The Contemporary Review, January 1883: Vol 43, No. 1Various
Science
The Contemporary Review, January 1883: Vol 43, No. 1
Various
Arts -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals; Political science -- Periodicals
which is so far from discrediting the theological view of the universe,
that it is a primary and necessary element of that view.
VI.
Thus much as to physical science and the propositions in which the
author of "Natural Religion" supposes the theological view of the
universe to be summed up. But, as he notes, the case urged in the
present day against Christianity does not rest merely upon physical
science, properly so called; but upon the extension of its methods to
the whole domain of knowledge (p. 7), the practical effect being the
reduction of religion to superstition, of anthropology to physiology, of
metaphysics to physics, of ethics to the result of temperament or the
promptings of self-interest, of man's personality to the summation of a
series of dynamic conditions of particles of matter. I shall proceed to
state the case, as I often hear it stated, and I shall put it in the
strongest way I can, and to indicate the answer which, at all events,
has satisfied one mind, after long and patient consideration, and in
spite of strong contrary prepossessions. And this evidently has the most
direct bearing on my theme. If Christianity be irrational, its claims to
the world's future may at once be dismissed. But if, as I very strongly
hold, the achievements of the modern mind, whether in the physical
sciences, in psychology, in history, in exegetical criticism, have not
in the least discredited Christianity, as rightly understood, here is a
fact which is a most important factor in determining our judgment as to
the religious prospect of mankind. What I have to say on this grave
question I must reserve for the Second Part of this article. I end the
First Part with one observation. It seems to me that the issue before
the world is between Christianity and a more or less sublimated form of
Materialism--not necessarily Atheistic, nay, sometimes approximating to
"faint possible Theism"--which is most aptly termed Naturalism; a system
which rejects as antiquated the ideas of final causes, of Providence, of
the soul and its immortality; which allows of no other realities than
those of the physical order, and makes of Nature man's highest ideal:
and this issue is not in the least affected by decking out Naturalism in
some borrowed garments of Spiritualism, and calling it "Natural
Christianity."
W. S. LILLY.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] "La Génie des Religions," l. i. c. i.
[27] _Ibid._, c. iv.
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