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THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD. -El SUPREME QUESTION OF THE DAY. BY THE MOST REV. C. F. D'ARCY, Archbishop of Dublin. The following is a verbatim report of Mi address delivered by the Archbishop of Dublin at the Church Congress on Tuesday. AMONG the deeper problems of thought and belief, this is most certainly the supreme question of the day. The enorm- ous moral pressure exerrted by the war has forced it on the attention of multi- tudes who never before realised its exist- ence. In the problem itself is nothing new. All that is new is a fresh aware- ness of the greatness and soul-shaking character of it, derived from our quick- ened apprehension of the terrible nature' of the, evils which are possible in this world of ours. Combined with this is our fuller grast of the teaching of Jesus Christ about God. We have, in these modern days, dwelt with stronger em- phasis on the great Divine attribute of Love. We have felt that the revelation of the Fatherhood of God which our Lord gives us is the supreme Truth of our Christian Faith and the most preci- ous of our spiritual treasures. But hew, — we have been forced to ask, can it be true if God be omnipotent also? How v can the Great Father have permitted such things as we have known to happen if He had power to prevent them? Here is the source of certain recent adventures in the realm of religion. Mr. Wells, for example, has urged with Ireat power and persuasiveness that God is not, as we thought, the supreme Power of the universe, but only a Limited Being, taking His origin from human life, a Personality born of the common strivings of mankind, a synthesis of all that is best in us, a Captain of our souls, representing the good in us, and leading us in our struggle against evil. Again, some of the most earnest and vigorous minds among those who felt most vividly the aw fulness of the recent war, and had the nearest view of its horrors, have become convinced that they must finally surrender the immemorial faith in the Almightiness of God. They believe in Him as the Suffering Saviour, but no longer as the Supreme Omnipo- tent. They hold firmly to the Cross, but deny the Sovereign Throne. Will in Operation. First, I would ask you to consider that, in thinking of the Omnipotence of God, we have been too much in the habit of using a purely formal concep- tion which can, by no possibility, be brought to the test of actual experience. When we speak of God as Loving, we know what we mean, because Love, how- ever mysterious it may be, in its ultim- ate nature, is known to us in experi- ence. When we speak of God as Omni- potent, we think of. Him as Will, a Will which is quite unlimited in the range of its operation. Now, in our experience, we are familiar with will in operation but will, as we know it, is always limited, and that in three ways: it is limited by character, by circum- stances afnd by other wills. Will is the expression of character. And so surely it must be with God as well -as with man. For example, if we believe' that God's, character may be fcruely described by the word Love, we must believe that His actions must be' consistent with this great quality. *To suppose that He would act cruelly is to imagine Him denying Himself. Here, then, is a limitation. Again, the will of man is limited by circumstances. Man has, through his discovery of certain uniformities which we call laws of nature, the power to con- trol natural forces within certain limits. He can do very wonderful things'in this way. But these same forces and laws of nature, which thus serve man's will, confine him within bounds which he can- not pass. He can soar in Ms aeroplane, but he cannot rise above the height which the density of the atmosphere prescribes. I The Reign of Law. It may be thought that here is a limi- tation which cannot apply to God. I am not so sure. If we regard God as in the fullest sense the Power manifested in the Universe, we must regard the forces and laws of nature as modes of His Divine" activity. So regarded, their uniformity is a great revelation of His Divine trustworthiness. they. reveal that consistency, or Truth, which must be one of His fundamental attributes. Now we cannot believe that God can deny Himself in this respect any more than in respect of His- Divine Love. To suppose tluut He, by continual interven- tions, sets at nought that whole .system of His Universe which is the manifesta- tion of His Divine Reason, in order to remedy continual defects, would be to reduce cosmos to chaos. As Dr. F. R. Tennant has pointed out in a recent article in the Expository Times, The reign of law is a logical condition of the highest good. But we cannot have the advantages of a uniform order with- out the disadvantages." "Uniformity in nature involves that things have fixed and determinate properties, that, e.g., the water which cleanses and quenches thirst shall also be carpable 11 of flooding our fields and drowning us." It would seem, therefore, that God. having I brought forth a world marked by uni- form law, is limited by that system which He has himself produced. Man is a Social Being. Thirdly, the will of man is limited by other wills. At every point of his ex- perience, man has to adjust the deter- minations of Tiis will to the situations created by a multitude of other volunt- ary agents. Man is a social being. He exists as a member of a community. This is of the very essence of his life as a moral being. The conception of a single will acting in a social vacuum is an impossible one. The limitations created by other wills are not only re- strictions, they are also the very condi- tions of man's moral life. Here, again, we meet a 'Truth which affords insight into the nature of a Divine Will. If God is Love, He must seek to realise Hinfself in a Social Universe. He must move in a world peopled by a multitude of other wills. Hence the finite indi- vidual with his distinct power of voli- tion is a condition of the possibility of a Divine world-plan. For love cannot be satisfied with the mechanical obedi- ence of i-diiiigs: it must seek the free offering of the heart. This teaches us that the possibility of moral evil is a necessary condition of the possibility of the good. Just as a uniform order of nature involves the possibility of pain, so does the existence of a moral order involve the possibility of evil. God can- not produce the one without leaving open the way for the others. A Vast Scene. This is a consideration of the most fundamental importance; and it is worthy of note that the world has reached a stage in its spiritual history when we can, if we but exert our powers of observation, see its meaning by virtue of a grealt contrast. If we try to divest our minds of our theological preposses- sions, and consider the world as it now stands revealed to us, we shall discern it as the result of a vast evolutionary process which has brought forth the most stupendous miracle of beauty which we can conceive. Thrust. moral considera- tions