Again we affirm that God is doing everything that occurs in the universe, except those things which are being done by His children. Nothing ever occurs that is not directly or indirectly the act of some will.
5. If the Ancients made their gods, how do we know that we are not making our God?
Doubtless, the great fallacy in this question is the supposition that the Ancients made their gods. No one ever made his God or his gods; for all men have the same identical God, living and moving and having their being in Him. They have Him regardless of whether they know either His name or His character. Since there is no other God or thing to have, all must have Him. Neither can they avoid being conscious of Him, nor escape having opinions concerning Him. All religious opinions, however sane or grotesque, are about the same God. The Ancients, being conscious of our God and their God, were sometimes comforted by His presence, while at other times they were greatly frightened. As they could not escape Him they tried to explain Him; and in the act of explaining, they made a theology and not a god. Whoever expresses a religious opinion is guilty of starting a theology. Even the Ancients were moved by an objective reality, and not by a mere idea. Though their idea often failed to describe the reality with accuracy, yet if the reality had disappeared, the idea would have perished from among them. It seemed to them that there was a god of thunder and, according to our interpretation of the universe, there was; for if our God had not been there thundering, they never would have thought of a god of thunder. Neither were they mistaken when they thought there was a god of harvest; because our God was there making their harvests grow as He does ours, and was feeding them as He feeds us. We all make worse mistakes than that. These crude men may be excused for thinking that a crashing thunderstorm was a big enough task for one god; or that the fructifying of all vegetation was ample employment for another.
Those early men worshiped our God in divided form simply because they could not think of a God great enough to carry on all the diverse activities which they beheld. Another reason why these crude children conceived of Him as many gods was that they could not understand how one person could be so gentle and terrible at the same time. Nevertheless, they would not have had gentle and terrible gods if our God had not been both gentle and terrible. They, therefore, no more made their gods than they made their stars. Their gods were our God, and their stars were our stars. We call their theology mythology, and their astronomy astrology. Yet mythology is crude theology, and astrology is unscientific astronomy. Astrology arose because men were influenced by real stars, and were impelled to offer such explanations as they were able. Without astrology we never would have had astronomy. In like manner men were disquieted by the same Infinite Power that disturbs us to-day, and were moved by that Power to offer their best interpretation. But without their mythology we never would have had our theology. The development of astronomy will never cease while there are intelligent men for stars to shine upon. Nor will the idea of God cease to expand while men are enfolded in the vast purposeful energy called the universe.