User talk:Aussie Article Writer/Elizabeth Anstice Baker/A Pilgrim's Progress

Early impression

 * father influenced by Dean Stanley p22
 * mother Low church Anglican p23
 * “ mutual love of my parents and their affection for their children were to me the first faint reflection of the love of God for us” p23

Parentage

 * Father English family, mother Scotch descent p22
 * Father - obliquely references his Unitarianism, says he has a “broad” view of the Church
 * family of 12 p23

Religious observance

 * daily family prayers, p23
 * Sunday service observance, p23

Sunday dulness

 * “ In the big, roomy, four-square pew with its high, straight walls, over which I could not see, my feelings resembled those of a playmate of mine, whose ambition to go to church being realised for the first time, looked round in be wildered surprise, and at last said quite audibly, in a puzzled tone, "Somehow, mamma, I'm not amused." I felt I ought to like going to church, yet did not.” p24
 * Sunday magazine only allowed, with stories of dutiful children reforming drunken and sinful parents. Distressed that her parents were not of that nature, so felt she could not be useful p24

Dawning interest

 * hears father say wishes Reformation never occurred (offhand) p26
 * maid takes her to Catholic church
 * first inclination towards Catholicism
 * 11 years old

Paris

 * sent to Paris for education
 * Mr Gardiner, the clergyman of the English Church in the Rue Marbeuf, low churchman, “intense horror of Poppery”, grounded them in Anglican doctrine. Influenced by “Miss Edwards, an English teacher, who made our religion a reality”

First difficulties

 * returns to Adelaide at 15
 * “ After we were settled in my new home I came in contact with clergymen of divergent views, and gradually I began to be troubled by religious difficulties. M y Anglican teachers did not agree among themselves. The doctrines of the High and Low Church clergymen were not only at variance, but contradictory.” p27

Who shall interpret?

 * strives to find answers to difficulties in Bible, finds that contradictions between denominations makes it hard to know who can interpret the Bible
 * “ I believed the Bible to be God's Word, and I felt that He must have made His meaning clear; yet that meaning I could not see, and I groped on in darkness.” p29

The Enquirer

 * The Enquirer is a Unitarian paper
 * reads this, confronted by thought that Christ was man and not God
 * recoils from this, but disturbed

The Incarnation

 * confronted by idea that Christ was merely man, starts to think of Incarnation
 * “I thought of Christ as a man indwelt by the Divine Spirit, yet I never thought of the helpless Babe of Bethlehem as actually God. I never realised that it was her God who lay in Mary's arms, day by day, her God who lived with her for thirty-three years and was subject to her.” p30

High Church influences

 * Archdeacon Evod is actually George Dove. See
 * Convinces her to, reluctantly, get confirmed
 * leads to a more “orthodox” view of Christianity

The world beyond the grave

 * people close to her died, she felt that “the world beyond the grave was alone worth attaining, and realised that to find and tread the way to it was the sole purpose of our lives” p33

Revulsion of feeling

 * Convinced by Dove that "it was my pride which occasioned my disbelief, and begged me to cast that pride from my heart." p35

Contradictory teaching

 * mother built church in village
 * meets many members of the clergy with contradictory viewpoints
 * stifles doubts however

"Salvation by scholarship"

 * evidently complained, was told to read Anglican Prayer Book
 * “ I was told to make the Prayer Book my guide, but the Anglican Prayer Book seemed even more contradictory and difficult of inter pretation than did the Bible. When I com plained that a second difficulty had been added to the first, I was told to accept the authority of the early Church and to believe the teaching of the Fathers” p36
 * concerned that to find the truth would need to study hundreds of volumes in languages she would need to learn - “salvation by scholarship”
 * “If God were a good and loving Father He must have meant all men to know the truth, not only the learned.”

