Orthodoxy: Its Truths And ErrorsClarke, James Freeman
Religion
Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors
Clarke, James Freeman
Unitarianism
But there is another example of the supernatural element in the world. Dr.
Bushnell, in his book called “Nature and the Supernatural,” contends that
man is capable of supernatural acts; that, in fact, every really _free_
act is, and must be, a supernatural act. To those who hold the doctrine of
necessity, this is, of course, no argument. But they who believe, in the
testimony of their own consciousness, that they are free beings; who feel
that they are not dragged helplessly by the strongest motive, but can
resist it or yield to it; who, therefore, feel themselves responsible for
what they do, or omit to do, they can see that in a real sense they create
new influences. Their actions are not results of previous causes, but are
new causes, not before in the world. Some supernatural power dwells in
man’s will just as far as it is made free by reason and choice. Man stands
between good and evil, right and wrong, truth and error, with the power of
choosing either one or the other. If he chooses one, he sends a power into
society, life, humanity, to help it forward; if the other, he sends in a
power to hold it back. This power is not from man’s nature, but from
something in him outside his nature. When he acts from habit, impulse,
passion, and not from choice, he is simply a natural being; when he acts
from choice, he is not a natural being, but either a _super_natural or a
_subter_natural being, according as he chooses good or evil. When he
chooses good, he rises above the natural man into the sphere of angels;
when he chooses evil, he sinks below the natural man into the sphere of
brutes or demons.
§ 6. Supernatural Events not necessarily Violations of Law.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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