Before, therefore, the
Absolute Being of Cosmism can be shown, by the reasoning adopted, to
deserve, even in part, the appellation of Deity, it must be shown that
there is no other mode of Being in existence save our own subjective
consciousness and the Absolute Reality which becomes objective to it
through the world of phenomena. But any attempt to establish this position
would involve a disregard of the doctrine that knowledge is relative; and
to do this, it is needless to say, would be to destroy the basis of the
argument whereby the Absolute Being of Cosmism was posited.
Or, to state this part of the criticism in other words, as the first step
in justifying the predication of Deity, it must be shown that the Being of
which the predication is made is absolute, and this not merely as
independent of human consciousness, but as independent of the whole
noumenal universe--Deity itself alone excepted. That is, the Being of which
Deity is predicated must be Unconditioned. Hence it is incumbent on Cosmic
Theism to prove, either that the Causal Agent which it denominates Deity is
itself the whole noumenal universe, or that it created the rest of a
noumenal universe; else there is nothing to show that this Causal Agent was
not itself created--seeing that, even if we assume the existence of a God,
there is nothing to indicate that the Causal Agent of Cosmism is that God.
It would appear therefore from this, that whatever else the Cosmist's
theory of things may be, it certainly is not Theism; and I think that
closer inspection will tend to confirm this judgment.
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