Lanterna Rally

Author: Arthur Cushman McGiffert

Publisher: Theclassics.Us

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 80

ISBN-13: 9781230302515

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 edition. Excerpt: ... chapter vii the rehabilitation of faith Toward the close of his famous essay on miracles, published in 1748, Hume remarked: "Our most holy religion is founded on faith, not on reason, and it is a sure method of exposing it to put it to such trial as it is by no means fitted to endure." The words, whatever their motive, meant a complete reversal of the common rationalistic position accepted in his day by both deists and orthodox. According to them no one should believe anything without good and adequate reasons for his belief. But Hume's remark was prophetic of the overthrow of the rationalistic school in religion and of the appearance of a new spirit and attitude which became very common in the nineteenth century. The remark reminds us of the position of Occam and other schoolmen of the late Middle Ages with their recognition of the complete divorce of reason and faith. The truths of Christianity, so they maintained, have no basis in human reason; some of them indeed are quite irrational; but they are to be accepted on the authority of the Roman Church. They might have been even more irrational than they are and yet it would be our duty to accept them if taught by the Church. In the eighteenth century, on the other hand, when Hume wrote the words quoted above, the notion of. faith's independence of reason was generally regarded as the greatest possible scandal, but it has come again into favor largely as a consequence of the sceptical development of that century. The repudiation of dependence upon reason in religious things, voiced in Hume's remark, found in the great evangelical movement of the eighteenth century its most striking and influential expression. English evangelicalism was closely connected with German pietism and...