Abstract
As we begin our discussion of Whichcote’s view of natural religion, we must remember that for him natural religion is subsumed under the more comprehensive notion of revealed religion. The “light of the creation” is preparatory to a “fuller” light and the latter is in a real sense the fulfilment and consummation of the former. Thus our separation of the two concepts is primarily for convenience of discussion. This fact will become increasingly evident as we proceed with our study.
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References
De Pauley, The Candle of the Lord, (London, 1937) pp. 10–11. Cf. A. N. Whitehead, The Function of Reason, (Princeton, 1929) p. 2; Infra, Ch. VI.
Whichcote, Works, IV, 286. Whichcote’s Works will be referred to hereafter by volume and page only unless greater detail is indicated. Aph. will be used to indicate Whichcote’s Aphorisms. Cf. B. Pascal, Pensées, ed. and tr. by Stewart (New York, 1947), Pens., 157, 158. See also, Richard Baxter, The Reasons of the Christian Religion (London, 1667), p. 4. The entire first part of Baxter’s work may be favorably compared with Whichcote’s views on natural theology.
Aphs. 459, 1191.
Ibid., 99.
IV, 401.
Aphs. 778, 1021.
Ibid., 880. s III, 163.
Prov. 20:27. See W. O. E. Oesterley, The Book of Proverbs (London, 1929), p. 174.
Letters, p. 48. Cf. Aug., Trin. xiv, 14.
I, 149.
IV, 139-140.
Ibid., p. 144.
Ibid., p. 147. It was upon the principle of the “Impenetrability” of matter and other related concepts that Henry More offered to challenge Descartes in his correspondences with the Frenchman. Cf. Henry More, “The Immortality of the Soul,” Philosophical Writings, ed. by F. I. Mackinnon (New York, 1925), I, iii, V.
II, 13.
III, 215. Here we are reminded, at once, of Platonic “recollection” and the “common notions” of Lord Herbert of Cherbury.
Ibid., p. 20.
It is characteristic of Whichcote to use Neo-Platonic words and phrases.
III, 29.
Ibid., p. 20.
Ibid., pp. 54-55.
Ibid., p. 15. When Whichcote speaks here of truth as an old friend and “ancient” acquaintance of the soul, we are again reminded of Platonic “recollection.”
The present writer is not here proposing to define the phrase as Kierkegaard uses it. See my art. “Kierkegaard on the Subjectivity of Truth,” JRT, vol. XVIII, no. 1 (Winter-Spring, 1961) pp. 41-56.
III, 370-372.
Ralph Cudworth, A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, ed. by Edward Duresme (London, 1731), bk. IV, ch. I, sec. 8.
Ibid., bk. IV, ch. II, sec. 1.
Ibid., ch. IV, sec. 9.
Ibid., ch. II, sees. 12, 13. Cf. Henry More, Theological Works, ed. by Joseph Downing (London, 1708), pp. 765-767; John Smith, Select Discourses, ed. by H. G. Williams, 4th ed. (Cambridge, Eng., 1859), pp. 1-2.
Whichcote, II, 4.
III, 215.
Ibid., p. 30. After a personal dialogue with “cosmic” personalities, men who were as much saint as sage (i.e. Prof. Abe, a Zen Buddhist at Kyoto, Japan and Prof. Yamunacharya, a Vedantian of Mysore, India, to name only two), I am convinced that God’s revelation to men through non-Christian religions is more than a general revelation in nature — it is personal and has received a personal response in such saintly lives. Whichcote appears to point in this direction and is remarkably advanced in this regard for his age.
Ibid., pp. 31-35.
Letters, p. 9. Cf. Rom. 1:18-21, 28, 31; 2:14.
Cf. Tuckney, None But Christ, (Cambridge, Eng., 1654), pp. 50–52.
Whichcote, III, 36, 40. It is interesting that Whichcote and his followers use the same ideas to attack Romanism and the fanatic Sectaries within Christendom as he uses here against Islam. Cf. Baxter, Ibid., pp. 198-200. If Whichcote had acquired a deeper understanding of Islam he would have known that Greek philosophy was used in the formulation of Islamic thought also. See, A. E. Affifi, “The Rational and Mystical Interpretations of Islam,” K. W. Morgan ed. Islam-The Straight Path (New York, 1958), pp. 144-179. Cf. R. Klibansky, The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition During the Middle Ages (London, 1939), pp. 13-37.
Infra, ch. VI. Here we devote a section to a treatment of the relation of natural to revealed truth.
II, 12.
I, 65.
H, 57.
