[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

The new currents of phrenology and mesmerism could be reconciled with Uni-
versalism to the extent that they continued to recognize divine transcendence. Ap-
parently offering marvelous new insights into humanity and its relation to the divine,
phrenology and mesmerism could be considered highly promising fields of natural
theology. Spiritualism, on the other hand, had pantheistic overtones; it usually dis-
missed the whole notion of a pious regard for a superintending deity and the ne-
cessity of revelation. Spiritualists tried to use their discoveries to herald a new rev-
elation, which they saw as superior to the Bible and in which the natural swallowed
the divine. A Universalist reaction against such notions was probably inevitable,
especially in light of the broader midcentury breakdown of natural theology.
Among many rationalistic Universalists, the confident natural theology of the
antebellum era encouraged ever-greater expectations that science could confirm and
illustrate religious truths; the advent of  spiritual science was particularly exciting.
But, by 1849, with the publication of Horace Bushnell s God in Christ, natural
theology was starting to show signs of weakness, and American Protestant thought
began to move in a very different direction. Even traditional, hard-line Calvinists,
who fought against Bushnell s attempts to discredit scientific natural theology, con-
tinued to retreat under the force of new philosophical currents and scientific learn-
ing. Apologetics  extended analogies, complex disquisitions on causation, inces-
sant criticism and interpretation of new scientific theories and discoveries  did
not, in Bushnell s mind, provide the basis for faith; his writings helped remove
religious belief from the realm of rational proof.112
By the 1860s, natural theology was fading in the face of positivism s insistence
that only what could be perceived could be known and with the spreading accep-
tance of Kantian principles among American intellectuals. Natural theologians  be-
gan to conclude that their discipline could not produce a great deal of information
about God. Especially after the publication of Darwin s On the Origin of Species,
theology became more of a historical and cultural discipline, less closely tied to
natural science, for Universalists and other liberal denominations. Conservative
evangelicals as well, faced with geological and biological evidence that seemed to
cast doubt on, rather than to confirm, divine providence, eliminated natural the-
ology from the curricula of their seminaries. Among most American Protestants,
science was no longer viewed as a means of validating religious belief.113
For spiritualists, this move away from a scientific approach to religion had dan-
gerous implications. Davis commented on the trend in The Approaching Crisis
(1869), a review of Bushnell s thinking. Davis believed that the great problems of
122 The Universalist Movement in America, 1770 1880
the age growing skepticism and religious infidelity were rooted in the existing
gulf between rationalism and supernaturalism. He contended that only a  ration-
alistic Christianity could resolve human anxieties and doubts. But Bushnell insisted
on keeping the rational and the supernatural separate, making the supernatural
miraculous, mysterious, beyond comprehension. In place of the  dying dogmas of
the  supernatural, oriental scheme, Davis argued, man needed the understanding
provided by phrenology and the corrective measures of Fourier s organization.114
These and other enlightened programs had no room for spiritually retarded notions
of sin and repentance.
While Universalists, as we have seen, could agree with Davis on many key points,
through the 1850s and later, they more and more openly opposed the relentless
 rationalism of views such as his. The 1854 break between Davis and his long-time
associate, former Universalist minister William Fishbough, was significant in this
connection. In a long letter, which Davis reproduced in his autobiography, Fish-
bough asserted his belief in Christ as savior; he could no longer associate, he wrote,
with Davis s admirers, who found the idea of humbling themselves and taking up
the cross  extremely distasteful. Fishbough declared his belief in the Bible as the
highest and truest revelation and predicted a coming struggle between  religionism [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

razem.keep.pl