RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Opt at us Opzoomer
N. W Taylor (q.v.) denied that sin was the necessary means to the greatest good, but held that this world contained the greatest good possible to God (Moral Government, ii. 276, New York, 1859). L. F. Stearns (q.v.) asserted that God intended to permit a certain amount of sin in his world for the sake of a greater good (Present Day Theology, p. 244, New York, 1893). The ultimate questions thus raised concerning sin and evil persist in other forms and associated with other interests, as in a general attitude toward life (Goethe, Emerson, and Stevenson), and in the implications of evolution (J. Le Conte, Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought, New York, 1888), of the idealistic philosophy (J. Royce, The World and the Individual, New York, 1899-1901), and of the Fatherhood of God (G. A. Gordon, Immortality and the New Theodicy, Boston, 1897). C. A. Beckwith.
Bibliography: J. H. Achterfoldt, Optimismus undPessimismus, Bonn, 1855; W. Gass, Optimismus und Pessimismus, Berlin, 1876; L. B. Hellenbach, Eine Philosophie des gesunden M enschenverstandes, Vienna, 1876; F. Bowen, Modern Philosophy, New York, 1877; J. Duboc, Der Optimismus als Weltanschauung, Bonn, 1881; L. Stephen, Hist, of English Thought in the 18th Century, 2 vols., New York, 1881; G. Morandi, Ottimismo e pessimismo, Milan, 1891; H. Lorm, Der grundlose Optimismus, Dresden, 1897; G. H. Palmer, The Glory of the Imperfect, New York, 1898; H. Bols, La Philosophie de Vhomme heureux, Paris, 1899; the literature under Pessimism and such works on the history of philosophy as those of J. E. Erdmann, London, 1894-96, A. Weber, ib. 1896, and F. TJeberweg, Berlin, 1901-03.
OPTION: The obtaining through the choice of the acquirer himself of a church-living that has become vacant. Besides, in the chapters (in which, at least in Germany, in consequence of the strictly regulated manner of the canonicate, this right is obsolete to-day) there is found an option in the college of cardinals. E. Sehljng.
OPUS OPERANTIS, OPUS OPERATUM ("Work of the doer, work wrought "): Two phrases much employed in discussions on the sacraments and representing quite closely respectively the Protestant and the Roman Catholic views. The first phrase sums up concisely the belief that the effect of the sacrament depends upon the spiritual disposition of the participant. The second emphasizes the necessary and inherent grace which flows (one may say) automatically from sacramental administration ("from the thing done"). The first regards the sacraments as instruments which act as aids to the mind and enable it to make immediate approach to God and so to receive the grace flowing from the sacraments. The second makes of the sacraments immediate instruments through which God works and without which he does not work. The view of the Roman Catholic Church was authoritatively expressed in the Council of Trent (session VII., canons vi.-vii.).
The conception of sacraments and the like working ex o-pere operato is not confined to Christian theology. It is a part of Brahmanic and Hindu belief that, e.g., the sacrifice operates automatically, and that whatever is said or done by the officiant during the ceremony has inevitably its appropriate effect independent of the disposition or intention of the beneficiary (who is altogether passive) or even
of the celebrant, whose chance word or act, even, is irrevocable.
OPZOOMER, op-zu'mer, CORNELIS WILLEM:
Dutch theologian; b. at Rotterdam Apr. 20, 1821; d. at Osterbeek Aug. 22, 1892. Educated at the high school at Leyden, he became professor of philosophy at the University of Utrecht at the age of twenty-four. Jurisprudence was his specialty, but he distinguished himself also in oriental and classical literature, art, and philosophy; but it is especially for his apologetics, reconciling the conflicting relation of science with religion, that he is mentioned here. Coming to Leyden as a young enthusiast over the Reformed confession, he passed under the influence of the heterodoxy of the Groningen theology on the infallibility of the Scriptures, and was soon cast into violent controversy, as indicated by his Antwoord aan Isaac Da Costa, ter wederlegging van het stukje: Rekenschap van gevoelens (1843). With the revival of apologetics, Opzoomer distinguished the actual from the ideal in Christianity; for the former, he demanded historical proof and attached himself to the Tubingen School (q.v.); for the latter he demanded none but rational grounds. He heartily recommended the system and method of K. Krause, and drew upon himself the charge of arch-heretic and pantheist. De leer van God bij Schelling, Hegel, en Krause was an effort to establish the Christian faith on the basis of philosophy. Soon he aroused greater antagonism by turning from speculation to the experience, philosophy, and inductive logic of John Stuart Mill as a method not only for thought but also for ethics, because of the certain results of natural science. The fruit of this investigation resulted in De twijfel des tijds, de wegwijzer der tockomst (1850); De weg der wetenschap (Utrecht, 1851); Het wezen der kennis (Amsterdam, 1863); Wetenschap en Wijsbegeerte (1857); Geschiedenes der Wijsbegeerte (1860) and Een nieuwe kritiek der wijsbegeerte (1871). He was accused of being a preacher of sensualism and of a coarse-minded morality (Het teeken des tijds, 1858); but unjustly, because he gave empiricism a new application by supplementing sensual perception as the only source of natural science, with an independent subjective spiritual perception. He endeavored to construct a theory of the universe possessing scientific certainty, out of immediate experience and certain logic, for the materials of which he distinguished the sensual, esthetic, and moral sensations as mutuually independent, to which he added a fourth, namely, " the religious sensation " (De waarheid en hare kenbronnen, 1859) . Opzoomer's position now rapidly gained adherents; his lecture-room became thronged; and, by his profound thought, clear presentation, and brilliant rhetoric, he became the leader of the liberals and one of the founders of modern theology in his own land. He also undertook to popularize philosophy among the laity (Cartesius, 1861), and also science (Natuurkennis en Natuurpoezie, 1858).
The fundamental presupposition of Opzoomer's original religious philosophy was the verity of religion and the impossibility to thought of an essential contradiction between religion and science.
Opzoomer Ordeal