Note 9 — Chapter II · THE HEBREW RELIGION

See Chapter IX on the Religious Society in Part IV of this volume. It gives rise to the belief that men as individuals or collectively are the objects of a special Providence, and that the universe is so arranged as to be adapted to man’s needs, not to say his wishes; whereas the facts show that man must adapt himself to the universe, and find his physical safety and his ethical salvation in so doing. The belief in the Father who allows not one hair of our heads to fall unnoticed raises expectations to which actual experience fails to correspond.

As to the issue between monotheism and trinitarianism, it has long since become obsolescent, if not obsolete. The forward-looking men and women of our time are absorbed in far other issues—Is the mechanical theory propounded by science the ultimate account of things? Is the world in which we live a blind machine? Is man a chance product of nature, like the beasts that perish? Not is God one in unity or is He a Triune God, but, is there a God at all? Is there a supersensible reality? Is religion capable of a new lease of life, and of giving a new lease of life to us who now are spiritually dead?