Month: March 2016

The very groundwork of our faith

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.

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How different is the case

[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.

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