The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-11-20
USES HIS LOGIC ID . SHOW REALITY 0F THE GREAT CREATOR Dr. Sweeney Delivers Un- usual Address to Congrega- ton at Christian Church SHOWS DOUBTERS
 ON SHIFTY GROUND Quotes Worlds Great Scientists to Show Acknowledgement That
 Creation by Intelligence Is
 Sound Principle

The Rev. 2 T. Sweeney, speaking at the First Christian church last night. brought out some very unusual thoughts.
 His remarks were directed toward the answer to the question, Did God raake man. or Did Main Make God? He said in part:
 God, who at sundry times and divers manners, spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us ey His Son. Hebrews, 1, 1-2.
 "The passage of scripture which have quoted contains the four corner stones in the temple of Christian faith, the God thought the Christ thought the Bible thought and the man thought. All are essential to the gos- pei. Given these, and we may have a gospel; lacking any one of these, and the gospel is an impossibility. It IS my purpose to discuss these corner stones on four consecutive Sunday evenings.
 Ut is freely admitted on the threshold of our investigation that we can never comprehend God, for the reason that. the finite cannot compre- bend the infinite.
 "Some men object to the idea of a God because they cannot comprehend it. They do not realize that they would object far more seriously to a God whom they could comprehend.
 WOULD NOT WORSHIP
 "A God whom they could compre- lxa would not worship. While we may not comprehend God, we may apprehend him. To comprehend is to look around; to apprehend is to take in as much of Him as we have ability to receive. The Christian believes that God is, for the reason that he believes that something is.
 Tt was De Toqueville, l believe, that said every speech should begin with an incontrovertable proposition. l will make my incontrovertablc prop osition the statement that something is. The man who doubts that some thing is doubts that he is, doubts that he doubts. If something is, something always was, or the something that is came from nothing.
 But science, religion and philos- cphy all agree that this is impossible. Therefore the something that is was. That which is, and always was, must be either mind or matter. Which can aceount for the other, legislate upon, govern and control the other?
 Can matter do so with mind? We say no. Can mind do so With mat ter? We say yes. Mind can bind mat ter down upon its bands of steel. make it plunge its long arms into its pockets of power, fling out it's smoke and steam on either side, as it bears our burdens over the land
 Mind can take matter and make it rear its proud beak aloft over the wa ters and tramp the sapphired pave ment of the seas like a thing of life and beauty.
 Mind can say to matter, go, and it goeth; come, and cometh. Inasmuch as matter cannot do so with mind, and mind can do so with matter, we argue that that which is and always was must be mind; that mind is the god of the Christian.
 ALL DO NOT AGREE
 ''We here have the God idea But is it reality? Here all do not agree Philosophy has exhausted itself in three different hypotheses to account for the origin of the god idea: First, external nature. Men looked upon the great coordination and correlation of the mighty forces without and argued cause behind them. They looked upon the universe and drew the in ference of a universe maker as we look upon machine and draw the in- ference of the maker.
 Second, internal nature. Some men tell us that the idea of God is an efflux of highly organized matter, that it is a part of the plan of the soul Such men prate loudly about an hon. est God being the noblest work of man.
 Third, Christian philosophy says that God spake, and thus revealed himself. You may study until you are gray haired or bald-headed, for that matter, and you will never find a fourth hy- pothesis to account for the origin of the God idea
 Let us examine these hypotheses for moment. If, according to the Locke School of Philosophy, the idea of God is drawn from external nature; 1t har- monizes with nature, and, therefore, har- monizes with truth, and is, therefore, a true idea
 If 1t came, according to German phi losophy, from internal nature, it must harmonize with internal nature. But in- ternal nature is only a segment of ex- ternal nature. Harmonizing with inter- nal nature it harmonizes with nature at least. and, therefore, harmonizess with truth and is, therefore, true idea.
 If we reject both of these hypotheses we are shut up to revelation. And the fCOutiuued m Pnge Eightl