Page:The Necessity of Atheism (Brooks).djvu/111

Rh of psychology, ethics, and aesthetics. The entire universe is the province of science and it is rapidly providing a scientific interpretation of all the contents of the universe. It may well be a few more centuries before the scientific explanation is partially complete, but it must be kept in mind that science as we conceive the term is less than 2500 years old, and out of this infantile period, at least 1000 years must be deducted for the intellectual stagnation of the dark ages.

In tracing the retreat of the clergy from the arguments from the First Cause, the arguments from design, causation, and directivity, the Martian recalls the words of Vivian Phelips, "How is it that God allowed earnest and learned divines to commit themselves to arguments in proof of His existence; the subsequent overthrow of which has been a potent cause for unbelief?"

"The finite mind cannot expect to understand the Infinite," retorts a theist to our Martian. "What manner of reasoning is this," asks our Martian, "that denies my finite mind the right to question the 'proofs' of the existence of an Infinite, when these same 'proofs' are derived by finite minds? The theist cannot infer God from the cosmic process until he can discover some feature of it which is unintelligible without him."

(2) The belief in a deity, but the rejection of revelations, theology, priestcraft, and church.

To the Martian the. opinion held by these individuals presented two difficulties. First, if the adherents of this hypothesis considered their deity as a providence which took an active part in the life of this world, then the objections heretofore stated against belief in a personal god are still valid. Secondly, if they considered this being as only a creator, who then leaves this world to its own resources, they are only assuming a philosophical existence behind phenomena. Such a being, they believe,