Desiderius Erasmus - "The Praise of Folly"

Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini - "Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing"

George Bernard Shaw - "Der Mann des Schicksals"

Susanna Moodie - "The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I"

Editorial
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

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

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




It may be said, however, that the doctrine of Providence, especially
when taught in connection with that of Predestination, does unavoidably
imply some kind of _necessity_, incompatible with free moral agency, and
that, to all practical intents, it amounts substantially to Fate or
Destiny. But we are prepared to show that there is neither the same kind
of _necessity_ in the one scheme which is implied in the other, nor the
same reason for denying moral and responsible agency in the case of
intelligent beings. In doing so, we must carefully discriminate, in the
first instance, between the various senses in which the term _necessity_
is used. Dr. Waterland has given a comprehensive division of "necessity"
into _four_ kinds, denominated respectively, the Logical, the Moral, the
Physical, and the Metaphysical.

"Logical necessity" exists wherever the contrary of what is affirmed
would imply a contradiction; and in this sense we call it _a necessary
truth_ that two and two make four, that a whole is greater than any of
its parts, and that a circle neither is nor can be a square. It amounts
to nothing more than the affirmation, that the same idea or thing _is
what it is_; and it relates solely to the connection between one idea
and another, or between one proposition and another, or between subject
and predicate. This is "logical necessity;" we cannot, with our present
laws of thought, conceive the thing to be otherwise without implying a
contradiction.

"Moral necessity," again, denotes a connection, not between one idea and
another, or between the subject and predicate of a proposition, but
between _means_ and _ends_. It is not necessary absolutely that any man
should continue to live; but it is necessary _morally_ that, if he would
continue to live, he should eat and sleep, food and rest being,
according to the established constitution of Nature, a _necessary
condition_ or indispensable means for the support of life. There is in
like manner a "moral necessity" that we should be virtuous and obedient,
if we would be truly happy, virtue and obedience being, according to the
established constitution of Nature, an indispensable means of true and
permanent happiness. This is "moral necessity" which has reference
solely to the connection between _means_ and _ends_, but that
connection, being ordained, is immutable and invariable.

"Physical necessity," again, exists wherever there is either a causal
connection between antecedents and consequents in the material world, or
even a coactive and compulsory constraint in the moral world. It is
physically necessary that fire should burn substances that are
combustible, that water and other fluids should flow down a declivity,
and rise again but only to a certain level; and there is the like kind
of necessity, wherever a moral agent is forced to act under irresistible
compulsion,--as when the assassin seizes hold of another's arm, and
thrusting a deadly weapon into his hand, directs it, by his own
overmastering will, to the brain or heart of his victim. In this latter
case, the unwilling instrument of his revenge or malice is not held to
be the guilty party, but the more powerful agent by whom that instrument
was employed. This is "physical necessity," which relates solely to the
connection between cause and effect in the material world, and, in the
moral, to the compulsory action of one agent on another.

"Metaphysical necessity," again, can be predicated of God only, and
denotes the peculiar property or prerogative of His being, as existing
necessarily, immutably, and eternally, or, to use a scholastic phrase,
the necessary connection in His case between _essence_ and _existence_.

Omitting the _last_, which does not fall properly within the limits of
our present inquiry, we may say with regard to _the three first_, that
each of them may exist, and that each of them does really operate, in
the present constitution of Nature. We are subject, unquestionably, to
certain "laws of thought," which we can neither repeal nor resist, and
which impose upon us a logical necessity to conceive, to reason, and to
infer, not according to our own whim or caprice, but according to
established rules. We are equally subject to certain "conditions of
existence,"--arising partly from our own constitution, partly from the
constitution of external objects and the relations subsisting between
the two,--which lay us under a moral necessity of using suitable means
for the accomplishment of our purposes and plans. And we are still
further subject to "physical necessity," in so far as our material frame
is liable to be affected by external influences, and even our muscular
powers may be overmastered and subordinated by a more vigorous or
resolute will than our own. These _three_ kinds of "necessity" exist;
they are all constituent parts of that vast scheme of government under
which we are placed; and the question arises, Whether, when the
existence of these necessary laws is admitted, we can still maintain the
doctrine which affirms the providential government of God and the moral
agency of man; or whether we must not resolve the whole series of
events, both in the natural and moral worlds, into the blind and
inexorable dominion of Destiny or Fate?

