The theory that God is absent or inactive is as untenable and God-dishonoring as the discarded theory of atheism itself.
Evolution, as held by many, harmonizes with and supports the false and impossible assumption that God created one, or at most, a few germs, from which all animal species including man, and plants developed, by “natural law.” This theory seems plausible to those who do not examine it too closely. It does not deny the existence of God, and concedes he may have created one or more germs, but delegated the development of an orderly world to “natural law.” Thus his activities are no longer needed. Perhaps they entertain the thought that God must grow weary under the active and sleepless control of the universe, if not of the world alone. They lose sight of the fact that a God of infinite mind and power can not be wearied by any possible complications, or any required amount of energy. Rather, the exercise of unlimited energy is a source of pleasure and happiness. May we not learn this from the boundless extent of the universe? Creation is not a task, but a great satisfaction. If God finds so much happiness in creating a boundless universe, would he renounce the pleasure of the active care and control of 3,000,000 species?
The hypothesis that God delegates to “law” the evolution of the universe, the world, and all species, is untenable, because no law, human or divine, can enforce itself. Law has no power. It is not a being, a creature, a living thing. It is absolutely helpless. It can not be God’s agent to carry out his will. Why the need of it? Why should not God use his power direct to do his will? What gain in creating and employing an agent? Which would be easier, to execute his own will, or delegate it to a law?
His law is simply the record of his acts. He executes his own will with exact regularity. He does not vary. Hence, all his creatures may depend on regularity. It seems like law. The power in every case is the power of God. Law has no power. The law of gravitation has no power. Matter has no power. One of the primary lessons we learn in physics is the inertia of matter. Matter can not move, unless moved upon; nor stop of itself, when once in motion. Absolutely powerless! The power of attraction, which we may call a property of matter, is really the power of God. The effects are the results of power and intelligence. Law has neither power nor intelligence. Human law marks out the course man should pursue. Divine law records the course God has pursued. Human law must be enforced by all the executive power of the nation. God executes his own will, with perfect regularity; and, by courtesy of language, we call it “law.” He is the great executor of the universe, not far removed, but proven present everywhere, by the power and wisdom necessary to produce the results. These results are found in the boundless universe, and in the microscopic world. They are found in the world far below the power of the most powerful microscope to detect. All the combinations of chemical elements are made, hidden from the eye of the microscope. Substances are dissolved and new combinations made, atoms are numbered, counted and combined with mathematical precision, and with an intelligence difficult for man to compute. No law could do this. Only a Being who has sufficient power and intelligence is equal to it. Law has no power, nor intelligence. Water is composed of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen, combined with absolute precision everywhere. All chemical reactions require computations of an intelligent being. All nature teems with proofs that God is every where present. The elements in a high explosive are arranged instantly in new combinations, each atom taking its proper partners, in the proper proportion, with unerring precision. Countless calculations of the most difficult kind are made instantly and continually by the divine mind. Thus God’s presence everywhere in the minutest forms of matter is clearly proved. It is a mathematical demonstration. God is not wearied by the care of worlds and suns, and systems and snow-drifts of stars on the highway of heaven, and takes just as perfect notice of atoms and electrons. They who think God is unable or unwilling to take care of the minutest division of matter as well as the rolling suns, must have a very diluted idea of God. It is now claimed that the atom, formerly believed to be the smallest division of matter, consists of 1740 parts. Sir Oliver Lodge says that the structure of an atom is as complex as that of a piano. This latest scientific discovery detects the power and wisdom of God, controlling, for ages, this minutest division of matter, undetected by the most powerful microscope.
It staggers one to think of the countless and difficult calculations that are made instantly by the divine mind in every part of the universe. The path of every snowflake that lazily pursues its tortuous course, and rests upon the lap of earth, is marked out, not by any law or agent, but by God himself. He calculates instantly the cyclone’s path, the movement of every particle of air, the direction, velocity and path of every raindrop. A law could not do it. The wisest man could not do it. But God can do it, with the ease with which the tempest carries a feather on its bosom, or the ocean floats a straw! Every second, about 16,000,000 tons of rain and snow fall to the earth; and God calculates the paths of the myriad flakes of snow and drops of rain instantly and unerringly.
The Conservation of Energy and the inter-convertibility of forces—light, heat, electricity,—taking place constantly everywhere, often on a stupendous scale, require bewildering calculations by an ever-present God. No energy, not even potential energy, can be lost in converting one force into another. It must be computed exactly.
