A Candid Examination of TheismRomanes, George John
Religion
A Candid Examination of Theism
Romanes, George John
Theism
Mr. Herbert Spencer's doctrine of the Unknowable is a doctrine of so much
speculative importance, that it behoves all students of philosophy to have
clear views respecting its character and implications. Mr. Spencer has
himself so fully explained the character of this doctrine, that no
attentive reader can fail to understand it; but concerning those of its
implications which may be termed theological--as distinguished from
religious--Mr. Spencer is silent. Within the last two or three years,
however, there has appeared a valuable work by an able exponent of the new
philosophy; and in this work the writer, adopting his master's teaching of
the Unknowable, proceeds to develop it into a definite system of what may
be termed scientific theology. And not only so, but he assures the world
that this system of scientific theology is the highest, the purest, and the
most ennobling form of religion that mankind has ever been privileged to
know in the past, or, from the nature of the case, can ever be destined to
know in the future. It is a system, we are told, wherein the most
fundamental truths of Theism are taught as necessary deductions from the
highest truths of Science; it is a system wherein no single doctrine
appeals for its acceptance to any principle of blind or credulous faith,
but wherein every doctrine can be fully justified by the searching light of
reason; it is a system wherein the noblest of our aspirations and the most
sublime of our emotions are able to find an object far more worthy and much
more glorious than has ever been supplied to them by any of the older forms
of Theism; and it is a system, therefore, in which, with a greatly enlarged
and intensified meaning, we may worship God, and all that is within us
bless His holy name. Assuredly a proclamation such as this, emanating from
the most authoritative expounders of modern thought, as the highest and the
greatest result to which a rigorous philosophic synthesis has led, is a
proclamation which cannot fail to arrest our most serious attention. Nay,
may it not do more than this? May it not appeal to hearts which long have
ceased to worship? May it not once more revive a hope--long banished,
perhaps, but still the dearest which our poor natures have
experienced--that somewhere, sometime, or in some way, it may yet be
possible to feel that God is not far from any one of us? For to those who
have known the anguish of a shattered faith, it will not seem so childish
that our hearts should beat the quicker when we once more hear a voice
announcing to a world of superstitious idolaters--"Whom ye ignorantly
worship, Him declare I unto you." But if, when we have listened to the glad
tidings of the new gospel, we find that the preacher, though apparently in
earnest, is not worthy to be heard again on this matter; and if, as we turn
away, our eyes grow dim with the memory of a vanished dream, surely we may
feel that the preacher is deserving of our blame for obtruding thus upon
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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