Article June 10, 1911 ISSUE

PROGRESS, NOT REGRESS

HON. CLARENCE A. BUSKIRK.

Certain metaphysical thinkers are employing the phrase, "the eternal regress," to designate the supposed futility of pursuing a class of metaphysical questionings. The thinker who tries to solve certain primary problems, for example, the origin of sin, the origin of falsehood, the origin of what Paul calls the carnal mind, the origin of what Mrs. Eddy calls mortal mind, is told that such questions involve a process which always merely regresses but never gets forward. One metaphysician likens this to the futile efforts of an animal trying to jump out of too deep a hole, and always falling back to the place from which it seeks to escape.

However welcome such a summary disposal of difficult problems may be to those who think they have neither the time nor the patience to linger upon them, it may be useful to consider, nevertheless, whether it does not involve an unsuspected species of agnosticism. And it ought never to be forgotten that agnosticism has its origin and its end in mental discouragement. Besides, agnosticism is essentially illogical; for it involves the contradiction that in affirming that certain things are unknowable, it thereby affirms that they are knowable in at least one respect, namely, their unknowableness. If there is one thing, however, upon which more emphasis is laid in the Bible than any other, it is the fact that God may be known and His law demonstrated.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

THE WORKS OF GOD MADE MANIFEST