Meeting The Inroads Of Pantheism

Only as God had revealed it to her could Ellen White have known that pantheistic teachings would be presented at the 1899 General Conference session. She was led to write and send in advance an article to be read entitled “The True Relation of God and Nature.” At the Tuesday-morning meeting, February 21, as the health message was being discussed at the session, Dr. Kellogg declared that he would be glad to hear from Dr. E. J. Waggoner and W. W. Prescott “on this question of healthful living,” for both had been giving interesting and helpful talks at the sanitarium. As Waggoner spoke, he did so in the framework of pantheistic philosophy, which carried apparent support of at least a part of the audience. Some days later the mail brought Ellen White's message, which was read to the session on Sabbath afternoon, March 4.WV 351.6

It opened with these words:WV 352.1

Since the fall of man, nature cannot reveal a perfect knowledge of God, for sin has brought a blight upon it, and has intervened between nature and nature's God (The General Conference Bulletin, 1899, 157).WV 352.2

Excerpts from her address reveal the straightforward way she came to grips with the issues that had been so subtly raised at the church's world headquarters:WV 352.3

Christ came to the world as a personal Saviour. He represented a personal God. He ascended on high as a personal Saviour, and He will come again as He ascended to heaven—a personal Saviour. We need carefully to consider this, for in their human wisdom, the wise men of the world, knowing not God, foolishly deify nature and the laws of nature....WV 352.4

The Father in heaven has a voice and a person which Christ expressed. Those who have a true knowledge of God will not become so infatuated with the laws of matter and the operations of nature as to overlook or to refuse to acknowledge the continual working of God in nature. Deity is the author of nature. The natural world has in itself no inherent power but that which God supplies. How strange, then, that so many make a deity of nature! God furnishes the matter and the properties with which to carry out His plans; Nature is but His agency (Ibid.).WV 352.5

But at this time Kellogg was not prone to receive messages of caution and reproof. He took offense at the cautions Ellen White sounded and declared that she had turned against him. He threatened to resign from his work and all connection with Seventh-day Adventists. This almost stunned her. On August 15 she wrote in her diary:WV 352.6

I lose my courage and my strength and cannot call to mind the very things I ought to write. I have a letter—two, yes, three—written for Dr. Kellogg, but I am so afraid of being misunderstood that I dare not send them. I feel intensely, and want to help his mind in many things, but how can I do it? My words are misapplied and misunderstood, and sometimes appear to be so misunderstood by humans that they do more harm than good. This has been the case with Dr. Kellogg (Manuscript 189, 1899).WV 352.7