"The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals"
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James drives a wedge between the consolations people want from religion and the kind of order science can honestly tolerate. His “God of universal laws” is almost a managerial caricature: a deity who deals in bulk, not bespoke. The “wholesale” versus “retail” contrast does more than simplify; it smuggles in an entire critique of petitionary faith. If the universe is intelligible through repeatable mechanisms, then the divine, if it exists at all in that framework, can’t keep ducking behind the curtain to fix a single life, rescue a particular ship, or nudge one diagnosis.
The intent isn’t to sneer at believers so much as to name the price of scientific seriousness. James is writing in an era when Darwin, industrial modernity, and professionalized science were steadily displacing the older picture of a providential God who micromanages outcomes. His language mimics the corporate logic of the late 19th century: systems, scale, process. That’s the subtext: modernity has trained us to trust impersonal infrastructures, and science’s “God” must look like an infrastructure too.
There’s also a sly psychological point, very Jamesian. People don’t just believe in God; they want a God who can “accommodate” them, who can turn the cosmic machinery toward private need. James frames that desire as a conflict with scientific explanation, not because science disproves divinity, but because it rejects special pleading. Any God science “recognizes” is, by definition, one who refuses to play favorites.
The intent isn’t to sneer at believers so much as to name the price of scientific seriousness. James is writing in an era when Darwin, industrial modernity, and professionalized science were steadily displacing the older picture of a providential God who micromanages outcomes. His language mimics the corporate logic of the late 19th century: systems, scale, process. That’s the subtext: modernity has trained us to trust impersonal infrastructures, and science’s “God” must look like an infrastructure too.
There’s also a sly psychological point, very Jamesian. People don’t just believe in God; they want a God who can “accommodate” them, who can turn the cosmic machinery toward private need. James frames that desire as a conflict with scientific explanation, not because science disproves divinity, but because it rejects special pleading. Any God science “recognizes” is, by definition, one who refuses to play favorites.
Quote Details
| Topic | God |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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