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Rudolph Eucken by Abel J. Jones
page 70 of 101 (69%)
protests against the conception of faith which concerns itself merely
with the intellectual acceptance of this or that doctrine. This narrows
and weakens its power, confining it to one department of life; whereas
faith is concerned with the whole of life.

Faith is for Eucken "a conviction of an axiomatic character, which
refuses to be analysed into reasons, and which, indeed, precedes all
reasons ... the recognition of the inner presence of an infinite
energy."

If faith concerns itself with, and proceeds from the whole of life, it
will then take account of the work of thought, and will not set itself
in opposition to reason. But it will lead where reason fails. It is not
limited by intellectual limitations, though it does not underrate or
neglect the achievements of the intellect. Faith enables life to
"maintain itself against a hostile or indifferent world; ... it holds
itself fast to invisible facts against the hard opposition of visible
existence."

The vital importance of such faith to religion is clearly evident; and
bound up with this is the significance of doubt. Doubt, too, becomes
now, not an intellectual matter, but a matter for the whole of life. "If
faith carries within itself so much movement and struggle, it is not
surprising ... if faith and doubt set themselves against each other, and
if the soul is set in a painful dilemma." Eucken considers it to be an
inevitable, and indeed a necessary accompaniment of religious
experience, and his own words on the point are forcible and clear.
"Doubt ... does not appear as something monstrous and atrocious, though
it would appear so if a perfect circle of ideas presented itself to man
and demanded his assent as a bounden duty. For where it is necessary to
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