At this point it would not be amiss to say that Whichcote is more biblical while Cudworth is more philosophical in the approach to the problem. The message of the Bible throughout is that God exists without any necessity for rational proof, while the philosophical approach is to offer proofs for the existence of deity. The difference here between Whichcote and Cudworth seems to be merely one of emphasis. Cf. E. S. Brightman, The Problem of God (New York, 1930) pp. 139-165 with A. C. Knudson, The Doctrine of God (New York, 1930), pp. 203-241. Both Brightman and Knudson are personalist thinkers and yet the differences in their approach to the problem of the existence of God remind us of the divergence between the approach of Cudworth and Whichcote to the same problem. See also, E. L. Mascall, He Who Is (London, 1943), pp. 30-39 and his, Existence and Analogy (London, 1949), pp. 18-121; where he contrasts the essentialist and existentialist approaches to theism and presents St. Thomas’ doctrine of analogy. We need only mention here Bishop John A. T. Robinson’s Honest to God (London, 1963) which was a challenge both to theism and ethics. It is based on ideas drawn from Buber, Tillich, Bonhoeffer and others. Robinson attempts to make these views relate to each other without placing them in context or being aware of the disagreement between those from whom he receives his ideas. The bishop by his attack upon the fortress of Christian faith and ethics and mostly by the sheer weight of his office has helped to create a real crisis in the West from which Eastern religions may profit (i.e. Zen and Vedanta). Cf. D. L. Edwards, ed., The Honest to God Debate (London, 1963) and Bishop Robinson’s own apology for his “new morality” in his Christian Morals Today (Philadelphia, 1964).
III, 238-240.
Ibid., pp. 240-242.
Ibid., pp. 276-278.
IV, 320.
Emil Brunner, God and Man, tr. by David Cairns (London, 1936), pp. 155–159.
N. A. Berdyaev, The End of Our Time, tr. by D. Atwater (London, 1933), p. 80.
Cf. John Baillie, Our Knowledge of God, (London, 1939) p. 42.
Whichcote, III, 61. Cf. H. More, Antidote Against Atheism (London, 1662) and Immortality of the Soul (London, 1662). In both works the author has a similar aim, viz., to present the proper notion of spirit, to prove its existence and its special nature and qualities. Though More goes to extremes in his witness to witchcraft and apparitions, his intention is sound, for he attempts to establish the fact of the existence of God by defending the reality of spirit. See also his Explication of the Nature of Spirits, etc… (London, 1700).
R. Descartes, Meditations, tr. by John Veitch (Edinburgh, 1881), Med. III, pp. 115–132. Cf. D. E. Trueblood Philosophy of Religion (New York, 1957) where Trueblood points up the importance of Descartes’ method and concludes: “I care, therefore, I doubt” is at least the beginning of a valid method in the philosophy of religion (p. 45). Both Descartes and Which-cote base their ontology on personal experience even if it is viewed differently. However, Descartes’ fundamental proof for the existence of God is rooted in his more comprehensive conception of initial doubt and upon his notion of clear and distinct ideas. God as a Perfect Being is for Descartes a clear and distinct conception. Cf. Anselm, Proslogion. What Which-cote, Descartes and Anselm have in common is an anxiety to satisfy reason and to assert that thought leads by logical necessity from their respective presuppositions to the existence of God. For criticisms of this general approach to proving the existence of God, see Aquinas, Contra Gentiles, i, 11; Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, tr. by N. K. Smith (London, 1918), p. 505, and Casserley, The Christian in Philosophy (London, 1949), pp. 60-62. Hartshorne sheds new light on Anselm’s ontological proof for the existence of God in his introduction to Saint Anselm: Basic Writings, tr. S. W. Deane, 2nd ed. (La Salle, Ill., 1962), pp. 28-117.
Ibid., pp. 241-242. Cf. Arist. Meta, xii; Baxter, Ibid., p. 32.
E.i. Aug. Trin. viii, 3, 2. Casserley asserts that the Christian is committed to two ways of conceiving God: (a) a biblical way of affirmation, and (b) a philosophical way of negation which keeps us aware that the glory of God exceeds even His self-disclosure in Christ. Ibid., pp. 36-38.
Whichcote, III, 142-144, 160. Cf. E.R.E., XII, 324.
Heb. 11:6.
Arist. Ibid., Cf. Plato, Laws, x.
Aquinas, Contra Gentiles (Eng.tr.), i, 13. Cf. Summa Theological (Eng.tr.), Pt. I, Q. 2, Art. 3. In Aquinas the cosmological proofs take the place of the ontological proof of Anselm. Whichcote makes use of the cosmological approach as well as the ontological. Cf. Aristotle, Ibid. See also Mascall’s He Who Is and Existence and Analogy introduced earlier in this chapter and Daniel Jenkins, The Christian Belief in God (Philadelphia, 1963), pp. 46-41.
Whichcote, III, 164-170. Cf. Cicero, De Natura Deorum, ii, 6; Aug. Trin. xv, 1.
