Those who are acquainted with the speculations and suggestions on this subject, associated, more or less distinctly with the names of Helvetius, Diderot, Condorcet, D’Alembert, Hume, Gibbon, Fichte, Hegel, Compte, Herbert Spencer, Mills, Strauss, Feuerbach and others, know well how confidently God has been announced as a principle of activity and causation, but without the recognized attribute of a person; in other words as a great spiritual or psychical energy, pervading all things that exist, and holding a fixed and necessary relation to results, but without a distinct and available responsibility, and without even knowing or having any interest in knowing what the results of its own activity shall be. It is painful to know how widely such speculations have affected the thoughts and feelings of men. But this doctrine of God, which analyzed to its results is practically the annihilation of God, is a very different thing from the simple, sublime, and truly philosophic idea of God, which is justly understood as holding a place in the doctrines of Christ.
The God of the Bible, from the earliest to the latest portion of its announcements is a personal God. All that is said of God in that great treasury of thought, including the personal teachings of Christ, with all its affirmations of his eternity and universality, recognizes and emphasizes the great and essential fact of his personality.
And we cannot hesitate in saying, that a true philosophy, when applied to the doctrines of religion... is on the side of the biblical teachings.
— edited from Absolute Religion (1873) Chapter 2.
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