as Messiah. The one has reference to the highest relationship that the Messiah could bear to man; the other tells of the highest relationship He could bear to God. The term Messiah emphasized the task. These self-designations laid accent upon Himself as the One who in His deepest consciousness realized that He was to establish the kingdom of heaven upon earth, in which God is related to men as Father and men are related to God as Sons.

Whence came these Messianic conceptions so much larger and richer than those of His contemporaries? From His own inner consciousness. How came He to this consciousness of the unique character of His relation to the Father and His brethren? Certainly it was not accidental. Certainly there is no analogy in history; not even among the Old Testament prophets. Certainly it could be not evolved out of the conditions existing in Palestine in Jesus' day. How He came to this consciousness of His power and His obligation to the Father and to His brethren will always remain His own secret. It is the great mystery of God. Kaftan sums it all up by saying that only one conclusion is possible, viz., “that in His most unique personality Jesus was not a child of His times. This inner consciousness of Jesus, in which we must look for the origin of the Gospel, centered in His relation to the Father, between whom and man He became the Mediator. In one word, the mystery of the life of Jesus in God, which was known only to Him and to the Father, has become for us all the source of our knowledge of God."

IV.

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD AND HIS INTERVENTION IN THE EXTERNAL WORLD.

BY REV. HIRAM KING, A.M.

It is the purpose of this paper to invalidate the premise of the enemies of Christianity who draw the conclusion from the present non-intervention of God in the world's external affairs, not only that the Bible accounts of His former interventions are untrue, but also that belief in His existence itself is unwarranted.

The general subject will be discussed under the headings of: (1) Natural revelation in relation to the existence of God, (2) direct revelation in the first creation and (3) direct revelation in the new creation.

1. Natural Revelation in Relation to the Existence of God. -The a posteriori argument for the existence of God must, in the nature of the case, remain inconclusive from the standpoint of materialism. Thus if cosmogeny was but the selfevolution of the universe from self-existing matter, as the materialist maintains, it is perfectly plain that the existence of a supreme being can not be proven from nature. Or, conversely, if cosmical effects are to be retraced by inductive reasoning, not to a First Cause, but to primal atoms, then clearly is nature synonymous with fate, and necessary sequence must be substituted, absolutely, for causation and design in the philosophy of nature.

As, however, the self-existence of the First Cause can not be accounted for on rational grounds any more than can the alleged self-existence of primal atoms be thus accounted for, it follows that the argument by induction for the being of God is not really conclusive from the standpoint of theism. itself. Indeed, the assumption in the inductive argument that

the knowledge of God's existence is communicated to men by human teachers is, wholly, without the warrant of fact. Thus, to the contrary, St. Paul "set forth " to the "men of Athens " only the nature, the attributes and the will of God (Acts 17: 24-31), their prior knowledge of His existence being implied in the dedicatory inscription on an altar which he had found on the way to Mar's Hill (ver. 23). It is, in fact, not in natural philosophy at all, but in natural theology that the origin of man's religious creed is to be accounted for. Natural theology, moreover, is not based on nature but on psychology, and it receives its primary inspiration, not from mental conclusions, but through mental intuitions. It is indeed on the mental intuitions that the consciousness itself (the medium of knowledge) is primarily based, since the intuitive reason is the mental equipment of the entire sub-conscious being.

It is, accordingly, the intuitive faculty and not the reasoning faculty that is functional for primary cognition, alike in the world-consciousness, the self-consciousness and the Godconsciousness, since these psychological distinctions are really the specific forms of the general consciousness itself which, in their sum total, they constitute. As man is thus (in the three forms of the consciousness) in accessible relation to the sources of universal knowledge, it follows that all knowledge, whatever, is primarily conditioned on intuitive cognition. As, furthermore, the functions of the mental intuitions are necessarily performed prior to the exercise of mental discrimination, it is plain that man's knowledge by intuition is not, in the least, conditioned on his active agency, but that it comes, as a flash, out of mental chaos into the consciousness from below the domain of thought altogether. And as, finally, the intuitive reason is thus functional without conscious mental action, it is established beyond controversy that intuitive cognition is not only involuntary, but that it is also inevitable. Can intuitive knowledge, however, be clearly distinguished from knowledge by mental discrimination and thus be veri

fied? Yes. Thus it is true everywhere that the knowledge of qualities is not coincident with the cognition of objects. The existence of things is known, in fact, prior to thought, but their qualities become known only by reflection. It is, therefore, the knowledge simply of the existence of objects that is intuitive. Thus, for example, in the sphere of the world-consciousness, the eye falls on a tree and the tree becomes an object of knowledge instantaneously with vision itself. But then the species and girth and height and consistency of the tree can be ascertained only by subsequent discrimination, measurement and analysis. It is, therefore, the knowledge of the existence of the tree, in clear distinction from its qualities, that is intuitive. So also in the sphere of the self-consciousness, man is in cognizable relation to himself and is an object of knowledge. As, however, a knowledge of the personal qualities can be obtained only through the mental, moral and physical sciences, it is quite plain that it is here also the knowledge of the existence that is intuitive. It has now been made to appear: (1) That intuitive knowledge is instantaneous with mental challenge; (2) that it is involuntary; (3) that it is inevitable; (4) that it is limited to the existence of its object. Intuitive knowledge has, moreover, been found exemplified in the spheres, respectively, of the world-consciousness and the self-consciousness. Can it be found exemplified also in the sphere of the God-consciousness? Yes. Thus God is cognizable to man in the God-consciousness just as man is cognizable to himself in the self-consciousness. It is, therefore, in the God-consciousness that God reveals Himself to man. The mode of His primary self-communication is, moreover, by natural revelation. As, however, natural revelation is merged in direct revelation among Christian people, it is only in pagan lands that the natural knowledge of God is exemplified, pure and simple. Thus the pagan Plato, it is agreed, knew God in distinction from the fabled hierarchy of Olympus. And that the people of Athens, four hundred years later, also knew Him was sufficiently attested by the

institution of His worship under the shadow of the Parthenon (Acts 17:23).

However, the bearing of these citations from the history of natural religion on the question of the existence of God depends, wholly, on the prior question, Whether they can be verified as examples of man's intuitive knowledge of God. Can it be shown, then, that the knowledge which these pagan Greeks had of God was by intuition? Yes. It has already been pointed out that it is only the existence of things that is known by intuition. Did then the Greeks, referred to, know God only in His existence? Yes. It is fair to infer that, if Plato had derived his knowledge of God from tradition, he would have described Him with His traditional characteristics. In point of fact, however, Plato could not predicate of God a single attribute but that of being. As, therefore, this pagan philosopher's knowledge of God was thus confessedly limited to His existence, it clearly follows that it was intuitive and not traditional. Thus, too, the Athenians inscribed their undesignated altar "to an unknown God," and the singular legend itself implies, not only that they had knowledge of God, but also that their knowledge of Him was restricted to His mere existence. They knew Him only in His undefined being whom St. Paul set forth to them in His attributes. The knowledge of God was thus intuitive also among the

pagan masses.

These are actual examples of the intuitive knowledge of God, and as the intuitive faculty and the God-consciousness are the common equipments of the race, it is entirely certain that, under normal conditions, man's knowledge of God is universal. Is not, however, the universality of this divine enlightenment disproved by the evident paucity of its examples? No. Natural revelation, although it is irrepressible, does not dominate the world in the fall of man, but is itself grossly perverted in the natural religions which it inspires, and man's natural knowledge of God is obscured by religious mythology, or wholly lost in the prevailing idolatry.