Anglican views

 * “ I knew that every clergyman of the Church of England takes an oath to believe and teach the Thirty-Nine Articles in their "literal and grammatical sense, in the plain and full mean ing thereof." Yet no two agreed on dogmas of the most vital importance.” p37

Apparent failure of Christ's scheme

 * “[High Churchmen] spoke to me of a Church which Christ had promised should be the Pillar and Ground of Truth, but which had unfortunately fallen into error and had needed reforming by Henry VIII. and Cranmer : of a Church against which Christ had promised that the gates of hell should not prevail, but against which they unfortunately had prevailed : of a Church for which Christ in the hour of His Passion had prayed that she might be one even as He and the Father were one, yet which had be come divided.“ pp38-39
 * at this point concludes Christ has failed
 * as Christ failed, concludes Christ is man and not God
 * starts to follow Unitarianism

The Divinity of Christ

 * Unable to reconcile verses that seemed to say that the Second person of the Trinity was lesser than the First.
 * John 14:28, Luke 18:19, 1 Corinthians 15:27-28, Matthew 24:36

Difficulties of biblical interpretation

 * found Trinitarian and Unitarian doctrine, p41
 * infant baptism interpreted both for and against in same Bible (Baptists vs Anglicans)
 * Mormons defended polygamy and baptism of dead
 * “Quakers, Ranters, Shakers, each believed that they found in the Bible warrant for the truth of their own particular tenets.“ pp41-42

The Trinity

 * “ The distinct personality of the Holy Ghost I did not find: the Divinity of Christ I could not grasp. Moreover, if I did so interpret the Bible as to make it convey Trinitarian teaching, how did I know that my interpretation was right and that of the Unitarians wrong?” p42

Doubts of biblical interpretation

 * starts doubting how she knows what is "God’s Word"
 * further asks how to know if translation is correct if it is inspired p43

Colenso's influence

 * refers to John Colenso
 * writings of Colenso and other books left her without belief of biblical inspiration

Torment of doubt

 * doubts Bible after looking into history if the Biblical canon
 * “ And if this be so, is it strange that an ignorant girl desired to abandon the task of its interpretation as hope less? I say "desired," for religious questions were still paramount and interested me to the exclusion of all others, and the manner in which I crazed myself with doubts would pro bably have resulted in illness had not much of my time been spent on horseback, and many a cobweb swept from my brains by a good gallop.” pp45-46

Free thinking

 * at times felt she was superior in her interpretation, but in others felt shame
 * believes that Bible needed a key to know how to interpret it, felt it should be a living teacher p46-47

Desolation

 * reads Ernest Renan’s Life of Jesus source, David Strauss’s Life of Christ (which amongst other things, argued that miracles were mythical additions) text, Richard Hanson’s Jesus of History text
 * influenced by essayist William Rathbone Greg and liberal thinker Matthew Arnold
 * her “old religion had fled”, but “the sunshine of life seemed gone, the purpose of life faded away, and at times I felt utterly desolate” p48

Are right and wrong but empty words?

 * starts questioning what is right and wrong as was not able determine an authority to say what is true
 * influenced by Edward Maitland’s The Pilgrim and the Shrinetext
 * found however that was unable to believe that “ right and wrong as vague words representing no definite realities”, before concluding “ I could at least hold fast to the belief in the goodness of God and trust in Him, though it seemed impossible for me to know why He had created me or what He wished me to do or believe.” p50

First direct Catholic influence

 * Rather ironically came from a Unitarian who was a former Catholic. p51
 * Article published in The Enquirer, by either Rev Robert Suffield or Rev Hargraves. Baker cut it out and republished it in the chapter

Two alternatives

 * Argues that alternatives are Universalism and Ultramontanism, a clerical political conception within the Catholic Church that places strong emphasis on the prerogatives and powers of the Pope. p52
 * argument is that the “Romish church” has two bedrock features in common with Unitarianism: absolute authority which extends to all matters; and “ supernaturalism developed to its utmost consequence.” p53
 * (opinion) note the strangeness of the argument. In no way does the author seem to justify the view that he doesn’t believe in the authority of the Roman-Catholic Church or that it is makes much sense to deny the Incarnation… it may well sway one to Catholicism, but is a classic own goal as it has no really no arguments for Unitarianism!

