A. Seth Pringle-Pattison
Published: 2018-09-04
Total Pages: 460
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....The author disclaims any attempt at a history of the idea of God. Altho his method is critical and to some degree historical, his aim is fundamentally constructive -- "construction through criticism." His approach to the theistic position is through the criterion of ralue, in the light of which human life and existence as a whole are judged and ultimate reality seen. Over against mechanism and naturalism he sets the newer biology and ethical idealism. He defends the fundamental thesis that man is organic to nature and nature organic to man. The positivism of Comte, the monadology of Leibnitz, the subjective idealism of Berkeley, and the pantheism of Spinoza are subjected to critical inquiry. The relation of the two most influential thinkers -- Hume and Kant -- to the theistic position is pointed out with great clearness. The argument, especially in the second series, has especial reference to the idealistic positions of F. H. Bradley in "Appearance and Reality" and Bosanquet's well-known Gifford Lectures on "Individuality and Value" and "Value and Destiny." Here he criticizes both the idea of value and the individual as Absolute and finite. He enters the more definitely theological field in his presentation of the meaning of creation, the ontological and cosmological arguments, and teleology as a cosmic principle. The volume closes with chapters on time and eternity, with particular attention to Bergson's conception of time and a growing universe and on pluralism and a limited God as advocated by Rashdall, McTaggnrt, and William James. Very many of the questions which have come up in present-day speculative and theological thought receive here thoroughgoing consideration and are treated with candor, lucidity, and conviction. We are indeed far from an intelligible and commonly accepted idea of God, and perhaps we shall never be able to reduce God to a definition or to agree on many disputed points of view, but a book like this will aid in disclosing inherent difficulties of the subject and in liberating thoughtful minds from notions which are the product of unreflecting habits or a jumble of inconsistent opinions. Two or three quotations may be fitly introduced to show the tenor of this exceedingly suggestive volume. "If we are to reach any credible theory of the relations of God and man, the traditional idea of God must be profoundly modified." "For a metaphysics which has emancipated itself from physical categories, the ultimate conception of God is not that of a preexistent Creator, but, as it is for religion, that of the eternal Redeemer of the world. This perpetual process is the very life of God, in which, besides the effort and the pain, he tastes, we must 'believe, the joy of victory won...". --Homiletic Review, Volume 75