UNITY AND PERSONALITY OF GOD by Dudley Marvin Canright

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Aug 30, 1877

UNITY AND PERSONALITY OF GOD.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

BY ELDER D. M. CANRIGHT.

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED—CONCLUDED.

When Jesus Christ the Son of God came into this world, was he not a real being, a person, having a body and form? Was he not a material being? We all know he was. He ate, drank, walked, died upon the cross and was buried. Yet the Bible says he was a spirit, and that too while upon earth.

“And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [Christ] was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.” 1 Cor. 15:45–47. Here it is declared that Christ, the second Adam, was made a quickening spirit. It will be noticed that this was said of the man who took our nature, took Adam’s nature. Paul says, “The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last man Adam was made a quickening spirit;” “the second man is the Lord from heaven.” Then the man Christ Jesus was a spirit, for it so directly says. And by the way, this passage explains what is meant when a person is called a spirit. It means

that he is a spiritual being, for thus it says, “Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural [i. e., Adam], and afterward that which is spiritual” [i. e., Christ]. So when it says that Christ is a spirit it is explained to mean that he was a spiritual being. So Paul says again, “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.” Verse 44.

This verse settles the question that there is a spiritual body, and that it is a person, and not an immaterial intangible essence merely. “There is a spiritual body,” says Paul. Very well, then, a thing can be spiritual and be a body too. So God is a spirit and has a body, is a spiritual being and yet of bodily form and shape. Christ is called a spirit again in 2 Cor. 3:17.

Of Christ Paul here says: “Now the Lord is that spirit.” If Christ, then, was a spirit, and yet had a body, and form, so his Father can be a spirit and have a body and form. This argument is unanswerable. Furthermore, man himself is said to be a spirit, not simply that he has an immaterial, intangible spirit within him, but he himself, the man, body and all, is the spirit. Let us see if this is not so. “What! know ye not that he which is joined to a harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” 1 Cor. 6:16, 17.

He declares that a man who is joined to a harlot is one body, for says he, God says they two shall be one flesh; i. e., the man who joins himself to a harlot becomes like her, a corrupt licentious person. But on the other hand he says, “He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit;” i. e., he becomes like the Lord, pure, holy, spiritual. That this is what he means by being a spirit is shown by what he previously says in the same letter. “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.” 1 Cor. 3:1.

Here you have the explanation. He says he could not speak unto them as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal. Why? Because they were not converted. Some of them had committed adultery, others were envious &c., showing the works of the flesh. They were carnal. But those who are joined to the Lord were spiritual, or as he more directly says, he is a spirit. Chapter 6:17. But does that annihilate his personality, or prove that he has not a body and shape? No, indeed. Neither then does the declaration that God is a spirit prove that he is not a person having body, and form. One of Greenfield’s definitions of spirit is as follows: “By metonymy, a person who acts or professes to act under a divine influence or by inspiration.” In proof of this he quotes the following:—

“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” 1 John 4:1. It will be seen that persons claiming to be prophets are called spirits.

A spirit, then, is a person in a bodily shape. A spirit or spiritual person means a being of a higher nature than man in his natural condition, a heavenly being, or one inspired by the spirit of heaven.

But does not Jesus say that a spirit hath not flesh and bones? Luke 24:39. In this case the reference is to an apparition, or ghost. The disciples were terrified and so at first thought that Jesus was a ghost, a mere specter, a thing only of the frightened imagination. They themselves did not believe such an apparition to be real. Hence Christ appeals to them that he is not such a spirit for he has flesh and bones.

3. God cannot be a material being.

As the foregoing positions necessarily show that God is a real, personal being, possessing body, parts, local habitation, etc., it is next objected that God cannot be a material being. It is urged that matter cannot think, move and act of itself; that it must first be organized and animated with life. Hence our opponents ask, If God is a material being, who organized him, who made him? But we hand this question right back to our opponents. Are

not angels spirits? are not devils spirits? are not men spirits? At any rate, all will admit that each man has a spirit. Are not angels and devils and spirits of men created? The Bible says that God “formeth the spirit of man within him.” Zech. 12:1.

Spirits, then, all must admit, have to be created and formed as well as material beings. Where is the proof that spirit is eternal any more than matter, granting the distinction between matter and spirit that our spiritualizing friends claim? Furthermore, who will affirm that God is simply a spirit in the abstract, in the general sense, simply unorganized spirit? None of our opponents will affirm that. Now spirits are organized beings as well as material beings are. To deny this would be to deny their individuality, their personality. Angels and devils themselves are spiritual beings, but are just as distinct one from another as men are from each other. Neither are they eternal more than men. They were created, formed, organized by God; so the Bible says.

Now granting their ideas of God as a pure immaterial spirit, we ask them, Who organized this spirit? And our question is just as fair as theirs, when they ask us, Who organized God if he is a material being? Neither party can answer this question, simply because we know nothing about it. The atheist triumphantly asks the Christian, Who made God? and he never can tell from the simple fact that such questions are too high for mortal men. Job truly says: “Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.” Job 11:7–9.

