FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41  
42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   >>  
e history of philosophy, and of the utmost importance as regards its effects on subsequent thought. And of this antagonism and subsequent reconciliation, the early Christian Apologists were concrete examples. They had most of them, before they became Christians, been adherents of one or the other of the different philosophical sects, and several of them had tried all in turn.[33] They exemplified well the prevailing restless distrust of the results and methods of the older schools, but in Christianity--the belief in a Person, who was for them "the Way, the Truth and the Life"--they finally found the certainty for which they had so long sought in vain. The effect of this process, and of this result upon the attitude of the early Christian philosophers, could be none other than an increased distrust of the arguments for the existence of God, and an inclination to ignore them completely. These already suspected processes of reasoning by which the Greeks had been able to attain only to an abstract principle, or force, or mechanical cause, or arranger of the world, must be of very small importance to these men, upon whose sight had burst all at once, in the height of their despair, the vision of the Christian doctrine of God, certified to by one whom they believed to be the veritable Son of God, "of one substance with the Father," and whose testimony to the truth of any fact brought a certainty which was infinitely superior to that which could be attained by any rational argument on other grounds. The transcendent authority of the teaching of Jesus Christ for these men, suddenly rescued by a belief in His claims from an absolute scepticism which was rapidly overflowing their minds, needs to be thoroughly appreciated before one can understand the position which they assumed, especially with reference to such a question as the one under discussion. But though this basis of belief was sufficient for them, yet, as the primary mission of the Christian was to "go, disciple all nations," they were soon brought, in their endeavors to fulfil this command, into contact with those who not only denied the authority of their Teacher, but who were sceptical about the very fundamentals of religious belief. For the sake of these, then, and occasionally for the further confirmation of the faith of believers, and for purposes of illustration, the patristic writers return again to the discussion of those elements of belief for which they t
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41  
42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   >>  



Top keywords:
belief
 

Christian

 

certainty

 

distrust

 

subsequent

 

authority

 

discussion

 
brought
 

importance

 
scepticism

absolute

 

appreciated

 

overflowing

 

rapidly

 

grounds

 
infinitely
 

superior

 
testimony
 

substance

 

Father


attained

 
rational
 

suddenly

 

rescued

 

Christ

 

argument

 

transcendent

 
teaching
 

claims

 

fundamentals


religious
 

sceptical

 
contact
 

denied

 

Teacher

 

occasionally

 

patristic

 

writers

 

return

 

elements


illustration

 

purposes

 

confirmation

 
believers
 
command
 

question

 
position
 

assumed

 

reference

 

sufficient