The Secret of the Universe, by Nathan R. Wood, [1932], at sacred-texts.com
The Secret of the Universe, by Nathan R. Wood, [1932], at sacred-texts.com
The Challenge of the Facts—The first demand, and its astonishing answer—The Equation of the Universe—The second demand—"An invention?"—"A speculation?"—"A tendency?"—The third demand—The Axioms of the Being of God—The Vast Demand of the Universe—Not a philosophy of God but a philosophy of the universe—The Test of the Facts—The Challenge of Absolute Precision—The Converging Methods—The Three Sublime Conclusions.
All that we have been doing is, as we have said, the common method of science. The method is well-known. First, you correlate the facts.
Then, you seek an explanation of them.
In that search you find a hypothesis which seems to fit and explain the facts.
Then you carefully compare the facts with the hypothesis, to see whether they agree with and confirm that explanation.
This is what we have done.
We got together the elemental facts of the universe. We found a remarkable triunity in them.
We sought the explanation.
We found a similar Triunity attributed to the God of the Universe.
It was a mighty hypothesis. It was where it ought to be, in the God who is the Cause and Ground of the universe. It was found in the Bible, which tells so much
else about God to which the human heart has assented. It was a hypothesis supported by the testimony of millions of the most thoughtful men and women of the race, who claim daily experience of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is the experience of Dante and Shakespeare, of Newton, Kelvin, and Pasteur, of Beethoven and Bach, of Michelangelo and Leonardo, of Charlemagne and Alfred, of Hampden, Cromwell and Gladstone, of Washington and Lincoln. It is an experience in no way contradicted by those who have never had it but have never sought to have it.
With this mighty hypothesis seemingly fitting the facts, we sought corroboration. We did it by the most exact, minute comparison. We found perfect corroboration, flawless and complete. It was where it ought to be, in the structure of the universe. We found it at every possible point of that structure. It was truly a most extraordinary likeness of such a Triune Creator.
In Space, the universe showed an absolute likeness of unity, of threeness, and of three modes of being in that Divine Triunity.
In Matter it showed yet more, extending into remarkable detail.
In Time, the universe showed a complete likeness of everything in that Triunity except three centres of consciousness.
In human life the universe showed a remarkable likeness of every detail of such Triunity, including even those three Divine centres of consciousness.
We had said, "If God is Three in One,—Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as Jesus and the New Testament and the experience of Christians in all ages and lands present Him to us, it will be corroborated and reflected in
[paragraph continues] His universe." We found that it is so corroborated, "beyond all that we could ask or think."
There is no real question as to the validity of this method of hypothesis and corroboration, when the hypothesis obviously first fits the facts, when it is supported by the personal experience of millions of honest and thoughtful witnesses, and when the hypothesis, finally, is universally and minutely corroborated by a comparison with all the facts. In science such a hypothesis so corroborated becomes a law.
Yet there is a still more vital way of handling the facts. That way is to begin again with the data, and to let the logic of universal facts carry us directly to their own conclusion, whatever it may be. That can be done, where the facts are universal and in complete unity, and where the mind which considers them is a candid one.
For this one must put aside one's preconceived ideas, or one's prejudices, or what one has been taught, or what one has been teaching, and gaze upon realities only.
May we do this now?
Here are the common facts of the world about us. They are so great, so universal, that we cannot wholly grasp them. But they are so simple, so broad, so self-evident, that we cannot for an instant reject them. Here are the facts which together make up the structure and substance of the universe.
Here first are the facts of space. They are self-evident. Height, length and breadth, with all their characteristics
and relations, as we have sketched them, are evident to all who will think about them. No one can dream of questioning them. They are so evident, that they are the basis of the exact science of geometry.
Here also are the facts of matter as we have seen them. Here is the whole structure of matter, in energy, motion and phenomena. They and all their characteristics and relations, as we have recounted them, are self-evident. No one will question them. They are the basis of all modern science.
Here further are the facts of time as we have seen them. Here is the whole being of time, in future, present and past. Those three elements in time, with all their distinctions and relations, are self-evident. No one will question them. They are basic in all human thinking and human experience.
