Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3)Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Religion
Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3)
Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Baptists -- Doctrines; Theology, Doctrinal
The common title “Moral Argument” is much too narrow, for it seems
to take account only of conscience in man, whereas the argument
which this title so imperfectly designates really proceeds from
man’s intellectual and emotional, as well as from his moral,
nature. In choosing the designation we have adopted, we desire,
moreover, to rescue from the mere physicist the term
“Anthropology”—a term to which he has attached altogether too
limited a signification, and which, in his use of it, implies that
man is a mere animal,—to him Anthropology is simply the study of
_la bête humaine_. Anthropology means, not simply the science of
man’s physical nature, origin, and relations, but also the science
which treats of his higher spiritual being. Hence, in Theology,
the term Anthropology designates that division of the subject
which treats of man’s spiritual nature and endowments, his
original state and his subsequent apostasy. As an argument,
therefore, from man’s mental and moral nature, we can with perfect
propriety call the present argument the Anthropological Argument.
The argument is a complex one, and may be divided into three parts.
1. Man’s intellectual and moral nature must have had for its author an
intellectual and moral Being. The elements of the proof are as
follows:—(_a_) Man, as an intellectual and moral being, has had a
beginning upon the planet. (_b_) Material and unconscious forces do not
afford a sufficient cause for man’s reason, conscience, and free will.
(_c_) Man, as an effect, can be referred only to a cause possessing
self-consciousness and a moral nature, in other words, personality.
This argument is is part an application to man of the principles
of both the Cosmological and the Teleological Arguments. Flint,
Theism, 74—“Although causality does not involve design, nor design
goodness, yet design involves causality, and goodness both
causality and design.” Jacobi: “Nature conceals God; man reveals
him.”
Man is an effect. The history of the geologic ages proves that man
has not always existed, and even if the lower creatures were his
progenitors, his intellect and freedom are not eternal _a parte
ante_. We consider man, not as a physical, but as a spiritual,
being. Thompson, Christian Theism, 75—“Every true cause must be
sufficient to account for the effect.” Locke, Essay, book 4, chap.
10—“Cogitable existence cannot be produced out of incogitable.”
Martineau, Study of Religion, 1:258 _sq._
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