061. II. Providence In The Physical Sphere.

II. Providence In The Physical Sphere.

1. Concerning the Conservation of Matter.—There is a preserving providence within the sphere of physical nature. This, as previously shown, is the clear sense of Scripture. There is for this sphere a universal conservation. But as so revealed it is simply the fact of a divine conservation, without any such absolute universality or specific application, that it must hold in being the very essence of matter as well as preserve its orderly forms. Yet such a view is prominent in the history of doctrinal opinion. The assumption is that if matter were left without the upholding power of God, even for an instant, it would in that instant fall into nonentity. Hence its continued existence must be through the unceasing conservation of his power. This is the common view. “The conception of the divine conservation of the world as the simple, uniform, and universal agency of God sustaining all created substances and powers in every moment of their existence and activity is the catholic doctrine of Christendom.”^[320] It should be noted that this citation includes spiritual being just as it does the material. This is proper, and not only as a requirement of accuracy in the statement, but also as a requirement of consistency in the doctrine; for if the doctrine be true respecting the essence of matter it must also be true respecting the essence of mind.

^[320]Cocker:Theistic Conception of the World, p. 176.

Widely as this doctrine has prevailed, we cannot think it closed against all questioning. In order to any proper view the view we must distinguish between the essence of matter and questioned. its orderly forms. The former existed in the primordial chaos; the latter are the product of the formative work of God. It may be very true that but for his preserving power these orderly forms would quickly relapse into chaos, but it does not follow that the matter itself must also fall into nonentity. This profound distinction has been overlooked, and the question has been treated just as though the essence of matter and its orderly forms were in one dependence upon providence for their continued existence. That it should be so seems against reason. Being, even material being, is a profound reality, and must have a strong hold on existence. It has no tendency to fall into nothing which only omnipotence can counterwork. Instead of saying that only the power which created matter can hold it in being, we would rather say that only such power could annihilate it. What is thus true of the essence of matter must be equally true of the essence of mind.

There is nothing in this view in any contrariety either to the sense of Scripture or to a proper dependence of all things upon God. There is no text which isolates the essence of either mind or matter and declares the dependence of its continued existence upon an upholding providence. As we recur to the texts which reveal the conserving providence of God we see that he up holds the earth and the heavens, not, however, as mere masses of matter, but as worlds of order in the truest cosmical sense. God “preserves man and beast,” but as organic structures, with life and sentience, and also with personality in the former. Further, as matter is the creation of God, and continues to exist only on the condition of his good pleasure, and is wholly subject to his use for the purposes of his wisdom, it is in a very profound sense dependent upon him. There is also a like dependence of mind. Such a dependence satisfies all the requirements of both reason and Scripture.

2. View of Conservation as Continuous Creation.—From the notion of a dependence of finite being, which for its conservation momentarily requires such a divine energizing as originally gave it existence, there is an easy transition into the notion of a continuous creation. Such a notion early appeared in Christian thought, and has continued to hold at least a limited place. Illustrious names are in the roll of its friends. Augustine is reckoned in the list. His own words so place him.^[321] Aquinas is definitely with Augustine.^[322]

^[321] “Deus, eujus occulta potentia cuncta penetrans incontaminabili prsesentia facit esse quidquid aliquo modo est, in quantumcumque est; quia nisi faciente illo, non tale vel tale esset, sed prorsus esse non posset.”—De Civitate Dei, lib. xii, cap. XXV.

^[322]Conservatio rerum a Deo non est per aliquam novam actionem, sed per continuationem actionis qua dat esse.”—Summa Theol., p. i, qu. civ, art. i.