Infallibility

 * the Pope is infallible
 * argument is “ If Christ is God is it any humiliation to bow before His vicar on earth? Here, at least, is a grand Church that now can count back, to prevent disputes, let us say, fifteen hundred years; there is no Church as old as that— that extends itself throughout the whole world, that numbers men of every language under heaven, which has had in all times saints and martyrs, and some of the wisest men in the world belonging to it. If there is an authority on earth over reason and conscience, surely it is that. It is a more reasonable thing to ask submission to this Church than to put in our hands a book, and say, you are to bow to the authority of this book, not saying who is the authority for the book or who is to explain the book to us.” p54-55

The supernatural

 * “The orthodox Churches impose upon us the root- doctrine of the supernatural, and reject all that naturally springs from it. They say, 'Believe in doctrines such as the Incarnation and the existence of hell, but do not bow your knee before the Virgin Mother. Believe a baby is God, but do not believe that a wafer is changed.' In case I believe the one thing, I can as well the other.”

The Douay Bible

 * gets the Douay Bible (a Counter-Reformation translation from the Latin Vulgate) and compared it to the Protestant translations of the Gospels of Matthew and John. p61
 * found it more logical than Protestantism.
 * still had misconceptions: “was it not true, however, that Catholicism had enslaved men's intellect for ages? Were not here the most priest-ridden of people ? Did not cruelty and tyranny reign unrestrained in her convents? How then could this be the true religion?” p61

The study of philosophy

 * Starts reading philosophy
 * Widely read, but confesses to not be a systematic reader, did not always grasp the concepts
 * grapples with Hume’s Finite Divisibility Argument, that time and space cannot be divided up infinitely, other times she sees limitations of time and space were the “true intellectual difficulty” p65

Philosophic doubt

 * “ Early in the morning I would climb some mountain-top where sea and plain lay stretched before me, and there would dream and wonder, and when evening came, still the fascinating problem enthralled me. Sometimes it seemed as if its extremes met, and both materialists and pantheists were one, for whether God is matter, or matter God, seemed to make little difference. If, as materialists tell us, the world is eternal, self-created, and self-existent, then it is God; and if, as pantheists maintain, everything is God, then it is evident that the world is God” pp65-66

Kant's idealism

 * impressed with Immanuel Kant’s transcendental idealism, however could not quite reject the ideas of materialism.
 * influenced, but says that she did not at this point understand the relationship of the sensible and intellectual realms, that thought is conditioned by matter but is not produced by it.

The Ego

 * more convinced than ever of her own self-identity.

Individual consciousness

 * “ My individual consciousness and my personal identity were manifest certainties which stared me in the face. I could not adjust the re lations between the subjective world of the mind and the objective universe of things ; but I at all times knew that both were real, and at all times realised that unity of self-conscious ness which is the fundamental fact of life.” p68

The ethical imperative

 * posits pantheism and materialism “destroy the moral law”.
 * if all things are God (pantheism) then “Virtue and Vice are equally His action, and right and wrong but empty words”
 * however, “ if matter be everything and everything be matter [materialism], then necessity is the supreme law and moral responsibility is a mere figment of man's invention.”
 * could not accept any philosophy that calls moral responsibility a myth. p68

Responsibility

 * believes in free will
 * explores determinism, reading the works of W. G. Ward and Alexander Bain, but rejects the idea p69
 * “I have said that I was swayed by every book I read, and it is true that I was as a cork driven hither and thither on the stream ; but I think it is also true that the waters on which I was driven had boundaries I could not pass, for there were, as I have said, certain thoughts and ideas that I could never assimilate.”
 * despite grappling with often confusing, conflicting and sometimes persuasive philosophical ideas, still believed in God

