01.015. SPECIAL STUDY ON THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

SPECIAL STUDY ON THE EXISTENCE OF GOD In the last two or three decades proofs of the priority and sovereignty of Spirit (Universal Mind, Intelligence, Logos, Reason, etc.) have been multiplied by discoveries in the fields of both the physical and the psychical sciences. Among the more significant of these are the following:

1.    The basically mathematical structure of the cosmic processes.

Examples: (1) The mathematical precision of celestial movements, not only of the bodies which comprise our own solar system, but of the galaxies as well which go to make up the cosmos as a whole: this preciseness is such that for purposes of dating, any one of these heavenly bodies may be taken as the mathematical center (frame of reference); such that the movements of all of them (as, e. g., eclipses, comets, etc.) can be accurately dated as far back into the past or as far forward into the future as the human mind may care to reach in its calculations. When a celestial event fails to take place as “predicted” by an astronomer, what is the astronomer’s reaction? He does not for one moment question the objective precision of the celestial motions; on the contrary, he begins looking for the error subjectively. that is, in his own calculations. (2) The differentiation of the physical elements on the basis of the number of protons in their respective atomic nuclei and corresponding number of electrons in their respective orbits (from one proton and one electron in the hydrogen atom, up to 92 protons and 92 electrons in the uranium atom); hence, the periodic table of the elements. (3) The differentiation of minerals according to their respective basic geometrical patterns (crystalline forms) such that the plane surfaces become the external expression of the definite internal structure in each case; hence the science of crystallography. (4) The varying arrangements of atoms and molecules in space, in such a manner as to make possible identification and classification of both molecules and compounds, as depicted in stereotypic chemistry. (5) The differentiation of living species generally according to the number of chromosomes in the reproductive cells of the male and female (in the human species, 23 in the male sperm and 23 in the female ovum): the process by which the mystery of heredity is effectuated. (6) The now known possibility of the actual reduction of certain sensory data, such as color and sound, usually described as qualitative, to mathematical quantities. Color sensations are known to be produced by the impingement of refracted light waves of specified different lengths (or of quanta of different frequencies) upon the retina of the eye; sensations of sound by the impingement upon the ear, of auditory stimuli in the form of sound waves traveling at various vibration rates by way of a medium, usually the air. Music has its basis, of course, in the mathematics of sound, a fact discovered by Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C. (Pythagoras is traditionally credited with having coined the phrase, “the music of the spheres.”) To summarize: The mathematical structure of the cosmos points directly to a Universal Intelligence, Mind or Spirit as its source and ground. Pythagoras said: “Things are numbers.” Galileo: “Nature’s great book is written in mathematical symbols.” Plato: “God ever geometrizes.” Einstein: “How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought independent of experience, is so admirably adapted to the objects of reality?” Sir James Jeans: “The Great Architect of the universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician.” “The universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.” “We may think of . . . the laws of nature as the laws of thought of a universal mind. The uniformity of nature proclaims the self-consistency of this mind. . . . If the universe is a universe of thought, then its creation must have been an act of thought” (See Jeans, This Mysterious Universe, New Revised Edition, 1943, pp. 158, 168, 175, 181, 182). As a matter of fact, in our day matter, in its ultimate constituency, is found to be metaphysical rather than physical: this is obvious from the fact that its processes are apprehended, not by sense-perception, nor even by sense-perception implemented by the microscope, but by means of mathematical formulas.

2. The principle of the adaptation of means to ends—a principle which characterizes the cosmos throughout: the inorganic to the organic, the organic to the conscious, the conscious to the self-conscious, the self-conscious (personal) to the moral and spiritual, etc. Note the following obviously necessary relationships which prevail in the cosmos: that of radiant energy to other forms of energy; that of the inter-relationships (possible transmutations) of all forms of energy (lose mass and gain energy, lose energy and gain mass); that of light and atmosphere to plant photosynthesis and animal life (plant life is dependent on carbon dioxide, animal life on oxygen); that of photosynthesis to all higher organic life (Genesis 1:30—animal life is dependent on plant photosynthesis); that of the physiological and psychological processes in man, as he is now constituted, etc. Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:46-49—in the Plan of God, the natural or physical life is the necessary prelude (probationary period) to the spiritual and eternal life. Man must live here before he can hope to live hereafter. (Revelation 22:1—note the metaphor, “river of water of life.”)

