Theism

“ The notion that Theism as contrasted with Christianity is a mark of progress and of spirituality is a pure imagination. 'More spiritual it may be than the traditional Christianity which consists in rigid and stereotyped forms of practice, of ceremonial, of observance, of dogma: but not more spiritual than the teaching of Christ Himself, the end and completion of Whose work was to bring men to the Father, to teach them that God is a Spirit, and to send the Spirit of the Father into the hearts of the disciples. ”

“ In treating the subjects about which I shall write to you in these letters or essays, it will be therefore necessary to distinguish genuine and pure theism from the unnatural and profane mixtures of human imagination—what we can know of God from what we cannot know. ”

“ We shall, at all events, gain the advantage of a strong contrast between Theism and non-Theism;—and strong contrast with shadows is often a strong enlightenment.
First, then, to consider the idea of Creation as the work not of a blind thing, but a supremely wise and powerful Being. ”

“ Passing over the consideration of credibility, and confining ourselves to that of conceivability, we see that Atheism, Pantheism, and Theism, when rigorously analysed, severally prove to be absolutely unthinkable. ”

“ Religions Second Postulate: the undying Human Soul
That supremely interesting aspect of theism belongs to it as part and parcel of the general belief in an Unseen World, in which human beings have an interest. ”

“ It does not in the least follow that we are to regard theism as merely or even mainly a tradition—as [Pg 22] a doctrine received simply on authority, and transmitted from age to age, from generation to generation, without investigation, without reflection. ”

“ The present view seems to the author to meet the conditions that his friend here had in mind. Theism as a doctrine that there is a big power that fights and beats down other powers in the service of the good, is open to all the objections before suggested. ”

“ Upon this discussion we have now to enter, and we shall find it leading us to the conclusion that throughout all possible advances in human knowledge, so far as we can see, the essential position of theism must remain unshaken. ”

“ The Mystical Argument for theism is based on the claim that in religious experience there is a more immediate certainty of the presence of God and a stronger assurance of His existence than can be gained from purely intellectual processes. ”

“ As every enquiry, which regards Religion, is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular, which challenge our principal attention, to wit, that concerning it's foundation in reason, and that concerning its origin in human nature. Happily, the first question, which is the most important, admits of the most obvious, at least, the clearest solution. The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflexion, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion. ”

“ Our theism is the purification of the human mind. Man can paint, or make, or think nothing but man. He believes that the great material elements had their origin from his thought. ”

“ These are facts which the theist equally with the Christian must face, for they exist in the universe of that God, in whose moral perfections both believe. I repeat, therefore, that the only way of escaping from them is by rushing into the far greater difficulties of pantheism or atheism. ”

“ A little philosophy inclines man's mind to atheism: depth in philosophy brings men's minds back to religion. (44) While the mind of man looks upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them; (44) when it beholds the chain of them confederate and linked together, it must needs acknowledge a Providence. (44) That school which is most accused of atheism most clearly demonstrates the truth of religion."
(a) Insert a suspensive conjunction. ”

“ RELIGION has two principle enemies, Fanatism and Infidelity, or that which is called Atheism. The first requires to be combatted by reason and morality, the other by natural philosophy. ”

“ Thus we must wait for the rise of Christian philosophy, and take as our terminus a quo the middle of the second century, when first there appears that literature which bears evidence to the conversion of philosophers to the Christian Church, and affords us examples of their attempts to present the new doctrines to the schools which they had abandoned. ”

“ Hence, when once the personality of the First Principle is reached in some other way — the way of philosophy as distinguished from that of science — science will then furnish the most abundant confirmations, the strongest corroborations; the more abundant and the stronger, in proportion as the First Principle reached by philosophy ascends continuously from materialism through deism and pantheism to personal theism. ”

“ For the sake of these, then, and occasionally for the further confirmation of the faith of believers, and for purposes of illustration, the patristic writers return again to the discussion of those elements of belief for which they themselves felt no need, and hence we have in their works a rather frequent reference to the various forms of the theistic argument ”

“ If then you would know whether christianity be true, it is first of all needful that you read and ponder the Christian books. These books prove themselves. The religion of Christ is felt to be true, as you read the writings in which it is recorded. Just as the works of nature prove to the contemplative mind the being of a God, so do the books of the Christians prove the truth of their religion. ”

“ VI. It is a wrong use of the Bible to manufacture cut of it any one uniform, system, of theology, as the fixed and final form of thought in which religion is to live.
Let me define these contrasting terms, so commonly confounded. Religion is man's perception of the Power in whom we live and move and have our being, and his emotion towards this power. Theology is man's conception of this Power, and his thought defined and formulated.
Religion is man's feeling after God; theology is man's grasp of God. ”

“ For them philosophy runs through the whole theological course, and when Holy Scripture, the pronouncements of the Church, and the utterances of the Fathers have established the truth of the particular doctrine which is under consideration, then reason enters, and elevated, ennobled, fortified and illumined, it walks secure in the highest realms of thought. ”

“ In a work that professes to deal with the Christian faith—The Truth of Religion—and which indeed presents a powerful vindication of historical Christianity, we miss any philosophical interpretation of the nature and power of prayer, adoration, or worship, or any account, indeed, of the intimacies of the soul which belong to the very essence of the Christian faith. ”