into the background for the mo- ment, and try to look out on the world as a vast scene, the meaning of which can only be grasped by our aesthetic faculties, and we gain the impression that the Supreme Power which works in the Universe is more concerned with the production of the beautiful than with anything else. The Beauty of'the world anything else. The Beauty of the world is intrinsic, overwhelming, penetrating. It is found in the orderly and in the confused, in the great and in the little, in the wild and in the cultivated. It is as perfect in the snow-flake and in the structure of the minutest organism, as in the Alpine peak or the sunset sky. It is found in the most irregular heap- ing together of fragments-a mountain- slope or a torrent-,as in the symmetry of the blue dome of the heavens. The more ou eestjietic powers are cultivated, the more of this beauty do we discern. We must conclude that we have here an indication of the character of the Supreme Power. He produces this wealth of beauty be- cause He delights in it. And this in- ference appears still more inevitable when we consider that most of this wonderful beauty is a waste product, from the material point of view. It is useless. It does not help individuals to live or races to survive. Yet this un- necessary beauty is poured out with in- finite prodigality on a careless, unseeing creation. The Cement of Society. On the other hand, goodness, in the moral sense of the term, makes its ap- pearance only after immense ages. It appears fitfully, and is maintained with difficulty, and is nearly always very im- perfect. Yet goodness is useful as beauty is not. It is the cement of society, en- abling men to unite, and so become far more effective in their struggle with their environment. The wonder is that the evolutionary process, which is sup- posed to depend on the production of the useful, has not brought forth more good- ness. Are we, then, to think that the Creative Power cares more for the beau- tiful than for the good ? A deeper search will show us that there is a very im- portant difference between the ways in which natural beauty and human good- ness are produced. The beauty -of nature springs forth as a result of the. working of natural forces. It requires no inter- vention on the part of man. In theo- logical language, God makes the world beautiful, because He does it all Him- self. He cannot make iit good in the same way; because goodness can only come about through the co-operation of finite wills. God cannot make the world good without our help. To make'a good world would demand a perfect harmony of all wills—that is, the willing denial of selfish inclination on the part of every individual. God can produce a beautiful world without our help. But it takes a man as well as God to make the world good. This consideration sheds a very bright light on the greatness of the limitation which is involved in the" existence of a multitude of finite wills which may choose the good, but which have also the power to choose the evil. Regarding (the question, then, from the side of our human experience and the world as it actually exists, we find that we must regard God as limited by the very same sort of conditions as re- strict ourselves: by His charcter, the nature of the material with which His work is carried on, and the opposing wills of a multitude of finite beings. God Cannot Deny Himself. Now it is commonly said that, as we must regard Him as the Creator, or source of all that is, these limitations are self-imposed. 'God has limited Him- self by the fact of creation, and especi- ally by the creation of finite wills; and, therefore, these limitations are not to be regarded as derogating from His omni- potence. It must be granted that, from an abstract theological point of view, there is no denying this statement. But, practically, it means that, things being as they are, we are in a world in which we have no right to appeal to the Omni- potence of God as to a magical formula which should deliver us from the awful pains and struggles of life. We have too often attached an unreal meaning to the word Almighty. We have thought of God as a great aloof Sovereign, look- ing down from above, one who might, if He chose, intervene to deliver us from our sufferings, by exerting His Great Power, annihilating the conditions which cause them. That is not the meaning of omnipotence. 'God cannot deny Himself. He is working in us, and with us, to bring about the victory of the Good, the supreme blessing, the Kingdom of God. And this can only be realised through the perfect operation of those principles of truth, of goodness, and of moral freedom which are the essentials of His Nature. God is not far away from us in some remote heaven, living in calm, unruffled peace, untroubled by our sorrows. He is with us in the struggle, sharing our pains, and helping us to endure them, and to overcome. Our Certainty. What meaning, then, can we, for the uses of our practical life, attach to the doctrine of the omnipotence of God? It would seem that, with all we have said, it has a meaning and value of supreme importance. It means that God cannot ultimately be defeated, that He will certainly accomplish what He has set out to do. The great world-embracing Will cannot finally faiL The awful pains and struggles of the world indicate the tremendous nature of the obstacles which stand in the .way, and also the vastness of the cost. They show, there- fore, the preciousness in the sight'of God of the end for which 'He is working. God I prizes the triumph of goodness so much that He is willing to make every sacri- fice, no matter how great, in order to attain it. And He will attain it. Our certainty as to this conclusion d ex- pends upon our belief in Love as the supreme attribute of God. For Love is able to overcome an opposing Will with- out destroying it I- The great difficulty in the way of the coming of the king- dom is the opposition of the multitude of finite wills, or, in other words, the sin of the world. But if we believe that the Love of God is great enough, and is able by sympathy and endurance to carry our Tace through the vast struggles and suf- ferings which spring from evil wills, then we must believe it will surely tri- umph in the end. The doctrine of Omni- potence is, when properly understood, our faith in the boundlessness and eternity of the Love of God. And this leadsyis to a final considera- tion. In all our reasonings so far we have thought of God as Personal Will. "But this cannot be a complete account of His Nature; for Personal. Will, in our experience, is always the "will of an individual entering into relationship with other wills. God must be more than this. He is the All-inclusive Life of the Universe. In Him we live and' move and have our being." We in cannot think this out, but neither can we "escape it. And surely we can see deeply enough into it to discern that it is only another way of expressing that supreme truth which we have already approached from another side: the all- embracing Love of God.