Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 31:123 (Jul 1874)
Article: The Natural Foundations Of Theology
Author: Thomas Hill

BSac 31:123 (July 1874) p. 436

The Natural Foundations Of Theology

Thomas Hill

The realm of truth extends indefinitely, probably infinitely, in all directions. We see in part, and we are not able to state, in verbal propositions, even the whole of that which we see. At a scientific meeting in Baltimore, Peirce demonstrated that it would take an able mathematician two hundred thousand million years to make ti preliminary examination of a series of plane curves which he had pointed out. These were curves of the simplest laws; add the more complicated; take also those revealed by different methods of investigation; add those which are not confined to one plane; pass then to the laws of surfaces and solids, and it is evident that in geometry, the simplest of possible sciences, there is an opportunity for eternal occupation and delight to an intelligent spirit. The other departments of mathematics, algebra and arithmetic, are equally boundless in resources. The physical sciences, the historical group, the domains of psychology and metaphysics, and our gropings after ontology and theology, remain yet to shew us what infinite resources there are for intellectual occupation in the coming cycles of eternity. And all this truth which to eternity may be giving by its discovery fresh pleasures to the expanding mind, has been from eternity known to God. His knowledge embraces not only all the real, past and future, but all the possible, and all the impossible. To se£ the truth is to see as he sees it, — truth is conformity to his thought.

It is sometimes said that men cannot see truth, their views must inevitably be not only limited, but obscure, and therefore doubly erroneous. But this is a rhetorical overstatement, which, strictly interpreted, would deny its own

BSac 31:123 (July 1874) p. 437

truth; no human statement can be made which does not imply the speakers belief in its truth, and consequent belief that he sees truth. As far as man sees at all, he sees truth; and the addition of infinite knowledge would not destroy the truth already seen. God’s thoughts embrace ours, but ours do not embrace his. Whatever the human intellect discovers in the relations of space and time, in the harmonies of the physical creation, or in the laws of its own thought, was known from eternity to the Creator; and it is a simple confusion of thought to object that this statement is anthropo-morphitic. Man is made in the image of God, — that is not saying that God is in the image of man.

In this infinite realm of truth there are ideas which affect us profoundly, without being consciously understood. Even the simple truths of geometry may thus address us. An artist may draw a beautiful form, an ellipse or spiral for example, from his sense of beauty, without any intellectu...