Weekly Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1853-1861, 1855-03-08
rhe Insolnhla Prohlem.


North British is the organ of the free church
IF Scotland, and was, in part, founded by DIR.
yhalmace. We have long felt convinced that
he Baconian philosophy had ignored the
cause of Theology and Ethics. The existence
IF God is the central truth of the universe;
md belief in it is not dependant ON the
uncertain results of logic, or the slow and UNI
conclusions of iuductive science
Such belief is an INTUITION of the soul; 1t
is child of the PURE REASON, and not of the
THE INsOLUBLE PRoBLEM.-Can God be
known by man? If a negative Gas'oer must be
retured to this question, our deepest feelings
are, it seems, founded on illusion, and human
regard should be contracted within the limits
of this earthly life. Religious belief cannot
be originated when its nominal objects Is
wholly unknown; and all the words which
express what is called theological knowledge
should be excluded from language as unmean-
ING sound We cannot obtain such knOwl-
edge either naturally or systematically. Can
a Being in any sense be revealed who Is
absolutely incognisable? Is not the revela-
ton impossible, or at least incapable OF being
attested bv evidence? But if this result Is at
variance with our moral aspirations, and even
with the necessities of reason, an affirmative
reply seems on the other hand involved IN
inextricable intellectual difficulties. How can
the infinite God be in any way an object OF
our thoughts? To conceive an object Is IN
some sense to define it. Definition implies
limitation, and an infinite object cannot be
limited. Moreover, the unlimited Being Is
not only an inconceiveble Being. His
very existence does not logically consist
with the existence of any other being besides
In every act of knowledge / must distinguish
myself from the object known by me. Every
object that exists must therefore be either lml-
ted by the subtraction from it of my finite be-
inc, or "a infs,.i.sts-s stfsorD 1e rrrrf M rfre
nniverse into itself An infinite Being, exis-
ting i'm plurality--as One among many, seems
an express contradiction while the only logical
solution of the difficulty lands us inthe doc
trine of Spinoza Atheism or Pantheism are
thus the only alternatives, when the response
to our question is logically weighed.
The mental habits of the majority OF man.
kind permit them to evade the horns of this
dilemma. The unrehecting multitude are
not disturbed by the intellectual horn; the
decay of religious belief unhappily relieves
some acute reasoners from the pressure of
the other But is the harmonious develop
ment of religious faith and speculative rea-
son impossible Neither sceptieism on
the one hand, nor fanaticism on the other,
can silence this question. Faith in God has,
in all ages, been the stay of men. But the
history of mankind also proves, that subtitle
speculation has more than once withdrawn
the object of that faith from the reason, and
therefore from the hearts of thoughtful men.
In modern times, Spinoza has directed re-
morseless logic to the problem of the univese.
The mind of Europe, especially of Germany,
has been influenced by similar trains of rea-
soning within the last half century, in a man
ner which ought to satisfy the guides of the
illogical belief, that the dilemma now refer
red to may be serious obstruction either to
the religious or to the intellectual life of some.
The condition of mind Occasioned by the dis
cussion of Theism, after this fashion, has so
much affected even our own insular habits of
thought, that some form of the dilemma is, at
at the present day, the chief force which
draws grave and earnest persons among us
into the metaphysical arena They want to
have the contradictions which reasoning has
on their course of religious faith
= and that not by the dishonest
process of shutting their eyes to them, but
by the manly and candid one of thinking
more deeply.
Being, in its ultimate relation to reason
may be Gmperfectly because logically de-
scribed as manifested in two extremes-the
one finite and plural, with which the faculty
e Hal. h. otl ,,f.
which cannot be included in our
logical concentrations. Reason thus presents
two corresponding faculties or organs for the
of real beings: INTUITION and
governed by the logical and as
sociative laws; and FAITH, to whose object, as
the laws of scientific thought
cannot be applied. The problem of Meta
physics, regarded as the science of knowledge
in Its relation to Being, may be put thus
Given Experience and Faith, lodged i'm
mind governed by the laws of association and
logic,-to account for actual human knowl-
edge.
In short, the Atheists universe, and the
Pantheist's universe, are both metaphysically
impossible. The former excludes transcen-
dent, and the latter absorbs finite existence
The dualism implied in creation and provi- |
1ence is logically inconceivable, because be-
yond the range of human thought; but it is !
originated and maintained in belief by an I'M
necessity of reason. Now we
may be believe what we cannot scientifically |
-ationalize Thus the balance falls on the /
,ide of the former of the alternatives to
which we are confined by logic and we es-
cape from the mental oscillation, to which
l1.~oloo.lx~ L.
which declines to recognize in knowledge
whatever cannot be logically conceived and
reasoned about.
The application of these remarks to the
nature and limits of theological knowledge is
Theology is the science of God
If the lessons suggested by this article are
Iound ones, Reason does not reach the Divine
Being by any pathway of argument and
when reached, the forms of argument cannot
De applied to the solution of the problems
by His existence The foundation
md structure of theology are thus beyond the
ange of science. Reason, and not reasoning,
conducts us to the elements of question, to
which reasoning cannot provide nor even en-
ertain a scientific answer
The foundation of theology is mysterious
vet of faith, which may be practically devel-
ped, but which cannot be reached, by rea-
oning.
Theological study is, as Bacon represents it,
he eliminating act of human reason. God
an be definitely known by us only in the finite
md dependent phenomena which form His
oorks and His words; and it may be demon
trated that these phenomena cannot provide
my means for answering the questions which
speculation originates. All definite and sys-
ematic theological knowledge is the fruit of
but at the same time of an induc-
ion which must differ essentially, in the char
acter of its results from that which is the or
gan of the physical and social sciences 1t
IAN yield only a series ofpractioal solutions of
IN absolutely i'asoluble problem. When we try
10 go beyond the natural and supernatural
phenomena, which constitute this practical
Revelation of God, in orde, to construct a sci
snce the transcendent and adorable One, we
IRE punished by the confusion in which the
revealed facts Themselves become involvad -