“Immanence” and “Pantheism”
THE editor of Public Opinion recently submitted the following question “to a number of theologians, sociologists, social workers, and psychologists:” “Are the masses of men yet sufficiently developed to determine and follow out a course of right conduct without the impelling power of a belief in, or a fear of, a personal God who rewards and punishes?” Some of the replies and the editorial discussion of them appear under the heading, “Social Value of Religion. What Would Happen if Belief in God Were Lost?” In his introduction to these replies the editor says: “Not only the expositors of the ‘New Theology,’ but many other religious thinkers and teachers who are otherwise orthodox, are showing an increasing tendency to discard the belief in a personal God, and to substitute for it the idea of an immanent God or of an unnamed First Cause.” One reply to the editor’s question runs as follows:— I think that whatever consequences for conduct are involved in the loss of belief in a personal God have already been, to a great extent, anticipated, and may now be heavily discounted. I am sure that the masses of men and women in the United States no longer believe in any theological creed as they believed in my youth. The doctrines of evolution,4although imperfectly understood by the people, have yet been uncritically accepted as probably true, and human conduct is gradually adjusting itself to that state of mind. This is not the first time that men have tried to get along without God, and it may be profitable to consider what such a course means. Here is the result as pictured in the Word of God: “And even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, unmerciful.” What can better account for the increase of lawlessness and the present carnival of crime than the fact that men and women are refusing to have God in their knowledge? There is no power for righteousness in the doctrines of evolution, and the barriers against sin are being broken down by the “increasing tendency to discard the belief in a personal God, and to substitute for it the idea of an immanent God.” May we not reasonably expect that the final outcome of this evolutionary system of religion will be the utter abandonment of righteousness if such results have already appeared while “human conduct is gradually adjusting itself to that state of mind”? We are surely in the time when men have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. Soon an insulted God will rise up and vindicate his own existence and character. Another writer seems to appreciate the fact that the waning of religious belief may be attended by serious results, and says:— It is a natural fear that unless a substitute for religion can, within a measurable time, be found, a period of moral confusion will ensue. Philosophers will, of course, be kept right not only by their philosophy, but by the character which dedication to philosophy implies. It is not likely that there will be any sudden catastrophe. Society will not fall to pieces. It will be held together by the necessity of labor, of order, of mutual help and forbearance, by the domestic and social affections, by opinion, by the law and the police. But it does not follow that pending the reparation of the basis, society may not undergo a bad quarter of an hour, especially if, in the absence of spiritual aims and of hopes beyond this world, a passionate thirst for pleasure and for the means of obtaining it should prevail. But this is just what is now prevailing to an increasing degree. Men and women are “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,” and are disregarding every principle of righteousness in the mad race for wealth which supplies the means for gratifying pleasure. In spite of this writer’s assurance, and according to the predictions of God’s prophets, we may soon expect a “sudden catastrophe,” even that “sudden destruction” which is to come when men are saying “Peace and safety.” From still another reply we quote the following:— While the doctrine of divine immanence is not supposed by its advocates to be the same thing as pantheism, in its practical popular effect it is the same. The radical moral defect in both these systems is that they deny the freedom of the human will, and remove from the conscience the sense of sin, and reduce virtue to a mere natural phenomenon. According to pantheism, the mind of man is but a necessary emanation of a blind impersonal force to which no responsibility either of praise or of blame can belong. The doctrine of divine immanence, when pushed to its extreme, as it is by many at the present time, asserts that everything is the result of the present activity of God. As advocated by Dr. Lyman Abbott, all secondary causes are abolished, and everything resolved to the direct agency of the Creator; this makes God the author of sin as well as of virtue. . . . Any use of language which dulls the luster of this great principle [“that man is the arbiter of his own moral fortune”], and makes man feel that he is the mere creature of circumstances or the mere product of the direct activity of the underlying force of nature, whatever that may be, can be productive only of untold evil. When a leader of religious thought, who does not know anything of this third angel’s message in terms, but who stands against this modern idea of divine immanence, declares that this teaching is “in its practical popular effect” the same as pantheism, may we not well believe that in the genuine teaching of this message which is to save the people from the errors of this time there will be an utter repudiation of this whole pantheistic conception of the divine immanence and an immanent God? Ought the message which is to point out the pernicious error and save from it, to be clothed in the same language as the error? Let it be remembered that in the estimation of at least one man who discerns the tendency of evolutionary and scientific religion the doctrine of divine immanence is “in its practical popular effect” the same thing as pantheism, and let those who do not wish to be classed as pantheists discard the beliefs and the language of pantheism. There is a wide difference between the true teaching of the omnipresence of God and the false teaching of the divine immanence as it is now being proclaimed. The message which is to call attention to the true God and his worship as against false gods and false conceptions of God, will not be based upon such an interpretation of the Scriptures as will harmonize with the “increasing tendency to discard the belief in a personal God and to substitute for it the idea of an immanent God.” This advent message is in its very nature a constant protest against this perversion of the truth. They have nothing in common.