Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3)Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Religion
Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3)
Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Baptists -- Doctrines; Theology, Doctrinal
Gess, Foundations of our Faith, 36—“Animal instinct, and the
spirit of a nation working out its language, might furnish
analogies, if they produced personalities as their result, but not
otherwise. Nor were these tendencies self-originated, but received
from an external source.” McCosh, Intuitions, 215, 393, and
Christianity and Positivism, 180. Seth, Freedom as an Ethical
Postulate, 47—“If man is an ‘imperium in imperio,’ not a person,
but only an aspect or expression of the universe or God, then he
cannot be free. Man may be depersonalized either into nature or
into God. Through the conception of our own personality we reach
that of God. To resolve our personality into that of God would be
to negate the divine greatness itself by invalidating the
conception through which it was reached.” Bradley, Appearance and
Reality, 551, is more ambiguous: “The positive relation of every
appearance as an adjective to Reality; and the presence of Reality
among its appearances in different degrees and with diverse
values; this double truth we have found to be the centre of
philosophy.” He protests against both “an empty transcendence” and
“a shallow pantheism.” Hegelian immanence and knowledge, he
asserts, identified God and man. But God is more than man or man’s
thought. He is spirit and life—best understood from the human
_self_, with its thoughts, feelings, volitions. Immanence needs to
be qualified by transcendence. “God is not God till he has become
all-in-all, and a God which is all-in-all is not the God of
religion. God is an aspect, and that must mean but an appearance
of the Absolute.” Bradley’s Absolute, therefore, is not so much
personal as super-personal; to which we reply with Jackson, James
Martineau, 416—“Higher than personality is lower; beyond it is
regression from its height. From the equator we may travel
northward, gaining ever higher and higher latitudes; but, if ever
the pole is reached, pressing on from thence will be descending
into lower latitudes, not gaining higher.... Do I say, I am a
pantheist? Then, _ipso facto_, I deny pantheism; for, in the very
assertion of the Ego, I imply all else as objective to me.”
4. It therefore contradicts the affirmations of our moral and religious
natures by denying man’s freedom and responsibility; by making God to
include in himself all evil as well as all good; and by precluding all
prayer, worship, and hope of immortality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account