We may add the name of Edwards, who has given the real and full content of this doctrine. “It follows from what has been observed that God’s upholding created substance, or causing its existence in each successive moment, is altogether equivalent to an immediate production out of nothing, at each moment; because its existence at this moment is not merely in part from God, but wholly from him, and not in any part or degree from its antecedent existence. For the supposing that its antecedent existence concurs with God in efficiency, to produce some part of the effect, is attended with all the very same absurdities which have been shown to attend the supposition of its producing it wholly. Therefore the antecedent existence is nothing, as to any proper influence or assistance in the affair; and consequently God produces the effect as much from nothing as if there had been nothing before. So that this effect differs not at all from the first creation, but only circumstantially; as in first creation there had been no such act and effect of God’s power before; whereas, his giving existence afterward follows preceding acts and effects of the same kind in an established order.”^{[323] [323]} Works, vol. ii, p. 489. The sense of this passage is open and full. We know what the author means by the conservation of existences as a continual creation. No doubt such a formula has often been adopted without any clear apprehension of its meaning. The true sense is implied in the citations from Augustine and Aquinas, but it is not brought into clear view, and their words might be used with much less meaning. No one can mistake the meaning of Edwards. Nor has he overstated the sense of a continual creation. If we allow the formula any distinctive meaning, it must be taken in the sense of an immediate origination of existences. This is widely different from a divine agency which constantly sustains their being. We must suppose them momentarily to drop out of being and momentarily to be re-created. The supposition may be most difficult, but such are the implications of the doctrine. It must hold, not only for essential being, but also for all orderly and organic forms of existence, and equally for the human mind. In the treatment of Edwards the latter was the special application of the doctrine. With the full meaning and content of the doctrine thus brought into view, it appears without the support of either reason or Scripture. If the doctrine be true, the present has no real connection with the past. There is no continuity of being. In all the realms of finite existence, nothing of yesterday remains to-day. All such existences of the present moment perish, and new existences take their place in the next. This has been repeated in all the succeeding moments since the original creation. The fact is not other, that the new existences are so like the old as to allow no distinction for sense-perception. The new are absolutely new. Existences may be annihilated; but, once annihilated, they cannot be re-created. Thus in every moment since the beginning a universe has perished and a universe has come into being. Then there was nothing profoundly distinctive of the original creation. The only distinction, as pointed out in the passage from Edwards, is merely circumstantial. The original was merely the first, but not more really an originative creation. When God said, “Let there be light,” his creative act was not more real than in the creation of light in the next moment and in every moment since. Such a doctrine of providence cannot be true, and, when fully understood, must sink beneath the weight of its own extravagance.

There is not a word in Scripture which either supports or requires such a doctrine. Many passages express the frailty and transience of some forms of organic existence, but without any intimation that they abide but a moment or momentarily sink into nothing, while new creations momentarily take their place. Many forms of nature are described as permanent, abiding through the centuries of the world’s history. There is in the Scriptures no conservation of finite existences in the sense of a continuous creation.

3. Question of Physical Forces.—The question of natural forces, such as we call mediate or secondary causes, deeply concerns the doctrine of providence. Of course, the question here reaches beyond matter as being, and specially respects its orderly forms. It is only in these forms that forces emerge for rational treatment. If there be natural forces, then the mode of providential agency is in their support, in determining the collocations of matter for their efficiency, and in co-working with them for the attainment of chosen ends in the cosmos. If there be no such forces, then God is the only efficience within the physical realm. No exception can be made in the case of human agency. It is true that man has greatly changed the face of the physical world, but he has no immediate power over material nature, and can work only through existing forces, which, on the present theory, are purely modes of the divine energizing. If this theory be true, then all the forces operative in the physical universe, and none the less so the forces through which man works, are the power of God. There is a profound distinction between a divine agency working through natural forces and a sole divine efficiency which determines all movement and change in the physical universe. So profoundly does the question of natural forces concern the doctrine of providence.

There is no unity of view on this question. Not a few deny all secondary causality and find in God the only efficient agency in material nature.^[324] Seemingly the present tendency of theistic speculation is toward this view. There is, however, no determining principle. The names given in the note represent widely different schools of religious thought, while among them are theologians, philosophers, and scientists. But others of the same schools hold just the opposite theory. It thus appears that neither theology nor philosophy nor science necessarily determines one’s view on this question. It is here that the treatment of providence is implicated with questions of physical science. This implication rather obscures than clears the question. Nothing is more loudly trumpeted than the very greats and recently very rapid, advancement of physical science. Its achievements are specially noteworthy. After all, the uncertainty and diversities of view on the question of physical forces deny us all light on the question of providence. Physical science within its own limit is purely empirical, and therefore cannot reach the secret of force. Reason imperatively affirms an adequate force for all the movements and changes in physical nature, but what that force is, whether intrinsic to matter, or extraneous and acting upon it, or purely of the divine energizing, empirical science cannot know. We think that the question is beyond the reach of metaphysics. It is not clear to our reason that physical nature is in itself, and under all collocations of material elements, utterly forceless.

