heism does not acknowledge.
But not only is the universe not personal; this god of Pantheism is not
ethical either. This "totality" is neither good nor bad, but made up
indifferently of all manner of components, and according to Pantheism
all of them--the evil as much as the good--are {48} necessary to the
perfection of the whole. Thus the pantheist's god has no moral
complexion, and such a god is of no use to us. So far as religion is
concerned, he--or it--might just as well be non-existent as non-moral.
The only Deity whom we can _worship_ is One who stands above the
world's confusion, its Moral Governor and Righteous Judge.
But Pantheism identifies not only God with the universe, but ourselves
with God. Now if this view is accepted, if there is no real dividing
line between man and God, then we can only once more point out that we
have no personality either; we are mere fragmentary expressions of
God's life, without selfhood or self-determination, no more responsible
for our acts than a violin for the tune that is played on it. Mr.
Picton, speaking with authority, tells us that "to the true pantheist"
man is "but a finite mode of infinite Being"; that human personality is
only "seeming" [4] and that, from the pantheistic standpoint, the self
must be "content to be nothing." That is to say that the consistent
pantheist must be a consistent determinist. Logical Pantheism rules
out the possibility of sin against man or God--"for who withstandeth
His will," seeing that He is the only real Existence? Let a further
quotation make this plain. "What," asks Mr. Picton, "are we to say of
bad men, the vile, the base, the liar, the murderer? Are they {49}
also in God and of God? . . . _Yes, they are_." [5] And this amazing
conclusion--amazing, though involved in his fundamental outlook--is
sought to be defended on the ground that we have "no adequate idea" "of
the part played by bad men in the Divine Whole"! In other words, the
pantheist god expresses himself in a St. Francis, but he also does so
in a King Leopold; he is manifested in General Booth and in Alexander
Borgia; Jesus Christ is a phase of his being, and so is Judas Iscariot.
A sentimental Pantheism may say that God is that in a hero which nerves
him to heroism, and that in a mother which prompts her self-sacrifice
for her children, for there is none else. But that is only one-half of
the truth; arguing from the same premises, we must also say that God
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