Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws

Оглавление

James Buchanan. Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws

Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

FOOTNOTES:

MODERN ATHEISM

CHAPTER I

GENERAL VIEW OF ATHEISM

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER II

THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT

SECTION I

THEORY OF COSMICAL DEVELOPMENT, OR OF THE PRODUCTION OF WORLDS AND PLANETARY SYSTEMS BY NATURAL LAW.—"THE VESTIGES."

SECTION II

THEORY OF PHYSIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT; OR THE PRODUCTION OF VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL RACES BY NATURAL LAW.—"TELLIAMED."—PHYSIO-PHILOSOPHY

SECTION III

THEORY OF SOCIAL OR HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT.—AUGUSTE COMTE

SECTION IV

THEORY OF ECCLESIASTICAL DEVELOPMENT.—J. H. NEWMAN

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER III

THEORIES OF PANTHEISM

SECTION I

THE SYSTEM OF SPINOZA

SECTION II

MATERIAL OR HYLOZOIC PANTHEISM

SECTION III

IDEAL PANTHEISM

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IV

THEORIES OF MATERIALISM

SECTION I

DISTINCT FORMS OF MATERIALISM

SECTION II

PROPOSITIONS ON MATERIALISM

SECTION III

THE RELATIONS OF MATERIALISM TO THEOLOGY

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER V

THEORY OF GOVERNMENT BY NATURAL LAWS.—VOLNEY.—COMBE

SECTION I

THE DOCTRINE OF NATURAL LAWS AND SECOND CAUSES

SECTION II

THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN CONSIDERED IN ITS RELATION TO THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD

SECTION III

THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VI

THEORIES OF CHANCE AND FATE

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VII

THEORY OF RELIGIOUS LIBERALISM

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VIII

THEORIES OF CERTITUDE AND SKEPTICISM

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IX

THEORY OF SECULARISM.—G. J. HOLYOAKE

FOOTNOTES:

THE END

Отрывок из книги

James Buchanan

Published by Good Press, 2019

.....

It is the more necessary to examine the various forms of this theory, because unquestionably it can appeal to not a few natural analogies, which may serve, on a superficial view, to give it the aspect of verisimilitude. For many of the most signal works of God have been manifestly framed on the principle of gradual growth, and matured by a process of progressive development. We see in the natural world a small seed deposited in the earth, which, under the agency of certain suitable influences, germinates and springs up, producing first a tender shoot, then a stem, and branches, and leaves, and blossoms, and fruit; and every herb or tree, "having seed in itself," makes provision for the repetition of the same process, and the perpetuation and indefinite increase of its kind. The same law is observed in the animal kingdom, where a continuous race is produced from a single pair. And even in the supernatural scheme of Revelation itself, the truth was gradually unfolded in a series of successive dispensations; the First Promise being the germ, which expanded as the Church advanced, until it reached its full development in the Scriptures of the New Testament. These and similar instances may suffice to show that, both in the natural and supernatural Providence of God, He has been pleased to act on the principle of gradual and progressive, as contradistinguished from that of instant and perfect production; and they may seem, at first sight, to afford some natural analogies in favor of the radical idea on which the various modern Theories of Development are based. In such circumstances it would be an unwise and dangerous course either to overlook the palpable facts which Nature and Revelation equally attest, or to deny that they may afford signal manifestations of the manifold wisdom of God. Nor is it necessary for any enlightened advocate of Theism to betake himself to these expedients; he may freely admit the existence of such cases of gradual development, he may even appeal to them as illustrative of the order of Nature, and the design which that order displays; and the only question which he is at all concerned to discuss amounts in substance to this: Whether the method of production which is pursued in the ordinary course of Nature can account for the original commencement of the present system of things?

But the state of the question, and the right application of the argument, may be best illustrated by considering each of the four forms of the theory separately and in succession.

.....