A Candid Examination of TheismRomanes, George John
Religion
A Candid Examination of Theism
Romanes, George John
Theism
possibility, they become utterly worthless; seeing that we can never have
any means whereby to test the actual value of whatever transcendental
probabilities they may appear to establish. Therefore it is that even the
most ultimate of relative truths with which, as we have seen, the question
of Theism is so vitally associated, is almost without meaning when
contemplated in an absolute sense. What, then, is the effect of these
metaphysical considerations on the position of Theism as we have seen it to
be left by the highest generalisations of physical science? Let us
contemplate this question with the care which it deserves.
In the first place, it is evident that the effect of these purely formal
considerations is to render all reasonings on the subject of Theism equally
illegitimate, unless it is constantly borne in mind that such reasonings
can only be of relative signification. Thus, as a matter of pure logic,
these considerations are destructive of all assignable validity of any such
reasoning whatsoever. Still, even a strictly relative probability is, in
some undefinable degree, of more value than no probability at all, as we
have seen these same formal considerations to show (see Sec. 40); and,
moreover, even were this not so, the human mind will never rest until it
attains to the furthest probability which to its powers is accessible.
Therefore, if we do not forget the merely relative nature of the
considerations which are about to be adduced, by adducing them we may at
the same time satisfy our own minds and abstain from violating the
conditions of sound logic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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