The Theistic Conception of the World: An Essay in Opposition to Certain Tendencies of Modern ThoughtCocker, B. F. (Benjamin Franklin)
Religion
The Theistic Conception of the World: An Essay in Opposition to Certain Tendencies of Modern Thought
Cocker, B. F. (Benjamin Franklin)
Theism
On the other side we have the facts of internal experience--the
consciousness of effort, the sense of power and freedom, the idea of
right and wrong, the feeling of dependence, of duty, and of obligation,
the consciousness of moral responsibility and of moral desert, and the
anticipation of a future retribution. These to our reason are the
revelation of a righteous Lawgiver and Ruler who is over us; by whom we
are obliged, and to whom we must account. This is the theoretic basis
and necessary presupposition of all religion.
And now speculative philosophy steps in and endeavors to reduce these
concepts of science and religion to an ultimate unity. It endeavors to
construe in thought the nature of that relation between the force
manifested in nature and the moral Ruler revealed in conscience.
Therefore it asks the questions, What is force? What is life? What is
mind?
If we say that force is as inherent and essential to matter as extension
and inertia are, and that life and mind are but modes of force, we are
on the high-road to mechanical Deism, if not _material Atheism_. If we
say that matter is itself only a function of force, and that force is
the ultimate of all ultimates, then the distinction between finite
existence and the infinite Being is a merely verbal distinction, and we
must yield to the seductions of _Pantheism_, which under this aspect of
it is but another name for Atheism. But if we say that Spirit is the
originator and matter the recipient of force, or "the recipient of
impulse and energy," and that the immanent God is the life of all
nature, we are pure _Theists_. We have now a "workable theory" by which
we can satisfactorily interpret the universe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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