Necessity of God

 * “From the first my conception of moral law included the idea of a Personal God, and I realised that without God there was no soul and no future life; right and wrong were simply words, and existence either a curse or a farce. This I could not believe.” p72

An insatiable thirst

 * could not put aside her questions
 * sleepless nights praying to God to reveal the knowledge she was seeking
 * tormented her p73

Proofs of the existence of God

 * studies numerous proofs of God
 * “ Whether God exists, whether the Infinite is knowable, whether the material world has been created— all these questions concerning which I had read much haunted me” p74

Kant and the Ego

 * Kant showed her “the Ego is not only directly and immediately known, but the necessary pre supposition of all knowledge ; for though the matter of our knowledge comes from without, the form comes from within, and the unity of self is the most fundamental form or category of all.” p76

"Critique of Practical Reason"

 * did not study Kent’s Critique of Pure Reason directly, but most arguments came from a German master and drom the writings of others.
 * did assimilate Critique of Practical Reason
 * “it was in vain that Kant taught me that man can know nothing of the eternal substance of things, and that he sees but appearances, strung together "on the thread of cause in the frame of time and space," but not in vain did he show that the Practical Reason can know God.” pp77-78

Domain of the intellect

 * believes God gives us morals, but he gives us reason to express those morals p78
 * we can not know everything of God and the universe, “ we can still know with certainty that which falls within the sphere of the understanding.”
 * human reason is central to knowledge, but it does mot encapsulate the entire domain p79

The doctrine of nescience

 * not sure entirely where this idea comes from
 * “doctrine of nescience” apparently is that we can know nothing, which is apparently a concept Baker came across somewhere and rejected?
 * probably for the best, if we accept that we know nothing, then we know something, so we get stuck in a paradox

Conclusion

 * "The more I thought and read, the more clear and explicit became my conviction of the exist ence of God, a conviction I had never really lost even when I accepted certain theories which logically would have compelled me to forego that belief."

The insufficiency of human reason

 * human understanding is insufficient to deal with the problems of the Infinite

God

 * “my first clear conviction that if we were to know aught concerning God and His Will it was necessary that He should reveal Himself to us. Thence came my first definite idea of the necessity of revelation, an idea which later on bore the logical fruit of Catholicism.” p82

Freedom and immortality

 * found Kantian ethics persuasive
 * “I think Kant's teaching paved the way for the reception of a religion in which the sphere of reason is strictly limited to its own domain, yet in that domain is recognised as supreme— I mean the religion of the Catholic Church. Moreover, though Kant translated the dogmas of the Christian Faith into terms of moral rationalism, I think the way in which he writes of Christ as the personification of the moral ideal, and of the Church as a society to help towards the attain ment of that ideal, was not without its fruit in after years.” p83

Reason for belief in the existence of God

 * "If there is a primordial Being it must be an "ens a se," depending on none, and limited by nothing. It must "contain the reason of its existence in its own intrinsic absolute necessity." It neces sarily exists from eternity by its own power, and if eternal, then it must be infinite ; further, totality of being involves infinite perfection, because, if capable of increased perfection, this Being could not be infinite and therefore not eternal. Moreover, it was pointed out to me that the conception in us of a perfect Being realising our highest ideals is a proof of God's existence, for as water cannot rise beyond its own source, so our finite minds could not conceive of the existence of an Infinitely Perfect Being did no such Being exist." pp85-86

Immortality

 * certain that the human soul is immortal

No annihilation

 * tried to think of suddenly not existing, unable to
 * "I was told that matter is indestructible, and that all the science of all the scientists cannot destroy one single atom ; and I could not see why I should perish.” p89

The riddle of life

 * "I wanted an immortality in which I would be myself and in which I could satisfy all the cravings of my heart for happiness and all the desires of my mind for knowledge. The more I had the more I wanted, and the unattainable was ever the object of my desires … I longed for knowledge ; yet the more I learnt, the more I realised the depths of my ignorance." p90

