PROBABILITIES IN REGARD TO A REVELATION FROM THE CREATOR.

Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People by Catharine Esther Beecher, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. PROBABILITIES IN REGARD TO A REVELATION FROM THE CREATOR.

CHAPTER XXXI. PROBABILITIES IN REGARD TO A REVELATION FROM THE CREATOR.

We have now completed our investigations as to the nature and amount of knowledge to be gained on the great questions of life by reason and experience independently of a revelation.

We have assumed that the great cause of the disordered action of mind is that it commences action in perfect ignorance, while all those causes which experience shows to be indispensable to its right action, to a greater or less degree, are wanting.

The great want of our race is perfect educators to train new-born minds, who are infallible teachers of what is right and true.

We have presented the evidence gained by reason and experience that the Creator is perfect in mental constitution, and that he always has acted right, and always will thus act. This being granted, we infer that he always has done the best that is possible for the highest good of his creatures in this world, and that he always will continue to do so.

We proceed to inquire in regard to what would be the best that it is possible to do for us in this state of being, so far as we can conceive.

Inasmuch as the great cause of the wrong action of mind is the ignorance and imperfection of those who are its educators in the beginning of its existence, we should infer that the best possible thing to be done for our race would be to provide some perfect and infallible teacher to instruct those who are to educate mind. This being granted, then all would concede that the Creator himself would be our best teacher, and that, if he would come to us himself in a visible form to instruct the educators of mind in all they need to know for themselves and for the new-born minds committed to their care, it would be the best thing we can conceive of for the highest good of our race.

We next inquire as to the best conceivable mode by which the Creator can manifest himself so as to secure credence.

To decide this, let each one suppose the case his own. Let a man make his appearance claiming to be the Creator. We can perceive that his mere word would never command the confidence of intelligent practical men. Thousands of impostors have appeared and made such claims, deceiving the weak and ignorant and disgusting the wise.

In case the person with such claims proved to be ever so benevolent and intelligent, if we had no other evidence than his word, it would, by sensible persons, be regarded as the result of some mental hallucination.

But suppose that a person making claims to be the Creator of all things, or to be a messenger from him, should attest his claim by shaking the earth, or tearing up a mountain, or turning back the floods of the ocean, it would be impossible for any man to witness these miracles without believing that the Author of all things thus attested his own presence or the authority of his messenger. We have shown that, in the very organization of mind, one of the intuitive truths would necessarily force such a belief on all sane minds.

One other method would be as effective. Should this person predict events so improbable and so beyond all human intelligence as to be equivalent to an equal interruption of experience as to the laws of mind, as time developed the fulfillment of these predictions, the same belief would be induced in the authority of the person thus supernaturally endowed.

In the first case, the evidence would be immediate and most powerful in its inception. In the latter case, the power of the evidence would increase with time.

Miracles and prophecy, then, are the only methods that we can conceive of that would, as our minds are now constituted, insure belief in revelations from the Creator.

But if every human being, in order to believe, must have miracles, there would result such an incessant violation of the laws of nature as to destroy them, and thus to destroy all possibility of miracles.

The only possible way, then, is to have miracles occur at certain periods of time, and then have them adequately recorded and preserved.

This method involves the necessity of interpreting written documents. If, then, the Creator has provided such revelations, the question occurs as to how far they may be accessible to all men. Are there revelations from the Creator in such a form that all men can gain access to them and interpret them for themselves, or are they so recorded that only a few can gain the }knowledge they impart, while the many are helplessly dependent on the few?

It is with reference to this question that the interpretation of language becomes a subject of vital and infinite interest to every human being. This subject will therefore occupy the remaining portion of this volume.

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