^[324]“Dr. Samuel Clarke, Dugald Stewart, John Wesley, Nitzsch, Muller, Chalmers, Harris, Young, Whedon, Channing, Martineau, Hedge, Whewell, Bascom, Professor Tulloch, Sir John Herschel, the Duke of Argyll, Mr. Wallace, Proctor, Cocker, and many among the ablest recent writers have defended this view.” —McClintock and Strong:Cyclopaedia, art. “Providence.” The theory which denies all secondary causality in material nature, and finds in God the only agency operative in the physical realm, is known in philosophic speculation as Occasionalism. The principles were given in the philosophy of Des Cartes, but were more fully developed and applied by his followers. Primarily the doctrine was more directly applied to the bodily action of man. The mind could not act upon the body. A volition to move the arm was not the cause of its moving, but only the occasion on which the divine power determined its movement. In its broader application the doctrine denies all interaction between material bodies. No one can determine any change in another. The implication is the utter powerlessness of physical nature, and that all changes therein are from the divine agency.^{[325] [325]} Morell:History of Modern Philosophy, p. 120. This question is entirely above the plane of empirical science. Metaphysics cannot resolve it. The Scriptures are silent as to any decisive judgment, though seemingly against the doctrine. Yet the question is open to rational treatment in view of its contents. The doctrine is the utter forcelessness of physical nature, and that God is the only force operative therein. We think it open to weighty objections. We need not urge what others have urged, that it imposes an immense drudgery upon God. The force of this objection is only seeming. There can be no drudgery for that which cannot weary; hence there can be no drudgery for omnipotence. This occasionalism must not be allowed any office which the doctrine really denies it. The occasions are not only without all force, but are in no proper sense conditions of the divine agency. The two are merely coincident in time. Matter has no instrumental quality, and is really reduced to a blank. It must be denied all the qualities, primary as well as secondary, with which philosophy has been wont to invest it. With these properties it could not be forceless. Gravitation, cohesive attraction, chemical affinity, magnetism, electricity, without force in themselves, are simply coincident with the divine energizing. The lightning can have no part in riving the oak, the projected ball no part in breaching the wall, for any such part is possible only with the possession of force. The massive cables of steel which seemingly uphold the Brooklyn Bridge have no natural strength of support, but are the mere occasion of the divine energizing as the sustaining power, and for which, so far as any natural strength is concerned, threads of cotton might answer as well. Indeed, if this occasionalism be true, there is no natural weight of the bridge, which is possible only with a natural force of gravitation, and but for a mighty downward pressure of the divine hand there would be no weight to sustain. In the implications of this doctrine there is no natural fitness of physical conditions for vegetable production, none in organic structures for any function of animal life. The “tree planted by the rivers of water” has no natural advantage of growth and fruiting over the tree planted in the most arid and barren earth. The richest harvest might spring as readily from the sand of the desert as from the field of richest soil. The stomach has no more natural fitness for the digestion of food than the dish in which it is served. The system of nerves and ligaments and muscular tissue, so wonderfully wrought in the living body, has no natural fitness for animal movement. The structure of the eagle gives no natural strength for flight, while there is no reaction of the air against the stroke of his wings. All this must be true if there be no forces of nature. There is no proof of such a doctrine; and in the light of rational thought the extravagance of its implications is conclusive against it. The mystery of natural forces is no valid objection against their reality. We know not how they act. This, however, is no peculiar case, but a common fact respecting the operation of force, whatever its nature. How there can be interaction between material entities, or how gravitation can act across the spaces which separate the planets from the sun, we know not. Our own personal energizing through the will is specially distinct and clear in the light of our consciousness, but only as a fact. How we thus act is as hidden as the action of gravitation across such vast spaces. Surely we cannot know how God puts forth power. There is no profounder mystery than that the energizing of his will in the purely metaphysical form of volition should act as a ruling force in the physical universe. We escape no mystery by denying all natural force and finding in God the only agency operative in the material realm.