The shadow of death

 * “ The few fleetipg years of life were all too short to provide an adequate field for the realisation of my desires” p91

The eternal future

 * without an eternal future, mankind’s “highest aspirations were meaningless, and he himself was a failure unworthy of the conception of a Sovereign Intellect.” thus rejected this p92

The demands of equity

 * "Even then I realised that the justice of God and the moral nature of man demand another world in which equity shall have her dues, in which the sins of this world shall be punished and virtue have its reward. I not only be lieved in a future life, but every power of my mind and every desire of my heart demanded that such a life should exist." p93

Visit to a convent

 * wishes to learn Latin, found only Dominican nuns could teach it adequately
 * reluctantly attends: “ At last, however, my desire to learn the cor rect pronunciation of Latin, my curiosity to see what a nunnery was like, and a certain love of adventure overcame my dread, and I drove to the convent. Before entering I placed a note in the cabman's hands, saying, "Wait a quarter of an hour; if I do not return, ring ; and then if within five minutes I do not make my appearance, drive quickly to my brother and give him this." The note ran as follows : " I am in the Dominican convent, and can't get out. Come and help me." pp94-95

Distrust and prejudice

 * a lot of prejudice is dispelled in this meeting
 * continues to go, attends a ceremony where a nun took the veil

A Catholic church

 * “ I cannot exactly say how that visit influenced me. I think I felt, as I felt later, that a Catholic Church was quite different from any other Church I had entered, and that a feeling of rest and consolation came over me as I knelt there.” p96

Evolution

 * Evolution and Darwinism the zeitgeist

Darwinean theories

 * "I say the Darwinian theory, though I know that the theory is older than the days of either Darwin or Mr. Spencer. St. Augustine was familiar with the theory of evolution, and used it in explaining the Mosaic account of Creation. Heraclitus of Ephesus was a pronounced evolutionist, and two thousand years ago Shakyamuni Buddha taught that a pre-existing spontaneous tendency to variation is the cause of the origin of species." p99

God the Eternal Present

 * “In turning a deaf ear to pantheism, I failed to realise that God is not a God who made the universe and then left it, but one in whom it "livesandmovesandhasitsbeing." Heisthe Eternal Present, not the future or the past, and therefore in relation to Him there is no succession of events.” p100

The great I AM

 * “ God did not create in time; He created eternally, though the effect was produced in time. He did not become a Cause, but was a Cause from all eternity. "Being the fulness of infinite activity, He is related as Cause to the effects He produces, not by reason of any change He suffers, but because the effects exist in virtue of His in finite casaulity." God is the great I AM, and this is the truth which Darwinism at first ob scured in my mind." pp100-101

Neither materialism nor monism solves the problem

 * "Materialism, spiritualism, and monism, the only logically possible theories of the world of being, had passed before my mental vision, and neither materialism nor monism had contained for me the solution of the problem of life." pp101-102

Atheism fails to satisfy

 * found in Evolution evidence that in its complexity that a Creator “who could endow with such wondrous possibilities the matter He had created, and impose on it laws destined in the course of ages to produce the results we see.” p102

Intelligence and volition

 * "when I thought of the vast realms of space and of the past myriads of centuries, and realised the unity of the reign of law and the universality of its action, I felt that one great intelligence must have planned it all. The more I saw of the wonderful ways of nature, the more Darwin told me of the adaptation of means to ends, the more explicitly I realised the need of an intelligent Creator to account for the world in which we live and for man who lives in it." - p104

The place of creation

 * "I had long been taught that "the How " does not explain "the Why," and when Darwin pointed out to me the wondrous laws that govern creation and the marvellous adaptation of means to ends that surrounds us on every side, he seemed to reveal the wisdom of the author of the universe." p106

