An Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since KantMoore, Edward Caldwell
Philosophy
An Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant
Moore, Edward Caldwell
Church history -- 19th century; Philosophy and religion; Philosophy, Modern -- History
However, there is nothing in all of this which hinders us from believing
with a full heart in the love and grace and care of God, in his holy and
redeeming purpose for mankind and for the individual. It is true that
this belief cannot any longer retain its naïve and childish form. It is
true that it demands of a man far more of moral force, of ethical and
spiritual mastery, of insight and firm will, to sustain the belief in
the purpose of God for himself and for all men, when a man believes that
he sees and feels God only in and through nature and history, through
personal consciousness and the personal consciousness of Jesus. It is
true that it has, apparently, been easier for men to think of God as
outside and above his world, and of themselves as separated from their
fellows by his special providence. It is more difficult, through glad
and intelligent subjection to all laws of nature and of history, to
achieve the education of one's spirit, to make good one's inner
deliverance from the world, to aid others in the same struggle and to
set them on their way to God. Men grow uncertain within themselves,
because they say that traditional religion has apprehended the matter in
a different way. This is true. It is also misleading. Whatever miracles
Jesus may have performed, no one can say that he performed them to make
life easier for himself, to escape the common lot, to avoid struggle, to
evade suffering and disgraceful death. On the contrary, in genuine human
self-distrust, but also in genuine heroism, he gave himself to his
vocation, accepting all that went therewith, and finished the work of
God which he had made his own. This is the more wonderful because it lay
so much nearer to him than it can lie to us, to pray for special
evidence of the love of God and to set his faith on the receiving of it.
He had not the conception of the relation of God to nature and history
which we have.
We may well view the modern tendency to belief in healings through
prayer, suggestion and faith, as an intelligible, an interesting, and in
part, a touching manifestation. Of course there is mingled with it much
dense ignorance, some superstition and even deception. Yet behind such a
phenomenon there is meaning. Men of this mind make earnest with the
thought that God cares for them. Without that thought there is no
religion. They have been taught to find the evidence of God's love and
care in the unusual. They are quite logical. It has been a weak point of
the traditional belief that men have said that in the time of Christ
there were miracles, but since that time, no more. Why not, if we can
only in spirit come near to Christ and God? They are quite logical also
in that they have repudiated modern science. To be sure, no
inconsiderable part of them use the word science continually.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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