We answer, first, that there is nothing in any one of these three kinds
of necessity, nor in all of them combined, which, when rightly
understood, should either exclude the idea of Divine Providence, or
impair our sense of moral and responsible agency. We may not be _so_
free, nor so totally exempt from the operation of established laws, as
some of the advocates of human liberty have supposed: but we may be free
enough, notwithstanding, to be regarded and treated as moral and
accountable beings. We may be subject to certain "laws of thought," and
yet may be responsible for our opinions and beliefs, in so far as these
depend on our voluntary acts, on our attention or inattention to the
truth and its evidence, on our use or neglect of the appropriate means,
on our love or our hatred to the light. And so we may be subject to
certain other laws, in various departments of our complex experience,
without being either restrained or impelled by such external coaction as
alone can exempt creatures, constituted as we know and feel ourselves to
be, from the righteous retributions of God.

We answer, secondly, that the doctrine of Providence, even when it is
combined with that of Predestination, represents all events as "falling
out according to the nature of second causes, necessarily, contingently,
or freely;" nay, as falling out so "that no violence is offered to the
will of the creature, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes
taken away, but rather established." It follows that if there be either
on earth or in heaven any free cause, or any moral and responsible
agent, his nature is not changed, nor is the character of his agency
altered, by that providential government which God exercises over all
His creatures and all their actions; he still continues to develop,
within certain limits imposed by unalterable laws, his own proper
individuality, or his personal character, in its relation to the law and
government of God.

We answer, thirdly, that the moral and responsible agency of man cannot
be justly held to be incompatible with the Providence and Supremacy of
God, unless it can be shown that, in the exercise of the latter, God
acts in the way of physical coaction or irresistible constraint, and
further, that man is not only controlled and governed in his actions,
but compelled to act in opposition to his own will. But no enlightened
advocate either of Providence or Predestination will affirm that there
is any "physical necessity," imposed by the Divine will, which
constrains men to commit sin, or that God is "the author of sin." "Let
no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be
tempted of evil, neither tempteth He any man. But every man is tempted,
when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed."[222]

We answer, fourthly, that when a "moral necessity" or _moral inability_
is spoken of by divines as making sin certain and inevitable in the case
of man, we must carefully distinguish between the _constitution_ and the
_state_ of human nature,--its constitution as it was originally created,
and its state as it at present exists. There might be nothing in the
original constitution of human nature which could interfere in any way
with the freedom of man as an intelligent, moral, and responsible being;
and yet, in consequence of the introduction of sin, his state may now be
so far changed as to have become a state of moral bondage. But the
constitution of his nature, in virtue of which he was at the first, and
must ever continue to be, a moral and accountable being, remains
unreversed; from being holy, he has become depraved, but he has not
ceased to be a subject of moral government, and the evils that are
incident to his present position must be ascribed, not to God's
_creative will_, but, in the first instance, to man's voluntary
disobedience, and, in the second, to a Divine _judicial sentence_
following thereupon.

And finally, we answer that the theory which ascribes all events, both
in the natural and moral worlds, to the blind and inexorable dominion of
Destiny or Fate, leaves altogether unexplained many of the most certain
and familiar facts of human experience. There are two large classes of
facts which no theory of Fate can possibly explain. The first comprises
all those manifest indications of provident forethought, intelligent
design, and moral purpose, which appear in the course of Nature, and
which cannot be _accounted for_ by a blind, unintelligent, undesigning
cause. The second comprises all those facts of consciousness which bear
witness to the moral nature and responsible agency of man, as the
subject of a government which rewards and punishes his actions, in some
measure, even here, and which irresistibly suggests the idea of a future
reckoning and retribution. These two classes of facts must either be
ignored, or left as insoluble, by any theory which advocates blind Fate
or Destiny, in opposition to the overruling Providence and moral
government of God.

These answers are sufficient, if not to remove all mystery from the
methods of the Divine administration (for who would undertake to fathom
the counsels of Him "whose judgments are unsearchable and His ways past
finding out?"), yet to show at least that a Divine Providence is more
credible in itself, and better supported by evidence, than any theory of
Destiny or Fate; that the facts to which the latter appeals may be
explained consistently with the former, while the facts on which the
former is founded must either be left altogether out of view, or at
least left unexplained, if the doctrine of Fate be substituted for that
of Providence.