Science and God

 * her view: Science points to God, but scientists ignore God

Systems of philosophy

 * each system of philosophy she studied promised to be a stepping stone to truth, but all failed
 * each failure brought her closer to God p110

A Catholic friend

 * "For about three years my books were set aside, and I read but little. During this period I became intimate with a Catholic, my relations with whom were such as to teach me something of Catholic doctrine, yet drive me, if possible, further than I already was from the Catholic Church." p112
 * reads John Milner's, "but though I admired the logical coherence of Catholic doctrine, I saw in Catholicism a mere reductio ad absurdum of Christianity, and turned from it." p112

Return to England

 * prays for Mary's help at one point of great torment, "Morning dawned, and worn out, I fell asleep kneeling on the ground. I was aroused by the knocking at my door of the bearer of a telegram which solved all my difficulties. Of course I told myself this was a mere coincidence." p114
 * returns to England shortly thereafter, goes back to Church of England

Herbert Spencer

 * starts studying Herbert Spencer, coined the terms "Survival of the Fittest", but also "Social Darwinism".
 * enjoys Spencer's all-embracing conception of evolution to all spheres of life
 * feels a great deal of unease, basically finds he often finds causation in correlations that do not necessarily exist, and "it seemed to me the old blunder of mistaking the How for the Why" p115 - also unable to understand his idea of the "Persistence of Force" (which was extraordinarily flawed, might I add - ed) and because so much hinged on it, her "mind rebelled against it".
 * She wrote that "now, taught by others, I fail to see, if the First Cause necessitated by the phenomena of our own consciousness is of necessity unknown, how we can dogmatize concering it, how object extensive and complex knowledge about "a universal unknowable, unthinking cause," whose "bing is absolutely certain and its non-being unthinkable."
 * furthermore... "I fail to see how Mr. Spencer can assert the Unknowable to be the "infinite eternal energy which underlies all phenomena, the infinite existence which transcends consciousness, the vital energy of all creeds and religions." p116
 * and on and on it goes, she basically eviscerates his core ideas... read this bit!
 * "The Persistent Power of Mr. Spencer does not satisfy me. His Ultimate of Ultimates is no God for me; his doctrines of causation, the relativity of knowledge, and the unknowable are insufficient to satisfy my needs. To use the words of a great writer who helped me then, and has helped me ever since, " the undeveloped terms of an infinite mathematical series claim my reverence no more than those which have been ascertained, and I can find no reason for worship in the mere fact that the series cannot be completed." pp117-118
 * ouch!

Agnostic philosophy

 * posits the finite craves the Infinte
 * God is not impersonal, but “ the source of our personality and its centre of gravity”
 * we find our peace and rest when we find ourselves in God p121
 * “only when we learn through Christ to know one in whom the human nature is united to the Divine that we realise the perfect satisfaction our natures so passionately desire.”

Self-interest

 * finds agnosticism to be unsatisfying, for her agnosticism meant the right to do just as she liked
 * Spencer’s teaching in "Data of Ethics" is that the “social organism must rank above the life if the unit”, but she had no inclination to do so
 * “If the voice that warred with my selfish interests and inclinations proceeded like wise from accumulated sense perceptions, I saw not why I should listen to it.” p123
 * “I knew the Voice of Conscience to be of Divine origin, and I dared not stifle it; I knew that a day of reckoning would come, and I dared not defy it.”

Spencer and Kant

 * Spencer believed our actions are predetermined by a set path and the of our ancestors, thus precluding free will
 * Kant, however, deduced human freedom from the categorical imperative p125
 * “the fact that in the moral law Kant finds a law of causality through freedom, helped me to reject the teaching of Mr. Spencer.”

