The Churches and Modern Thought: An inquiry into the grounds of unbelief and an appeal for candourPhelips, Vivian
Religion
The Churches and Modern Thought: An inquiry into the grounds of unbelief and an appeal for candour
Phelips, Vivian
Rationalism
As Mr. Lowes Dickinson pertinently remarks when speaking of
"Conversions" in his article on Revelations, in the Independent Review:
"The important question is whether the belief of the recipient in the
evidential value of the experience is justified; and I think that a
little consideration will show that it is not so, for it is noticeable
that the truth supposed to be revealed in the moment of conversion
is commonly, if not invariably, the reflection of the doctrine or
theory with which the subject, whether or no he has accepted it, has
hitherto been most familiar. I have never heard, for example, of a
case in which a Mohammedan or a Hindoo, without having ever heard of
Christianity, has had a revelation of Christian truth. Conversion,
in fact, it would seem, is not the communication of a new truth;
it is the presentation of ideas already familiar in such a way that
they are accompanied by an irresistible certainty that they are
true.... A religious revelation cannot be distinguished from what
would be admitted to be the hallucinations of disease. A man may be
convinced, with equal assurance, that he is a poached egg or a saint;
that he has a mission to assassinate the king or redeem the world;
that he is eternally damned or eternally saved; that he has had a
vision of the Virgin Mary or a vision of Nirvana."
Another argument for considering the Resurrection as an historical
fact is that brought forward by the Rev. D. S. Margoliouth. The
learned Professor argues in the Expositor that the Gospel narrative is
located within historic times. So are the narratives of King Arthur
(the Celtic Messiah), or William Tell, or Robin Hood; but historians
are silent about all these narratives, sacred and profane alike. There
was probably a real Arthur, however different from the hero of the
trouvères, and a real Robin Hood, however now enlarged and disguised
by the accretion of legend. Similarly there was a real Jesus Christ;
but the marvellous event of His resurrection is unrecorded by any of
the celebrated historians of the period.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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