Now we go further.
Through all these universal facts which compose the physical universe there runs a remarkable triunity. They are each of them a remarkable triunity. They are the same kind of triunity. All of them together constitute a universal triunity, a tremendous and unescapable fact, the whole structure of the physical universe.
Now we look from the physical universe into human existence. We find a remarkable thing. We find that exactly such a triunity is here, also. We all know certain broad and simple facts which include the entire structure of human life. No one can question them, or question the self-evident distinctions and relations expressed in the simple, universal words "nature," "person" and "personality." Human life is exactly such a triunity as the physical universe is. Whether one values
them or not, whether one sees in them a higher meaning or not, these are the absolute facts.
We face, therefore, a further great fact, a yet more universal one. No one can question the self-evident likeness to each other which runs through all these things which are the structure and substance of the universe of space, matter, time and human existence. They need only to be put side by side. A strange, universal triunity of height, length and breadth, of energy, motion and phenomena, of future, present and past, of nature, person and personality, is visible. It is the very being of all these things. It is so exactly alike in all these forms, so complete, so flawless, that it is identity in terms of space, matter, time and human existence. This universal, common triunity, once pointed out, is evident to anyone who knows anything of space, or matter, or time, or human life.
These are the facts. What shall we say of this structure of the universe? This general triunity in all things requires an explanation. It demands a reason. So great and universal a phenomenon cannot be dismissed by any student of the physical world or of human life. There must be an explanation, if this is an orderly universe.
And that it is an orderly universe is the first principle of all science.
There must then be a cause and explanation of this universal triunity. It must be a great and universal cause. Nothing less is possible. Something in the common cause of space, matter, time and men must be the common cause of this triunity.
There is but one common cause of space, matter, time and men. Whatever methods one may uphold,
there is but one common cause. That cause is God. He is the Cause of the universe.
This universal triunity in space, matter, time and men demands an explanation, then, in the Cause of the universe. It demands a cause in God. And by this we mean, of course, not an arbitrary or accidental cause, but a deep and basic cause, in God.
With this demand of the universal triunity presenting itself from all directions, we come to another Fact.
Jesus of Nazareth and the New Testament present exactly such a cause in God as the universal triunity demands.
For the Triunity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit there presented is an absolute counterpart, in terms of God, of the universal triunity in terms of space, matter, time and man.
It presents exactly such a cause as the universe demands.
It is a cause in God.
It is not an arbitrary or accidental cause, but a cause deep in the whole being of God.
It is in God who is the common Cause of space, matter, time and man.
It is a vital and adequate reason for His making the universe just what it is.
It is an exact original for such a universe of tri-unities to reflect.
It is a complete response to the demand of the universe.
In every detail and in every broad outline this Triunity brought by Jesus and the New Testament satisfies every outline and detail of the triunity in space, matter, time and man. This is true even of the most
mysterious details of the New Testament Triunity, and of the purely physical things of the universe. Then this is what we face:—
The universal triunity demands at the heart of the universe a certain Triunity as its Cause and Original in God; and the Bible brings us exactly such a Triunity in God.
It is an appeal to our candor. We must put aside prejudice, or any fear of what is new and vast. There before us are the facts of the universe. Here is the description in the Bible. We cannot, if we would, evade the question.
How did this Biblical Triunity come there,—so exactly, minutely, immeasurably what the universe requires as its Cause,—if not from God, and from that Triune Cause which must be in Him?
Where else could the writers get it?
Did they get it out of nothing, by pure invention, by a happy coincidence which made their invention correspond with the vast triunity in the physical universe and in the universe of the soul?
That is a suggestion which will not be considered long by any well-balanced mind. A coincidence embracing every distinction and relation in the entire structure of space, and of energy, motion and phenomena, and of future, present and past, and of nature, person and personality, and every distinction and relation, the most detailed and mysterious, described in the Divine Triunity of the New Testament,—a coincidence without a slip or a flaw in all this vast and complicated fabric,—no mind accustomed to the correlation of
facts will really consider for a moment a suggestion so naïve or so fantastic. We can dismiss this at once. Such things as these are not coincidences, in an orderly or sane universe.
