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
learn by the use of our natural faculties, and that what the Bible
teaches must be compared not with floating and probable theories, but
with proved theories. These proved theories will, I believe, fall into
their place in due course of time, as easily as Galileo's theory about
the revolution of the earth round the sun. If not, I do not see how
the claims of the Bible to be the Word of God can be maintained: for I
cannot believe that there is any chasm between the teachings of God in
nature and in revelation. But I think it perfectly possible that men
may misinterpret and misunderstand both one and the other.
I have detained you too long. But I must make one more remark. If the
proper object matter of revelation is that knowledge, which being
necessary for us as moral agents, was yet unattainable by our natural
powers, then reason is no judge of what revelation teaches. There
may be in our relations to God, things which we never should have
expected: deep truths opening onwards into mysteries past our present
finite comprehension. If everything had been plain, easy, commonplace,
revelation would not have been needed. Nevertheless, reason holds a
very high office with respect to revelation. In a matter of so high
consequence, as whether God has spoken to us or not, we are bound to
examine most scrupulously the evidence upon which the fact of the
revelation rests. And this examination involves an enquiry into the
teachings of revelation. The existence of mysteries in a revelation is
reasonable: the existence of immorality in it would be fatal to its
claims. For if the scientific basis for my belief in the gift of a
revelation is the existence in me of conscience, and of moral faculties
which make me a responsible being, I am left absolutely without a basis
for a revelation which makes me violate my conscience. A revelation
which degrades my moral and spiritual powers is as much against nature
as anything that degraded my physical or mental powers. If religion be
true, it must ennoble, elevate, purify, and perfect me, here as far as
the present condition of my existence permits, entirely in that other
state to which our present responsibility points, provided, of course,
that I submit myself to its teachings. I know of no way by which I
can make this examination except by reason and experience. And I hold
this further, because I hold that a true religion must be commensurate
with the whole of man. It must make him better physically, mentally,
morally, and spiritually, and consecrate all his powers to God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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