The Philosophy of Theism Author:Alexander Campbell Fraser Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTUEE IV. DIVINE NECESSITY: ONTOLOGICAL. I Have been trying to show that those are proceeding The Sci- unreasonably, and therefore unphilosophically, who... more » Religions treat theistic faith, or the disposition to put finally an ed facts ethical and religious interpretation upon the universe, estthat8 as in every form only a subjective sentiment, char- acteristic of some men, or some races of men, or of Jj,is" certain stages in the history of mankind — a sentiment Feafn. .. m theistic which may take the form of what is called religious faith- thought, but which after all is only transitory fancy that is likely to become an anachronism, if it is not already this among the educated. The great historic fact of the permanence, in many forms, of the disposition to put a morally obligatory or supernatural background to human life, and especially to extraordinary events that happen in the world, with the immense influence the religious instinct has in the history and development of mankind, suggests that theistic faith iu the Power at work around us must be reconcilable with reason, if it is not even reason itself, in its deepest and truest human manifestation. The modern Science of Eeligions has accumulated abundant evidence that Eeligion is this potent factor in history; although the human disposition to interpret experience in the light of supernatural power darkens and degrades the interpreter, when a faith that is essentially ethical presents itself as non-moral, or immoral superstitions. But even in superstitions, one can trace the ineradicable dissatisfaction with what is merely finite, and some sense of dutiful conformity to eternal and ennobling ideals. And in all this theism appears in germ. Theists The individual subjects of moral and religious ex- dlstinc...« less