Who but an infinite God could have calculated the enormous potential energy of the nebulous gases, required by contraction to cause the prodigious heat of a universe of suns?
The earth turns over noiselessly every 24 hours, carrying on its bosom, at the rate of 1000 mi. an hour, at dizzy heights, a most tenuous atmosphere, without a rustle, without the loss of a second in 1000 years. The earth with its satellite, is traveling around the sun at the rate of 18.5 mi. per second—75 times as fast as a cannon ball,—bearing a load of 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons, and arriving at a given point in its orbit, on exact time every tropical year. It has arrived so promptly on time following its elliptical course, at such a rate that the radius vector, a line from the sun to the earth, passes over equal areas in equal times, furnishing every moment an abtruse problem difficult for a scholar to solve. The orbit is so vast that it varies from a straight line, but 4 in. in 666 mi., the distance from Philadelphia to Chicago.
The sun also, with its family of worlds and their satellites, is plunging through space at the rate of 8.5 mi. per second; moreover, there are swarms of huge suns, many larger than ours, moving in straight-lines like a universe on a journey, and countless millions of suns in swiftest flight through the skies, whose orbits and rates of motion must all be calculated and controlled by a mind of amazing power and intelligence.
Is not the so-called “scientist” either a madman or a fool, who believes that all this can be accounted for, without the presence of a God of infinite power and intelligence?
Water contracts as the temperature falls. But when within four degrees of the freezing point, water expands and ice becomes lighter than water, and floats, and saves all bodies of water from becoming solid bodies of ice.
Who can say that God does not intervene, in this case, to save all life? It is a striking proof that God is not absent nor inactive.
Gravitation requires the computation of countless millions of the most complex and difficult problems, every instant, by the divine mind. The attraction of all matter for all other matter is in proportion directly to the mass and inversely to the square of the distance. The exact weight of every object is determined by the attraction of the earth and every particle thereof, the mountain that may be nearby, the elevation and altitude of the place, the attraction of the sun and the moon, and every star in heaven, even though too small to be computed by man,—all these are computed precisely by the divine mind. These innumerable calculations prove that God is everywhere. We are continually in the immediate awesome presence of an Infinite God.
Every computation that man ever made, was made long before by a great Intelligence, that excels all others combined. How intricate is the calculation of the divine mind, which causes the water of every ocean, sea, lake, pond, and vessel, when at rest, to correspond with the exact sphericity of the earth. In the face of innumerable and difficult calculations,—proofs of the intense activity of the divine mind,—who can be so reckless as to say that God is absent or inactive?
Not only does God make endless calculations in executing his will in the material universe, but in the intellectual, moral and spiritual world as well. We can not measure, with any human instruments, the amount of mental discipline and improvement, resulting from a certain amount of study. But God calculates unerringly the precise amount of mental discipline or improvement earned by every mental exertion. The amount is in precise proportion to the mental effort. The gain is definite, exact and unerring, the calculation is instantaneous, and beyond the power of the profoundest mathematician to compute. So also, the effect of every moral act, wish, desire, purpose, intention or affection, is instantly computed, and the moral character modified in exact proportion to their weight. If a man indulges in vice, he becomes vicious in proportion. If he commits a crime, he becomes more criminal in nature. Every theft is computed at its proper value. Every good and noble act ennobles the character in proportion to its worth. There is a settlement, every instant, and all deeds, wishes, desires, purposes, and affections go into the character, and affect it in precise proportion to their weight. Who but an infinite God, can keep all accounts of his innumerable creatures instantaneously, and have them complete, exact and unerring? No man, nor angel, nor “law,” could do it. In like manner, every spiritual act, wish, purpose, motive,—all go in to make up the spiritual life of man, in exact proportion to their worth. Not all the mathematicians and scribes in the universe could together solve the problems, that the great intellect of the Supreme Ruler is solving every instant of time.
This theory of an absent or inactive God leaves no place for prayer, an almost universal instinct of mankind. If a blind, deaf, and dumb and helpless law is in control, it is useless to pray for help. All nations, races and peoples instinctively believe that God hears and answers prayer. This is a scientific fact with which evolutionists must reckon, even if it has a pious or otherwise offensive sound. No use to pray to an inexorable “law,” which, like the gods of the heathen, can neither see, nor hear, nor taste, nor smell.
How unscientific then seems the following declaration of Darwin: “To my mind, it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter [How could that be?] by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual.” It does not remove the First Great Cause from active control of the world to call his acts “secondary causes.”
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