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
The highest good for a created dependent personality is "to resemble
God" in all those attributes or perfections which constitute
personality. It is to be fully established in harmony with God's moral
character, unified with Him in will, glorified with Him in holiness, and
perfected with Him in the blessedness of love. The highest perfection of
personal being is moral order, and therefore human personality,
conceived in its purity and perfection, is the end of the Divine
government.[562]
This we have called "the ideal order of moral life," because it is not
yet realized in the world. We must believe, however, that the final
triumph of goodness is a part of the great world-plan. We must not only
believe, but know, that the great design of creation, the reason for
which the world exists at all, is that in it goodness may come to its
final realization. And this conviction is grounded on the fact that the
moral life of humanity has its source in the same Being who called the
world into existence, and who is conducting this present dispensation to
a glorious consummation, in which He shall "reconcile all things unto
Himself,... whether they be things in earth or things in heaven," and
"gather together in one all things in Christ," that "God may be all in
all."
Christianity bases all the obligations and sanctions of morality on the
great truths that God is near to man, that He sustains him every moment
in life, that He is the Father of the human spirit, and that He governs
man in order to perfect his nature and bring him into an everlasting
fellowship with Himself. Christianity knows nothing of "a science of
morals" which is not based upon the correlations between man and God,
nor of a morality which forgets God and disregards the most sacred and
fundamental of all duties, namely, the duties we owe to God. A morality
based solely upon the relations in which we stand to our fellow-men is
at best but secular and utilitarian. A morality which is grounded upon
the relation of volition to the state of the sensibility, and regards
"happiness as our being's end and aim," is egoistic and selfish. A
morality which rests upon our relation to God, the absolute good, and
which looks backward rather than forward for its motive, is unselfish
and Christian.
INDEX.
A.
Absolute creation, 62.
Absolute, Infinite, and Perfect, relation of these terms, 41, 42.
Action at a distance denied by Newton, 214;
by Leibnitz, Faraday, Helmholtz, Thomson, Tait, Maxwell, 214.
Agassiz on species, 164;
on the preparation of the earth for man, 254.
Attraction of gravitation not a primary force, 210-220;
not an essential attribute of matter, 211-213.
Attribute or related essence, 48-52.
Augustine, St., on the days of creation, 150, 151;
his conception of Divine conservation, 176, 177.
B.
Beale, Dr., on distinction between cell-life and soul-life, 163;
on life, 192, 240.
Being or essence, as reality, efficiency, and personality, 42-48.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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