Publisher's Synopsis
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. 1882 edition. Excerpt: ... Part n. the philosophy of religion. introductory. Philosophy, as metaphysic, is occupied in determining with increasing accuracy the definitions and the mutual relations of the three great objects of thought--God, the World, and Man. Religion, in its current acceptation, implies a certain theory of the nature of at least two of these--God and man--and their relation to one another. Philosophy and religion are, therefore, and have always been, most intimately connected. From another point of view, again, religion, considered as a subjective manifestation, is so universal a mark of human culture, when it advances above tho lowest stages, that it cannot be left unnoticed by any philosophy which pretends to give an exhaustive account of man and his relation to the system of which he forms a part. Every epoch of culture has derived its specific form and colour from its relation to certain religious ideas; difference of civilization means, in the main, difference of religious training. In these circumstances, it is perhaps not too much to say that the capacity of a philosophy to find room for religion in its scheme of things, becomes no unfair gauge of the adequacy or inadequacy of the system in question. In Christian times, the relations of philosophy and religion have been mainly determined by the attitude of reason towards the churchly doctrine of revelation. Three relations of the human reason to the things of God are possible. (1) It may be said that the content of theology is matter communicated by God in an extraordinary fashion--truths otherwise unattainable, and on which it is beyond the competency of reason to sit in judgment. We have thus two spheres arbitrarily separated. As regards their mutual relation, theology is at first...