It is a weighty objection to this occasionalism that it leads to idealism and pantheism. As a forceless world can have no effect upon our experiences, for us it can have no reality. “The outer world is posited by us only as the explanation of our inner experiences; and as, by hypothesis, the outer world does not affect us, there is no longer any rational ground for affirming it.”^[326] The logical result is idealism. “In this one affirmation, that the universe depends upon the productive power of God not only for its first existence, but equally so for its continued being and operation, there is involved the germ of the several doctrines of pre-established harmony, of occasional causes, of our seeing all things in God, and, finally, of pantheism itself, the ultimate point to which they all tend.”^{[327] [326]} Bowne:Metaphysics, p. 116.

^[327]Morell:History of Modern Philosophy, p. 120.

4. Providence in the Orderly Forms of Matter.—The reality of physical forces does not mean their sufficiency for either the origin or the on-going of the cosmos. There is still an ample sphere for the divine agency in supporting these forces, and in determining the collocations of material elements which are the necessary condition of their orderly efficiency. A true doctrine of providence must accord with such facts—the reality of natural forces, and their dependence upon God for their orderly working. Hence, as previously noted, the true doctrine must widely differ from any one constructed on the assumption of an utter forcelessness of physical nature. For the true doctrine we shall appropriate the statement of a recent excellent work. It contains a few words seemingly not in full accord with our own views, but is so good as a whole that we omit all exceptions. “The theory which seems most consistent with all we know of God and nature is that which supposes the Creator to have constituted the world with certain qualities, attributes, or tendencies, by which one part has a causal influence on another, and one state or combination of parts produces another, according to what we call laws of nature, the result being the co-ordination and succession of events which we call the operations of nature. At the same time all nature is pervaded by the living presence of God, sustaining the being and operations of the world he has made and governs, retaining a supreme control which may at any point supersede or vary the usual course of natural causation. Ordinarily he neither sets aside the causal qualities of nature nor leaves them to themselves. This is the reconciliation, if any were needed, of the primary and secondary causes. God is immanent in natural causation, as truly and necessarily as in natural being, in the operations as in the existence of matter or mind.”^{[328] [328]} Randles:First Principles of Faith, pp. 232, 233.

Any inference from the uniformity of nature against a providential agency within the sphere of physical forces is utterly groundless. The two are not only entirely consistent, but the latter is the only rational account of the former. The denial of such consistency must either assume an absolute uniformity of nature as the determination of physical forces which leaves no place for the divine agency, or that such agency must be capricious and the cause of disorder. There is no ground for either assumption. If the processes of nature are wholly from the energizing of a blind and purposeless force, there is no guarantee of an absolute uniformity. For aught we know there may have been great variations in the past, and the near future may bring an utter reversion of the present order of things. We could know the contrary only by a perfect knowledge of the blind and purposeless nature assumed to determine the order of existences, which is for us an impossible attainment. “Whether the members of the system will always continue, or whether they will instantaneously or successively disappear, are questions which lie beyond all knowledge. We do not know what direction the future will take in any respect whatever. The facts in all these cases depend upon the plan or nature of the infinite; and unless we can get an insight into this plan or nature, our knowledge of both past and future must be purely hypothetical.”^{[329] [329]} Bowne:Metaphysics, p. 139.

