Page:The Conception of God (1897).djvu/11

x and to establish his existence, is futile apart from grappling with the other two connected ideals. The interest of the discussion at length unavoidably concentrates about the question of Freedom, and this turn in the pressure of the contest is what gives the debate its significance for the world of philosophy and of religion. One cannot but feel that this significance is marked, and for reasons that will in the sequel appear.

On the initial question: Is the fundamental belief of religion valid, — is a Personal God a reality? all the participants in the discussion are to be understood as distinctly intending to maintain the affirmative. But as soon as this question is deliberately apprehended, it becomes evident that no settlement of it can be reached until one decides what the word “God” veritably means, and also what “reality” or “existence” can rationally mean. Here, accordingly, the divergence among the participants begins. Very largely agreeing in an idealistic interpretation of what must constitute Reality if the word is to have any explicable meaning, they nevertheless soon expose a profound difference as to what Idealism requires when one comes to the question of the reality of spiritual beings, — above all, of a being deserving to be called divine. Thence follows, of course, a like deep difference as to the nature and the conception of God himself. More specifically, these differences concern the following points:

(1) Whether the novel method of proving God real, put forward by the leader of the discussion, and here given a fresh form, different from that in his