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 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 4.4BIO 402.1

It opened with these words:4BIO 402.2

Since the fall of man, nature cannot reveal a perfect knowledge of God, ’s God.—Ibid., 157.

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:4BIO 402.3

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....4BIO 402.4

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.4BIO 402.5