SUNDAY BEADING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7353, 13 June 1885, Page 4 (Supplement)

SUNDAY BEADING.

A CHAPTER FROM REV. A. L. LAM* BERT'B BOOK. SOMETHING ABOUT THE DKBIOW OV THE VSTVKBSE; and in<jbbsoli/8 "dubious an» WONDKBFUL THING." Mb. Ingeesoll next proceeds to show that the argument for the existence of God drawn from the plan or design of the universe is not conclusive. As Mr. Black did not advance this argument I am at a loss to understand why it was introduced by Mr. Ingersoll, unless it was to give us a specimen of his ability in the way of metaphysical sky-rocketing. Let us hear him. Ingersoll: "It will not do to say that the universe was designed, and, therefore, there must be a Designer." Comment: Why not, if all have a right to give their honest thought. Ingersoll: " There must be proof that it was designed." Certainly, and that proof is to be found in every work on theology and philosophy that treats of the subject. As a lawyer, you know that proofs are not to be thrown out of court by a mere stroke of the pen. It was incumbent on you to examine thoso proofs and show that they are not con» elusive, or accept them. Instead of this, you very cunningly leave the inference that no such proofs feist. If you knew of those proofs, you should, in all candour, have met | them fairly ; if you were ignorant of them, j you should have informed yourself of the arguments on the other side before yon undertook to answer them. Yon have said " candour is the courage of the soul." Let us have courage. The proofs given by theologians and Christian philosophers that evidences of plan and design exist in this physical universe have never been met by you. According to the rules of logie, they are good until you meet and overthrow them. This you must' do by reason, and not by bald assertion. ■ Ingersoli: "It will not do to say that the universe has a plan, and then assert that there must have been an Infinite Maker." Comment: Of course it will not do to merely say it without any proofs to back the statement, as you say so many things, and, therefore, Christian scholars invariably supply those proofs. The proofs being good until refuted, it does and must follow that there is an Infinite Planner, Designer, Creator.

Ingersoll: The idea that a design must have a beginning, and that a designer need not, is a simple expression of human ignorance." Comment: On the contrary, it is one of the highest reaches of human reason. But you have evidently lost the thread of the argument you are trying to refute. Christian philosophy does not assert that the plan or design of -the universe had a beginning. On the contrary, it teaches that the plan or design existed in the mind of God from all eternity, and is the eternal arohtype of all created things. The universe is the eternal idea of God realised in time and spaoe by the creative act. To say that the design of this universe had a beginning is truly a simple expression of human ignorance. As the design is eternal, the Designer must be eternal; as the design had no beginning, the Designer has none. The designs of finite minds must have a beginning, because they partake of the nature of their designer, but we must not measure God's capacity by man's incapacity, an error you seem incapable of avoiding. Ingeraoll: "We find a watch, and we say, ' So ourions and wonderful a thing must have had a maker.'"

Comment: Ihe Christian does* not assert that it had a maker because it is curious and wonderful, but because it shows evidence of having been made. The curiousness and wonderfulness of the watoh suggests the idea of an intelligent maker. A mud-pie will suggest the idea of a maker equally as well as a gold chronometer. Ingersoll: We find the watchmaker, and we say, 'So curious and wonderful a thing as man must have had a Maker.' "

Comment: Yes, but not because he is curious and wonderful, but because he is, and is finite. Verily, it would bo unfortunate for Christianity if you were permitted to present its case. Ingersoll: "We find God, and we then say, *He is so wonderful that He must not have had a Maker.'"

Comment: You say this, but " we" don't. When we find God, we find the Self-existent Bsing, Infinite and Eternal, and therefore we say, He must not have had a Maker. This is the way the Christian reasons, and it is somewhat different from the childish nonsense you would put into his month. Ingersoll: "In other words, all things a little wonderful must have been created. ' Comment: You use that word " wonderful" as a boy uses a to; drum, to the disgust of all who hear it. All things have been created, not because they are curious and wonderful but because they exist and are finite. The microscopic gram of Band that is wafted by the winds and the waves proves the existence of a Creator as clearly as does this vast and wonderful universe. It is not, then, as you say, the wonder of the thing that suggests the idea of creation, but the existence of the thing. lugersoll: "One would suppoee that just as the wonder increased, the necessity for a Creator increased."

Comment : The one who would bo suppose must be supposed to have a very limited knowledge of philosophy or a very limited intellect. If Christian philosophy were as aiMy as yon have represented, or rather misrepresented it above, it would, indeed, be contemptible. Candour and honour require tbat when you attack a system or an institution yon should attackit in its owa position, and. nut make iiotitious and absurd positions for it, and then proceed with show of logic to demolish the nonsense engendered in your own brain and presented to the publio as the principles of Christian philosophy. To misrepresent Christian philosophy is a confession of weaknaes, an admission thai it must be misrepresented before ?.t can be successfcJ'y assailed.

