Lectures on Butler's Analogy

(0 User reviews) 91

By Listen TheBook Posted on Jun 1, 2023

In Category - Christianity - Other

Authors: Thomas Chalmers In Year : 1850

Book Language: English

Audiobook: Lectures on Butler's Analogy

Introduction
Of a Future life
Of the Government of God by Rewards and Punishments, and particularly of the latter
Of the Moral Government of God
Of a State of Probation, as implying Trial, Difficulties and Danger
Of a State of Probation, as intended for Moral Discipline and Improvement
Of the Opion of Necessity, considered as influencing Practice
Of the Government of God, considered as a Scheme or Constitution imperfectly comprehended
Of the Importance of Christianity
Of the Supposed Presumption against a Reveltion, considered as miraculous
Of our Incapacity of judging what were to be expcted from a Revelation; and the Credibility, from Analogy, that it must contain Things appearing liable to Objections
Of Christianity, considered as a Scheme or Constitution imperfectly comprehended
Of the Particular System of Christianity; the Appointment of a Mediator and the Redemption of the World by him
Of the Want of Universality in Revelation; and of the supposed Deficiency in the Proof of it
Of the Particular Evidence for Christianity
Of the Objections which may be made against arguing from the Analogy of Nature to Religion
Conclusion

Thomas Chalmers had read, when a young man, several infidel productions. Their semblance of logic and learning, and supercilious confidence of style, disposed him to regard all religion as mere superstition. His mind was poisoned. Accustomed as he had been to the positive and precise reasonings of mathematics, he could not find similar proofs for Christianity. But he was induced, by some friends, to study Butler’s Analogy. This, as he expresses it, took Christianity “out of the class of unlikelihoods.” It brought him to the investigation, as if the evidence was neither plus nor minus. He examined the evidences as he would have done a declaration that Cicero weighed just one hundred and fifty pounds; open to the smallest proof or presumption on the positive side of the question. Delivered from prejudice, not only against Christianity but against its proofs, he soon saw the madness of deism, and immovably accepted the word of God, though he did not, at that time, feel its transforming power on his own heart. Long afterwards he writes, “I cannot render sufficient homage to the argument, which first, addressing itself to the subject-matter of Christianity, relieves it of all disproof, and pronounces it worthy of a trial; and then, addressing itself to the evidence of Christianity, relieves it of all objections, and makes good, to that evidence, all the entireness and efficiency which natively belong to it.” Years afterwards he said, “Butler made me a Christian.” That it did far more for him than to effect his change of sentiment, that it continued to be a light in his firmament, is touchingly told in the Preface of his Bridgewater Treatise, where he says, “I have derived greater aid from the views and reasonings of Butler, than I have been able to find, besides, in the whole range of our extant authorship.” (Summary by Howard Malcom)