It is a quite natural
evolution of ideas, as they find a congenial soil in each generation in
certain types of temperament. But where are the traces or what was the
nature of God's co-operation with these men? Looking to their generally
heterodox character and the hostility of the Churches to them, the idea
is not without humour; but, even if we reconcile ourselves to this
peculiar feature, anything in the nature of positive evidence of divine
action is wholly lacking, and we can understand the whole process
without it. The theory is merely a desperate and unfounded assertion of
men who are determined that God shall not be left out.
There is a further grave difficulty. One would imagine that the kind of
paternal affection which is ascribed to God would have induced him to
intervene at an earlier stage. The kind of father who co-operates with
the more gifted and ambitious of his children, and does nothing for the
less gifted and sluggish, is a narrow-minded and narrow-hearted man.
Affection turns rather to those who cannot help themselves, or who need
judicious and constant inspiration. This view we are considering is even
less flattering to God, because the aspiring children of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries seem able to dispense with his co-operation,
while the ignorant and priest-ridden children of earlier ages could do
little of themselves.
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