Author: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2017-04-14

Total Pages: 544

ISBN-13: 9780259292357

Excerpt from The Church Quarterly Review, Vol. 53: For October 1901: January 1902 Such an attitude naturally builds up an equally deter mined attitude ou the other side. Anyone who is a firm believer in the truth of certain Opinions naturally resents an attack which is often virulent and unrelenting. He is told that it is only the outworks or the excrescences of his faith which are in danger; but the attacks are obviously and clearly directed against all that he holds to be essential. He is not prejudiced in favour of criticism, and when he comes to examine it he finds that, although it is quite convinced that most things should be disbelieved, it is not always agreed on the reason for disbelieving. He finds that the same critics who condemn his beliefs are equally confident in con demning the opinions of their predecessors, who in their day attacked established opinions with just the same self confidence. He begins to wonder, therefore, whether the present phase of criticism may not equally rapidly pass away. He has read Harnack's condemnation of the Tiibingen school. He remembers that there was a time, not so long ago, when he waslooked upon as inadequately endowed with intelligence because he dissented from its conclusions, and he begins to wonder whether some future critic will not speak as contemptuously of later destructive criticism. He sees how little constructive theology, how little that satisfies the needs of a man's soul and will be a guide to his life, criticism can give. He knows that the world requires a Gospel and so he hardcns his heart and stops his ears, and is resolved to hold tenaciously to what he has received, without taking the trouble to test or to correct it, and he uses the old-fashioned weapons of orthodoxy and anathema tizes the heretic. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.