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
[Footnote 359: "Nichomachean Ethics," bk. i. ch. ii.]
[Footnote 360: Ibid. bk. i. ch. x.]
[Footnote 361: Ibid. bk. x. ch. viii.]
[Footnote 362: Nitzsch, "System of Christian Doctrine," p. 172.]
[Footnote 363: Müller, "Christian Doctrine of Sin," vol. ii. p. 146.]
[Footnote 364: Acts xvii. 25-28.]
[Footnote 365: Laurent, "Études sur l'Histoire de l'Humanité," vol. v.
p. 12. Not all the Stoics seem to have understood this "necessity" in so
rigorous a sense. Cleanthes would exempt the evil actions of men from
necessity: "Nothing takes place without Thee, O Deity, except that which
bad men do through their own want of reason; but even that which is evil
is overruled by Thee for good, and is made to harmonize with the plan of
the world."--_Hymn to Zeus._]
[Footnote 366: Laurent, "Études sur l'Histoire de l'Humanité," vol. v.
p. 12.]
[Footnote 367: The statement of the text will remain unaffected by any
theory as to the derivation of the material organism of the primitive
man. If the hypothesis be true that "man is the descendant of some
pre-existent generic type, the which, if it were now living, we would
probably call an ape," this can only be affirmed of the body of man, and
the statement is still correct that "God formed man of the dust of the
earth." The body of the ape and the body of man are formed of the same
materials. But, as Prof. Cope, a thorough-going Evolutionist, remarks,
this material nature can not bear or be "the image of God," for "God is
a spirit," and "a spirit hath not flesh and bones" (Luke xxiv. 39). The
image of God must inhere in that spiritual nature which was inbreathed
by God, and consists in reason, conscience, and moral liberty. (See
Cope, "On the Hypothesis of Evolution," pp. 33, 34.) This theory as to
the descent of man's material organism from some pre-existent generic
type does not by any means involve the conclusion of Sir J. Lubbock that
"the primitive condition of mankind was one of _utter barbarism_." We
may grant that the primitive condition of man was one of childhood
ignorance and inexperience, a state in which his intellectual and moral
nature was undeveloped; but this is not "Savagism." Barbarism is the
lapse and deterioration of man. Even if it could be shown that primeval
man was destitute of the industrious arts, "it would not afford the
slightest presumption that he was also ignorant of duty or ignorant of
God" ("Primeval Man," by the Duke of Argyll, p. 132). "Whenever we can
trace back a religion to its first beginnings, we find it free from many
blemishes that affect it in its later stages" (Max Müller, "Chips from a
German Workshop," vol. i., preface). The most ancient form of religion
was the Monotheistic (Grimm, "Deutsche Mythologie," p. xliv. 3d ed.).
See also "Les Origines Indo-Européennes," vol. ii. p. 720, by M. Adolphe
Pictet.]
[Footnote 368: Agassiz and Gould's "Zoology," p. 238.]
[Footnote 369: "On Limbs," p. 88.]
[Footnote 370: "On the Skeleton and Teeth," p. 228.]
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