3. The fact of the adaptation of nature to man and his needs. The distinguished scientist, A. Cressy Morrison, makes this fact the thesis of his excellent little book, Man Does Not Stand Alone (written in reply to the book by Julian Huxley, Man Stands Alone). Throughout the last century, he contends, we have thought so generally in terms of the visible adapting of man to nature that we have been inclined to overlook the less visible but no less obvious and amazing adaptation of nature to man. Morrison’s thesis is, in general, that the wonders of nature and man, and the existence of life itself, can be shown by calculation (the statistics of probability and chance) to be impossible without a Supreme Intelligence and a definite purpose, that purpose being ultimately the preparation of the human soul for immortality. “We have found,” he says, that there are 999,999,999 chances to one against a belief that all things happen by chance” (p. 100). Again: “My purpose in this discussion of chance is to bring forcefully to the attention of the reader the fact that . . . all the nearly exact requirements of life could not be brought about on one planet at one time by chance. The size of the earth, the distance from the sun, the temperature and the life-giving rays of the sun, the thickness of the earth’s crust, the quantity of water, the amount of carbon dioxide, the volume of nitrogen, the emergence of man and his survival—all point to order out of chaos, to design and purpose, and to the fact that, according to the inexorable laws of mathematics, all these could not occur by chance simultaneously on one planet once in a billion times” (pp. 99–100). Again: “As man approaches a complete understanding of time, he also approaches an understanding of some of the eternal laws of the universe and an apprehension of the Supreme Intelligence” (p. 87). The fact is that apart from man as lord tenant of the earth (God’s steward) there would be no earthly reason for the existence of any of the sub-personal species (cf. Genesis 1:27-31; Genesis 8:15-17; Psalms 104:14; Psalms 136:25, etc.).

4. The marvelous design of the human organism as a psychosomatic unity. The body is built up hierarchically, that is, in an ascending order of complexity, from cells into tissues into organs, from organs into systems, and from systems into the organism. Personality, in like manner, is a hierarchical structure, again in an ascending order of complexity, or reflexes, habits, dispositions, traits, and finally the self. There is no alchemy of wishful thinking by which psychology can be reduced wholly to physiology, that is, the higher thought processes to neurosensory arcs, etc. The human being as now constituted is a psychosomatic unity; interaction of the physical and mental, even though the mode of this interaction remains inscrutable, is a matter of everyday human experience. (Cf. Genesis 1:27; Genesis 2:7; 1 Corinthians 15:35-49; 2 Corinthians 5:1; 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; Psalms 139:4.) (Cf. the quip of the “man of medicine,” so oft recurrent in literature, the boast that if he had had the task of creating the human body he could have done a better job than, in his opinion, was done. As a matter of fact, no human being as yet has succeeded in creating a living cell, much less an entire body vitalized with rational life. Nor has any man ever been able to synthesize a living cell in the laboratory, and even if man should succeed in doing this some day, the achievement would leave unanswered the question as to what or who created the first living cell, an event which must have long antedated man’s appearance on the earth. Any purveyor of the above-mentioned bit of smart-Aleckism would show about as much consistency as the chap (whom H. L. Mencken tells about) who burst forth on occasion exclaiming, “I am an atheist—thank God!”).

5. The fact of the Will to Live which permeates the whole animate creation: the natural tendency of all living creatures to resist extinction. Consider also, in this connection, the rhythmicity which pervades the cosmos: the alternation of day and night, of seedtime and harvest, of spring and summer and fall and winter (Genesis 8:22); the varying life cycles of natural species—of the human being, childhood, youth, maturity, senescence, and finally the “eventide”; the play of opposites, especially of life and death, etc. It will be recalled that one of the Platonic (Socratic) arguments for survival is that which is based on the alternation of opposites: contrary states, argued Socrates, pass into each other, and therefore death must pass into its opposite, life (Phaedo, 70–71). The Will to Live is evident in every aspect of the upward surge of life, from the process of segmentation (“protoplasmic irritability”) in the lowliest cell up to the multiplex psychosomatic unity known as man. No evolution hypothesis even pretends to account for this life movement. To summarize: Order is nature’s first law. We must conclude, therefore, that before this world could have existed in fact it must have been planned, designed and created by the Supreme Architect whom we know as God. His handiwork is evident everywhere in it; His footprints are everywhere upon it; His Spirit is the inexhaustible source of every form of energy by which it is conserved (Psalms 102:25 ff; Psalms 119:90-91; Psalms 19:1; Job 38:1; Job 38:4; Hebrews 1:10).

