The proposal to cite Christian "antiquity" as a witness to the
infallibility of the Old Testament, when its own claims to authority
vanish, if certain propositions contained in the Old Testament are
erroneous, hardly satisfies the requirements of lay logic. It is as if a
claimant to be sole legatee, under another kind of testament, should
offer his assertion as sufficient evidence of the validity of the will.
And, even were not such a circular, or rather rotatory argument, that
the infallibility of the Bible is testified by the infallible Church,
whose infallibility is testified by the infallible Bible, too absurd for
serious consideration, it remains permissible to ask, Where and when the
Church, during the period of its infallibility, as limited by Anglican
dogmatic necessities, has officially decreed the "actual historical
truth of all records" in the Old Testament? Was Augustine heretical when
he denied the actual historical truth of the record of the Creation?
Father Suarez, standing on later Roman tradition, may have a right to
declare that he was; but it does not lie in the mouth of those who limit
their appeal to that early "antiquity," in which Augustine played so
great a part, to say so.
Among the watchers of the course of the world of thought, some view with
delight and some with horror, the recrudescence of Supernaturalism which
manifests itself among us, in shapes ranged along the whole flight of
steps, which, in this case, separates the sublime from the
ridiculous--from Neo-Catholicism and Inner-light mysticism, at the top,
to unclean things, not worthy of mention in the same breath, at the
bottom. In my poor opinion, the importance of these manifestations is
often greatly over-estimated. The extant forms of Supernaturalism have
deep roots in human nature, and will undoubtedly die hard; but, in these
latter days, they have to cope with an enemy whose full strength is only
just beginning to be put out, and whose forces, gathering strength year
by year, are hemming them round on every side. This enemy is Science, in
the acceptation of systematised natural knowledge, which, during the
last two centuries, has extended those methods of investigation, the
worth of which is confirmed by daily appeal to Nature, to every region
in which the Supernatural has hitherto been recognised.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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