The New Testament cannot have gotten this Triunity out of nothing by pure invention, presenting by mere coincidence exactly what the universe of space, matter, time and men requires as its cause.
Did the New Testament writers get that Triunity of God from within themselves? Was there some instinct in them, which led to such an idea of God?
Some say that there is a tendency of the human race to see God as triune, that other religions show it, and that the New Testament writers got their idea of God from the same tendency.
If there were such a tendency, it would be another and profoundly convincing groping of the human soul after the Triunity in whose image it is made. It would be an extraordinary evidence of the reflection of that Triunity deep in the being of the human soul.
But is there such a tendency? Do other religions show such triunities? If they do, are those triunities sufficiently like the Biblical Triunity to show that this Triunity came from the same tendency? And if there are such triunities in other religions, do they, like the Biblical Triunity, meet and satisfy by their exact resemblance the demand of the vast triune fabric of space, matter, time and human existence for a triune Cause?
There is only one answer. We have not found such triunities in other religions of the human race. One
finds triads here and there in a few religions. But they are not essential triunities. They apparently happen to be groups of three. In some religions there happen to be larger groups, such as Odin, Freya, Thor, Loki and Baldur in the Norse religion; in some religions groups of two, as Ormazd and Ahriman in the Persian religion. Such mere groupings of three which are not organically one do not, of course, make a trinity, or show such a tendency in human thought, any more than other human groupings, such as three wheels in a tricycle, or three singers in a trio, or three officers in a boat, or three days of grace in business, or three bases in a game of ball. Such efforts to find a likeness of the Trinity of the Bible do not get one anywhere, whether they are the efforts of believers in that Trinity to find proofs of it in anything which happens to be three, or whether they are the equally naïve efforts of unbelievers in that Trinity to find disproofs of it in anything in other religions which happens to be three. Such efforts in comparative religions, such explorations in moonlight and cobwebs, land the explorer in nothing more intelligent than a professor's chair. For a sympathetic study of the gropings and yearnings of the human soul through the best in human religions discloses nothing which shows any tendency toward genuine triunity in the idea of God. They show no resemblance to the Triunity of the Bible which would indicate a common origin. They have nothing which brings an answer to the demand of the universal triunity for a cause in God. The grotesque three in Egyptian mythology offer nothing except to fond credulity. Do the three in Hinduism reveal a trace of triunity, and of resemblance to the Triunity of the Bible? If
they do, it is very faint. And if they do, they do not necessarily show an original tendency. For the triad of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva was a later development in Hinduism, a long time after Christianity, with its Triunity, had been active in India. The older Hinduism showed no trace of triune tendency in religion. But the triad of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva has no real triunity, no real likeness to the New Testament Triunity, and no meeting at all of the demands of the universal triunity for a cause in God. Truly there are no evidences of a natural tendency of the human race to create such triunity in God. If there were such a tendency, enough to account at all for the Biblical Triunity, it would show itself vividly in all religions. But no such tendency emerges. The human soul does readily respond to the presentation of the Three in One of the New Testament. There is an instinct there. But the religions of the human race reveal no tendency to depict God as triune. The writers of the New Testament did not get their picture of the Triunity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit from a general tendency within their own souls. Wherever they got it, they did not get it there. It did not come from them.
Did the New Testament writers get that Triunity from the universe, by speculation from the universal triunity? Would not this explain the likeness? Did the writers of the New Testament get their idea of a Triune God from the triunity in worlds and men, and translate it into terms of Deity, in Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
There is no evidence for such an origin. There is no evidence in the New Testament that the writers got the Trinity from the triunities in space, matter, time and men. But there would certainly be some such evidence if they had gotten that Triunity in that way. There are none of the indications which there would certainly be if such a hypothesis were so. None of the Biblical writings reveal any trace at all of such a thought or speculation in the mind of the writers. There is no attempt in any way to compare the Triunity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit with space, or matter, or time, or anything in man. The writers never speak of time as future, present and past, and never mention the distinctions in time in connection with the Trinity. They never mention, and there is no reason to think that they knew, the triune nature of matter in energy, motion and phenomena, the discovery of modern science. There is no hint in the New Testament at any such triunity in man. The triad of nature, person and personality is never suggested. There is no mention of a relation of the Divine Trinity to any of these things. Indeed there is no theoretical Triunity in the New Testament. The presentation of the Trinity is simple, natural, matter-of-course, a phrase here, an allusion there, now a characteristic, now a relationship, as it happens in connection with other things and topics. Indeed the Trinity there occurs largely in the sayings of Jesus, and in his simplest, most personal talk about his Father and himself, and about the Spirit.
