| 26 |
THE MOHAMMEDAN CONTROVERSY
|
|
were imperfect and liable to change, which God forbid! . . . Illustrations
prove nothing, and if they did the Mohammedans might assert a quaternity from
the creation consisting of four elements, and the Hindoos from their five
elements a Deity of five in one."
|
|
Many similar examples of the disadvantages and ridicule to which such a line
of argument exposes us might be adduced,— but we forbear, and close the subject
with an extract from Dr. Wardlaw's admirable lectures on the Socinian
controversy, the sentiments of which are recommended to Mr. Pfander's
consideration:—
|
"Of the precise import of the term Personality, as applied to a distinction
in the Divine essence, or of the peculiar nature and mode of that distinction, I
shall not presume to attempt conveying to your minds any clear conception: I
cannot impart to you what I do not possess myself: —and convinced as I am that
such conception cannot be attained by any, it had been well, I think, if such
attempts at explanation, by comparisons from nature, and otherwise, had never
been made. They have afforded to the enemies of the doctrine, much unnecessary
occasion for unhallowed burlesque and blasphemy. The Scriptures simply assure us
of the fact:— of the mode of the fact they offer no explanation. And where the
Bible has been silent, it becomes us to be silent also; for when, in such cases,
we venture to speak, we can only "darken counsel by words without
knowledge." The fact, and not the manner of it, being that which is
revealed, is the proper and only object of our faith. We believe that it is
so;
but how it is so, we are not ashamed to say, we do not presume even to
conjecture."
|
|
Pfander proceeds to prove that no intelligent actor can exist in absolute unity,
as that would imply mere existence; —to which the superadditions of intelligence
and will must be given, else the mere Being remains passive and inactive; hence
the metaphysical speculations of the Hindoo, Grecian and Moslem philosophers,
are shown to have all ended in proving the necessity, of the Creator's existing
in a species of trinity. As far as this argument and a display of the
absurdities of Sufieism are resorted to, merely to shew the conclusion of
trinity and unity to which man arrives when he reasons on the nature of his
Creator, and even to prove that plurality in unity is not so inconsistent with
sound reason as at first appears, —we do not object: but the greatest care must
be observed lest this line of reasoning assume the appearance of an obligatory
argument, —as if, from the nature of things, the
|
