The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1877-11-29
Personality OF God.

II you vii not examine self-evide ut
truths MS a science, must ask you to take
| the point OF view Of the microscope. Here
! Is another line OF thought proceeding out
/ Of the very heart of Biology -
!. Some force forms The parts in an en-
! bryo. Nv are woVen, even TynaIl says,
'bg power not ourselves;
/ : Since we are woven by a power not
ourselves, there IS thought In the universe
not our own.
There cannot be thought without a
thinker
4. Therefore there is in the universe a
thinker not ourselves.
But thinker is a Person Ap-
p!ause.
Totu; now the whole argument from
design into the shape which best pleased
John Stuart Mill, We may say =
|. Every change must have an adequate
cause.
:. My coming into existence as a mind
tree-wIil and conscience was change.
.. HAT change requires a cause adequate
to account tor the existence OF mind, tree
will and conscience.
i. lnyolutiCn must equal evolution.
,. Only mind, free-wil and conscience
IN tde cause, therefore, are sufficient to
account for mind, tree-wiIi and cons cience
III the change.
=. The cause, therefore, possessed mind,
irte-will and conscience.
/. The anicn Of mind, free will and con-
science In any heing constitutes personality
in that being
s. The Cause, therefore, which brought
me into existence as a mind, free-wil and
conscience, was "A person.
Il you will look at that list of proposi-
tons, you will find nothing taken for grant
ed in them except that every change must
have an adequate cause. These proposi-
tons We're emphatlca!y indorsed after
being read twice by the acuteSt intellect |
ever met in theological science. | suppose
them to be substantially the ground on
which established science stands to this
hour, with the Rchters, and the Carlyles,
/ and Piatos, and Ariototles, and even With
/ the al doubling FreIcrcks.
! We may say also, in presenting further
/ the argument from design
/ |. 1t there is an emnlpresent, self-exist.
! ing and infinitely holy moral law, and if
! the nature of all dependent intelligence has
! been adapted to that law, there must be a
moral designer to account for this neral
adaptation.
There are such law and such an
adaptation.
). There Is, therefore, Moral Designer.
!. but moral designer must possess
mind, free-will and conscience
.. The union of mind, free-will and
conscience In any being constitutes Person,
atty in that Being
/ s. The Moral Designer Of the Moral
Law is, therefore, Personality.
|. All possible existence is eitker de-
pendent or independent.
:. II there is dependent existence there
must be independent existence, for there
cannot be dependence without dependence
on something; an endless chain WITHOUT a
point ct support is an effect without a
cause; dependence without independence
is "A contradiction in terms
) am "A dependent existence.
4. Therefore there is independent ex.
stence.
Applause.
But independent existence is selfexist-
ence.
|: All possible being is either self-ex-
istence or not sef-existence
:. If there is being which is not self
existence, the principle that every change
must have an adequate cause, requires
, that there should exist being that is self
existence.
). | am being that is not self existence
i. Therefore there is being that is self
existence.
: So, too. with exact loyalty to self-eviIen
truth, We may say -
|. All possible persons are either self
existent or not self existent.
! =. Ii there exist a person that is no
D -ell-ezistent there must be u person tina
2 ia self eEIs! sat
3. am person not self existent.
4, Therefore, there Is Person who i
, seli-existent. 1t is lie.-J oseph Cook.