THE same tendency to localize Deity is in evidence today as it was when the Pharisees inquired of Jesus, "Where is thy Father?" and when from one of his disciples came the request, "Shew us the Father." The invisible God is held by the materially-minded to be inapprehensible and of little avail to humanity.
Yet deep down in the hearts of men as they sit at council tables, endeavoring to frame laws and draw up treaties aimed at establishing peace and prosperity for all nations, there is a longing to understand the supreme power which alone can solve human problems. There is likewise a yearning for health and happiness which remains unfulfilled because it is usually focused on materiality.
Today, in the rush of modern life and often inexplicable calamities, questions such as these are latent or active in human consciousness: What and where is God? How and when may we know God? The satisfying answer to these questions is obscured because the idolatrous belief in matter as the arbiter of health, happiness, and intelligence, is still in evidence. The pantheistic concept of Deity as expressed through a supposedly mortal and material universe is not yet dispelled. Hence the tendency to be satisfied with ritualistic worship or else to drift into agnosticism.
