Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural LawsBuchanan, James
Religion
Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws
Buchanan, James
Atheism
If it be said that, in the case of the Church of Rome, there is not only
a process of development, but an infallible developing power, and that
this affords a guaranty, strong as the Divine promise itself, against
that risk of error which is attendant on the ordinary methods of human
teaching,--we answer, that this is a mere assumption, which requires to
be proved, and that it cannot be proved in the face of the facts which
attest the historical variations of the Romish Creed, as these are
admitted and defended by Mr. Newman himself. For some of these
variations are not consistent developments of the primitive articles of
faith, but involve either a corruption or a contradiction of these very
principles; and if her infallibility has not preserved her from the
deification of saints, what security have we that it will preserve her
from the deification of Nature? If it has already introduced a Christian
Polytheism, why may it not issue in a Christian Pantheism?
Admit the principle of development, and it may lead to the deification
of man, as well as to the worship of Mary; to a sacred Calendar of
Heroes, as well as of Saints.[98] It may terminate either in Infidelity
or in Superstition, according to the mental temperament of the
individual by whom it is adopted and applied. "An organ of
investigation being introduced, which may be employed for any purpose
indifferently, the tendency of such a theory of religious inquiry will
just tell according to the spirit in which it acts. A skeptic will
develop the principle into Infidelity, a believer into Superstition; but
the principle itself remains accurately the same in both."[99] The
connection between the theory of Ecclesiastical Development and the
infidel theory of Progress has not escaped the notice of many acute and
profound thinkers in recent times, nor the danger resulting from it to
the most fundamental articles of faith. "Modern Spiritualists tell us
that Christianity is a development, as the Papists also assert, and the
New Testament is its first and rudimentary product; only, unhappily, as
the development, it seems, may be things so different as Popery and
Infidelity, we are as far as ever from any criterium as to which, out of
the ten thousand possible developments, is the true; but it is a matter
of the less consequence, since it will, on such reasoning, be _always
something future_."[100] One of the most pernicious tenets of the
Neologists beyond the Rhine is thus expressed by themselves:
"Christianity renews itself in the human heart, and follows _the
development_ of the human mind, and invests itself with new forms of
thought and language, and adopts new systems of Church organization, to
which it gives expression and life." ... "But are these teachers the
_only_ destroyers of Faith and Morals? Are not _they_ also chargeable
with precisely the same offence who command us to submit implicitly to
the so-called divinely-inspired Spirit of '_one_ living Infallible
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