We have thus far compared the two theories of Chance and Fate, by which
some have attempted to explain the system of the universe, and have
contrasted both with the Christian doctrine of Providence. On a review
of the whole discussion, we think it must be evident that the latter
combines whatever is true and valuable in each of these opposite
theories, while it eliminates and rejects whatever is unsound or noxious
in either. It may seem strange that we should speak as if anything,
either true or valuable, could be involved in the theories of Chance and
Destiny; and, unquestionably, considered as theories designed to explain
the system of the world, and to supersede the doctrine of Providence,
they are, in all their distinctive peculiarities, utterly false and
worthless. But it seldom, if ever, happens that any theory obtains a
wide-spread and permanent influence, which does not stand connected with
some _partial truth_, or which cannot appeal to some _apparent natural
evidence_. We have already seen that there are two distinct classes of
events in Nature, and two corresponding classes of sentiments and
feelings in the human mind; that the latter point, respectively, to the
constant and the variable, the certain and the doubtful, the causal and
the casual; and that were either of the two to acquire an absolute
ascendancy over us, it would naturally lead to one or other of two
opposite extremes--the theory of Chance, or the theory of Fate. Now, the
doctrine of Providence takes account of _both_ these classes of
phenomena and feelings, so as to combine whatever is true and useful in
each of the two rival theories, while it strikes out and rejects
whatever is false in either, by placing all things under the government
and control of a living, intelligent, personal God.

It is scarcely necessary to add that the views and sentiments which the
Christian doctrine of Providence inspires are widely different from
those which must be generated by a belief either in Chance or in Fate,
as the supreme arbiter of our destiny. The doctrine which teaches us to
look up and to say, with childlike confidence, "Our FATHER which art in
heaven," is worth more than all the philosophy in the world! Could we
only realize it as a truth, and have habitual recourse to it in all our
anxieties and straits, we should feel that, if it be a deeply serious
and solemn fact that "the Lord reigneth," it is also, to all his
trusting and obedient children, alike cheering and consolatory; and he
who can relish the sweetness of our Lord's words when he spake of "the
birds of the air" and the "flowers of the field," will see at once that
Stoicism is immeasurably inferior, both as a philosophy and a faith, to
Christian Theism.[223]

FOOTNOTES:

[217] DR. CUDWORTH, "Intellectual System," I. 75, 82, 106, 151; II. 77,
334. GASSENDI, "Syntagma." DR. J. M. GOODE, "Lucretius," Preface.

[218] LA PLACE, "Des Probabilities."

[219] Eccles. 9: 11; Luke 10: 31; Deut. 19: 5

[220] DR. CUDWORTH, "Intellectual System," I. 33. American Edition.

[221] DR. JOHN COLLINGES, "On Providence." Dr. Price, "Dissertations."
SAMUEL RUTHERFORD, "De Providentia Dei." DR. CHARNOCK, "On Providence."

[222] James 1: 13, 14. See M'LAURIN'S profound discourse on this text.

[223] MICHELET has presented a graphic portrait of a Stoic:--"L'individu
sous la forme du Stoicisme,--ramasse soi,--appuye sur soi,--ne demandant
rien aux dieux,--ne les accusant point,--_ne daignant pas meme les
nier_."--"_Introduction a l'Historie Universelle_."




CHAPTER VII.

THEORY OF RELIGIOUS LIBERALISM.