Such result is inevitable if the infinite or ground of the finite is assumed to be a blind and purposeless nature. There is no a priori necessity of uniformity in the working of such a nature. When Mr. J. S. Mill says, “I am convinced that any one accustomed to abstraction and analysis, who will fairly exert his faculties for the purpose, will, when his imagination has once learned to entertain the notion, find no difficulty in conceiving that in some one, for instance, of the many firmaments into which sidereal astronomy now divides the universe events may succeed one another at random, without any fixed law,”^[330] he fully admits that the orderly course of nature is no necessity of physical causality, and hence that such order is entirely consistent with the agency of a divine providence. When by such a putting of the question Mill would unsettle the law of causation, that every event must have an adequate cause, he utterly fails. In the necessity of thought the movement of worlds at random, or without any fixed law, would no less imperatively require a cause than the movement of worlds in the order of a system. However, the axiomatic truth of causation is only a formal truth, valid for all events but without the determination of any, while events themselves, with their respective causes, are matters of empirical or logical knowledge. It remains true that there is no absolute uniformity of nature which must exclude the agency of a divine providence.

^[330]Logic, book iii, chap, xxi, sec. 1. In the light of reason, as in the sense of Scripture, the providence of God is the ground and guarantee of the uniformities which the system of nature requires. The requirement is specially for the adjustment of the physical sphere to the living and rational spheres. The physical, however complete its mechanical order, has no rational end in itself, and must find such an end in the interest of sentient and rational life. “There only, where the possession, the preservation of being is felt, can existence be considered as a good, and consequently as an end to which a system of means is subordinated. What does it really matter to a crystal to be or not to be? What does it matter to it whether it have eight angles in place of twelve, or be organized geometrically rather than in any other way? Existence having no value for it, why should nature have taken means to secure it? Why should it have been at the expense of a plan and a system of combinations to produce a result without value to any one, at least in the absence of living beings? So, again, however beautiful the sidereal and planetary order may be, what matters this beauty, this order, to the stars themselves that know nothing of it? And if you say that this fair order was constructed to be admired by men, or that God might therein contemplate his glory, it is evident that an end can only be given to these objects by going out of themselves, by passing them by, and rising above their proper sphere.”^[331] As in the plan of God the physical system was constituted as preparatory to the coming of sentient and rational existences, so its orderly preservation is for their sake. “Physical and mechanical things being in a general manner connected with finality by their relation to living beings, we conceive that there may thus be in the inorganic world a general interest of order and stability conditions of security for the living beings.”^[332] With such an original purpose in the constitution of the physical system, there is a manifest reason for the providence of God in its orderly conservation.

^[331]Janet:Final Causes, pp. 156, 157.

^[332]Janet:Final Causes, p. 159.

Thus the providence of God, so far from being in any contrariety to the orderly course of nature, is in fact the ground of its uniformities. The contrary view arises from the false notion that a divine agency within the course of nature must be capricious and disorderly. Nothing could be more irrational. Nothing could be more utterly groundless than any inference from the orderly course of nature that there can be no providential agency therein. “For when men find themselves necessitated to confess an Author of nature, or that God is the natural Governor of the world, they must not deny this again, because his government is uniform; they must not deny that he does all things at all, because he does them constantly; because the effects of his acts are permanent, whether his acting be so or not; though there is no reason to think it is not.”^[333] We may add the noble words of Hooker, as replete with the same ideas: “Now, if nature should intermit her course, and leave altogether, though it were but for a while, the observation of her own laws—if those principal and mother elements, whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which they now have—if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should loose and dissolve itself—if celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions, and, by irregular volubility, turn themselves any way as it might happen—if the prince of the lights of heaven, which now as a giant doth run his unwearied course, should, as it were, through a languishing faintness, begin to stand still and rest himself—if the moon should wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons blend themselves by disorder and confused mixture, the winds breathe out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine away as children at the withered breast of their mother, no longer able to yield them relief—what would become of man himself, whom these things do now all serve ?”^[334] All such dissolutions in the physical system would be utterly indifferent but for the interest of sentient and rational existences; and God, who constituted that system for the sake of such existences as its finality, ever maintains its uniformities in their interest. This is the work of his providence in the conservation of the orderly forms of matter.

^[333]Butler:Analogy, part i, chap. ii.

^[334]Hooker: Works (Oxford ed., 1793), vol. i, pp. 204, 205.