Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts: From The Edinburgh Review, October 1849, Volume 90, No. CLXXXII. (Pages 293-356)Rogers, Henry
Religion
Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts: From The Edinburgh Review, October 1849, Volume 90, No. CLXXXII. (Pages 293-356)
Rogers, Henry
Christianity -- Philosophy; Faith and reason -- Christianity
On the other hand, we firmly believe, from the natural relations of
truth with the constitution of the mind of man, that, with the exception
of a very few cases of obliquity of intellect, which may safely be left
to the merciful interpretations and apologies of Him who created such
intellects, those who thus honestly and industriously 'seek' shall
'find;'--not all truth, indeed, but enough to secure their safety; and
that whatever remaining errors may infest and disfigure the truth they
have attained, they shall not be imputed to them for sin. According to
the image which apostolic eloquence has employed, the Baser materials
which unavoidable haste, prejudice, and ignorance may have incorporated
with the gold of the edifice, will be consumed by the fire which 'will
try every man's work of what sort it is,' but he himself will be saved
amidst those purifying flames. Like the bark which contained the Apostle
and the fortunes of the Gospel, the frail vessel may go to pieces on
the rocks, 'but by boat or plank' the voyager himself shall 'get safe to
shore.'
It is amply sufficient, then, to lighten our responsibility, that we are
answerable only for our honest endeavours to discover and to practise
the truth; and, in fact, the responsibility is principally felt to be
irksome, and man is so prompt by devices of his own, to release himself
from it, not on account of any intrinsic difficulty which remains after
the above limitations are admitted, but because he wishes to be exempt
from that very necessity of patient and honest investigation. It is not
so much the difficulty of finding, as the trouble of seeking the truth,
from which he shrinks; a necessity, however, from which, as it is an
essential instrument of his moral education and discipline, he can never
be released.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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