The “myth” of Alexander the Great
February 6, 2012
Eumenes and Diodorus, the chroniclers of the daily affairs of this pretended conqueror and ruler, tell us he died on the eleventh of June, toward the close of the day. But Aristobulus and Ptolemy, who were at his bedside at the time, mention the thirteenth of June as the day of his death! What more is wanting to show the legendary character of this alleged history, when eye-witnesses cannot come within two days of the death of their hero? If I doubt the truth of the Gospel histories because they differ by three hours as to the time of the crucifixion of Christ; shall I believe the pretended history of this mythical Alexander, when eye-witnesses differ two days as to the time of his death!
Ours is a historical religion
January 23, 2012
There has been a tendency of recent years to sneer at the evidential school of the last century, as if Lardner, Paley, and the rest had failed in the task they set themselves, and as if their failure did not much matter to us who have a more sure foundation for our faith. Such sneers indicate a complete failure to apprehend that ours is a historical religion, …
The conversion of St. Paul
January 17, 2012
The events on which the Apostles relied, in proof of His divinity, had taken place in the full blaze of contemporary knowledge. He had not to deal with uncertainties of criticism or assaults on authenticity. He could question, not ancient documents, but living men; he could analyse, not fragmentary records, but existing evidence. He had thousands of means close at hand whereby to test the reality or unreality of the Resurrection in which, unto this time, he had so passionately and contemptuously disbelieved.
The very groundwork of our faith
January 2, 2012
The principle on which all these assertions are received, is not that they have been made by this or that credible individual or body of persons, who have gone through the proof—this may have its weight with the critical and learned—but the main principle adopted by all, intelligible by all, and reasonable in itself, is, that these assertions are set forth, bearing on their face a challenge of refutation. The assertions are like witnesses placed in a box to be confronted. Scepticism, infidelity, and scoffing, form the very groundwork of our faith.
How different is the case
December 26, 2011
[I]t is hard to imagine Anselm convincing, say, the Norsemen with this sort of thing. As Hume has Philo say, “men ever did, and ever will, derive their religion from other sources than from this species of reasoning.” How different is the case with miracles. The most notable religious miracles have to do with seas and storms, with wine and blood and the grave, and these subjects move the heart as well as the intellect.
A due agnosticism
December 19, 2011
Suppose a future scholar knew I had abandoned Christianity in my teens, and that, also in my teens, I went to an atheist tutor. Would not this seem far better evidence than most of what we have about the development of Christian theology in the first two centuries? Would not he conclude that my apostasy was due to the tutor? And then reject as ‘backward projection’ any story which represented me as an atheist before I went to the tutor? Yet he would be wrong. I am sorry to have become once more autobiographical. But reflection on the extreme improbability of his own life—by historical standards—seems to me a profitable exercise for everyone. It encourages a due agnosticism.
One layman’s reaction
December 12, 2011
You must face the fact that he does not expect the present school of theological thought to be everlasting. He thinks, perhaps wishfully thinks, that the whole thing may blow over. I have learned in other fields of study how transitory the ‘assured results of modern scholarship’ may be, how soon the scholarship ceases to be modern.
Against Hume
December 5, 2011
The theme is arduous. The adversary is both subtle and powerful. With such an adversary, I should on very unequal terms enter the lists, had I not the advantage of being on the side of truth.
Christianity and argument
November 28, 2011
“CHRISTIANITY,” it hath been said, “is not founded in argument.” If it were only meant by these words, that the religion of Jesus could not, by the single aid of reasoning, produce its full effect upon the heart; every true Christian would chearfully subscribe to them. No arguments unaccompanied by the influence of the Holy Spirit, can convert the soul from sin to God; though even to such conversion, arguments are, by the agency of the Spirit, render’d subservient. Again, if we were to understand by this aphorism, that the principles of our religion could never have been discover’d, by the natural and unassisted faculties of man; this position, I presume, would be as little disputed as the former. But if, on the contrary, under the cover of an ambiguous expression, it is intended to insinuate, that those principles, from their very nature, can admit no rational evidence of their truth, (and this, by the way, is the only meaning which can avail our antagonists) the gospel, as well as common sense, loudly reclaims against it.
They have appealed to the bar of reason
November 21, 2011
They have appealed to the bar of reason; the advocates for Christianity have followed them to that bar, and have fairly shewn, that the evidences of revealed religion are such as approve themselves to impartial reason, and, if taken together, are fully sufficient to satisfy an honest and unprejudiced mind.
