Aspects of Theism

About the Book This book is composed of the various aspects of Theism. It talks about the Evolution of Theism, inadequate and partial theories with the arguments such as Ontological Arguments, Cosmologi cal Arguments, Teological Arguments, etc.

The metaphysic of physics tells us about the amount of energy in the universe among other things. Through Causality we come to know about the cause and effect motion.

The book also speaks about the Evidence of Intuition, knowledge of the Infinite, the Consciousness of the Infinite and Ethical Argument. The Beauty of the Universe in relation to Theism is another aspect of the book. The Failure of Agnosticism has also been talked about. In the end a solution is suggested by way of comprehension in a very beautiful manner.

The way this book has been planned makes it readable and very useful for the reader.

Preface In the year 1870, I gave a course of twelve lectures in Dundee, on the subject of Theism. These were mainly historical, and were intended to be wrought out more fully for publication; but the pressure of other interests prevented the completion of this project. Most of the conclusions reached were embodied in an article published in The British Quarterly Review in July 1871, and afterwards included in a volume of Studies in Philosophy and Literature (1879). In 1890 I was asked to give a short course of lectures on the same subject to the Theological College at Salisbury. These I repeated in London in 1891.

In the present volume these lectures are enlarged, with several addenda. It contains little of the history of the proofs, which I endeavoured to trace in detail, in 1868; but it discusses the problem of Theism under aspects which may perhaps be more useful at the present time. In any case, it is for the student of Theology, rather than of Philosophy, to supply the former-which remains a desideratum in our British literature.

It is obvious that, to understand the precise nature of the problem, and what has really to be proved, is an indispensable preliminary to any solution of it; and, while I believe-and have tried in the following pages to show-that the theistic interpretation of the Universe is the most luminous, the most comprehensive, and the least likely to be undermined by future critical assault, I at the same time suggest that we should include much within it, which has at times been excluded, and even supposed to be antagonistic.

Introduction In the nineteenth century, it is unlikely that any one will be able to discover a new theistic argument. The subject has been already dealt with, in almost every conceivable way, and from the most opposite points of view. It has been, before all others, a "problem of the ages." Nevertheless, in each successive era, a re-statement, which is a new statement, of the question at issue has been found to be necessary. The nineteenth century cannot -and it ought not to rest contented with the way in which preceding centuries have discussed it; and those who most of all inherit the spirit of philosophical inquiry-that of reverent criticism and construction combined-will be the least satisfied with traditional modes of proof, even when profoundly grateful for them. In saying this, I know that I am in antagonism to the spirit which dominated Medieval Philosophy, and to which many nowadays desire to bring us back; i.e. the unreasoning attitude of intellectual deference to Authority, presented ab extra. Those, however, who have the profoundest admiration for Scholasticism -and who themselves owe a thousand things to it-may, at the same time, differ from its characteristic note, and its dominant tendency.

But when, in this century.

**Contents and Sample Pages**