life of a spirit everlastingly from death onward, without a resurrection. It also contradicts the resurrection as the Biblical basis of the hope of a future existence (Acts 23: 6; 24: 15; 26: 6-8), whereas it teaches that man has inherent self-existence which goes on in death. The Bible teaching of a day of judgment (Rev. 20: 12) also strikingly contradicts deism's hereafter, in which there is no place nor need for a day of judgment. The Bible's teaching of the destruction of the wicked (Ps. 145: 20; Phil. 3: 19; 2 Thes. 1: 9), including that of Satan and his angels (Heb. 2: 14;  Is. 27: 1; Matt. 25: 41), violently contradicts deism's hereafter, in which the wicked will live on, no more wicked, since they have shed "the clod of earth" that made them sin. But if it is "the clod of earth," the fleshly body, that is responsible for sin, how comes it that Satan and his fallen angels, who do not have "a clod of

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earth," sin, and that worse than mankind? Why have they not been sinless these 6,000 years, seeing they are spirits? This shows another contradiction between the Bible and deism on the hereafter of mankind in death. On each one of the above points there is violent conflict between the Bible and deism on the hereafter. This means a rejection of deism's unbiblical hereafter.

Deism's view of an existence of dead humans as spirits apart from a resurrection is a heathen, a pagan, belief inculcated by every heathen and other false religion on earth. This, among other reasons, led the Apostle Paul to speak of the heathen religions as a worship of devils (1 Cor. 10: 20). Certainly we should wish to be free from devil worship and, accordingly, should eschew deism's view of the hereafter. Deism's view of the hereafter is based on, and is an expression of Satan's first lie (Gen. 3: 4, 5; John 8: 44) told in direct contradiction to God's law as to sin's penalty (Gen. 2: 17). It is well to note the three features of this lie: (1) "Ye shall not surely [really] die [you will only seem to die, without actually dying]"; (2) "ye shall be as the gods [angels, spirits, (Heb. 1: 7, compared with Ps. 97: 7), while seemingly dead]"; (3) "knowing [experiencing, while seemingly dead] good [bliss]." The deist does not quote the rest of the falsehood's third part—"and evil [torment]"—for he does not believe in the torment of the wicked dead. But he has accepted and endorsed Satan's threefold original lie, except the last half of the third. His hereafter, accordingly, is exactly that of the first lie, with the exception noted. This proves its falsity. It is also, apart from the above stated exception, much the same teaching as the counterfeit of the death state that Satan palmed off on the world through the papacy, which also proves its erroneousness. Deism's hereafter is much in harmony with the principles of evolutionism, which is another reason for its erroneousness. It is certainly

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based on a false view of man, which, denying that man is a human soul, claims that man is a combination of a human and a spirit being, while the Bible teaches that man is a human soul.—Gen. 2: 7; 12: 5; 14: 21; 36: 6; 46: 18, 22, 25-27; Ex. 1: 5; 16: 16; 21: 23; Lev. 5: 1, 2, 4; 6: 1, 2; 17: 12; 22: 11; 23: 30; Num. 19: 18; 31: 35, 40, 46; Deut. 10: 32; Josh. 10: 28, 30, 32, 35, 37, 39; Is. 53: 10, 12; Matt. 20: 28; Ezek. 18: 4, 20; Jer. 52: 29, 30; Acts 2: 41, 43; 3: 23; 7: 14; 27: 37; Rom. 13: 1; 1 Pet. 3: 20.

The above arguments sufficiently, from Scripture, reason and fact, refute deism's view of the hereafter. Accordingly, we have proven its three principles—the deistical God, the deistical virtue and the deistical hereafter—to be errors; and thus we have proven deism from these three standpoints to be a false view of God, directly from the first standpoint and indirectly from the second and third standpoints, because they are pivoted upon the first, which is false.

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