The Idea of God in General--Antithesis of God and the World; the Supernatural and Nature--Theism and Pantheism--Chief Forms of Theism--Polytheism--Triplotheism--Amphitheism--Monotheism--Religious Statistics--Naturalistic Monotheism--Solarism--Anthropistic Monotheism--The Three Great Mediterranean Religions--Mosaism--Christianity--The Cult of the Madonna and the Saints--Papal Polytheism--Islam--Mixotheism--Nature of Theism--An Extra-mundane and Anthropomorphic God; a Gaseous Vertebrate--Pantheism--Intramundane God (Nature)--The Hylozoism of the Ionic Monists (Anaximander)--Conflict of Pantheism and Christianity--Spinoza--Modern Monism--Atheism
For thousands of years humanity has placed the last and supreme basis of all phenomena in an efficient cause, to which it gives the title of God (_deus_, _theos_). Like all general ideas, this notion of God has undergone a series of remarkable modifications and transformations in the course of the evolution of reason. Indeed, it may be said that no other idea has had so many metamorphoses; for no other belief affects in so high a degree the chief objects of the mind and of rational science, as well as the deepest interests of the emotion and poetic fancy of the believer.
A comparative criticism of the many different forms of the idea of God would be extremely interesting and instructive; but we have not space for it in the present work. We must be content with a passing glance at the most important forms of the belief and their relation to the modern thought that has been evoked by a sound study of nature. For further information on this interesting question the reader would do well to consult the distinguished work of Adalbert Svoboda, _Forms of Faith_ (1897).
When we pass over the finer shades and the variegated clothing of the God-idea and confine our attention to its chief element, we can distribute all the different presentations of it in two groups--the _theistic_ and _pantheistic_ group. The latter is closely connected with the monistic, or rational, view of things, and the former is associated with dualism and mysticism.
