A Psychological Study of Religion; Its Origin, Function, and Future (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XI THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY I. The Situation; the Propositions of Empirical Theology; the Documental Evidence "Le conflit entre Ie christianisme et la science a delate" d'abord sur le terrain cosmologique; la lutte s'est transported ensuite sur le terrain de la biologie; elle se trouve maintenant sur celui de la psychologic" Theodore Flournoy, unpublished lecture. One of the results of the scientific and philosophical activity of the past century has been to convince the best informed among the theologians who have remained Christians in the traditional sense of the word, that science and metaphysics are not the allies but the enemies of their beliefs.1 This conviction has resulted in an energetic effort to render theology independent of science and metaphysics. Should this endeavor succeed, it would be a matter of indifference to religion that historical criticism contests the authenticity of portions of the Bible, that physical science denies miracles, and that psychology explains by natural means revelation and conversion. Ritschlianism, the only recent system of theology that 1 The metaphysicians have themselves compelled this recognition, even those of the English school of Hegelians. See on this an instructive and delightfully written chapter in Schiller's Studies in Humanism, on " Absolutism and Religion," especially pages 283-288; and note his reference to McTaggart's Some Dogmas of Religion. has given evidence of vitality, marks the culmination of this effort. To save religion, Ritschl1 took the bold step of claiming a radical separation between Christian theology and what he called " theoretical " knowledge. He alleges in justification a specific difference between religious and non-religious knowledge. "It is...