But we utterly deny the distinction between matter and spirit which is claimed. We believe that everything is material, and that these diversities are only different forms of matter. No living man can successfully deny this. The wisest and most scientific men freely admit that they know but little about matter. The more they study, the deeper they search into it, the more they are convinced that its different attributes and capabilities have been but partially understood. Because a certain fact is true of matter in one condition is it argued that it must be true of matter always and everywhere? but this is illogical and false, for matter is capable of the greatest diversity. Matter in one form may even seem to be directly opposite of the same matter in another form. For instance, I have before me a piece of ice. I put my hand upon it; it is exceedingly cold. It is a square chunk; I can cut it with a knife, saw it with a saw into blocks. It is solid. But I put this ice in a vessel and warm it. It soon becomes water,—a liquid. It now looks very different from that piece of ice which I held in my hands a few minutes before. I closely confine this water in a tight vessel and heat it very hot. It now becomes steam, a vapor and is invisible. It is so hot it would scald your hand in a moment. It can neither be cut, nor poured from vessel to vessel. It now seems to be precisely opposite from that chunk of ice, and yet everybody knows that it is the very same material exactly, only in another condition. If no man had seen ice thus converted into steam, we would all pronounce such a change impossible. Let him look at that chunk of ice, put his hands upon it, examine it; and then let him examine steam in its most heated condition; let him try it with his hand, then tell him that they are both the same material, and he would pronounce it the greatest absurdity imaginable. Yet we all know by actual observation that ice, and water, and steam are only different conditions of the same material.

There is as great a difference between steam and ice as is claimed by our opponents, between spirit and matter. We claim, therefore, that they cannot show that a spirit is not one form of matter. The Bible nowhere says it is not. On the other hand, as we have proved before, it plainly shows that it is.

Consider further the wonderful diversity of matter. Before me lies a piece of paper very white. By its side lies a book very black, both opposite, but both material. Here is a cake of ice, there is a coal of fire, one cold the other hot, both material. Here is a ball of lead, there is a feather of down, one very heavy, the other flits in the air,—both material. Here is a plank of wood, there is a pane of glass; one is entirely opaque, the other transparent,—both material. Here is a piece of pure, shining gold, a foot square and worth many thousands of dollars, there is a bushel of mud worth nothing, both material. Heat is material, the rays of light are material, the air is material, electricity is material. No one will dispute these facts. But who can explain what light is? who can tell what heat is? who can fathom the mystery of electricity?

Take this simple fact, now of every day occurrence. A man stands in New York. He touches the end of a wire and a man clear across the ocean in London immediately perceives the fact. He cannot explain how this is done. We say it is done by electricity. Ah, but what is electricity? Is it an immaterial, intangible conscious spirit from the other world? Three centuries ago it probably would have been explained as such, but now we know it is simply an action upon matter, wonderful as it is.

Every year scientific investigation is revealing new wonders of matter. A man only exposes his ignorance when he says that matter cannot do this and cannot do that. He is simply asserting that of which he knows nothing. It is our humble opinion, well founded we think too, both in revelation and science, that angels and the celestial beings are as material as men, only that they are more highly organized, more refined,—matter on a higher plane. Who that has carefully observed the wonderful and infinite diversity of matter, even as seen in this earth, will deny the reasonableness of this position? It cannot be disproved, to say the least. When we have found out God to perfection, when we have explored earth, heaven, and hell, and have fathomed all the infinite diversities and capabilities of matter, then, and not till then, will it do for us to say what God must be and what matter cannot be. Therefore this objection against the materiality of God is not a valid one.

But we have overwhelming evidence that God is a material being. That holy God made this solid earth, this material planet, with all the material things upon it. He made a material man, a material atmosphere, material food for man to live upon, a material sun to light and warm this earth with material rays. He made all the millions of stars on high, every one of them just as material, in fact, of the same material as our own earth. The latest developments of astronomy clearly show that all the planets in the heavens are revolving around one great material center, the habitation of the Almighty. If matter is so repulsive, so opposed to the nature of God, why has he made so vast a creation out of it?

Consider the further fact that the Saviour of men is a material being. He was born of a material woman, walked upon this material earth, breathed its air, ate of its food, died upon a material wooden cross, spilled his material blood, was buried in the earth, his material body was resurrected, and is exalted at the right hand of God, and now sits upon the throne of the universe. “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.” Rev. 3:21. This is directly asserted by the most orthodox creeds. Thus the Art. in the creed of the Episcopalian church says: “Christ did truly rise again from death and took again his body, with flesh, bones and all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven and there sitteth.” So says the Methodist Discipline also. Then we have indeed a material Saviour, sitting upon the throne of the Father. No one will deny this. Why, then, should they be so horrified at the idea of a material God? We advise them to examine this point again.