De Moor VIII:36: A World-Soul?

One Intelligent Soul is not applicable to the World.  Just as the ancient Gentile Philosophers time and again attributed to the World one common and Intelligent Soul, which first brought about individual things, and hitherto maintains and directs them; whether they make this Soul common to the whole World, or by the Universe understand specifically the Heaven, over which they maintain that this Soul presides; or by this Soul they understand God Himself, whom, as Spirit, they appear to believe to be united with Matter or the corporeal Universe, in such a way that together they make one composite, and God is confounded with nature; or they even speak of a Spirit, not made by God, but eternal, who as a Soul is joined to the World to govern all things according to God’s Providence, which some expound of a Spirit distinct from the good God, but joined to matter, who in and of himself is the fount and origin of all evil:  compare LAMPE, Dissertationum philologico-theologicarum, volume II, Disputation III, chapter II, § 22, pages 122, 123; LELAND, de Utilitate et Necessitate Revelationis Christi, part I, section I, chapter IV, pages 158, 159, 168, 169, section II, chapter XII, pages 348-351, 364, chapter XIII, pages 383-400.  In general, what thing I have observed concerning the impossibility of any Composition of God with creatures are able to make against those Ancient Philosophers, Chapter IV, § 25.

That similar things concerning God or the Holy Spirit as the Spirit or Soul of this Universe were dreamed up in the ancient Church by the Valentinians, but also in more recent times and even now by the Enthusiasts, impure Mystics, and Herrnhuters;[1] has been noted by learned Theologians:  against whom what things I have produced in the place just now cited similarly make.  God, who gave being and form to the World through Creation, ought not at all to be thought or said to enter in any manner into composition with created things, even as the World’s informing Form, that is, its internal principium:  see KULENKAMP,[2] de Enthusiasmo Hernhutharum, chapter IV, § 2, 3, part 1, pages 320, 326-328, 333, 340; WILHELMUS WILHELMIUS,[3] Disputatione de Origine Mali moralis, § 26-28; HEINECCIUS, Historia Philosophica, chapter III, § 42, 49, 66, 81, 82; LAMPE, chapter V de Spiritu Sancto, § 5, 13, 27, Dissertationum philologico-theologicarum, volume II, Disputation V, pages 178, 179, 184, 185, 193.

But neither in addition to God ought some Soul, properly so called, going under the name of the Spirit of the World, to be attributed to the World, which Soul might work all in all, as if to alleviate the burden for God Himself; as this imagination (following the ravings of some Ancients, concerning which NIEUWLAND[4] in his Disputatione de Gnosticorum Theologematibus, § 15, pages 52, 53) has generally obtained in public, as MARESIUS notes, while the Cartesians, with the name changed, have substituted either Motion itself, or the subtle Matter of the prime element, which pervades all things with its perpetual motion and is the cause of many operations, but not quite all; see MARESIUS, Systemate Theologico, locus V, § 12, note c.  Certainly among the Theses, which the Most Illustrious CLOPPENBURG considers worthy of note in the writings of Anton Deusing, Physician and Mathematician of Harderwijk, and concerning which he sought the opinion of other Theologians, was also this one, concerning which Cloppenburg thus inquires:  Whether without danger, in order to preserve and to force into order the particular natures ingrafted in the parts of the universe, and to balance the mass of heavenly bodies also, the immediate divine Providence denied, a Single Soul of the World might be inculcated, as the ordinary Minister of God:  and that Animating the universal World, and making that one Animal, as an attending Form hypostatically united with the individual atoms of the universe, being everywhere present in power?  With which opinion of Deusing is able to be compared that of HENRICUS REGIUS, Professor of Medicine at Utrecht,[5] who also attributes a common Soul to the whole World, a particle of which operates in each and every particular body in various ways, as it meets matter disposed in a variety of ways; as VRIESIUS relates in his Exercitatione de Operationibus Brutorum, § 7.

