The Limits of Religious Thought Examined in Eight Lectures Delivered Before the University of Oxford, in the Year Mdccclviii, on the Bampton

Title: The Limits of Religious Thought Examined in Eight Lectures Delivered Before the University of Oxford, in the Year Mdccclviii, on the Bampton Foundation General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1875 Original Publisher: Gould and Lincoln Subjects: Religion Rationalism Christianity Philosophy / Religious Philosophy / Movements / Rationalism Religion / Philosophy Religion / Christianity / General Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: LECTURE VIII. THE WORKS WHICH THE FATHER HATH GIVEN ME TO FINISH, THE SAME WORKS THAT I DO, BEAR WITNESS OF ME, THAT THE FA- Tlllili HATH SENT ME. -- ST. JOHN V. 36. To construct a complete Criticism of any Revelation, it is necessary that the Critic should be in possession of a perfect Philosophy of the Infinite. For, except on the supposition that we possess an exact knowledge of the whole Nature of God, such as only that Philosophy can furnish, we cannot know for certain what are the purposes which God intends to accomplish by means of Revelation, and what are the instruments by which those purposes may be best Tarried out. If then it can be shown, as I have attempted to show in the previous Lectures, that the attainment of a Philosophy of the Infinite is utterly impossible under the existing laws of human thought, it follows that it is not by means of philosophical criticism that the claims of a supposed Revelation can be adequately tested. "We are thus compelled to seek another field for the right use of Reason in religious questions; and what that field is, it will not be difficult to determine. To Reason, rightly employed, within its proper limits and on its proper objects, our Lord himself and his Apostles openly appealed in proof of the...