Dogmatics

“ But what classes of things are right or wrong, we learn by the exercise of our logical intelligence, in connection with experiences of utility, influences of society and tradition, and positive divine revelation. Thus our moral reason, through a combination of intuition and education, of internal and external information as to general principles of right and wrong, furnishes the standard according to which conscience may judge the particular cases which come before it. ”

“ Have they any inherent special connection with human nature as it is? Or are they the outcome of a divine revelation during the infancy of the human race, whose influence has survived the vicissitudes of so many civilizations? If neither of these hypothesis is acceptable to the mind of a modern agnostic, can the evolution of these doctrines from a few simple ideas which are common to humanity in general be explained by the operation of known psychological laws? ”

“ We evidently must, in the first instance, guard against any attempt at doing a doctrinaire violence to the undeniable facts of our consciousness or of its docile analysis, by explaining all our knowledge, or only even all our knowledge of any single thing, as either of purely subjective or of purely objective provenance; for everywhere and always these two elements co-exist in all human apprehension, reason, feeling, will, and faith. ”

“ In their opinion every system of philosophy, science, or ethics which does not inculcate some particular doctrine with respect to the problems in question is necessarily imperfect. The importance of every religious movement, the usefulness of every association and the value of every philosophical system, is always estimated by them in connection with such belief or doctrine. ”

“ Feeling valid only for the individual is pitted against reason valid universally. The test is a perfectly plain one of fact. Theology based on pure reason must in point of fact convince men universally. If it did not, wherein would its superiority consist? If it only formed sects and schools, even as sentiment and mysticism form them, how would it fulfill its programme of freeing us [pg 436] from personal caprice and waywardness? This perfectly definite practical test of the pretensions of philosophy to found religion on universal reason simplifies my procedure to-day. ”

“ And thus also it is that so many doctrines of religion, ethics, and even politics, so full of meaning and reality to first converts, have manifested (after the association of that meaning with the verbal formulas has ceased to be kept up by the controversies which accompanied their first introduction) a tendency to degenerate rapidly into lifeless dogmas; which tendency, all the efforts of an education expressly and skillfully directed to keeping the meaning alive, are barely sufficient to counteract. ”

“ But in the case of such doctrines as the human intelligence may perceive, it is equally just that philosophy should make use of its own method, principles, and arguments-not, indeed, in such fashion as to seem rashly to withdraw from the divine authority. ”

“ Hence they are curious to study our ideas of natural law, of moral freedom, of time, of space, of causation, of self. They pry into the concerns of faith as if these were theirs by divine right. They are not only prying, they are on one side of their activity merciless, skeptical, paradoxical, inconsiderate. ”

“ How could modern philosophers who, being threatened with the most cruel persecution, were called upon to renounce reason and to submit to faith—that is to say, to priestly authority—I say, how could men thus fettered give free flight to their genius, perfect reason, or hasten human progress? ”

“ There can be no free philosophy if we must always remember dogma. [358] Philosophy includes in its sphere all the dogmas of revelation, as well as those of natural religion. It examines by its own independent light the substance of every Christian doctrine, and determines in each case whether it be divine truth. ”

“ To the objectivity of action, that is, to action which originates in the truly substantial element, subjectivity opposes feeling, and to this substantial element and to the thinking knowledge of it it opposes immediate knowledge. Here, however, we do not stay to consider the nature of action, but simply remark that it is just this substantial element, represented by the laws of justice and morality and the commandments of God, which is by its very nature the true Universal, and has consequently its root and basis in the region of thought. ”

“ The judgment which discriminates and decides between a simple universal belief in God, and the connection of such a faith with all natural and sublimely true philosophy on the one hand, and unbelief, false science, and the various systems of error on the other, forms the second term or step in the gradual progress of truth and the spirit of truth in the human consciousness, whether of individuals, or of the whole human race, or of any particular period of its development. ”

“ As human reason is placed on a level with religion itself, so theological must be treated in the same manner as philosophical sciences.
Allocution Singulari quadam, Dec. 9th, 1854.
9. All the dogmas of the Christian religion are indiscriminately the object of natural science or philosophy; and human reason, enlightened solely in an historical way, is able by its own natural strength and principles, to attain to the true science of even the most abstruse dogmas; provided only that such dogmas be proposed to reason itself as its object. ”

“ Some direct mark, by noting which we can be protected immediately and absolutely, now and forever, against all mistake—such has been the darling dream of philosophic dogmatists. It is clear that the origin of the truth would be an admirable criterion of this sort, if only the various origins could be discriminated from one another from this point of view, and the history of dogmatic opinion shows that origin has always been a favorite test. ”

“ There is therefore a natural hostility between him and a philosophy which discourages the explanation of feelings and moral facts by circumstances and association, and prefers to treat them as ultimate elements of human nature; a philosophy which is addicted to holding up favourite doctrines as intuitive truths, and deems intuition to be the voice of Nature and of God, speaking with an authority higher than that of our reason. ”

“ The firm assent to its really sound and rational principles and their logical conclusions, inexorably demands a further assent, to the physical, moral, and metaphysical demonstration by which the certain truth of Christianity is made evident to reason. A consistent and thorough rejection of Christianity reacts with irresistible logical violence against the first premises of natural theology. The prevailing rationalism is materialistic and atheistic. ”

“ The doctrine, that the theological explanation of phenomena belongs only to the infancy of our knowledge of them, ought not to be construed as if it was equivalent to the assertion, that mankind, as their knowledge advances, will necessarily cease to believe in any kind of theology. ”

