d, the doctrine of God's nearness and indwelling will
probably commend itself to most thoughtful religious people; but in
{14} re-emphasising an aspect of truth there is always the danger of
over-emphasising it, of claiming it as the whole and sole truth--of
falling, in a word, from one extreme into the other. To that rule the
present case offers no exception; it is, on the contrary, very
distinctly one of the pendulum swinging as far in one direction as it
previously swung to the other. Let us then at once state the thesis
which many of the following pages will serve to elaborate: when the
_indwelling_ of God in the universe is interpreted as meaning His
_identity_ with the universe; when the _indwelling_ of God in man is
taken to mean His _identity_ with man, the whole structure of religion
is gravely imperilled. For in the identity of God with the world and
with man--which is the root-tenet of Pantheism--there is inevitably
involved the surrender of both the Divine and the human personality.
We shall have occasion to see how much such a surrender signifies; for
the moment it suffices to say plainly that Pantheism, the doctrine
which denies the transcendence of God, is by no means the same as that
which affirms His immanence, nor does it logically follow from that
affirmation. The mistake so frequently made lies in regarding the
Divine immanence and the Divine transcendence as mutually exclusive
alternatives, whereas they are complementary to one another. A
one-sided insistence on the immanence of God, to the exclusion of His
transcendence, leads to {15} Pantheism, just as a one-sided insistence
upon His transcendence, to the exclusion of His immanence, leads to
Deism; it is the two taken together that result in, and are necessary
to, Theism. Thus it cannot be too well understood, and it should be
understood at the very outset, that we have not to make anything like a
choice between immanence and transcendence--that these two can never be
separated, but are related to each other as the less to the greater, as
the part to the whole. One naturally shrinks from employing a diagram
in dealing with such a topic as this; but perhaps recourse might
without offence be had to this method--necessarily imperfect as it
is--on account of its essential simplicity, and because it is
calculated to remove misapprehensions. If we can think of a very large
sphere, _A_, and, situated anywhere _within_ this, of a very small
sphere,