Frederic Henry Hedge

Ways of the Spirit, and Other Essays. Frederic Henry Hedge

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878. Excerpt: ... VI. CRITIQUE OF PROOFS OF THE BEING OF GOD. rpHE traditional idea of God is that of a superhuman, extramundane Being, combining in himself all conceivable perfections: from whom, as cause and ground, all other being is derived; on whom, as the universal Providence, all creatures depend; whose will, as moral ideal, is the highest law for intelligent natures. An idea of such transcendent import could not fail to stimulate in philosophic minds the attempt to verify it by scientific demonstration. Much labor and learning have been expended in such essays; but still the strongest proof of the Being of God is his idea in the universal consciousness of man. I say universal, because the exceptions--of savage atheism at one extreme of humanity, and of philosophic antitheism at the other--do not materially invalidate the fact. God in this idea is his own witness, and asserts himself with a weight of evidence which no resistance of denial, and no ingenuity of speculation, can quite countervail. Attempts to demonstrate the truth of this idea from external data have not been successful. Proofs from Nature may entertain the faith of-believers, but cannot conquer unbelief. For though, to predisposed minds possessed with the idea, Nature confesses God with the manifestations, everywhere obvious, of intelligence and law in all her processes and functions, these manifestations carry no conviction to the atheist, who sees in them nothing more than the necessary conditions of being. In the strictness of logic, they have not the binding force of demonstration which the advocates of Theism profess to find in them. Theology claims that Theism is the best solution of the question, Whence this universe of things? But the truth of an hypothesis which seems to solve a given problem...