The Eclectic method of Philosophy, which was first exemplified in the
celebrated School of Alexandria, and which has been recently revived
under the auspices of M. Cousin in the Schools of Paris, may be
regarded, in one of its aspects, as the most legitimate, and, indeed, as
the only practicable course of successful intellectual research. If by
"eclecticism" we were to understand the habit of culling from every
system that portion or fragment of truth which may be contained in it,
and of rejecting the error with which it may have been associated or
alloyed,--in other words, the art of "sifting the wheat from the chaff,"
so as to preserve the former, while the latter is dissipated and
dispersed,--there could be no valid objection to it which would not
equally apply to every method of Inductive Inquiry. But this is not the
sense in which "eclecticism" has been adopted and eulogized by the
Parisian School. For, not content with affirming that the same system
may contain both truth and error, and that it is our duty to separate
the one from the other,--which is the only rational "eclecticism,"--M.
Cousin maintains that _error itself is only a partial or incomplete
truth_; that if it be an evil, it is a necessary evil, and an eventual
good, since it is a means, according to a fundamental law of human
development, of evolving truth and advancing philosophy; and that thus
the grossest errors may exert a salutary influence, insomuch that
_Atheism itself may be regarded as providential_.[224] In this form,
Eclecticism becomes a huge and heterogeneous system of SYNCRETISM,
including all varieties of opinion, whether true or false; and it has a
natural and inevitable tendency to issue in a spirit of INDIFFERENCE to
the claims of truth, which may assume the form either of Philosophical
Skepticism or of Religious Liberalism, according to the taste and
temperament of the individual who embraces it.

In the form of Religious Liberalism, it has often been exemplified in
our own country by those who, averse from definite articles of faith,
and prone to latitudinarian license, have studiously set themselves to
disparage the importance of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, and
even to obliterate the distinction between the various forms of
Religion, natural and revealed, by representing them all as so many
varieties of the same religious sentiment, so many diverse, but not
antagonistic, embodiments of the same radical principle. In the writings
of Pope, several expressions occur which are easily susceptible of this
construction, and which have often been quoted and applied in defence of
Religious Liberalism, notwithstanding his explicit disavowal of it in
his letter to the younger Racine, prefixed to the collected edition of
his works. But on the continent of Europe, Syncretism has been much more
fully developed, and fearlessly applied to every department of human
thought. Pushed to its ultimate consequences, it obliterates the
distinction not only between truth and error, but also between virtue
and vice, nay even between Religion and Atheism; and represents them all
as constituent parts of a scheme, which is developed under a law of
"fatal necessity," but which is described also as a scheme of
"optimism." Its range is supposed to be unlimited: for it has been
applied to the History of Philosophy, by Cousin, to the theory of the
Passions, by Fourier, to the doctrines of Christianity, by Quinet and
Michelet, and to the Philosophy of Religion, by Benjamin Constant. The
practical result of such speculations is a growing _skepticism_ or
_indifference_ in regard to the distinction between truth and error, and
a very faint impression of the difference between good and evil.[225]
The speculations of Pierre Leroux, the head, if not the founder, of the
Humanitarian School, are strongly tinged with this spirit: they amount
to a justification of evil, an apotheosis of man.[226]

We do not class these speculations among the formal systems of Atheism,
although they have often been associated with it; but we advert to them
as specimens of that style of thinking which has a natural tendency to
induce an atheistic frame of mind.[227] The profession of such
sentiments is a symptom rather of incipient danger, than of confirmed
disease. But that danger is far from being either doubtful or
insignificant. For should the distinction between "truth and error" be
obliterated or even feebly discerned, should it come to be regarded as a
matter of comparative indifference whether our beliefs be true or false,
should it, above all, become our prevailing habit to "call good evil,
and evil good," we can scarcely fail, in such circumstances, to fall
into a course of _practical Atheism_; and this, as all experience
testifies, will leave us an easy prey, especially in seasons of peculiar
temptation and trial, to any form of _speculative Infidelity_ that may
happen to acquire a temporary ascendancy. If there be no dogmatic
Atheism involved in this state of mind, there is at least the germ of
_skepticism_, which may soon grow and ripen into the open and avowed
denial of religious truth. At the very least, it will issue in that
heartless _indifference_ to all creeds and all definite articles of
faith, which, under the plausible but surreptitious disguise of
"freethinking" and "liberalism," is the nearest practical approximation
to utter Infidelity.[228]

