History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion Part 2

Lecture I.

_On the subject, method, and purpose of the course of Lectures._

The subject stated to be the struggle of the human mind against the Christian revelation, in whole or in part. (p. 1.) Explanation of the points which form the occasion of the conflict. (pp. 1-3.)

The mode of treatment, being that of a critical history, includes (p. 3) the discovery of (1) the facts, (2) the causes, and (3) the moral.

The main part of this first lecture is occupied in explaining the second of these divisions.

Importance, if the investigation were to be fully conducted, of carrying out a comparative study of religions and of the att.i.tude of the mind in reference to all doctrine that rests on authority. (pp. 4-6.)

The idea of causes implies,

I. The law of the operation of the causes.

II. The enumeration of the causes which act according to this a.s.sumed law.

The empirical law, or formula descriptive of the action of reason on religion, is explained to be one form of the principle of progress by antagonism, the conservation or discovery of truth by means of inquiry and controversy; a merciful Providence leaving men responsible for their errors, but ultimately overruling evil for good. (p. 7.)

This great fact ill.u.s.trated in the four Crises of the Christian faith in Europe, viz. In the struggle

(1) With heathen philosophy, about A.D. 160-360. (p. 8.)

(2) With sceptical tendencies in Scholasticism, in the middle ages (1100-1400). (p. 8.)

(3) With literature, at the Renaissance, in Italy (1400-1625). (p. 9.)

(4) With modern philosophy in three forms (p. 11): viz. English Deism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (p. 11); French Infidelity in the eighteenth century; German Rationalism in the eighteenth and nineteenth.

Proposal to study the natural as well as literary history of these forms of doubt.-The investigation separated from inquiries into heresy as distinct from scepticism. (p. 13.)

The causes, seen to act according to the law just described, which make free thought develope into unbelief, stated to be twofold. (p. 13.)

1. Emotional causes.-Necessity for showing the relation of the intellectual causes to the emotional, both per se, and because the idea of a history of thought, together with the comparative rarity of the process here undertaken, implies the restriction of the attention mainly to the intellectual. (p. 13.)

Influence of the emotional causes shown, both from psychology and from the a.n.a.lysis of the nature of the evidence offered in religion (pp. 14, 15).-Historical ill.u.s.trations of their influence. (pp. 15-17.)

Other instances where the doubt is in origin purely intellectual (p. 17), but where nevertheless opportunity is seen for the latent operation of the emotional. (p. 18.)

Explanation how far religious doubt is sin. (pp. 19, 20.)

2. Intellectual causes, which are the chief subject of these lectures; the conjoint influence however of the emotional being always presupposed.

The intellectual causes shown to be (p. 20):

(a) the new material of knowledge which arises from the advance of the various sciences; viz. Criticism; Physical, Moral, and Ontological science. (p. 21.)

() the various metaphysical tests of truth or grounds of cert.i.tude employed. (p. 22.)

An ill.u.s.tration of the meaning (pp. 22, 23), drawn from literature, in a brief comparison of the types of thought shown in Milton, Pope, and Tennyson.

Statement of the exact position of this inquiry in the subdivisions of metaphysical science (pp. 24, 25), and detailed explanation of the advantages and disadvantages of applying to religion the tests of Sense, subjective Forms of Thought, Intuition, and Feeling, respectively; as the standard of appeal. (pp. 25-32.)

Advantage of a biographic mode of treatment in the investigation of the operation of these causes in the history of doubt. (pp. 32-34.)

Statement of the utility of the inquiry:

(1) Intellectually, (a) in a didactic and polemical point of view, in that it refers the origin of the intellectual elements in error to false philosophy and faulty modes of judging, and thus refutes error by a.n.a.lysing it into the causes which produce it; and also () in an indirect contribution to the Christian evidences by the historic study of former contests. (p. 36.)

(2) Morally, in creating deep pity for the sinner, united with hatred for the sin. (p. 36.)

Concluding remarks on the spirit which has influenced the writer in these lectures. (pp. 37, 38.)

Lecture II.

_The literary opposition of Heathens against Christianity in the early ages._

_The first of the four crises of the faith._ (pp. 39-74.) Agreement and difference of this crisis with the modern. (p. 40.) Sources for ascertaining its nature, the original writings of unbelievers being lost.

(pp. 41, 42.)

Preliminary explanation of four states of belief among the heathens in reference to religion, from which opposition to Christianity would arise: (pp. 43-118) viz.

(1) the tendency to absolute disbelief of religion, as seen in Lucian and the Epicurean school. (p. 43.) (2) a reactionary attachment to the national creed,-the effect of prejudice in the lower orders, and of policy in the educated. (pp. 45, 46.) (3) the philosophical tendency, in the Stoics, (p. 44) and Neo-Platonists. (pp. 45, 46.) (4) the mystic inclination for magic rites. (p. 47.)

Detailed critical history of the successive literary attacks on Christianity. (p. 48 seq.)

1. that of Lucian, about A.D. 170, in the _Peregrinus Proteus_. (pp.

48-50.) 2. that of Celsus, about the same date. (pp. 50-55.) 3. that of Porphyry, about 270. (pp. 56-61.) 4. that of Hierocles about 303, founded on the earlier work of Philostratus respecting the life of Apollonius of Tyana. (pp. 62-64.) 5. that of Julian, A.D. 363; an example of the struggle in deeds as well as in ideas. (pp. 65-68.)

(Account of the _Philopatris_ of the Pseudo-Lucian. (p. 67.))

Conclusion; showing the relation of these attacks to the intellectual tendencies before mentioned (p. 69), and to the general intellectual causes sketched in Lect. I. (p. 69.)-Insufficiency of these causes to explain the whole phenomenon of unbelief, unless the conjoint action of emotional causes be supposed. (pp. 71, 72.)

a.n.a.logy of this early conflict to the modern. Lessons from consideration of the means by which the early Church repelled it. (pp. 72-74.)

Lecture III.

_Free Thought during the middle ages, and at the Renaissance; together with its rise in modern times._

This period embraces the second and third of the four epochs of doubt, and the commencement of the fourth. Brief outline of the events which it includes. (pp. 75, 76.)