"A few capital letters"

 * didn’t follow this bit

The Heart's reasons

 * despite living a life of "inconsistency and contradictions", and despite professing little faith in Gid prayed for the truth, feeling increased need of religion p129

Eternal purpose

 * believes that God has given her an eternal purpose
 * “ To seek this revelation seemed to me the chief pursuit of life” p131

A personal God

 * all lines of argument thus far convinces her of a personal God
 * does not believe personality limits God, only man

Anthropomorphism

 * “ Kant had long since taught me that there was as much sense in speaking of the first cause as personality, love, or goodness, as there was in speaking of Him as power" pp132-133
 * was reproached for anthropomorphising personality to God, but she counters we must use language, with all its limitations to “express our highest conceptions in the highest terms of which we have cognisance.”

Love and adoration

 * Personality of God allowed her love and adoration: heart which she lives, mind which she can respect, and combination she can adore
 * “ Firmer and firmer grew the belief that I could know God, and that He knew and cared for me.”

Need of a religion

 * difficulties in life meant she needed a religion, “ a very present help in time of trouble.” p135

Quest of revelation

 * "I knew that there was a God, and that He was good and wise ; I felt sure that He had made man for a purpose,— yet what did I know of that purpose? I felt the need of a revelation, but knew not where to find it." p135
 * "The religion I needed was just the kind of religion that Mr. Andrew Lang condemns, one that teaches how a personal God created the universe ; how He deals with it and sustains it; how He formed man in His own image and has relations with him ; one which told me of man's life beyond the grave and the conditions of his eternal happiness. This was the revelation I needed, the quest of which seemed to me the pursuit of supreme interest."

Search for revelation

 * not in Anglicanism due to conflicting views

Knowledge of necessary truths

 * “ Materialists had told me that no supersensible knowledge was possible, some writers had declared that matter did not exist, and others said that neither mind nor matter could be accepted as objective realities” none convinced her p139
 * God holds necessary truths

Broad Church

 * Dean Stanley no help
 * broad churchmen “believed too much or too little”
 * tried to suit their doctrine to the zeitgeist was like "them throwing one by one their doctrines to the wolves, who would fain devour the whole"
 * "Men who hope to explain Christianity by explaining it away, did not appeal to me in the least.” p142

Canon Liddon

 * mentioned she spoke to Henry Liddon about these issues
 * said he was very helpful
 * alludes… “ He, who of all Anglicans helped me most, helped me to the Catholic Church where his teaching finds its logical outcome, but this was not till later.” p142

Theistic worship

 * member of Sunday Lecture Society
 * Visits Charles Voysey, who started his own “Theistic Church”
 * holds service of worship and praise, but prayer cannot influence God
 * prayer seemed useless under Voysey, he taught to much of too little

Virtue or vice?

 * “ future punishment was a myth, and that happiness and misery in this life were the sole reward and punishment of virtue or vice.” p145

Professor Zerffi

 * Gustav Zerffi gives Sunday Society lecture on "What Christianity owes to Buddhism," and on "Ignorance and Dogma." and tried to prove that Christianity borrowed its doctrines from Buddhism p146
 * found him discreditable

Ancient Egyptian beliefs

 * believes that start of Egyptian Pantheon was a single single pure spirit, "perfect in all respects, all wise, almighty, supremely good," she claims was “ the only true living God, self-originated,” from “sacred writings”
 * note from me, seems to have gotten this talking to a friend, not sure her sources
 * believes that behind all religions "that refracted and dis torted though the rays of God's truth may be, still they shine in the heart and enlighten the intellect of every man that cometh into the world."

