Correspondence Week 4

CORRESPONDENCE WEEK 4
The Appearance of Man Upon the Scene.

(R) The appearance of man upon the earth is a sufficient proof of the existence of God, if you think it out.

(J) How do you make that out?

(R) How otherwise can you account for his appearance? He is here: go far enough back, and he was not here. Between these two points of time, a marvel must have occurred to cause his appearance. There must have been at work a cause adequate to the production of such a creature- so full of joy and sorrow- with all his weakness and baseness.

(J) Might he not have come spontaneously?

(R) If you say that, you throw us back on a still more difficult idea. The universe is full of power, but with all its stupendous and varied powers, you never meet with an effect without a cause- never. This has passed into one of the axioms of science, and justly so, for it cannot be contradicted. If man came spontaneously, then the most wonderful phenomenon in the wide universe, so far as accessible to human observation, is an exception to all the phenomena in being uncaused. Requiring most of all for its explanation some potent cause of wisdom and power, such an idea would give it the least. The idea is absolutely inadmissible. It is in opposition to logical necessity, and the teaching of experience. Have you ever heard of a man coming into existence uncaused?

(J) I don’t know that I have.

(R) Did you ever hear of anyone that did?

(J) I don’t know that I did.

(R) Where is there room then for the idea? There is absolutely none. It would contradict nature and reason. It would propound a miracle more stupendous than anything presented in revelation, for all the miracles of revelation are exhibited as the effects of a cause; but the “spontaneous” idea would ask us to entertain the possibility of a miracle without a cause- the coming into existence of previously non existent man, without a cause to bring him into existence.

(J) It looks a little absurd, putting it that way I must allow.

(R) But that is the way of the thing, isn’t it? The absurdity does not arise from any way of putting it.

(J) Well, there is the idea it came gradually.

(R) You mean “Evolution.” That would not soften the difficulty, as we have already seen. There must have been at the beginning of the evolution a Cause equal to what now exists. Here is a universe, bearing the stamp of matchless wisdom, both in its general form and in its minutest arrangements. It matters not whether it came quickly or slowly: it could not come wisely unless there was wisdom to help it along, and the seat of this wisdom must from its nature be inscrutable. The science of our century recognises this.

(J) In what way?

(R) They take refuge in the terms “force” and “unknowable” in their references to the initial power. If you consider this, it liberates the mind for the recognition of God. I mean that the recognition of God cannot be called unscientific, in view of the postulates of science. If “force” is to be recognised, though “unknowable”, there can be no obstacle to the recognition of God, though unknowable. If “force” is to be a sufficient explanation of what exists, obviously there can be no insufficiency in the idea of God. If the inscrutability of force is to be no objection, it cannot have any weight against God. So far as science is concerned, we are as at much liberty to accept God as to accept force.

(J) Could we not say the same of force? Are we not as much at liberty to accept force as to accept God?

(R) I think not. With God you have “force,” but with “force” you have not God. And God we must have. God is what you might call a mathematical necessity. Here is his work: wisdom and power are incorporate in the things we see, and they must have preceded these things.

(J) I have been inclined to think kindly of the scientific view. God is so beyond our understanding.

(R) My friend, my friend, consider. Is “force” within your understanding? Does science lessen the mystery of the universe?

(J) I have a feeling that it does.

(R) Ah! it is a mere feeling. Think deeply enough, and you will see it increases the mystery instead of decreasing it. It gives us wise work on every hand, without wisdom anywhere to account for it- achievements of power, without power to achieve the achievements. It presents us with the idea of passive, blind, mindless force, working out results that bespeak the potency of active, far seeing, intelligent power. By whatever name people please to designate the cause of the universe, that cause (necessarily combining wisdom and power) is God, and nothing else. Whatever we may call it; we are in the presence of power and wisdom that cannot be understood.

(J) In that case, it seems to me to matter little which view you adopt.

(R) There is this great difference: one gives you God, and the other takes him away. And there is also this difference: though both give us the inscrutable, one gives us what we might call an intelligible inscrutability, and the other an inscrutability not at all intelligible.

(J) I confess I don’t follow you there.

(R) Well, it is within the compass of our intelligence to understand how an intelligent Being, containing in Himself all power and wisdom, could evolve, fashion, or create a universe, replete with all the arrangements of beauty and wisdom that we see. But it does not come within the compass of our intelligence to conceive of force that had no intelligent volition, working wisely, or, indeed doing anything at all. Scientific agnosticism would give us in its so-called “force” a blind god that slept for ages, and then woke up without a cause, and worked wisely without knowing it and without wisdom: whereas the Bible gives us a God “who works all things after the counsel of his own will,” and who, possessing all power and all wisdom, is an all-sufficient explanation of the things that ere, however inscrutable His existence may be. The one inscrutability is intelligible: the other is unintelligible.

(J) Well there is force in what you say. It is a large subject, but I think you have gone away from your text somewhat. It was supposed to be man’s appearance on the earth.

(R) Yes; but the suggestion you made about spontaneous generation led to the larger argument. We may return to man the next time we meet.