Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the PeopleBeecher, Catharine Esther
Religion
Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People
Beecher, Catharine Esther
Religion -- Philosophy
Inasmuch as the great cause of the wrong action of mind is the ignorance
and imperfection of those who are its educators in the beginning of its
existence, we should infer that the best possible thing to be done for
our race would be to provide some _perfect and infallible teacher_ to
instruct those who are to educate mind. This being granted, then all
would concede that the Creator himself would be our best teacher, and
that, if he would come to us himself in a visible form to instruct the
educators of mind in all they need to know for themselves and for the
new-born minds committed to their care, it would be the best thing we
can conceive of for the highest good of our race.
We next inquire as to the best conceivable mode by which the Creator can
manifest himself so as to secure credence.
To decide this, let each one suppose the case his own. Let a man make
his appearance claiming to be the Creator. We can perceive that his mere
word would never command the confidence of intelligent practical men.
Thousands of impostors have appeared and made such claims, deceiving the
weak and ignorant and disgusting the wise.
In case the person with such claims proved to be ever so benevolent and
intelligent, if we had no other evidence than his word, it would, by
sensible persons, be regarded as the result of some mental
hallucination.
But suppose that a person making claims to be the Creator of all things,
or to be a messenger from him, should attest his claim by shaking the
earth, or tearing up a mountain, or turning back the floods of the
ocean, it would be impossible for any man to witness these miracles
without believing that the Author of all things thus attested his own
presence or the authority of his messenger. We have shown that, in the
very organization of mind, one of the intuitive truths would necessarily
force such a belief on all sane minds.
One other method would be as effective. Should this person predict
events so improbable and so beyond all human intelligence as to be
equivalent to an equal interruption of experience as to the laws of
mind, as time developed the fulfillment of these predictions, the same
belief would be induced in the authority of the person thus
supernaturally endowed.
In the first case, the evidence would be immediate and most powerful in
its inception. In the latter case, the power of the evidence would
increase with time.
_Miracles and prophecy_, then, are the _only_ methods that we can
conceive of that would, as our minds are now constituted, insure belief
in revelations from the Creator.
But if every human being, in order to believe, must have miracles, there
would result such an incessant violation of the laws of nature as to
destroy them, and thus to destroy all possibility of miracles.
The only possible way, then, is to have miracles occur at certain
periods of time, and then have them adequately recorded and preserved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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