There is no evidence at all, then, in the New Testament presentation of the Trinity of any thought about triunities in the physical world or in man, nor of anything
theoretical at all. There is no evidence, such as there surely should be, to indicate that it came from the triunities in space, matter, time and man. This Triunity of the Bible evidently did not come by human speculation to be so exactly what the universe requires. No one can think that it did. It is clearly not a theoretical invention of the New Testament writers, but is an honest presentation.
The New Testament writers did not get that Triunity from nothing, by pure invention. They did not get it from man, by instinct. They did not get it from the universe, by speculation. Only one source is left.
It can have come only from God, and from that very Triunity which the universal triunity reflects and demands as its Divine Cause.
When we compare the universal triunity at its height in personal being in man with that Triunity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit which it demands, we see how absolutely reasonable all of this is. It grows with analysis.
For Nature, Person and Personality, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, are just what a finite likeness of the Triunity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit should be. They are three all-inclusive centres of personal consciousness. They are not simultaneous, but finite, and always successive. Man thinks and feels one thing after another, from one point of view after another. This is because he is finite and limited. But this is what a finite
reflection of three simultaneous Persons in one Divine Being should be. And these three constantly successive personal points of view or of consciousness reflect completely in a finite way all the distinctions and relations found in the Divine Triunity as described in the New Testament.
On the other hand, the Triune Father, Son and Holy Spirit in God are just what an infinite Original of human Nature, Person and Personality should be.
For a Divine equivalent of Nature, Person and Personality would be, as in their human reflection, the all-inclusive centres of all His Personal consciousness.
But in Him they would be, not successive as in us, but simultaneous. God is bound by no laws of one thing at a time. He thinks many thoughts at once. He knows all things at once. He is all-knowing and all-conscious. His omniscience means that He should not be bound and limited as we are, to one thought at a time, to one point of view or centre of His consciousness at a time. He should be conscious simultaneously in those three centres. They should in Him be three great centres of Personal consciousness, at one and the same time, and all the time, in one Being. But three simultaneous, constant, Personal centres of consciousness in one Being is the very definition of the Trinity.
And if these three Personal centres of consciousness in God have the relations and characteristics which nature, person and personality have in us, they will be exactly such as Father, Son and Holy Spirit as described in the Bible.
Those three Persons in one God are just what a Divine Original of the human reflection in Nature, Person and Personality should be.
Very clearly then the challenge of the universe, the challenge of the vast ascending triunity of space, matter, time and human existence, faces and surrounds us.
The entire triune universe demands that its Cause and Original should be a similar Triunity in God.
The New Testament brings us exactly such a Triunity.
The universal triunity demands that very Triunity of the New Testament, which can have come only from that Divine Original which the universe reflects.
The universal triunity, rising to its height in personal being in man, declares that that Triunity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is exactly what the Original of the triune reflection in man should be.
This is the result when we let the facts of the universe tell their own story and carry us where they will.
You can see this as overwhelming, demanding, universal, exact confirmation of the Triunity of God in the Bible.
Or you can see it as the challenge of the facts of the universe to any open mind.
A candid mind must face this confirmation and challenge. No prejudice, or old habit of thought, or preconceived ideas, can stand in our way, when God reveals Himself.
And when once in candor one has accepted the revelation and the Fact, one must let it ever afterward mould and color all one's thinking. Either all this revelation is true, or it is not true. If it is true, it must illumine all one's universe. One cannot put it in a corner
of one's mind, with other secondary facts. If it is true it is supreme. It must affect all one's science, one's philosophy, one's esthetics, one's outlook upon the world and life, and one's personal religious experience.
