Is God imaginary?

11 And remark here, that where ideas flow from a relationship in which we exist, which belongs to our nature in its original constitution, it may be by thinking and imagination, education, habit in religious things, priestcraft, be perverted, falsified, degraded (and the mind with it), or reasoned against from the inadequacy of the mind to master it as an idea; but the roots of it are in the nature. To have it falsified, there must be something to falsify. "Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret." Hence, prone as the human mind is to indulge its imagination, stop short of God whom it fears, and have gods and idols which it can manage after its own lusts and thoughts, yet, when the truth of the relationship is brought out, the soul recognises it.

The Comtean worship reveals more than this (for in truth it is humanity that man, fallen away from God, everywhere worships. He may invest this with more or less of the attributes of deity: because he is not a being groping his way out of native darkness, as so many would persuade us; the inspired version of heathenism is more honoring to God, if more condemnatory of the creature, that "when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." They had not to invent God, but rather to invent the god that they desired; and the god that they desired was one like themselves, a being who could sympathize with the lusts and passions of a corrupt nature. Hence "professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the image of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man."

105 Psalm 53, as we know, convicts of entire sinfulness those who have the best advantages. But the secret of this course is old too, and on that a few words. AU the path of the wicked comes from this. For him God is not. Faith does not exist, and God is not seen. This is the secret of all error in practice and in human reasoning. The more we examine the whole course of human action, the faults of us Christians, the various wanderings of philosophy, the more we shall find that no God is at the root of all. Here it is the case that the conscience takes no notice of God. The heart has no desire after Him, and the will works as if there were none. Man says so in his heart. Why should he say it? Because his conscience tells him there is one. His will would not have one; and, as God is not seen in His working, will sees only what it will. God is set aside, and the whole conduct is under the will's influence, as if no God existed. He takes pains to prove there is not if he thinks, because he cannot get on if there is; but he lifts himself up, and, deceiving himself, comes in practical condition to will there should be none - and not to think, but to act as if he thought, and that in purpose as well as act, as if there were none. In a certain sense, he even thinks so; for, being entirely occupied with present things, and blind through his alienation from God, his moral feelings dead, judging from present things, he can draw conclusions, not believe that there is one, and, living in his own thoughts thus formed, live in the thought there is none - says so in his heart. If conscience awakes, he knows well there is; but he lives in his will and the thoughts of his will, and for him there is no God.

28 Is not this true? But then there must be a revelation of God in some way, or I (deplorable condition!) remain in total ignorance of Him. I am not saying man is so, but that he must be so if there be no revelation of God. I believe conscience knows that there is a God — Mr. N.'s conscience, my conscience; but it wants something more than it knows: for conscience knows responsibility, and it knows sin — sin lying on itself — on him who has the conscience of it.

Argumentatively, it is an absurdity to make man's mind the measure of God.

Nevertheless, by strange coincidence, fresh evidences are constantly accruing which go far to convince even the unwilling scientist of the presence of a Designer’s hand. Stones cry out! Nature speaks!

Creation should, indeed, speak, and its voice be heard. What is invisible in the Creator should be and is seen, and seen clearly, being understood by the things that are made—even His eternal power and Godhead—not, indeed, His grace, or truth, or love, but infinite power and design, so much so that people are left thus without excuse. (See Romans 1:20.) Creation declares the power of God. It does not reveal what He is in Himself—His nature—but to any, except those wilfully blind, it is evidence sufficient of the existence of a Creator-God!

First: If it is claimed that there are men who do not even know that there is a divine Being, he shows the claim cannot be allowed. Creation, both as a whole and in detail, is incessantly declaring there is a Creator, a God over all. It is a demonstration of both the eternal power and divinity of the Maker of all things. The responsibility and accountability of the intelligent finite creature is involved in this testimony of creation. No one, then, can excuse himself for violating the nature and character of his relation to the Creator — a creation of which he knows himself to be a part. As rational beings, all men owe subjection to their Creator, and sin in every form is in violation of this subjection, but no valid excuse can be made. No plea for violating creation's witness will stand. It is inexcusable guilt (vers. 19, 20).

1880 155 etc. Nothing can be known of God, save as He is pleased to reveal. Man has projected an imaginary being, the creation of his own mind, the personification of the qualities he finds in himself — has clothed it with power beyond his own, has deified and worshipped it. In result he has worshipped himself, or a demon behind himself. The wisest among the old heathen could not go beyond himself, that is, he could not conceive other attributes than nature displayed. These were developed to perfection in his gods, but it was the perfection of sin. And if there were no other surer and better way, we could learn in measure what man is from the gods he has made and worshipped. Let the cunningly-devised fables of pagan idolatry bear testimony. The portraits of man's deities were sketched in his heart, and painted in the colours of a degraded imagination. Thus man is known from the character of his gods. His gods are the impersonation of his sin, the apotheosis of his vices. Man is not merely a sinner, but a worshipper of sin, a slave of Satan.

I want to show you the effect upon a man of the knowledge of the living and true God. I lay the emphasis upon the living and true God, for in these days it is almost necessary to ask what a man means when he speaks of God. It has been said by a popular writer that the word "God" is the vaguest word in the English language, and as used by some people that is certainly true, for they have a God of their own imagination and not the living and true God at all. Voltaire, the French Atheist, in jeering at the Christian Faith, said that "man had created God in his own image and after his own likeness, " and he spoke truer than he knew of some people; in Psalm 50 God charges this very thing against the wicked. He says to them, "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself." This is the way of the modernist who declares that he accepts the revelation of the God of the Bible so far as it "harmonizes with the thoughts and ideals which he already has."

But God is a mere opinion in man's head, for Mr. N; to reject Him, because we have an "antagonist will," is consequently a mere erroneous creed. God is not in all his thoughts.

The infidel, desiring to deny the existence of God, must of necessity deny the existence of a Creator. In loud, swelling, empty words he will tell you that the earth, with its beauties, was the result of “a fortuitous concourse of atoms,” which simply means that a lot of atoms coming together without guiding hand, by pure chance, produced this world. The belief infidelity requires is far beyond that which revelation asks. The latter is simple, understandable, and majestic. The former is staggering beyond all belief. For if there is “a concourse of atoms,” how came they to be atoms? and if they came together, who gave the law of motion? In short, how did something come out of nothing? Of course, the idea of an uncreated, eternally-existent God is beyond the creatures’ powers of explanation, but yet the soul demands such an idea; and if we could explain the idea it would cease to satisfy our souls, for God is to be worshipped and adored. How can the creature understand the Being of his Creator?