6. Conclusions drawn from contemporary research into the phenomena of the Subconscious. (1) There is no more generally accepted fact in present-day psychology than that of the unbroken continuity of the psychic process on the subliminal level. The total content of the psyche is at any given time far more comprehensive than the content of consciousness at the particular time. (2) Intimations of the powers of the inner self which has been opened to view by psychic research are found in two of the most common facts of human experience, namely, the subconscious association of ideas and the subconscious maturing of thought, as illustrated in the sudden appearing, in a dream or in a dreamlike moment of waking, of the solution of a problem which has been vexing the mind in the hours of objective awareness and reasoning. (3) Students of psychic phenomena describe the human psyche (“inward man,” 2 Corinthians 4:16, Romans 7:22, Ephesians 3:16), as a house, so to speak, with two rooms in it: a front room which faces the external world and through which impressions from that world make their entrance by way of the physical senses; and a back room in which the impressions which have entered by way of the front room find a permanent abiding-place. This front room is commonly designated the objective (conscious, supraliminal) part of the self, or simply the “objective mind”; this back room, the subjective (subconscious, subliminal) part of the self, or simply the “subjective mind.” It is to this room that we refer when we speak of the Subconscious in man. The objective takes cognizance of the external world; its media of knowledge are the physical senses; it is an adaptation to man’s physical needs, his guide in adjusting to his present earthly environment. Its highest function is that of reason. The subjective, on the other hand, takes cognizance of its environment by means independent of physical sense; it perceives by intuition; it is the storehouse of memory; it performs its highest functions when the objective processes are in abeyance (that is, in natural or in induced sleep: the latter is hypnosis); it is especially amenable to suggestion. This subliminal part of the “inner man” seems to be unlimited by objective concepts of distance, space and time (one can go back into childhood, or travel throughout the cosmos, in a dream): it functions effectively outside the space-time dimension. It has all the appearance of a distinct entity, with independent powers and functions, having a psychical order of its own, and being capable of functioning independently of the corporeal body. It is in a sense the very core of the human being. It probably is, in its ultimate aspect, the ontological self, the essential and imperishable being of the human individual; that is, as the objective powers of the psyche may rightly be correlated with what we call “mind,” so the subjective may rightly be correlated with what we call “spirit,” in man. (Cf. Genesis 2:7, Job 32:8).