For surely no mind whose doors are open to the voices of the universe will attempt or desire to disregard their deep but overwhelming chorus. No mind blest with the gift of vision can be wholly unmoved by so marvelous a universal mirror reflecting, confirming and demanding that Triune God.
Again we should remind ourselves of one thing.
Nothing which we have been seeing or saying shows that God had to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or why He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
No argument that God must by a necessity of his nature be so and so because man is so and so carries any real weight. For as we have said, "God is not what He is because of anything that man is."
What we have seen is not an argument for the reason and necessity of God's Triunity. It is a revelation of the Divine Reason and Cause of man's triunity. It is the testimony of the universal reflection to the Divine Original.
When we look at the universe and say "There must be a God", we do not mean that God had to exist because of the universe. We mean that we must recognize that there is a God, because we see the universe.
So when we look at the universal triunity and say "God must be Triune," we do not mean that He is or
had to be Triune because the universe and man are triune. We mean that we must recognize that He is Triune, as the New Testament reveals, because we see that His universe, which reflects Him, and man, who reflects Him, are both triune in the likeness of that Triunity.
You do not exist, nor appear as you do, because of your image in the mirror. But your image in the mirror is overwhelming evidence of your existence and of your appearance.
But it is not an "argument" for an inherent necessity in God's nature. We might well give up all such arguments from something in man's nature to an inherent necessity in God's nature. God is not what He is because of what man is. God cannot be explained in that way. There is no explanation of the Trinity.
So if someone asks, "May we at least find in nature, person and personality an explanation of the Trinity? May we not have in them at least a philosophy of the Trinity?" the answer is brief but complete. We do not find, in all these things, any basis or philosophy of the Trinity, because the Trinity is not based on them; they are based on the Trinity. The human nature, person and personality cannot be seen as in any way the basis of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for the simple reason that man's nature is not the basis and cause of God's nature. The order is the other way. Man is not the cause of God. God is the cause of man. The created nature is not the cause of the Creator's nature. The Creator's nature is the cause of the created nature. Man is not the original, and God made in man's image. God is the original, and man is made in God's image. We argued not from original to reflection, but from
reflection to original. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not what nature, person and personality are in God. They are what is in God in place of nature, person and personality as we know them in man. The Trinity is not the reflection, spread large and infinite in God, of nature, person and personality. Nature, person and personality are the reflection, made human and finite, of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Nature, person and personality are not therefore an explanation or philosophy of the Trinity. There is no philosophy of the Trinity. The Trinity is the explanation and philosophy of the triunity in man, as it is of the whole triunity in the physical and human universe. We have not, therefore, in these things, a philosophy of the Trinity. It is an explanation and philosophy of the universe. It does not tell us why God is Three in One. We do not know why God is Three in One. It tells us why the universe is triune. No man has a right to make a philosophy of the Trinity out of it. It is a philosophy of the triunity of space, matter, time and man, which is the fabric of the universe. God is the explanation of the universe. The Trinity explains and alone explains the universe of such triunities. It tells why space is what it is. It tells why matter is what it is. It tells why time is what it is. It tells why man is what he is. It is the explanation, and the only explanation, of the universe of triune space, matter, time and man.
How simply and naturally all this comes to us in the New Testament! How unphilosophically and untheologically!
[paragraph continues] It is nowhere presented as a doctrine. It is everywhere present as a fact. It comes to us above all in Jesus, in what he says and does. It shows itself in all that he tells of himself, and of the Father, and of the Spirit.
This simple and natural realism is shown to us by one great test:—
The Trinity is absolutely involved in Jesus. It is never presented apart from him, either by himself, or by the New Testament writers. It is his claims, as the Son, the second Person in that Three in One, and his allusions, and the claims of the New Testament writers about him, which have brought the Trinity to us. There is no Trinity apart from Jesus. There is no revelation of the Trinity except through him.
But he is a man. He is the most real and human of men. In his interests, his sympathies, his social life, his friendships, his joys and sorrows, his emotions, his life and death, he is the most human of all men, the most natural, the most unartificial, the most free from the poses and pretences and aloofness of great men.
