The Bedrock Of Belief The Foundations Of Religion

Author : William Robison
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781482568707
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (687 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Bedrock of Belief written by William Robison and published by . This book was released on 2013-02-18 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "It is a remarkable fact that many of the religious errors of today, as well as of the past, are due in great part to false philosophical principles. This fact emphasizes the importance of the considerations herewith presented, wherein the rational grounds of religion are established. True religion presupposes sound philosophy: revealed religion is built on the foundation of natural religion: the necessity of Catholicity, as Christianity in the concrete, rests on the necessity of religion in general. Here, as elsewhere, grace neither destroys nor neglects nature, but completes and perfects it. It is hoped that the reflections set forth in these discourses will be of use as an antidote to the poison of irreligion, which is often masked under the guise of pretentious erudition and deceives the unwary or the self-conceited by the glamor of a false science."This work is in essence an apologetics text designed to defend the Catholic Faith against modern errors. "It is of untold advantage in warfare to know the tactics of the enemy and the objective towards which his attacks are chiefly directed; for the defense is then surer and more effective than it would be in ignorance of the methods or the purpose of the foe. This is a fact trumpeted throughout the whole of the battle-scarred world: the same fact is true in the conflict waged for the safeguard of what is dearer to us than life itself, the blessed faith for which the loved Christ died. Different in different ages have been the onslaughts on truth by its ruthless enemies; manifold, the diverse onsets of "the gates of hell" against the Church the Master builded: but in these later years the hostile aggression has been against the very groundwork of faith through assaults upon the foundations of revealed religion."Let us consider this: "Let us look around us in the world. Let us dive into the depths of human thought and volition. What do we see? Everywhere we see beings that are capable of nonexistence, since as a matter of fact they do not always exist in unchanging perfection. The rocks are wearing away, as they have worn away for uncounted ages: the minerals are entering into new combinations and are taken up into higher forms of being. Animals begin to breathe and move, and then they die and corrupt. Man is born, lives his little life, and goes the way of all flesh and is put away from the eyes of men. Take the world of sense and physical science, and accept the latest of Modern theories about its formation and development; and the conclusion becomes but the stronger, that at least its mode of motion, bewildering in the smallest portion of matter, is dying down. If so, it must have had a beginning, or else long ago, nay, almost an eternity ago, it would have come to complete inertness."Let us close with a consideration of Heaven: "The heaven of nature would be a something more thrilling than we can quite realize. Never to know a pang of sorrow, never a pain or a doubt or a misgiving; never to experience the stab of separation from loved ones; never to fear the possibility of falling away from God through the weakness of a faltering will: and besides all this, to have the fulness of joys to satisfy every longing in the throbbing ecstasy of blessedness; always unto everlasting to hold God by the powers of mind and will,-truly even this is more than we can appreciate."