Pathah the Revealer

 * at the same time as the city of Menes formed, claims that a temple to Phtah "The Revealed" shows ancient Egyptian culture were looking for a creator who revealed “the hidden thought of the Supreme Being was made manifest to His creatures." p150

Hindu theories

 * "I was repelled from Spencerian philo sophy by the thought that some of its teach ing seemed a revival of ancient Hindu theories with which Kant had familiarised my mind." p 152

Diversion to evolution

 * "…if the evolution of the race leads to enlightenment, a rigorous logic imperiously drives us to the con elusion that Catholicism is true, for Catholicism is the religion of the majority of the most highly evolved." pp152-153

Fletcher versus Christ

 * heard preacher give sermon on “ The moral defects of the character of Christ.”
 * preferred Phineas Fletcher to Jesus Christ (!!)
 * "He went on to denounce what he called the egotism and self-assertiveness of Christ, quoted the words "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," "I am the Light of the World," and " I and M y Father are One,"— said such self- assertiveness was incompatible with true great ness, and criticised adversely our Lord's conduct to His mother when in the temple she sought Him sorrowing." pp154-155
 * “shocked and pained at such a sermon”

Clifford

 * reads William Kingdon Clifford
 * rejects it: "Clifford's trans lation of Darwin's propositions into ethical commands was not the teaching I needed. No "cosmic emotion" sufficed to satisfy the craving within, and even the "sifted sediment of a residuum " seemed better than no religion at all. The fact that Clifford denied the im mortality of the soul made him no teacher for me." p156

Blind irrational will

 * "When there fore the disciples of Schopenhauer told me that the visible universe was but the manifes tation of blind irrational will which, pregnant with indefinable desire, had rushed blindly into life and manifested itself alike in man and in a stone, I knew it was false; I knew that no such will could produce law and order, beauty and virtue. And when they told me that existence is a sin— that the affirmation of the will to live is the source of all evil, and its denial the height of virtue and the goal of our existence, they spoke a language I could not understand." p157

Godless existence

 * "Mr. Justice Stephen tells us that he does not see the necessity for religion, and that the world can get on as well without a God as with one; but after all, what are "The Infinite Sub stance" of Spinoza, "The Absolute" of Hegel, "The Ultimate Reality" of Mr. Spencer, the Kantian " Ding-an-Sich " but blurred and distorted shadows of that unknown God whom Paul declared to the Athenians; what but irrecognisable caricatures of the great I AM, who most fully reveals Himself to man in the historic Christ? Religion satisfies a raging thirst in the heart of man … Truer far is the saying of Dr. Martineau, that religion is "rather the first root of life than the last blossom of thought." Without it life is not worth living, for the present is purposeless, the future a void, and existence a ghastly failure.“ pp159-160

Father Gordon

 * meets Father Gordon at London Oratory
 * feels has had revelation, consults with Fathers and priests
 * friend converted by Fr. Gordon; gets confirmred
 * kneels for Cardinal Mannings at his chapel during ceremony “ with a reverence that was entirely new to me.”

Catholicism

 * “When therefore I saw the vast world-wide unity of the Catholic Church, I realised that He who founded it could not have been as other men are, and that some power was at work which was more than human.“ pp 162-163

Helpers of the Holy Souls

 * visits Helpers of the Holy Souls, asks to help
 * asked for beliefs, says she is it a Catholic or a Christian, not sure if she believes in souks, but does in bodies
 * “ Come and work with us for bodies, and with God's grace the day will come when you will work for souls“ pp. 163-164
 * goes yo convent every Monday to work, and at end goes to chapel for benediction
 * “ I do not think that I believed in the truth of Catholicism, yet, as time went on, I in stinctively turned to it in all my trials and difficulties.” - p164
 * goes to London Oratory, asks for mass, refused “My child," he replied, "this sounds rather like superstition than like faith. I will not accept your offering, nor will I say Holy Mass for your intention, but I will say a Mass for you, and I will ask Almighty God to grant your desire if it is for your good." pp164-165

Trinity

 * member of British Association of Science
 * delves into the Trinity after speaking to a friend
 * reads Father Gordon’s book on the Trinity

Unity in variety

 * quotes St Thomas Aquinus: “ When we say Trinity in Unity we do not introduce number into the Unity of the essence, but count the plurality of Persons who are in the Unity of the Divine Nature as one counts the plurality of individuals belong ing to the same nature.” p170