Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/17

1.] least their possibility. Now, however much acumen such a philosophy of religion may manifest, it is evidently not in harmony with the fundamental principle of all philosophy. For philosophy, guided only by the native laws of thought, aims at the discovery of truth. It cannot, therefore, rest in a given opinion or doctrine as though this were already truth itself. It must critically examine and prove the objects of its knowledge. It must distinguish the unessential from the essential, it must separate mere opinions from objective facts. In so far as the Philosophy of Religion is to be a philosophy, it cannot neglect this task. If it were simply to accept as infallible truth the traditions of the Church, and confine itself to formulating and systematizing these, it would renounce its claim to be a philosophy, i.e., to be a science which undertakes to investigate and rationally explain phenomena. Nor can an appeal to the authority of divine revelation excuse philosophy from the task of thoroughly investigating all the facts. The claim to divine revelation which every religion sets up for its teachings must itself be subjected to philosophical criticism. Even when the universal proposition that religion is founded on divine authority is not rejected, we shall always have to inquire what we are to understand by revelation. What, we may here ask, is the peculiar relation in which the divine mind stands to the human spirit, and how has this revelation manifested itself historically? Reflection on the psychological conditions of revelation convinces us that a divine influence which is mediated by human consciousness must itself be affected by this medium. The product, therefore, of such a process of revelation consists of divine and human factors, and hence cannot be absolute divine truth, but must be influenced by the temporal and individual limitations that belong to everything human. A consideration of past historical events confirms this result of psychological analysis. The history of ecclesiastical dogmas shows us at every turn that they were not given ready made by a divine oracle, but that they gradually arrived at their present form by a process of transformation and development. We see that human — oftentimes all too human — agencies were at