Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/302

Rh viously created the conditions of the success of this his present fiat, the same questions would arise about those conditions, and so on ad infinitum. Always even the infinite series of acts would imply, at every step of the regress, God working upon a nature external to himself, and so God as a finite power, subject to the laws that let him work.

But then may we not hereupon accept the doctrine of God's infinity, and say that this infinite power is identical with its products? Shall we not be pantheists of the old-fashioned sort, and yet keep the doctrine of God’s Fatherhood? The attempt is hopeless. And the difficulties in the way of the religious use of the pantheistic hypotheses have already been considered. Furthermore, many theistic thinkers have felt the force of an old set of arguments that, in this country and recently. Professor Bowne, in his “Metaphysics,” has more than once set forth at length, namely, the thought that, if God can be as Creator identical with his other creations, he cannot as a Power well be identical with us, who feel ourselves to be also creative powers, and not mere forms or acts in any other power. But if we are separate from God, then in this class of cases his creation of us involves all the difficulties before pointed out. When he made us, his fiat was successful beyond himself. The success needs a preexistent law, or, if you will, a preëxistent power outside of him, to explain it; just exactly as my power to move my hand or to wink my eye implies a whole universe of being outside of me in order to give my will just this position of authority. Merely assume in your thought