f a Personal God. Such
persons will feel strongly that, by this final act of purification, Mr.
Fiske has simply purified the Deity altogether out of existence. And I
scarcely think it is here competent to reply that all previous acts of
purification were at first similarly regarded as destructive, because it is
evident that none of these previous acts affected, as this one does, the
central core of Theism. And, lastly, if it should be still further
objected, that by declaring the theory of Personal Agency the central core
of Theism, I am begging the question as to the appropriateness of Mr.
Fiske's use of the word "Theism,"--seeing he appears to regard the
essential meaning of this word to be that of a postulation of merely Causal
Agency,--I answer, More of this anon; but meanwhile let it be observed that
any charge of question-begging lies rather at the door of Mr. Fiske, in
that he assumes, without any expressed justification, that the essence of
Theism _does_ consist in such a postulation and in nothing more. And as he
unquestionably has against him the present world of theists no less than
the history of Theism in the past, I do not see how he is to meet this
charge except by confessing to an abuse of the term in question.

I will now proceed to examine the structure of Cosmic Theism. We are all, I
suppose, at one in allowing that there are only three "verbally
intelligible" theories of the universe,--viz., that it is self-existent, or
that it is self-created, or that it has been created by some other and
external Being. It is usual to call the first of these theories Atheism,
the second Pantheism, and the third Theism. Now as there are here three
distinct nameable theories, it is necessary, if the term "Cosmic Theism" is
to be justified as an appropriate term, that the particular theory which it
designates should be shown to be in its essence theistic--_i.e._, that the
theory should present those distinguishing features in virtue of which
Theism differs from Atheism on the one hand, and from Pantheism on the
other. Now what are these features? The postulate of an Eternal
Self-existing Something is common to Theism and to Atheism. Here Atheism
ends. Theism, however, is generally said to assume Personality,
Intelligence, and Creative Power as attributes of the single self-existing
substance. Lastly, Pantheism assumes the Something now existing to have
been self-created. To which, then, of these distinct theories is Cos