Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/235

Rh theology and theosophy. God was the summum of theology and religion. Man's attitude towards myth was entirely objective and uncritical; God's revelation (in teaching and miracle) was the mainspring of knowledge and of conduct; thinking mythicaily, man blindly accepted the objective revelation as the absolute guide of thought and action; belief, faith, was the foundation of the mythical, theological, system of knowledge. Revelation was absolute, was valid for all times and for all men, was catholic. Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est—thus was the principle of catholicity formulated as early as the fifth century.

Belief in divine revelation, belief in God, has ever been, and is of necessity, belief in mediators between God and man, belief in priests. This belief, this faith, created the church, created theocracy.

Philosophy, in contrast to theology, is the instrument of science, is scientific. God is no longer the sole object of contemplation. Philosophy aims at knowledge of the All in all its parts; science is specialised knowledge, and philosophphilosophy [sic] is the instrument of the specialised sciences. Science and philosophy issue from man, and man has become his own object of contemplation; theism has yielded place to anthropism.

One who thinks and acts scientifically is subjectivist and individualist. Individualism and subjectivism have become for him the great epistemological problem.

The scientiﬁc thinker has ceased to belief in revelation, has indeed ceased to "believe" at all. He doubts, he criticises; he endeavours to attain certainty. To belief, to credulity, to blind faith, he opposes convictions based upon reasoned knowledge. Critical thought has replaced authority and tradition as the decisive test of truth. Herein, once more, lies the historical importance of Kantian criticism. Criticism is the attainment of complete self-consciousness by modern man vis-à-vis the world and society.

The scientific, the critical thinker, recognises no mediator between God and man. He trusts no longer in priests and their church but in science and philosophy. To theocracy he opposes anthropocracy or democracy. The man of science, indeed, recognises catholicity, not the catholicity of external authority, but that of deliberate and critical agreement.

Hume erred when he rejected religion as anthropomorphism Anthropomorphism is in truth nothing more than the method Rh