“ The most important lesson deducible from all the religious systems, commemorated in history, and noticed in this work, is, that all religious conceptions, whether in the shape of doctrine, precept, prophecy, prayer, religious devotion, or a belief in miracles, are a spontaneous outgrowth of the moral and religious elements of the human mind. And to assign them a higher origin is to ignore the developments of modern science, and insult the highest intelligence of the age. ”

“ All that a writer can do is, first, to say clearly what he means by religion, and afterwards to employ the word consistently in that sense throughout his work. By religion, then, I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life.​ [809] Thus defined, religion consists of two elements, a theoretical and a practical, namely, a belief in powers higher than man and an attempt to propitiate or please them. ”

“ I omit also many excellent doctrines which the Christian has in common with the other world-sects, and some peculiar to itself, and ask your attention to the five great false ideas of this theology which are embodied in the Ecclesiastical Institutions of Christendom.
I. Of the false idea op God.—The ecclesiastical idea of God represents him as deficient in all the great essentials of Deity except eternal self-existence. He is imperfect in power, in wisdom, in justice, in benevolence, and in holiness—fidelity to Himself. ”

“ If I understand the distinction of Christianity, the reason why it is to be preferred over all other systems [21] and is divine is this, that it is a moral system; that it presents men with truths which are their own reason, and enjoins practices that are their own justification; that if miracles may be said to have been its evidence to the first Christians, they are not its evidence to us, but the doctrines themselves; that every practice is Christian which praises itself, and every practice unchristian which condemns itself. ”

“ In fact, this fabulous theology attributed everything to them which might happen not merely to a man, but to the most contemptible of men.17 Let us leave what he calls natural theology, which is the discussion of philosophers concerning the physical nature of the gods, and proceed to the third, which he calls civil, and which is that which the citizens, and especially the priests of human communities, are bound to know and administer. This treats of what gods are to be worshipped, and with what rites and sacrifices. ”

“ Finally, Modern Theology has taken up the work of both of the foregoing epochs by defending the fundamental dogmas of Religion against modern agnostics and heretics, and at the same time carefully attending to the development of doctrine within the Church. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At this point, it may be proper for me to state that we make a distinction between Religion and Theology—between Philosophy and Metaphysics. Religion, to us, means that intuitional realization of the existence of THE ALL, and one's relationship to it; while Theology means the attempts of men to ascribe personality, qualities, and characteristics to it; their theories regarding its affairs, will, desires, plans, and designs, and their assumption of the office of '' middle-men'' between THE ALL and the people. ”

“ Let us say that it is true that they derive those theories from their cursory reading of the Bible, but they emphasize some one point or other, or various points which they unite into a system of belief, and then insist that what they have derived and emphasized is the true and only belief from the Bible and hence the true religion, and everything which is contrary to their view is heresy. They then teach their view, or interpretation, to others about them, and confirm what they reach from the passages which they think prove the completeness of their new phase of religion. ”

“ The greater part of these questions introduced into theology, with all the modes of disputation (see p. 115) and solution, are in the terms of philosophy, as is known to all theologians, who have been well exercised in philosophy before proceeding to theology. Again, other questions which are in use among theologians, though in terms of theology, viz., of the Trinity, of the fall, of the incarnation, of sin, of virtue, of the sacraments, etc., are mainly ventilated by authorities, arguments, and solutions drawn from philosophy. ”

“ The religious spirit, the consciousness of the Absolute, and the reverence for it, should permeate all. Not unfrequently, however, we find that what is meant by religion is theology, or the church ceremonial, and these are only one-sided phases of the total religious process. ”

“ The forms of human learning, too, as philosophy, science, literature, and art, when they trench upon the sphere of religion and become atheistic, agnostic, materialistic, or God-defying, exhibit the spirit of the world-religions in opposition to Christ, and are manifestations of the same Beast. ”

“ To see this, suppose that we have our science of religions constituted as a matter of fact. Suppose that she has assimilated all the necessary historical material and distilled out of it as its essence the same conclusions which I myself a few moments ago pronounced. Suppose that she agrees that religion, wherever it is an active thing, involves a belief in ideal presences, and a belief that in our prayerful communion with them, [4] work is done, and something real comes to pass. ”

“ In contradiction to that most grave and deplorable error by which many unbelievers of our own day, more than those of an earlier period, love to confound religion with philosophy, we firmly hold the principle which was efficaciously and unanimously sustained by the ancient sages, pagan as well as Christian, that religion is the chief end to which philosophy is directed. ”

“ You know what I call religion: that which unites in man all his ideas of the universal and the eternal, those two forms of God. Religion, in the ordinary sense of the word, is but the binding together of certain moral and disciplinary formulas with the fine poetic imagery of the great biblical and Christian philosophies. ”

“ That polemical divinity, which comprehended the controversies subsisting between Christians of different communions, should be less eagerly studied, and less frequently treated, though not entirely neglected. 3. That all mixture of philosophy and human science with divine wisdom, was to be most carefully avoided; that is, that Pagan philosophy and classical learning should be kept distinct from, and by no means supersede, Biblical theology. ”

“ These conceptions, as the Creed arranges them, are imparted to us in youth. They are the doctrines of our religion, and in so far as the individual rests his faith on these doctrines and feels them to be the truth, he has all he needs as a Christian. ”

“ Certain it is that the conception of Christianity as the absolute religion, as a revelation possessing supreme objective authority, and offering a precise, definite, and inerrant teaching regarding all the great problems of life, was the dominant idea to which he ever clung. ”