By what has been said, the reader will not understand me as denying the
propriety of comparing our conclusions in mental science with the Bible.
Though no system of mental philosophy is directly revealed in the Bible,
some one system is therein pre-supposed, and assuming, as we do, that
the Scriptures are a revelation from God, we must suppose that the
system of mental science assumed in the sacred writings, is the true
system. If we could find the system pre-supposed in the Bible, we should
have an infallible standard by which to test the validity of any
conclusions to which we have arrived, as the results of psychological
investigation. It is therefore a very legitimate, interesting, and
profitable inquiry--what is the system of mental science assumed as true
in the Bible? We may very properly turn our attention to the solution of
such a question. In doing this, however, two things should be kept
distinctly in mind.
1. In such inquiries, we leave the domain of mental philosophy entirely,
and enter that of theology. In the latter we are to be guided by
principles entirely distinct from those demanded in the former.
2. In reasoning from the Bible to the system of mental philosophy
pre-supposed in the Scriptures, we are in danger of assuming wrong data
as the basis of our conclusions that is, we are in danger of drawing our
inferences from those truths of Scripture which have no legitimate
bearing upon the subject, and of overlooking those which do have such a
bearing. While there are truths of inspiration from which we may
properly reason to the theory of the Will, pre-supposed in the Bible,
there are other truths from which we cannot legitimately thus reason.
Now suppose that we have drawn our conclusions from truths of
inspiration which have no legitimate bearing upon the subject, truths
which, if we do reason from them in the case, will lead us to wrong
conclusions; suppose that in the light of such conclusions we have
explained the facts of consciousness, assuming that such must be their
true character, else we deny the Bible. Shall we not then have almost
inextricably lost ourselves in the labyrinth of error?
The following principles may be laid down as universally binding, if we
would reason correctly, as philosophers and theologians, on the subject
under consideration.
1. In the domain of philosophy, we must confine ourselves strictly and
exclusively to the laws of psychological investigation, without
reference to any system of theology.
2. In the domain of theology, when we would reason from the truths of
inspiration to the theory of the Will pre-supposed in the Bible, we
should be exceedingly careful to reason from those truths only which
have a direct and decisive bearing upon the subject, and not from those
which have no such bearing.
3. We should carefully compare the conclusions to which we have arrived
in each of these domains, assuming that if they do not harmonize, we
have erred either as philosophers or theologians.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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