for Church doctrines, were inclined to deny to reason even the prerogative of a judicium contradictions. They were constrained to take this ground because they were called upon to defend doc- trines which contradicted not only reason but the senses. When it was objected to the doctrine that the consecrated wafer is the real body of Christ, that our senses pronounce it to be bread, and that it is impossible that a human body should be in heaven and in all parts of the earth at the same time, what could they say but that the senses and reason are not to be trusted in the sphere of faith ? That what is false to the reason and the senses may be true in religion ?
Lutheran Teaching on this Point.
The Lutherans were under the same necessity. Their doctrine of the person of Christ involves the denial of the primary truth, that attributes cannot be separated from the substance of which they are the manifestation. Their doctrine concerning the Lord's Supper involves the assumption of the ubiquity of Christ's body, which seems to be a contradiction in terms.
Luther's utterances on this subject are not very consistent. When arguing against the continued obligation of monastic vows, he did not hesitate to say that what was contrary to reason was contrary to God. " Was nun der Vernunft entgegen ist, ist gewiss dass es Gott vielmehr entgegen ist. Denn wie sollte es nicht wider die gottliche Wahrheit seyn, das wider Vernunft und menschliche Wahrheit ist." 1 But in the sacramentarian controversy he will not allow reason to be heard. u In the things of God," he says, reason or nature is stock-star-and-stone blind. " It is, indeed," he adds, " audacious enough to plunge in and stumble as a blind horse ; but all that it explains or concludes is as certainly false and wrong as that God lives." 2 In another place he says that reason, when she attempts to speculate about divine things, becomes a fool ; which, indeed, is very much what Paul says. (Rom. i. 22 ; 1 Cor. i. 18-31.)
The Lutheran theologians made a distinction between reason in the abstract, or reason as it was in man before the fall, and reason as it now is. They admit that no truth of revelation can contradict reason as such ; but it may contradict the reason of men all of whose faculties are clouded and deteriorated by sin. By this was not meant simply that the unrenewed man is opposed to the truth of God ; that " the things of the Spirit " are fool-
1 Works, edit. Walch, vol. xix. p. 1940. 2 Tbtd. vol. xii. pp. 399, 400.
80 PART III. Ch. XVI. — FAITH.
ishness to him ; that it seems to him absurd that God should be found in fashion as a man ; that He should demand a satisfaction for sin ; or save one man and not another, according to his own good pleasure. This the Bible clearly teaches and all Christians believe. In all this there is no contradiction between reason and religion. The being of God is foolishness to the atheist ; and per- sonal immortality is foolishness to the pantheist. Yet who would admit that these doctrines are contrary to reason ? The Lutheran theologians intended to teach, not only that the mysteries of the Bible are above reason, that they can neither be understood nor demonstrated ; and not only that " the things of the Spirit " are foolishness to the natural man, but that they are really in conflict with the human understanding ; that by a correct process of rea- soning they can be demonstrated to be false ; so that in the strict sense of the terms what is true in religion is false in philosophy. " The Sorbonne," says Luther, " has pronounced a most abom- inable decision in saying that what is true in religion is also true in philosophy ; and moreover condemning as heretics all who as- sert the contrary. By this horrible doctrine it has given it to be clearly understood that the doctrines of faith are to be subjected to the yoke of human reason." *
Sir William Hamilton. Secondly, the ground taken by Sir William Hamilton on this subject is not precisely the same with that taken by the Luther- ans. They agree, indeed, in this, that we are bound to believe what (at the bar of reason) we can prove to be false, but they differ entirely as to the cause and nature of this conflict between reason and faith. According to the Lutherans, it arises from the corruption and deterioration of our nature by the fall. It is re- moved in part in this world by regeneration, and entirely here- after by the perfection of our sanctification. According to Ham- ilton, this conflict arises from the necessary limitation of human thought. God has so made us that reason, acting according to its own laws, of necessity arrives at conclusions directly opposed to the doctrines of religion both natural and revealed. We can prove demonstrably that the Absolute being cannot know, cannot be a cause, cannot be conscious. It may be proved with equal clearness that the Infinite cannot be a person, or possess moral attributes. Here, then, what is true in religion, what we are bound to believe, and what in point of fact all men, in virtue of i Works, edit. Walch, vol. x. p. 1399.