Modern Skepticism: A Course of Lectures Delivered at the Request of the Christian Evidence Society
Religion
Modern Skepticism: A Course of Lectures Delivered at the Request of the Christian Evidence Society
Church of England; Skepticism; Skepticism -- Controversial literature
Surely, if I may here quote some words of Mr. Kingsley's in the
lecture to which I have already referred, this is what men of science
"are finding, more and more, below their facts, below all phenomena
which the scalpel and the microscope can show, a something nameless,
invisible, imponderable, yet seemingly omnipresent and omnipotent,
retreating before them deeper and deeper, the deeper they delve, that
which the old schoolmen called 'forma formativa,' the mystery of that
unknown and truly miraculous element in nature which is always escaping
them, though they cannot escape it, that of which it was written of
old, 'Whither shall I go from Thy presence, or whither shall I flee
from Thy Spirit?'"
The observations which I have thus far offered are directed wholly to
the philosophical and scientific aspect of the argument respecting
Pantheism. I cannot bring this lecture to an end without referring to
the moral branch of the argument. The existence of evil in the universe
is alleged as an argument against the existence of God and divine
government. Doubtless, the existence of evil is a painful mystery.
Many good Christians have felt it to be an oppressive and almost an
overwhelming mystery. It is one of the difficulties attendant on the
Christian's belief; it is, in fact, the one moral difficulty. But
difficulties and mysteries cannot annul the positive necessities of
thought and argument. If such arguments as I have endeavoured to state
make all science to be contradictory and unintelligible which speaks,
in one breath, of the laws and wisdom of nature, and, in the next,
denies the existence of a God, then we are bound to accept theism with
its inevitable consequences, notwithstanding the mysteries, whether
metaphysical or moral, which our faith may involve. Mysteries are not
contradictions, and, in whichever direction we move, we shall find it
impossible to escape from them. Mysteries surround the position of the
sceptic or the atheist, no less than that of the Christian theist;
not only mysteries, but, as we have seen, contradictions, beset him
round, in whichever direction he turns. The Christian theist, by his
faith in God, accepts the mysteries which are involved in the thought
of God, but, unlike the unbeliever, he escapes from contradictions and
absurdities. It appears that the morality of man--his great glory--that
his sense of responsibility and of voluntary moral power, that which
most peculiarly constitutes him man, involves the law of moral
influence as between man and man. It appears further that the power
and faculty of moral influence for good must needs involve the law of
moral influence for evil. From the fact of man's own moral nature and
moral responsibility, and the consequent fact of his moral influence
over his fellow-men, is derived, not only the possibility of moral evil
in the case of a solitary individual, but the possibility, perhaps
I may say the naturalness, the probability, of a contagion of moral
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