Though Whichcote is consistent with his Neo-Platonic background, Paul Tillich is quite critical of this view. Whichcote speaks of God in terms of superlatives, and here God is conceived as the “fullest” Being and therefore, the most knowable. But for Tillich, God is being-itself, and has the infinite power of being, and therefore the being of God cannot be understood as the existence of “a” being alongside others. If God is “a” being, He is subject to the categories of finitude, especially to space and substance. When applied to God, superlatives become diminutives. They place Him on the level of other beings while elevating him above them. But whenever infinite or unconditional power or meaning are attributed to the highest being, it has ceased to be “a” being, and has become being — itself, or the ground of being. Systematic Theology, (London, 1953), I, 261-263. This general criticism will apply to most of Whichcote’s thoughts of God, metaphysical and ethical as well as theological.
By his two-fold method of seeking knowledge of God, Whichcote is at one with the early merger of Christian and Neo-Platonic strands of thought, i.e. in Pseudo-Dionysius and Augustine.
Whichcote, III, 176-180.
Cf. P. O. Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, tr. by Virginia Conant (New York, 1943) p. 253. See also, Aug. Trin., xiv. 14.
Whichcote, Ibid., pp. 187-189.
Ibid., I, 381; Aph. 85.
Plotinus, Enneads, vi, 9, 3, 4.
Plato, Republic, vi. There is no question but that for Plato the idea of the Good is the highest Idea, but as to whether he identifies the Idea of the Good with God is less certain, though the trend of his thought is often in this direction. As for Whichcote, God is certainly the Summum Bonum.
Whichcote, I, 22.
II, 343.
Aph. 320.
I, 381.
Aph. 995.
IV, 280-281.
Infra, ch. VI.
“Reflections,” Ibid., IV, 264.
I, 28; Aph. 158.
Ibid., p. 223.
Ibid., p. 251.
II, 397.
Aph. 158.
Ibid., 413. Whether it was his intention or not, Whichcote has, to a certain extent, offered a finite God. In the case of Edgar Brightman, the evil in the world prompted him to seek an explanation. Brightman concludes by asserting the necessity of a God limited in goodness or power to explain the vast amount of evil in the world, and the result is his doctrine of a finite God. Whichcote, on the other hand, conceives a self-limitation of God as necessary for self-consistency in the divine nature conceived as morally perfect. Cudworth unhesitatingly declares God’s wisdom and goodness to be above His will, and therefore morality does not depend upon divine commands. Eternal and Immutable Morality, i. 3. 1, 8. It is only a brief step from Cudworth’s position to Kant’s “categorical imperative” which requires the service of God only to guarantee that the commands of the moral order will be obeyed, and a thing is not good because it is the will of God, but God wills it because it is good.
I, 28.
IV, 15-16; Cf. Orig., De Princ. ii. 10.
II, 344-345.
III, 66. For Brightman power is never an intrinsic good, but only an instrumental good at best. The use of power, therefore, determines its moral quality. It appears that Whichcote desires to make some such assertion to counteract Hobbes’ Absolutism as more recent philosophers have attacked the concept of the Will to Power as set forth by Nietzsche. Whichcote certainly provides a safeguard to his concept of power by subordinating it to goodness, wisdom and the like, as he applies it to his notion of the divine nature. Thus without any undue limitation of power in God, he assures us that even power in God is virtuous, because it is always consistent with the other ethical attributes of the divine nature, and because it enables God to work for good in nature and history. Cf. Knudson, Ibid., pp. 242-284.
Ibid., pp. 349-350.
Aph. 417.
Ibid., 685.
I, 30.
Galloway, The Philosophy of Religion (Edinburgh, 1914) p. 492.
Ibid., p. 491. Galloway has made a convenient distinction between what he calls the metaphysical attributes of God, i.e. omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience, and the personal and ethical attributes of God. Whichcote comes close to this distinction except in his reference to the personal-ethical attributes as ethical only. However, it appears obvious that these ethical attributes are personal also.
C. C. J. Webb, God and Personality (London, 1918), pp. 109–111. Here it is stated that it is because personality is ethical as well as rational that Bosanquet attempts to place God above personality in order to make Him transcend all moral distinctions, since personality and morality go together. Ibid., pp. 124-126.
H. H. Farmer, The World and God (London, 1955), pp. 27–28.
Nels Ferré, The Christian Understanding of God (London, 1952), pp. 11, 26, 31-33.
Whichcote, I, 62.
Ibid., pp. 124-127.
Ferré, Ibid., pp. 139-153.
Whichcote, I, 128-133.
Ibid., pp. 338-341.
II, 359.
Aph. 70. Whichcote is here in essential agreement with Leibniz’s Theodicy, viz., that this is the best possible world. Voltaires sceptical but challenging reply to Leibniz in his Candide might be considered here also.
William James, Will to Believe (New York, 1898), p. 182.
