The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-01-23

Second-Does man make his own God? Is
the divine being purely subjective or real
ity? Browning, upon this great question.
while very obscure and subtitle, is very sat
isfactory Briefly, his argument is that If
man makes his own God by simply taking
our human experiences and multiplying
them by infinity. then man is greater than
God. If this process is valid, then man is
the principal and God the incident, and the
process, be it Observed works both ways
If God is only mans good projected upon
the canvas of infnity, then the devil is only
mans bad thrown up upon the other side
of the same canvas. According to this as
sertion, man must be worse than the devil
and better than God. Surely this considera-
ton must settle these absurd claims. No
doubt we can only think of God in terms
of human experience, but this is very far
from proving that God is the product of
such experience.
1t is hardly necessary to remark that
these views dispose of Straus and Renan
and the fundamental proposition of nine
tenth century skepticism, viz. that God
has no objective existence. The great evan
gelical truth that God is and is a very pres
ent help to all that put their trust in Him;
that God guides His children and walks
with them, is perfectly consistent with the
fact that we must necessarily think of God
in terms of human experience. That we
think in such terms is one propositions but
that for that reason God is subjective, is an
entirely different proposition, and the last
by no means follows from the first. We see
Nature we commune with her through our
senses, but we do not thereby make Ma
ture. The fact that Nature means so many
different things to so many different men
does not disprove it's objective reality. The
only conception we have of cause or power
is through the exercise of our wills, but that
does not prove that cause and power are
man made. Love is certainly one Of the
highest of mans qualities, but that does not
prove that when we say God is Love- that
God is only and altogether the product of
our minds. This doctrine-the transcenden-
talism of Emerson and the German philoso-
phers-never had much foothold in this
country, for the simple reason, as Browning
puts it, that it proves too much. Somewhat
akin to this vagary of man making his own
God is the denial of Christs divinity in any
other sense than a divinity of degrees There
is divine element in every man and wom-
an. And the claim is that our Savior was
divine precisely as Socrates was divine, only
vastly superior to Socrates This certainly
proved 1t follows, none the less certainly
although more remotely if His miracles
were, as Browning insists, only twigs to
protect the growing plant. The whole teach
ing of the New Testament is exactly the
other way.
1t may be that the last word on this great
subject has not yet been spoken, but until
it is we must certainly rest our hopes of i'm
mortality and its miracles upon the resur-
rection of our Savior. Said the clear-sighted
Paul: IF Christ be not risen from the dead,
then is our preaching vain.'
Third-The law of our spiritual progress.
Browning dwells long the fact that we
apprehend physical truths with small diff
Guilty; not so with spiritual truth. The flesh
has but little time to stay, and must learn
it's lessons once and for all. Man was made
for progress. He could not progress if his
doubts were at once changed to certainties
and all he struggles for at once be dis
cerned. In matters spiritual he must both
learn and unlearn He must creep from
fancieS to fact, and correct experience by
experience, and supplement the imperfec-
lions of one day and age by the knowledges
of the next days and ages. Thus, and thus
only, does the spirit grow. Blessed be the
man that is never without pain in his
soul. We advance in things divine one day
and are beaten back the next, but still, upon
the whole we advance. The shell that is to-
day crushed is tomorrow mended by our
increased spiritual insight, with PEARL
For life with all it yields of Joy and Woe
And hope and fear-believe the aged friend
Is just our chance O the prize Of learning
love,
How love might be, hath been indeed, and
And that we hold thenceforth to the utter
most
Such prize despite the envy of the world.
And having gained truth, keep truth; that
Then as new lessons shall be learned in
Till earths stop and useless time run out,
So duly, daily, needs provision be
For keeping the. souls prowess possible.
Building new barriers as the old decay,
Once grasped, were this our souls gain
safe and sure
TO prosper as the body's gain is won't
Why, mans probation would conclude, his
earth
Crumhle
Man is not Cod Rut hath Gods ends to
A master to obey, a course to take,
Somewhat TO cast off, somewhat to become?
Grant this, then man must pass from old
to new,
From vain TO real from mistake to fact.
proves best.
While the aged apostle was thus speak
ing 'He was not, for God took him. His
last words were as loving and as pathetic
as any in either his Gospel or Epistles. AL
though already over hundred years old,
still the dear old father. the burden of
whose message was, Little children, love
one arother," says:
For if there be a further woe than such,
Wherein my brothers struggling need
hand,
So long as any pulse is left in mine,
May be absent even longer yet,
Plucking the blind ones back from the
abyss,
Though l should tarry new hundred
years."
Struggle, doubt, decadence, progress. per
crucem ad lucem-this is the hard regimen
that, for inscrutable reasons, an all-wise
Providence has prescribed as condition for
spiritual progress The road is rocky and
steep, yet for all that, in our best hours,
we recognize the truth of this great saying
of the great teacher Leasing, the substance
of which was that if God had placed all
truth in one of his hands and the same
struggle above described in the other, as