“ But in his ostentatious contempt of dogmatic precision and exactness, none but those who have not thought about the matter will see any proof of his strength or wisdom. Dogma, accurate, subtle, scientific, does not prevent a mind of the first order from breathing freshness of feeling, grandeur, originality, and the sense of reality, into the exposition of the truth which it represents. It is no fetter except to those minds which in their impulsiveness, their self-confidence, and their want of adequate grasp and sustained force, most need its salutary restraint. ”

“ Mark the underlying conception that Authority merely means force and that Dogma is necessarily a falsehood; mark the characteristic inability to grasp what should be, to the thinking mind, an obvious truth: that all teaching is dogmatic, all acceptation of all truth necessarily under some authority, of reason, of judgment, of sense, or of accepted experience in others. ”

“ That which characterises dogmatism as a philosophical method is not simply the distinction between ideas and things, but the nature of the notion or category by means of which either ideas or things are made comprehensible. In all cases of explanation, we find, as the residuum of analysis, some fundamental relation or thought by means of which the facts involved have become for us intelligible. ”

“ It is difficult for the average churchman, or theologian, to apprehend and remember, that a fact, in nature or in life, is one thing; and that the interpretation, or explanation put upon that fact, by any man, or body of men, is another thing entirely. Here is where Belief, Dogma, and Heresy come in. As soon as one denies the interpretation, he is accused of denying the fact, no matter how illogical or absurd the interpretation may be, on the one hand, or how openly he admits the fact as the basis of his own conclusions, on the other. ”

“ Every time that we undertake to explain something human, taken at a given moment in history—be it a religious belief, a moral precept, a legal principle, an æsthetic style or an economic system—it is necessary to commence by going back to its most primitive and simple form, to try to account for the characteristics by which it was marked at that time, and then to show how it developed and became complicated little by little, and how it became that which it is at the moment in question. ”

“ At the root of all our science, all our philosophy, and all our literature, the three fundamental doctrines of Christianity: the equality of all souls, the insuperable depravity of human nature, and the insistence upon Truth, are the ruling influences. ”

“ But when the heavy-handed dogmatist requires a categorical assent to the literal truth of the miraculous, in exactly the same sense in which physical facts are true, a tension between faith and reason cannot be avoided. ”

“ Then, as we advance still higher in the world of letters, we find metaphysicians and philosophers assuming that a belief in certain truths is implanted in all rational minds by the Creator as a necessary part of their constitution, and that these truths are the foundation of most of our acquired knowledge. The truths or principles of mind thus recognized are called by various names, such as reason, the principles of reason, the primary truths, the intuitions, the intuitive truths, the fundamental truths, the principles of common sense, the categories, etc. ”

“ For can we shew from the reason and nature of things, that it was fit and reasonable, for the providence of God to suffer sin to enter, and continue in the world? Here therefore the man of natural religion must drop his method of reasoning from the fitness of things, and that in an article of the highest concern to the moral world, and be as mere a believer, as he that believes the most incomprehensible mystery of revealed religion. ”

“ Is dogma, the most definite and authoritative, {219} fettering to the freedom of intellect? We can see in a moment the entire unreality of the objection, by simply substituting for it another question. Is truth fettering to intellect? Does the utmost certitude of truth limit freedom of mind? Because, if not, dogma, so far as it coincides with truth, cannot fetter either. If perfect knowledge of truth could paralyse the intellect, what (it is worth while to ask) do we mean by intellect? Do we mean something which must for ever be struggling with difficulties which it cannot overcome? ”

“ This he calls laying aside our senses and our reason, to believe by a blind and implicit faith, the doctrines and opinions of a certain number of men, pretending to be divinely inspired; and not only so, but believing doctrines diametrically opposite to our reason, and the common sense and experience of the whole world. ”

“ Just as before, it remains true of us finite beings that our finite external world is at each instant the product of our activity, working with the postulates, upon the material of our sensations. And that activity remains as before the proper object of a moral judgment. Only now we see that the highest form of our activity is likely to be the one most conforming to the truth. What remains true of the scientific postulates, remains true of the religious postulates. ”

“ If 'absolute truth' is our ideal and acquaintance with 'absolute reality' our aim, then, in view of the persistent illusions on both these points to which the human mind is liable, it seems necessary to recognize the hopelessness of our search. Thus the last dilemma of dogmatism is reached. ”

“ Divested, for the public gaze, of its darkest ingredients, and dressed up, in their theological works, in false and meretricious pretentions to truth and purity, it exhibited a dogma only calculated to exert a beneficial influence on mankind, and to prove a source of morality and usefulness. ”

“ It should be borne in mind, that all the dogmas and doctrines of our current religious faith originated at a period before the sun of science had risen above the moral horizon, and anterior to the birth of moral science, and hence, like other productions of that age, are heavily laden with error. ”

“ You see that at bottom we are thrown back upon the general principles by which the empirical philosophy has always contended that we must be guided in our search for truth. Dogmatic philosophies have sought for tests for truth which might dispense us from appealing to the future. ”

“ In all religious feeling, as in morality, art, and other spheres of human activity, there is the underlying element of reason which is the characteristic of all the activities of a self-conscious intelligence. To endeavour to elicit that element, to infuse into the spontaneous and unsifted conceptions of religious experience the objective clearness, necessity and organic unity of thought—is the legitimate aim of science, in religion as in other spheres. ”