Whichcote, Aph. 533. Cf. Lu. 12:22-31.
III, 173-174.
II, 187.
IV, 100.
Aph. 974.
Job 13:15; Cf. Ferré, Ibid., pp. 143-144.
Farmer, Ibid., pp. 231-232.
E.i. Those who believe in the inevitability of war simply as a result of their literalistic interpretation of scripture, viz. Matt. 24:6; Mk. 13:7.
Rudolf Bultmann, Essays Philosophical and Theological, tr. by J. C. G. Greig (London, 1955), PP. 90–118.
Duthie, God in His World (London, 1954), pp. 53–54. Cf. D. J. Elwood, The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York, 1960), pp. 19-22.
Robb, Ibid., p. 87. Cf. Whichcote, I, 195; Aph. 8.
Pascal, Ibid., Pen., 161.
Whichcote, I, 298-300.
II, 43. Cf. Gen. 1:26-27. See also, Gene Rice, “Let us Make Man,” J R T, vol. XXI, no. 2 (Winter, 1964–65), pp. 109-114.
Aph. 855. Cf. Bergson’s criticism of the traditional classifications of life, viz. vegetative, instinctive and rational life, see Creative Evolution tr. A. Mitchell (New York, 1911), p. 135.
Ibid., 916. There is no question but that the dignity of man as he conceives it is based on “reason.”
The best source to my knowledge on the subject is David Cairns, The Image of God (London, 1953); Cf. Leif Egg-Olofsson, The Conception of The Inner Light in Robert Barclay’s Theology (Lund, 1954) and T. F. Torrance, Calvin’s Doctrine of Man (London, 1945).
Mk. 12:16. Cf. Cairns, Ibid., p. 30.
Infra, ch. VI.
Whichcote, Aph. 1133.
I, 131.
Ibid., p. 212.
Infra, ch. V.
1,253.
Ibid., p. 185.
Ibid., p. 251.
Ibid., pp. 345-346.
III, 209-210.
Aph. 55.
Infra, ch. V.
Infra, ch. VI.
Galloway, Ibid., pp. 531-533. Ralph Cudworth has worked this problem out more carefully than Whichcote, see, Treatise on Free-Will, tr. Allen (London, 1838). Cf. Austin Farrer, The Freedom of the Will (London, 1958) pp. 253-277. See also Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of The Will, ed. by Paul Ramsey (New Haven, 1957), pp. 239-269. There is a remarkable difference between the Cambridge Platonists and Edwards on this important subject. Those who see an unqualified similarity between Edwards and the Cambridge Platonists should take notice. Edwards is much closer to Calvin, see J. K. S. Reid’s introduction to John Calvin’s Concerning The Eternal Predestination of God (London, 1961), pp. 9-44. W. Montgomery Watt provides a helpful comparison between free-will in Christianity and Islam. According to Watt, the conception of free-will, in the strict sense, does not occur at all in Muslim thought. It is replaced by the slightly different conception of man’s power to act and to determine the course of events. The conception of predestination does occur, but not so often as might be expected. The Muslim is much more interested in what God is doing in the present. Salvation is linked to the community and punishment also. Thus there is no adequate explanation for the fate of individual men. A partial explanation for these differences is that generally the East has tended to over-emphasize the sovereignty of God, whereas the West too often lays too much stress on the will of man. See his Free Will and Predestination in Early Islam (London, 1948) pp. 1-2, 33-34, 45, 137 passim.
Whichcote, III, 103-104. Cf. Baxter, Ibid., p. 4.
Ibid., pp. 146f., 360.
IV, 12f.
II, 421.
Ibid., p. 214.
Cf. J. A. T. Robinson, “The Body”, Studies in Biblical Theology, Ch. I. See also Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory (tr. Paul and Palmer, 1911), pp. 295f., 234f.
Whichcote, I, 74.
Ibid., p. 150.
Ibid., p. 197f.
Ibid., p. 217.
Ibid., pp. 298f., 220.
Ibid., pp. 336f.
Ibid., p. 385.
Emil Brunner, Natural Theology (Londen, 1946), pp. 24, 32.
Whichcote, II, 93t.
Aph. 176, 224.
Ibid., 1128; Cf. Arist. Meta, xii; Plato, Phaedrus, xxiv (D).
IV, 195f.
Ibid., pp. 301f.
Ibid., pp. 73f.
1,273.
Ibid., pp. 274-298; Cf. Infra, Ch. VII.
Cf. Emil Brunner, Revelation and Reason (London, 1947), p. 79.
Whichcote, IV, 301.
Ibid., pp. 314f.; Cf. Aug., Conf. i, 1.
Ibid., p. 302.
Aph. 1173.
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Roberts, J.D. (1968). Religion of First-Inscription (I). In: From Puritanism to Platonism in Seventeenth Century England. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9110-4_4
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