The Atonement (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1900 Excerpt: ... sight of the concrete facts of the case; and, secondly, the relations of non-moral things have been substituted for the relations of moral persons. The mass of the discussion illustrates the first point. Abstract notions of justice and government have been put forward as fundamental; and various statements have been made as to what they demand. Much of this work was done ad hoc, and represented no unsophisticated utterance of the moral reason. It was the work of advocates rather than of inquirers. The failure to understand the instrumental and adumbrative nature of language led to the fancy that every bold and striking metaphor was a literal fact; and the speculator had to conduct himself accordingly. This led to unlimited sophistication of reason and conscience. Justice was defined as only a theologian could define it. The final cause of the definition was to work the theory and catch the sinner. The moral nature had few rights which theology was bound to respect. The claims of the Divine Sovereign were the supreme thing, and were determined in accordance with the political absolutism of the time. The Heavenly Father, the God of Iyove, nowhere appears. In his place was a Being very jealous for his own honor, and careful to exact the uttermost farthing. To be sure, the atonement was said to be the work of love, but in its philosophy love entirely disappeared. The entire operation was carried on in a fashion unpleasantly suggestive of an almighty Shylock. In addition, the makeshifts of human governments, which result solely from their imperfection, were taken as models for our thought of the Divine procedure. Thus an indefinite amount of sophistication and moral hocus-pocus was introduced into the theory. A brief sketch of the history of the discussion will ...