Now we have this situation. As a human being he should have, and we should find in him, nature, person and personality of the most human kind. As the Son, the Second Person in the Three in One, we should find in him and through him Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We should find a remarkable thing. We should find the two, the Divine Trinity and the human triunity, coinciding and blending in him. The Divine Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the human nature, person and personality should, in him, be seen merging and uniting. This is what we should see.
Is this what we actually do see? Is it what we see
and hear in Jesus as his life and words are brought to us in the New Testament?
First of all we know Jesus as a person. We find him so in the Gospels. He was a very real person in every way. There was nothing abstract about him. To everyone who knew him or met him he was very genuinely a person. There never was any question about that.
Then as his friends got to know him better they saw back of the person his very nature. They found it to be a Divine nature. It showed itself so to them in a hundred ways. Then it came to them by his words and by their observation of him at work and at prayer that back of and in that Divine nature was "the Father." "The Father abiding in me doeth the works." "This is my beloved Son." "I and the Father." "All things have been delivered unto me of my Father, and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth anyone know the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal him." Jesus "dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten of the Father."
And all felt the influence of Jesus' marvelous personality. It entered other lives. It gave them new life. It made them over new, so much so that they were said to be born anew. It was vivid and real beyond all experience of personalities. Finally he taught them that this life of his as it entered, and influenced, and transformed other lives, this personality, this spirit of his, was more than a personality. It was also a Person, his other Self, the Holy Spirit. And so it developed that when he, the visible Person Jesus, was gone, this Personality of his proved to be a distinct, invisible
[paragraph continues] Person, the Holy Spirit, who spoke, and directed, and acted, and said "I" and "Me."
This is exactly the representation of Scripture, in its day-by-day narrative of Jesus and his friends. In Jesus we see, before our eyes, nature, person and personality reaching up into Father, Son and Holy Spirit and merging with them. Indeed it was this very blending which first involved the Trinity. It was the presence of the Father in Jesus, where we would have simply our own nature! It was Jesus sending out the Spirit, where we would send out simply our own personality! It was these very facts which first brought the Trinity to the world and to us. It was in this simple, this human as well as Divine, this natural way that the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit came to the knowledge of men.
Simply, self-evidently, naturally, without explaining or theorizing, it all comes to us, and fits together, and lives before us, in the life and words of Jesus in the New Testament. That seemingly impossible blending of the Divine Trinity and the human triunity becomes in Jesus' daily life and conversation a simple reality. The insurmountable problem becomes a living proof. The data in the case fit perfectly the great conclusions and evidences of the universe about the Triune God. The facts of Jesus meet and fit those mighty facts of the universe which require and demonstrate the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Indeed we find such fitting-together at every point, in the most scientific way, of all the facts in the case. This absolute exactness is an overwhelming challenge,
a demand, confronting every open mind. If God is Three in One, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, there ought to be such and such triunity in the physical world. And there is such triunity, in the whole structure of the physical world, with such absolute and elaborate likeness to the Divine Triunity as we could never have asked for. If God is Three in One there ought also to be such and such triunity in human existence. And there is, as the very being, simple and self-evident, of human life, with such endless and absolute detail of likeness as no one could have dreamed of asking. Or on the other hand, the cause of all this triunity of the physical world and man ought to be found in God. And exactly such a cause, complete, exact, profound, is presented to us in Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the New Testament. And further, if human existence is Nature, Person and Personality, the Original of this reflection should naturally be three simultaneous, conscious Persons with such and such characteristics. And it is exactly as the Bible describes Him. And finally, if God is Three in One, and Jesus is therefore God and man, then that Triunity in God and this triunity in man ought in Jesus, as God and man at once, to be seen merging into each other. And that is exactly what we do see, and what first drew the world's attention and ours to the whole question of the Trinity.
Whether we follow one method or the other makes no difference. The result is the same. The two methods converge. We can begin with the Trinity, presented in the Bible, and experienced by countless men
and women, and summon the facts of the universe to reflect and confirm it. Or we can begin with the facts of the universe, and see them demanding the Trinity as their original and cause. One can look upon the visible world. Or one can look into the secret, invisible forces of nature. Or one can look within the inner universe of one's own being. Wherever one looks one finds that marvelous Triunity.
