Anthropomorphism [pp. 120-144]

THE PRINCE TON RE VIEW.
Still, the question remains whether this argument from rela tivity, tho evidently fatal to the metaphysics of evolution, be not
equally fatal to Christianity. May it not be that all knowledge
is impossible, and all science a dream? Or, to bring the ques
tion down to the specific problem under discussion, have we any
right, knowing the relativity of our own thought-products, to
assert that God is a Person who thinks and feels and wills?
In answer'to this question I can only sketch, very briefly, the
outline of an argument which I believe can be defended as the
science of the Christian faith in an intelligent deity, so far as
that faith is affected by the principle of the relativity of human
knowledge. It is essentially the position of all Christian scholarship.
If all truth be relative, conditioned by the finite, subjective
forms of thought under which we, as human minds, are forever
compelled to express thought, then it certainly is no objection
to any particular truth that it comes to us under those forms.
If, for example, manifestations of matter are such that, by
the structure of our minds, we are forever compelled to think of
it as extended, then matter is extended to us, and that is all the
reality which we require. In fact, reality itself is a thought of
the human mind. Matter is to us extended, and it is for all
eternity no concern of ours what matter might be to us if we
were not ourselves.
Now, if the manifestations of God are such that, by the structure of our minds, we are forever compelled to think of him as
Mind, with intellect, feeling, and will, then God is to us Mind,
with intellect, feelirig, and will. This is the finite form under
which we finite creatures must think him; and it is for all eter.
nity no concern of ours what God might be to us if we were not
ourselves. God undoubtedly is, in his essence, an Unknown and
Unknowable Something infinitely beyond the reach of finite mind.
The essence of matter is likewise forever unknowable to us. To
assert the contrary is simply to assert that we can think without
thinking, which is absurd. So far as this goes, we are all agnostics.
But beyond this it is equally certain that this Something,
God, Unknowable in essence, has manifested itself to us. As
finite minds we must think those manifestations and the great
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