Collected Essays and Reviews

But surely the systematic theologians are the closet-naturalists of the Deity, even in Captain Mayne Reid’s sense. Their orthodox deduction of God’s attributes is nothing but a shuffling and matching of pedantic dictionary- adjectives, aloof from morals, aloof from human needs, something that might be worked out from the mere word “God” by a logical machine of wood and brass as well as by a man of flesh and blood. The attributes which I have quoted have absolutely nothing to do with religion, for religion is a living practical affair. Other parts, indeed, of God’s traditional description do have practical connection with life, and have owed all their historic importance to that fact. His omniscience, for example, and his justice. With the one he sees us in the dark, with the other he rewards and punishes what he sees. So do his ubiquity and eternity and unalterability appeal to our confidence, and his goodness banish our fears.