The system which is known under the name of Religious Liberalism or
Indifference has been recently avowed in our own country with a
frankness and boldness which can leave no room for doubt in regard to
its ultimate tendency. The late Blanco White avowed it as his mature
conviction, that "to declare any one unworthy of the name of Christian
because he does not agree with your belief, is to fall into the
intolerance of the articled Churches; that the moment the name Christian
is made necessarily to contain in its signification belief in certain
historical or metaphysical propositions, that moment _the name itself
becomes a creed_,--the _length_ of that creed is of little
consequence."[229] This is the extreme on one side, and it plainly
implies that _no one article of faith_ is necessary, and that a man may
be a Christian who neither acknowledges an historical Christ, nor
believes a single doctrine which He taught! But there is an extreme also
on the other side, which is exemplified in the singularly eloquent, but
equally unsatisfactory, treatise of the Abbe Lamennais,[230] in which,
as _then_ an ardent and somewhat arrogant advocate of the Romish Church,
he attempts to fasten the charge of _Indifference_ or _Liberalism_ on
the Protestant system, and to prove that there can be no true faith, and
of course no salvation, beyond the Catholic pale. The chief interest of
his treatise depends on his peculiar "theory of certitude," to which we
shall have occasion to advert in the sequel; in the meantime, we may
notice briefly the grievous error into which he has fallen in treating
of the faith which is necessary to salvation. He _overstates_ the case
as much, at least, as it has been _understated_ by the abettors of
Liberalism. The latter deny the necessity of _any_ articles of faith;
the former demands the implicit reception of _every_ doctrine propounded
by the Romish Church. He repudiates the distinction between
_fundamentals_ and _non-fundamentals_ in Religion, and insists that, as
every truth is declared by the same infallible authority, so every truth
must be received with the same unquestioning faith. He forgets that
while all the truths of Scripture ought to be believed by reason of the
Divine authority on which they rest, yet some truths are more directly
connected with our salvation than others, as well as more clearly and
explicitly revealed. Nor are we justly liable to the charge of
"Indifference" or "Liberalism" when we tolerate a difference of opinion,
on some points, among men who are, in all important respects,
substantially agreed: for true toleration is the fruit, not of unbelief
or indifference, but of charity and candor; and it is sanctioned in
Scripture, which enjoins that we should "receive those who are weak in
the faith, but not to doubtful disputations," and that "every man should
be fully persuaded in his own mind."[231]

But it is not so much in its relation to the articles of the Christian
faith, as in its bearing on the different forms of true and false
religion, that the theory of Liberalism comes into collision with the
cause of Theism, and evinces its infidel tendencies. If any one can
regard with the same complacency, or with the same apathetic
indifference, all the varieties of religious or superstitious belief and
worship; if he can discern no radical or important difference between
Monotheism and Polytheism, or between the Protestant and Popish systems;
if he be disposed to treat each of these as equally true or equally
false, as alike beneficial or injurious in their practical influence,
then this may be regarded as a sufficient proof that he is ignorant of
the evidence, and blind to the claims, of truth,--a mere skeptical
dreamer, if not a speculative Atheist.

An attempt has recently been made to place the theory of Religious
Liberalism on a philosophical basis, by representing religion as a mere
_sentiment_, which may be equally elicited and exemplified in various
forms of belief and worship. Several writers, following in the wake of
Schleiermacher, who gave such a powerful impulse to the mind of Germany,
have made Religion to consist either in _a sense of dependence_, or in
_a consciousness of the infinite_; and this sentiment, as well as the
spontaneous intuitions of reason with which it is associated, is said to
be alike natural, universal, and invariable, the essential principle of
all Religion, the root whence have sprung all the various forms of
belief and worship. These varieties are supposed to be more or less
rational and salutary, according to the conception which they
respectively exhibit of the nature and character of God,--a conception
which may be endlessly diversified by the intellect, or the imagination,
or the passions of different men; while all the forms of belief are
radically identical, since they all spring from the same
ground-principle, and are only so many distinct manifestations of it.
Thus Mr. Parker tells us that, stripping the "religious sentiment" in
man "of all accidental circumstances peculiar to the age, nation, sect,
or individual, and pursuing a sharp and final analysis till the subject
and predicate can no longer be separated, we find as the ultimate fact,
that the religious sentiment is this,--'_a sense of dependence_.' This
sentiment does not itself disclose the character, and still less the
nature and essence, of the object on which it depends, no more than the
senses declare the nature of _their_ objects. Like them it acts
spontaneously and unconsciously, as soon as the outward occasion offers,
with no effort of will, forethought, or making up the mind. But the
religious sentiment implies its object; ... and there is but _one
religion_, though _many theologies_."[232]

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