recognition of indebtedness is also due to the following: "The Problem of the Old Testament," and "The Christian View of God and the World," by Dr. James Orr; "Studies in Christian Doctrine," by George Knapp; "Jesus and the Gospel," and "The Death of Christ," by Prof. James Denny; "The Person and Work of Jesus," by Nathan E. Wood, D. D.
There are doubtless others to whom credit is due of whom the author is not at this time conscious, for, after all, we are "part of all that we have seen, and met, and read." To those unknown authors, therefore, our indebtedness is hereby acknowledged.
Chicago. WILLIAM EVANS.
THE DOCTRINE OF GOD
I. THE EXISTENCE OF GOD: (Vs. Atheism).
1. ASSUMED BY THE SCRIPTURES.
2. PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.
a) Universal belief in the Existence of God.
b) Cosmological:—Argument from Cause.
c) Teleological:—Argument from Design.
d) Ontological:—Argument from Being.
e) Anthropological:—Moral Argument.
f) Argument from Congruity.
g) Argument from Scripture.
II. THE NATURE OF GOD: (Vs. Agnosticism)
1. THE SPIRITUALITY OF GOD: (Vs. Materialism). 2. THE PERSONALITY OF GOD: (Vs. Pantheism). 3. THE UNITY OF GOD: (Vs. Polytheism). 4. THE TRINITY: (Vs. Unitarianism).
III. THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.
1. THE NATURAL ATTRIBUTES: a) Omniscience. b) Omnipotence. c) Omnipresence. d) Eternity.
2. THE MORAL ATTRIBUTES: a) Holiness. b) Righteousness. c) Faithfulness. d) Mercy and Loving-kindness. e) Love.
I. HIS EXISTENCE.
1. TAKEN FOR GRANTED BY THE SCRIPTURE WRITERS:
It does not seem to have occurred to any of the writers of either the Old or the New Testaments to attempt to prove or to argue for the existence of God. Everywhere and at all times it is a fact taken for granted. "A God capable of proof would be no God at all" (Jacobi). He is the self-existent One (Exod. 3:14) and the Source of all life (John 5:26).
The sublime opening of the Scriptures announces the fact of God and His existence: "In the beginning God" (Gen. 1:1). Nor is the rise or dawn of the idea of God in the mind of man depicted. Psa. 14:1: "The fool hath said in his heart. There is no God," indicates not a disbelief in the existence, but rather in the active interest of God in the affairs of men—He seemed to hide Himself from the affairs of men (See Job 22:12–14).
The Scriptures further recognize that men not only know of the existence of God, but have also a certain circle of ideas as to who and what He is (Rom. 1:18–19).
No one but a "fool" will deny the fact of God. "What! no God? A watch, and no key for it? A watch with a main-spring broken, and no jeweler to fix it? A watch, and no repair shop? A time-card and a train, and nobody to run it? A star lit, and nobody to pour oil in to keep the wick burning? A garden, and no gardener? Flowers, and no florist? Conditions, and no conditioner?" He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh at such absurd atheism.
2. THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.
[Footnote: A fuller and complete presentation of these arguments for the Existence of God may be found in the works of Dr. Augustus H. Strong and Dr. Francis L. Patten, to whom the author is here indebted.]
These arguments may not prove conclusively that God is, but they do show that in order to the existence of any knowledge, thought, reason, conscience in man, we must assume that God is (Strong). It is said of the beautiful, "It may be shown, but not proved." So we say of the existence of God. These arguments are probable, not demonstrative. For this reason they supplement each other, and constitute a series of evidences which is cumulative in its nature. Though taken singly, none of them can be considered absolutely decisive, they together furnish a corroboration of our primitive conviction of God's existence, which is of great practical value, and is in itself sufficient to bind the moral actions of men. A bundle of rods may not be broken even though each one separately may; the strength of the bundle is the strength of the whole. If in practical affairs we were to hesitate to act until we have absolute and demonstrable certainty, we should never begin to move at all.
Instead of doubting everything that can be doubted, let us rather doubt nothing until we are compelled to doubt.
Dr. Orr, of Glasgow, says: What we mean by the proof of God's existence is simply that there are necessary acts of thought by which we rise from the finite to the infinite, from the caused to the uncaused, from the contingent to the necessary, from the reason involved in the structure of the universe to a universal and eternal reason, which is the ground of all, from morality in conscience to a moral Lawgiver and Judge. In this connection the theoretical proofs constitute an inseparable unity—'constitute together,' as Dr. Stirling declares, "but the undulations of a single wave, which wave is but a natural rise and ascent to God, on the part of man's own thought, with man's own experience and consciousness as the object before him."
Religion was not produced by proofs of God's existence, and will not be destroyed by its insufficiency to some minds. Religion existed before argument; in fact, it is the preciousness of religion that leads to the seeking for all possible confirmations of the reality of God.
a) Universality of Belief in the Existence of God.
(1) The fact stated and proven:
Man everywhere believes in the existence of a supreme Being or Beings to whom he is morally responsible and to whom propitiation needs to be made.
Such belief may be crudely, even grotesquely stated and manifested, but the reality of the fact is no more invalidated by such crudeness than the existence of a father is invalidated by the crude attempts of a child to draw a picture of its father.
It has been claimed by some that there are or were tribes in inland Africa that possessed no idea or conception of God. Moffat, Livingstone's father-in-law, made such a claim, but Livingstone, after a thorough study of the customs and languages of such tribes, conclusively showed that Moffat was wrong.
Nor should the existence of such few tribes, even if granted, violate the fact we are here considering, any more than the existence of some few men who are blind, lame, deaf, and dumb would make untrue the statement and fact that man is a seeing, hearing, speaking, and walking creature. The fact that some nations do not have the multiplication table does no violence to arithmetic.
Concerning so-called atheists in Christian lands: it may be questioned if there are really any such beings. Hume, known as a famous sceptic, is reported to have said to Ferguson, as together they looked up into the starry sky: "Adam, there is a God."
