Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/296

Rh Thus far, then, monism seems, if not an impossible, still a decidedly doubtful, view of the world. Its value as furnishing religious support seems small. We cannot yet by experience prove that the rational power is supreme in the world; and we fail to make clear to ourselves a priori how it should be supreme. So far we remain agnostics. Our only escape would seem to be through the still doubtful doctrine of the unreality of Evil. And that way seems very dark.

Dualistic Theism here confronts us, the doctrine in which the wise of so many ages have found so much support, the doctrine of a Father, separate from the world of created finite beings, who directs all things, pities and loves his children, and judges with supreme truthfulness all human acts. The religious value of this doctrine, on one side at least, nobody can possibly question. The Father, as Jesus conceives him, has in a very high sense the character that we desire to find in reality. To be sure, there is the other side. This God of the dualistic view is seemingly limited. As a Father pitieth his children, so this God pitieth. But this pity seems to be the love of one who yet cannot or will not save us from all our evil. And if the evil is a reality, and is meant to work for our good, still there is the unanswerable objection that if the Father is not bound by an irrational power beyond him, he need not have put us into so evil a state, but might have wrought us our good in some less painful and dan-