IV
In conclusion we may attempt to speak in a brief way of the present
relationship between the Creator and the things which He has made, and
if possible to dispel the sad confusion prevailing in many minds between
God's continued immediate action in certain departments of nature and
His action in other departments through the intermediate use of second
causes.
On every hand we hear proclaimed a form of the doctrine of God's
omnipresence (usually called the divine "immanence") which not only
denies all distinction between the original Creation and the present
perpetuation of the world, but a form which practically denies all
second causes, and which cannot well be distinguished from pantheism,
though it would be a spiritualistic or "idealistic" form of pantheism,
or "monism," to use the favorite modern term. These extreme advocates of
what they term the divine "immanence" go so far as to deny all second
causes. And while they are fond of proclaiming this idea as an entirely
new discovery, and proclaiming it with all the enthusiasm of proselytes
to a new religion, they are also prone to state the (seemingly) opposed
doctrine of second causes in such a way that it amounts to a mere
caricature, a burlesque, picturing a sort of "absentee" God, who started
the universe running and now merely stands by and watches it go.
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