Ingersoll : "Is ib possible that a Designer exists from ail eternity without a design ?"

Comment: Yes, the idea of a Self-ex-istent, Eternal Designer excludes the idea of a design prior to or independent of Him. This is so self-evident that it needs only to be stated. The philosopher who asks such an absurd question is like hie watchmaker, a "curious and wonderful thing." Ingursoll : " Was there no design in having an Infinite Designer ?" Comment: None whatever, since there cannot be anything baok of the Infinite and Eternal Designer. There can be nothing more infinite than the infinite, nothing prior to the eternal.- It is as if yaw should ask, Is there anything more circular than a circle, or anything square; tn&n a square ?

Ingeraoll i "For me it is !~rd so see the plan or design in earthquakes and pestilences."

Comment: This ie not surprising, Binoe you have, with commendable humility, admitted that what you know about questions like these is almost infinitely limited. Until you see or understand the design, it is inconsistent in you to condemn it. A boy stood near the .railway, gazing philosophically at a passing train. A burning cinder from the smoke-stack struck him in the eye. He mused on the incident in this way: " For ma it is hard to see what design or plan this great corporation could have had in spending vast Bums of money to throw that cinder ia my eye. It is so;ne\?aai diftiwlK to tliHuem d«;'uiga or benevolence in it." Who will say that boy was not a philosopher and an egotist, or that a fortune does not await him when he is old enough to take the lecture-field ? Ingeraoll: "It is somewhat difficult to discern the design or the benevolence in so making the world that billions of animals live only on the agonies of others." Comment: Until you prove that God so made the world that billions of animals live on the agonies of others, you are not called upon to discern design or benevolence in this agonising state of things. It does not follow because agony »nd suffering exist, that God designed it to be so. It is for you to prove that God designed this suffering before you attribute it to Him. You should be just— to God, Whence, then, the sufferings of this world Crime is the result of human liberty— though not a necessary result— suffering is the result of crime. Physical evil is the result of moral evil, and moral evil is the result of a perverse use of liberty, which is good in itself. God made man a free agent, not that he might abase bis freedom, bat that he might use it to assist Him in his beneficent design,. which is the happiness of His creatures.' But man abused the gift of liberty, and, in doing so, produced discord in universal harmony. The free agent man

proved himself untrue to his trust. He betrayed it, and that became a victim of the disorder be' himself produced. The agent is responsible to his ; principal, and a failure to perform the duties asssigned him brings upon; him punishment and disgrace. The pagan philosopher Plato understood this when he wrote: "He (the wrongdoer) ii not able to see that evil (suffering), ever united to eaoh act of wrong, follows him in his insatiate cravings for what is unholy, and that he has to drag along with him the long chain of his wrong-doings, both while he is moving along upon this earth, and when he shall take under the earth (in hell we would say) an endless journey of dishonour and frightful miseries." * Evils, that are the results of man's per* version of liberty, cannot be attributed to the design of God; and those who so attribute them are as reasonless as the shipwrecked mariners who condemn the captain for the sufferings which they brought upon themselves by their disobedience to his commands, or as the criminal attributes his punishment to the judge, when it is the result of his own crime. While admitting the existence of evils and sufferings in the world, the Christian does not, and is not bound, by his principles, to admit that they are the result of the design or plan of God in crtatißg the universe. To those who see in man's nature and destiny nothing higher than that of the grassuopper or the potato-bug, who believe that man's life ends with the death or decomposition of his outer shell, there must be something inexplicable in the sufferings of this life. But to the Christian who looks upon this life and its vicissitudes as a mere phase of man's immortal career, who considers this world of time as the womb of eternal years, the* sufferings of this life are but .the temporary inconveniences of the weary traveller on his homeward voyage. Their weight is lightened, and their sharpness blunted by the thought of home, with its somforts and its rest. He suffers with patience and resignation to the will of his Eternal Father, with the consoling hope that, when he is freed from the body of this death, he will pass into the eternal day where death and pain are known no more for ever. Buoyed up by faith and hope, he says in his inmost soul: Beyond the purling and the meeting I shall be soon ; Beyond the farewell and the greeting, Beyond the pulse's 'ever beating I shall be soon. Beyond the frost chain and the fever 1 shall be soon ; Beyond the rock-watte and the river, Beyond the ever and the never, I ihtU be soon. Love, rest, and home I Sweet home ! Lord, tarry not, but come.