PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS
CHAPTER I
THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF THE MODERNISTS
I. AGNOSTICISM
II. VITAL IMMANENCE
III. ORIGIN OF RELIGION IN GENERAL
Q. ‘It may perhaps be asked how it is that this need of the divine which man experiences within himself resolves itself into religion.’ How is it?
A. ‘To this question the Modernist reply would be as follows: Science and history are confined within two boundaries, the one external, namely, the visible world, the other internal, which is consciousness. When one or other of these limits has been reached, there can be no further progress, for beyond is the unknowable. In the presence of this unknowable, whether it is outside man and beyond the visible world of nature, or lies hidden within the subconsciousness, the need of the divine in a soul which is prone to religion, excites according to the principles of Fideism, without any previous advertence of the mind a certain special sense, and this sense possesses, implied within itself both as its own object and as its intrinsic cause, the divine reality itself, and in a way unites man with God. It is this sense to which Modernists give the name of faith, and this is what they hold to be the beginning of religion.’