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What then is left for Carlyle's Creed? Logically little, emotionally much. If it must be defined, it was that of a Theist with a difference. A spirit of flame from the empyrean, he found no food in the cold Deism of the eighteenth century, and brought down the marble image from its pedestal, as by the music of the "Winter's Tale," to live among men and inspire them.
It is not true, that, as a Theist, I evade the objections urged by real atheists or sceptics; on the contrary, I try to search them to the very bottom.
In the beginning he regarded himself as a Theist and felt compelled "to look to a First Cause, having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man."
Professor Huxley says that he deliberately adopted it because, "When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist, or an idealist, a Christian, or a freethinker, I found that the more I learned and reflected the less ready was the answer, until at last I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations except the last.... So I took thought and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic." And he goes on to explain that the term was used as antithetical to the "gnostic" of Church history who knew all about things of which Huxley felt himself in ignorance.
Neither the physical nor the hyperphysical actions, however, exclude the idea of the Divine concurrence, and with every consistent theist that idea is necessarily included. Dr. Asa Gray has given expression to this. He says, "Agreeing that plants and animals were produced by Omnipotent fiat, does not exclude the idea of natural order and what we call secondary causes.
Since the visit of Rammohun Roy, the Indian reformer, in 1833, the English in particular have developed kindly relations with the Indian theist movement, and students from India and Japan are regularly educated at Oxford for the ministry of free religion in their own countries.
What the theist does at every step of his reasoning is to read his own feelings and desires into nature. The design he talks so glibly about is in him, not outside of him. As well might a maggot in a cheese argue that the world was designed for him because the agreement between his structure and it are so harmonious. In relation to their surroundings man and the maggot are in the same position.
Man is a theist, before he becomes a Christian. Theism is a universal intuition, ready to assert itself in practice wherever it is not prevented by an evil will from its normal manifestation. But, because man is in an abnormal condition, this normal action of his powers can be restored only by the Holy Spirit.
On the other hand, the theist, by conceding the error and contesting the truth of the sceptic, has inextricably entangled himself in the toils of the adversary. The only remaining question which the sceptic has to ask is, that since God might have prevented moral evil by the creation of no beings who he foresaw would sin, why did he create such beings?
Imagine it to end this very moment, and to have no future; and then let a theist and a materialist apply their rival explanations to its history. The theist shows how a God made it; the materialist shows, and we will suppose with equal success, how it resulted from blind physical forces. Then let the pragmatist be asked to choose between their theories.
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