The Two Tests: The Supernatural Claims of Christianity Tried by Two of Its Own RulesLisle, Lionel
Religion
The Two Tests: The Supernatural Claims of Christianity Tried by Two of Its Own Rules
Lisle, Lionel
Apologetics
Another instance, in a quite different profession, of a mind guided by
a principle similar to that of Dr. Chalmers is presented by the
illustrious philosopher, Mr. Faraday. One of a small body of Christians
knit together in bands of love and peace, and himself the very
embodiment of that high morality and love of kind, so much preached
about however practised, no question appears to have crossed his mind as
to the validity of the evidences on which the gospel claims rest; but,
hating pretence and ever loyal to truth, he saw, with habitual clearness
of judgment, that a revelation, dealing with what man cannot himself
discover, must be taken, if true, implicitly as delivered. In his
lecture on Mental Education before Prince Albert, in the year 1854, he
said: "High as man is placed above the creatures around him, there is a
higher and far more exalted position within his view; and the ways are
infinite in which he occupies his thoughts about the fears, or hopes, or
expectations of a future life. I believe that the truth of that future
cannot be brought to his knowledge by any exertion of his mental powers,
however exalted they may be; that it is made known to him by other
teaching than his own, and is received through simple belief of the
testimony given. Let no one suppose for a moment that the self-education
I am about to commend in respect of the things of this life, extends
to any considerations of the hope set before us, as if man by reasoning
could find out God. It would be improper here to enter into this subject
further than to claim an absolute distinction between religious and
ordinary belief. I shall be reproached with the weakness of refusing
to apply those mental operations, which I think good in respect of high
things, to the very highest. I am content to bear the reproach. Yet,
even in earthly matters, I believe that the invisible things of Him
from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by
the things that are made, even his eternal Power and Godhead; and I have
never seen anything incompatible between those things of man which can
be known by the spirit of man which is within him, and those higher
things concerning his future which he cannot know by that spirit."
So that of himself, apart from revelation, Mr. Faraday's position was
agnostic. Had he seen reason to reject revelation he would not have been
a deist, any more than
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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