The Analogy of Religion to the Constitution and Course of Nature: To which are added two brief dissertations: I. On personal identity. II. On the nature of virtue.Butler, Joseph
Religion
The Analogy of Religion to the Constitution and Course of Nature: To which are added two brief dissertations: I. On personal identity. II. On the nature of virtue.
Butler, Joseph
Analogy (Religion); Apologetics -- Early works to 1800; Eschatology; Natural theology; Revelation
Now admitting, which is the supposition we go upon, that these persons
act upon what they think principles of reason, (and otherwise they are
not to be argued with,) it is really inconceivable, that they should
imagine they clearly see the whole evidence of it, considered in
itself, to be nothing at all: nor do they pretend this. They are far
indeed from having a just notion of its evidence: but they would not
say its evidence was nothing, if they thought the system of it, with
all its circumstances, were credible, like other matters of science or
history. Their manner of treating it must proceed, either from such
kind of objections against all religion, as have been answered or
obviated in the former part of this treatise; or else from objections,
and difficulties, supposed more peculiar to Christianity. Thus, they
entertain prejudices against the whole notion of a revelation, and
miraculous interpositions. They find things in Scripture, whether in
incidental passages, or in the general scheme of it, which appear to
them unreasonable. They take for granted, that if Christianity were
true, the light of it must have been more general, and the evidence
of it more satisfactory, or rather overpowering: that it must and
would have been, in some way, otherwise put and left, than it is. Now
this is not imagining they see the evidence itself to be nothing,
or inconsiderable; but quite another thing. It is being fortified
_against_ the evidence, in some degree acknowledged, by thinking they
see the system of Christianity, or something which appears to them
necessarily connected with it, to be incredible or false; fortified
against that evidence, which might otherwise make great impression
upon them. Or, lastly, if any of these persons are, upon the whole, in
doubt concerning the truth of Christianity; their behavior seems owing
to their taking for granted, through strange inattention, that such
doubting is, in a manner, the same thing as being certain against it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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