Whither shall we flee from that Triune presence? If we ascend up into heaven, it is there. If we take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the universe, it is there. If we say, "Surely the darkness, and the invisible things of the universe, shall cover us;" even the darkness hideth not from that Three in One. The heavens declare the glory of the Triune God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork. For the invisible things of Him are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made. And God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." And God created man in His own image. In the triune image of God created He him. Without, within, above, below, whichever way we turn we see the Triune God.
Out of this candid study of God and the world and man rise three conclusions so great that we could not grasp them if they were not also so self-evident.
1. The universe is one vast evidence of that Triunity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in God. The entire universe, the outer universe of space and matter and time, and the inner universe of the human soul, in all its
vast triunity, reflects that Triunity. It demands that Triunity in God.
The universe is one vast evidence in such detailed, exact, scientific correspondence to the Divine Triunity which it demands and reflects as can be found in no other witness of the universe to anything else about God.
And if you are one who feels that space and time are simply ways in which you have to see the universe, thought-forms in which you must conceive the universe, then surely you, who must always see the universe in such triunity, cannot hesitate to see God as such Triunity.
2. The Triunity of Father-Son and Holy Spirit is the explanation of the universe. It is the answer to those great questions, "What is the explanation of the universe?" "What is the principle of the universe?" The answer is "Triunity in the image of the Triune God is the principle and explanation of the universe. It is the organizing principle of all things. It is the structure and pattern of the universe."
Why is space as it is, sheer, inevitable, intangible threefoldness?
Why is this a space universe?
Why are energy, motion and phenomena the being
of matter? Why is the universe as it is in this way?
Why is all existence a continuity, a continual passing out of future, through present, into past? Why is this a time universe?
And if space and time are forms of thought in which we conceive the universe, why do we always conceive it so? Why are our minds such that they conceive it so?
Why is man exactly what he is? What is his likeness to the universe?
What are the reasons for this?
Is there one great reason for all? Are all the reasons one? Is there one great explanation? Is the formula of the universe beyond us? Does it need a "higher mind" to formulate it? Or can we grasp it?
The answer to all these questions is evident. The formula, the pattern, the secret, the principle, the structure, the explanation, of the universe is self-evidently clear. It explains itself. No "higher mind" is needed to formulate it. It clearly includes God. It is a universal principle. It is a principle which lies in God's nature. It is triunity in the image of a Triune God. It reveals one vast unity,—sheer space, and moving matter, and mysterious time, and wondrous man, and supreme God, bound in one vast unity.
Get in your heart a vision of the universe. Do not go about in the midst of it blind to the great structure of the universe and of human life. See its immense triunity. See it reflecting from leaf and star and space and time and self the Triune God. See it as an orderly universe. See it as a whole. See it as one vast, open and visible witness to the Three in One. Have a philosophy of the universe. Open your soul to the visible explanation of all things. Get a vision of yourself as a part of the universe, in a body of space and substance, reflecting in these the triune Creator,—living a life of future, present and past, in vivid triune likeness to Him,—existing in nature, person and personality, an image of the Triune God. Man was made to reflect Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Man was made
to know and to commune with Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
And get one further vision, the focus of all of this logic and all these realities.
3. The universe is one vast witness to the claims of Jesus.
That Triunity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit which it the whole universe corroborates comes to us in Jesus. It is bound up with him.
That Triunity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit which supplies the universe with its cause and explanation comes to us in Jesus. It is revealed to us in him alone, and he is the visible embodiment of it.
As beings who live in this universe, and are a part of it, we cannot ignore Jesus, to whose claims and whose Sonship this whole universe of height, length and breadth, of energy, motion and phenomena, of future, present and past, of nature, person and personality, is one vast converging witness. Men crucified him because he made himself God. But millions experience the reality of his life and power to-day. No man with vision can ignore Jesus the Son. For we live in a world which is his vivid likeness, amid a universe of interwoven movement which is his seamless robe, and in a present which is his living reflection in the stream of time.