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
The facts and truths established by Science are no longer made the
subject of attacks by Christian apologists in the manner that they
used to be; they are now considered by them to be the unfolding,
through God's Providence, of pieces of information hitherto concealed
from us. A scientific discovery (by men who are more often than not
Agnostics) simply means that God wills to reveal another detail of His
eternal methods. There must be, we are told, a frank modification,
or even the abandonment, of certain preconceived ideas which,
faulty as they were, had sufficed for man in an earlier stage of
his development, and had come to be regarded as integral parts of
his religious faith. This is the substance of the modern apologist's
argument which is intended to reconcile all outlying discrepancies
between our new knowledge and our old beliefs. The new explanation,
based upon the assumption that revelation is progressive, will
come as a surprise to the rank and file of Christendom, who have
hitherto been given to understand that the Bible contained the one,
only, and sufficient revelation of God to man. However, there is
no alternative. If accepted, many grave difficulties of faith are
swept away. Nay, more; the reasonableness of our faith is immensely
strengthened, and the facts of science and research become a valuable
adjunct to the armour of the Christian apologist. On the other hand,
a refusal to accept spells disaster to the Christian faith. The truth
of progressive revelation is, therefore, a matter of life or death
for the Christian religion; and, of all branches of modern research,
it is Comparative Mythology which absolutely demands the complete
establishment of this theory. If true, our belief is further verified
by the startling discoveries of the ethnologist; if untrue, it is
irrevocably shattered. Accordingly, in this chapter I am giving a
prominent place to the discussion of this theory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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