The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske
page 58 of 345 (16%)
page 58 of 345 (16%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
past, to possess different values for different minds. He who, on
such considerations, entertains a belief in a future life may not demand that his sceptical neighbour shall be convinced by the same considerations; but his neighbour is at the same time estopped from stigmatizing his belief as unphilosophical. The consideration which must influence most minds in their attitude toward this question, is the craving, almost universally felt, for some teleological solution to the problem of existence. Why we are here now is a question of even profounder interest than whether we are to live hereafter. Unfortunately its solution carries us no less completely beyond the range of experience! The belief that all things are working together for some good end is the most essential expression of religious faith: of all intellectual propositions it is the one most closely related to that emotional yearning for a higher and better life which is the sum and substance of religion. Yet all the treatises on natural theology that have ever been written have barely succeeded in establishing a low degree of scientific probability for this belief. In spite of the eight Bridgewater Treatises, and the "Ninth" beside, dysteleology still holds full half the field as against teleology. Most of this difficulty, however, results from the crude anthropomorphic views which theologians have held concerning God. Once admitting that the Divine attributes may be (as they must be) incommensurably greater than human attributes, our faith that all things are working together for good may remain unimpugned. To many minds such a faith will seem incompatible with belief in the ultimate destruction of sentiency amid the general doom of |
|