(4) Hypnosis is a common occurrence: it is used in medical and dental surgery, and even in childbirth. Catalepsy is a state of deep hypnosis in which the patient is rendered insensible to fleshly pain. Cf. hibernation in animals and suspended animation in human beings.) (5) phenomena of the Subconscious which indicate the human spirit’s transcendence of the space-time dimension are telepathy (communication of thought and feeling from one person to another without the mediation of the physical senses), clairvoyance (the power to see physical objects or events apart from the medium of physical sense), and prescience (foreknowledge of events in time). These are the phenomena included under the term Extrasensory Perception. These phenomena are being studied scientifically in various colleges and universities in our day, notably by Dr. J. B. Rhine and his colleagues in the Department of Parapsychology at Duke University. Dr. Rhine affirms that the prevalence of such phenomena has been established beyond all reasonable doubt, and established, moreover, not by hearsay, but by strict mathematical or statistical procedures and norms which rule out the possibility of chance production. Even though materialistic scientists may continue to doubt these conclusions, he says, largely because they do not want to accept any finding that tends to undermine their own cherished predilections, still and all they have not, and indeed cannot, question the mathematical accuracy of his methods. (See J. B. Rhine, The Reach of the Mind, and his latest work, The New World of the Mind.) Certainly such phenomena as telepathy and clairvoyance support the Biblical doctrines of inspiration and revelation: if human spirit can communicate with human spirit without the use of physical media, surely the Divine Spirit can in like manner communicate truth to the human spirit (Acts 2:4, 1 Corinthians 2:10-13, Matthew 16:16-17, John 16:13-14, Matthew 10:19-20). The phenomenon of prescience, of course, supports the claim of prophetic insight and prophetic transcendence of time that is characteristic of revealed religion. (6) Phenomena of the Subconscious which point up the human spirit’s apparently unlimited power of knowing are perfect memory, and perfect perception of the fixed (mathematical) laws of nature, Thus the perfect memory of the Subconscious provides a scientific basis for the doctrine of future rewards and punishments. Who knows but that perfect memory, by which the self preserves the records of its own deeds, both good and evil, may prove to be “the worm that never dies,” and conscience (that is, unforgiven, guilty conscience) “the fire that is never quenched”? (Cf. Revelation 20:11-15, Mark 9:43-48). Again, the perfect perception, by the Subconscious, of the fixed laws of nature, supports the view that Life Everlasting will not be a matter of stretched-out time, but essentially an illumination or fullness of knowledge, that is, intuitive apprehension of eternal Truth, Beauty and Goodness: in a word, eternal life will be wholeness or holiness—the union of the human mind with the mind of God in knowledge, and of the human will with the will of God in love. This will be the Summum Bonum, the Beatific Vision (1 Corinthians 13:12, 1 John 3:1-3). (In the life we now live this phenomenon of perfect perception manifests itself in mathematical prodigies, musical prodigies (perfect pitch), photographic memory, and the various aspects and fruits of what we call creative imagination.) (7) Phenomena of the Subconscious which support the view that spirit is pre-eminent over body are those which are exhibited in cases of suggestion and auto-suggestion. These phenomena remind us that all men are endowed by the Creator with psychic powers designed to be of great value to them in maintaining physical and mental health, if they will but utilize these powers as they should. It is still just as true as ever that as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is (Proverbs 23:7): this fundamental truth is the basis of what is known in our day as psychosomatic medicine. (See the great work by H. Bernheim, suggestive Therapeutics, recently republished by the London Book Company, 30–41 Fiftieth Street, Woodside, New York.) (8) Phenomena such as psychokinesis (PK), levitation, automatic writing, the projection of ectoplasms and phantasms, and the like, seem to indicate that the thought of the Subconscious has the power to transmute itself into what we call “physical” energy and thus to produce “physical” phenomena. Psychokinesis (or telekinesis) is that phenomenon in which ponderable objects are influenced, and even moved, by thought energy alone. Dr. Rhine and his associates have long been experimenting in this field and claim to have obtained positive results. In automatic writing the Subconscious assumes control of the nerves and muscles of the arm and hand and propels the pencil. Levitation is not, as often defined, the illusion that a heavy body is suspended in the air without visible support: it is alleged by students of psychic phenomena to be the real thing, produced by subconscious thought power. Ectoplasm is defined by Hamlin Garland as an elementary substance that is given off by the human body, at the command of the Subconscious, in varying degrees. He conceives it to be ideoplastic, that is, capable of being moulded, by the subjective thought power either of the psychic or of the sitter, in various shapes. To quote the distinguished physicist, Dr. Millikan: “To admit telekinesis and the formation of ectoplasmic phantasms is not to destroy the smallest fragment of science—it is but to admit new data, to recognize that here are unknown energies. Materialization does not contradict one established fact: it merely adds new facts” quoted by Garland, Forty Years of Psychic Research, pp. 379–380). Phantasms are described as thought projections of the Subconscious, that is, ethereal reconstructions of matter by the power of thought. They may be called “embodied thoughts,” we are told, even as man may properly be called the embodied thought of God. Truly, then, thoughts are things. (It should be made clear at this point that these phenomena are not to be identified with aspects of what is known in Scripture as necromancy, such as, for example, alleged communication of the living with the dead. All forms of sorcery, conjuration, necromancy, etc., are strictly condemned in both the Old and New Testaments: see Exodus 22:18; Leviticus 19:26; Leviticus 19:21; Leviticus 20:6; Deuteronomy 18:10-12; Revelation 21:8; Revelation 22:15, etc.). (9) All such phenomena as psychokinesis, levitation, ectoplasms, phantasms, etc., serve to support the view of the primacy of mind or thought in the totality of being. In the possession and use of these powers of thought energy, thought projection, and thought materialization, man, it is contended, reveals the spark of the Infinite that is in him, and thus himself gives evidence of having been created in the image of God. For, is not the cosmos itself, according to Biblical teaching, a constitution of the Divine Will, a projection of the Divine Spirit, an embodiment of the Divine Thought as expressed by the Divine Word? Cf. Genesis 1:1-31, Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Hebrews 11:3). Biblical teaching is simply that the Will of God, as expressed by His Word, and actualized by His Spirit, is the Constitution (that which constitutes) of our universe, both physical and moral. (10) To summarize: It will thus be seen from the material presented in the foregoing paragraphs, that the phenomena of the Subconscious all go to prove the independence, transcendence, and imperishability of the essential human person, and therefore support the spiritualistic (as against the materialistic) view of man’s origin, nature, and destiny. They confirm the fact that the primacy of spirit in man, and, on the basis of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (that that which begins to exist must have an adequate cause) they support our conviction of the priority and sovereignty of the Divine Spirit in whose image man is created. John 4:24—said Jesus, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (For those who wish to pursue this study of the Subconscious further, the following books are recommended in addition to those already cited above): F. W. H. Myers, The Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death, 2 vols., Longmans, Green and Company, New York; Hereward Carrington, The Story of Psychic Science, published by Ives Washburn, New York; Hamlin Garland, Forty Years of Psychic Research, Macmillan, New York. Also The Law of Psychic Phenomena, by Dr. T. J. Hudson, the 32nd edition of which was published in 1909. Some of these works are now out of print, but copies are usually available at second-hand bookstores. For out-of-print books, write the London Book Company, Woodside, New York, or Basil Blackwell, Broad Street, Oxford, England.)