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The_Savior_from_Spiritual_Error, page : 61
converse a particular affirmative proposition‟. What connection has this with
the essentials of religion, that it should be denied or rejected? If such a
denial is made, the only effect upon the logicians is to impair their belief in
the intelligence of the man who made the denial and, what is worse, in his
religion, inasmuch as he considers that it rests on such denials.
Moreover, there is a type of mistake into which students of logic are liable
to fall. They draw up a list of the conditions to be fulfilled by demonstration,
which are known without fail to produce certainty. When, however, they
come at length to treat „of religious questions, not merely are they unable to
satisfy these conditions, but they admit an extreme degree of relaxation (sc.
of their standards of proof). Frequently, too, the student who admires logic
and sees its clarity, imagines that the infidel doctrines attributed to the
philosophers are supported by similar demonstrations, and hastens into
unbelief before reaching the theological (or metaphysical) sciences. Thus
this drawback too leads to unbelief.
3. NATURAL SCIENCE OR PHYSICS. This is the investigation of the
sphere of the heavens together with the heavenly bodies, and of what is
the essentials of religion, that it should be denied or rejected? If such a
denial is made, the only effect upon the logicians is to impair their belief in
the intelligence of the man who made the denial and, what is worse, in his
religion, inasmuch as he considers that it rests on such denials.
Moreover, there is a type of mistake into which students of logic are liable
to fall. They draw up a list of the conditions to be fulfilled by demonstration,
which are known without fail to produce certainty. When, however, they
come at length to treat „of religious questions, not merely are they unable to
satisfy these conditions, but they admit an extreme degree of relaxation (sc.
of their standards of proof). Frequently, too, the student who admires logic
and sees its clarity, imagines that the infidel doctrines attributed to the
philosophers are supported by similar demonstrations, and hastens into
unbelief before reaching the theological (or metaphysical) sciences. Thus
this drawback too leads to unbelief.
3. NATURAL SCIENCE OR PHYSICS. This is the investigation of the
sphere of the heavens together with the heavenly bodies, and of what is