True it is devoid of certain
accessory attributes, such as personality, intelligence, and volition; but
for this very reason, it is insisted, the theistic ideal as thus presented
is a purer, and therefore a better, ideal than has ever been presented
before. Nay, it is the highest possible form of this ideal, as the
following considerations will show. In what has consisted that continuous
purification of Theism which the history of thought shows to have been
effected, from the grossest form of belief in supernatural agency as
exhibited in Fetichism, through its more refined form as exhibited in
Polytheism, to its still more refined form as exhibited in Monotheism? In
nothing but in a continuous process of what Mr. Fiske calls
"deanthropomorphisation." Consequently, must we not conclude that when we
carry this process yet one step further, and divest our conception of Deity
of all the yet lingering remnants of anthropomorphism which occur in the
current conceptions of Deity, we are but still further purifying that
conception? Assuredly, the attributes of personality, intelligence, and so
forth, are only known as attributes of Humanity, and therefore to ascribe
them to Deity is but to foster, in a more refined form, the anthropomorphic
teachings of previous religions. But if we carefully refuse to limit Deity
by the ascription of any human attributes whatever, and if the only
attributes which we do ascribe are such as on grounds of pure reason alone
we are compelled to ascribe, must we not conclude that the form of Theism
which results is the purest and the most refined form in which it is
possible for Theism to exist? "From the anthropomorphic point of view it
will quite naturally be urged in objection, that this apparently desirable
result is reached through the degradation of Deity from an 'intelligent
personality' to a 'blind force,' and is therefore in reality an undesirable
and perhaps quasi-atheistic result.
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