Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/176

Rh gically and confessedly implied in the premises. When finite phenomena are the only premises, whence comes the Idea of Infinite God? It denies that Man has any Idea of the Absolute, Infinite, Perfect. Instead of this, it allows only an accumụlative notion, formed from a series of conceptions of what is finite and imperfect. The little we can know of God came from reasoning about objects of sense. Its notion of God is deduced purely from empirical observation; what notion of a God can rest legitimately on that basis? Nature is finite. To infer an infinite Author is false logic. We see but in part, and have not grasped up this sum of things, nor seen how seeming evil consists with real good, nor accounted for the great amount of misery, apparently unliquidated, in the world; therefore Nature is imperfect to men's eyes. Why infer a perfect Author from an imperfect work? Injustice and cruelty are allowed in the world. How then can its Maker be relied on as just and merciful? Let there be nothing in the conclusion which is not in the premises.

This theory gives us only a finite and imperfect God, which is no God at all. He cannot be trusted out of sight; for its faith is only an inference from what is seen. Instead of a religious sentiment in man, which craves all the perfections of the Godhead, reaches out after the Infinite “first Good, first Perfect, and first Fair,” it gives us only a tendency to reverence or fear what is superior to ourselves, and above our comprehension; a tendency which the Bat and the Owl have in common with Socrates and Fenelon. It makes a man the slave of his organization. Free-will is not possible. His highest aim is self-preservation; his greatest evil death. It denies the immortality of Man, and foolishly asks “proofs” of the fact—meaning proofs palpable to the senses. Its finite God is not to be trusted, except under his bond and covenant to give us what we ask for.

It makes no difference between Good and Evil; Expedient and Inexpedient are the better words. These are to be learned only by long study and much cunning. All men have not the requisite skill to find out moral and religious doctrines, and no means of proving either in their own heart; therefore they must take the word of their appointed teachers and philosophers, who “have investi-