Now, this thesis of Deusing the Theological Faculty of Leiden also judged to be dangerous, and contrary to Scripture and sound Theology, and that thence dangerous consequences were able to be drawn:  see Res Judicatas contra Deusing in CLOPPENBURG’S Operibus, tome 2, pages 940, 966, etc.  Against the contrary opinion our AUTHOR observes, α.  That it is not necessary, to attribute a common Soul of this sort to the World, since all things are brought forth, and continually preserved and governed, through the Virtue and Providence of God, according to the unbroken testimony of Scripture.  β.  That neither is this opinion able to be elicited from the Scriptures, which subordinate no common Soul of this sort to the omnipotent operation of divine Providence.  On the other hand, they acknowledge no other created spiritual nature, except what belongs either to separated intelligences or Angels, or human Souls.  γ.  With this sort of common Soul of the World admitted, the distinction between Creatures Animate and Inanimate, consistent with the Scriptural doctrine, would also fall, since thus all Parts of the World would be animate.  δ.  Moreover, in opposition to this opinion is observed,

1.  The Unity of the World by Aggregation, or the conjunction and apposition of diverse bodies, which individuals in turn have their own proper subsistence:  whence the essential Form of the World is not to be sought in the Union of Soul and Body, as in man; but merely in the ordained disposition and order of the created things, and in their dependence upon one principium and tendency to the same end.

2.  Dismissing other things, the mere Contiguity of the various Parts of the World; while for the constitution of One Animal is required not only contiguity, but also the continuity of the parts, even if heterogeneous, with each other:  for example, if you should place the severed head of a man right next to his neck, yet he would not be animated being and life.

Objection 1:  Various places in Genesis 1:2; etc.  This is also the objection of Deusing, which CLOPPENBURG in the place cited, page 940, likewise sets forth:  Whether without danger that pretended Soul of the World might be inculcated for belief, by the authority of Scripture speaking concerning the Holy Spirit, Genesis 1:2; Psalm 104:30; and elsewhere?  As our AUTHOR in his Compendio adds Job 27:3; 34:14, 15; Ezekiel 37:5, 14.  But our AUTHOR rightly responds:  either, α.  these Passages have regard to the Holy Spirit as the Creator of all, for example, Genesis 1:2; Psalm 104:30:  compare what was said in Chapter V, § 26.  Or, β.  they indicate spirit ingrafted in certain animate things by God, as it is in the passages cited from Job.  Or, γ.  They indicate that the Power of God is absolutely necessary in preservation, to which is able to be referred Job 27:3b; Ezekiel 37:5, 14.

To Objection 2, that All things are not able to be directed with perfect wisdom, except by a common Soul:  our AUTHOR rightly responds, that that that is done by virtue of divine Providence.  And reasoning of this sort does injury to God’s Providence and incomprehensible Wisdom.

Objection 3:  The Perfection of the World requires a Soul, so that thus it might be able to be considered after the likeness of a great Animal.  There is a response in our AUTHOR, that the contrary is true, that its elegance is augmented by the diversity of animate and inanimate parts.  While the Perfection of the World comes to be estimated by its agreement with the divine Will, and not by the presumption of wisdom, which we rashly imagine for ourselves.

For the most ample and best commentary on this § 36, consult VOETIUS’ Appendicem tertiam ad Disputationes de Creatione, which is in his Disputationum theologicarum, part I, pages 851-868.

[1] In 1722, Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf began receiving Protestant refugees from Bohemia and Moravia, and allowing them to settle on his land in eastern Germany and to build the village of Herrnhut.  The refugees came from diverse religious and theological backgrounds, and initially there was conflict.  Peace was restored as the members of the community committed themselves to a community discipline, emphasizing love over against creed.

[2] Gerardus Kulenkamp (1700-1775) was a Dutch Reformed minister, serving in Amsterdam.  He wrote polemical treatises against the Moravians and the Mennonites.

[3] Wilhelmus Wilhelmius (1720-1771) was a Dutch Reformed minister, philosopher, and mathematician.

[4] Pieter Nieuwland (1722-1795) was a Dutch Reformed minister.

[5] Henricus Regius (1589-1679) was a Cartesian philosopher, and Professor of Medicine and Botany at the University of Utrecht.