Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 420

396

§ 72.

mand him/' announcement ness

is

UNIVERSALITY OF THIS PRINCIPIUM

An

important thought, however, precedes the

of this rich inspiration,

made to common among the is

satisfaction of

and toward which Israel beand now they are told that the the need which spoke in this desire was not

to be sought in the is

in all its full-

In the tenth verse,

divination and necromancy, which were nations,

trayed strong tendencies

alone

which

given in Christ as "Prophet."

reference

[Div. Ill

way

able to grant

;

of this enchantment, but that

them the

God

aspirations of their hearts.

This impulse after necromancy, taken in its deepest significance, can be no other than the desire to find, in addition to the natural principium, another principium of knowledge for all those profound questions of life upon which the natural principium can cast no light. From this it appears, that the insufficiency of the natural principium declares itself in the universal human sense, so long as this still expresses itself in an unconstrained and natural way. The appearance, therefore, of another principium of knowledge in the Christian religion does not enter the present state of things as something foreign, but fits on it as a new spire uj^on a steeple, the former spire of which has fallen into ruin. We grant that afterwards, in philosophy, the natural principium has tried to show the superfluousness of such an auxiliary-principium. However, we must not fail to observe that these efforts of the philosophic spirit, so long as they were religiously colored, never occasioned in the religious world anything but endless confusion of speech; that they have never resulted in the founding of a religious life-circle of universal significance; and that these systems, drawn from the natural principium, have more and more abandoned eternal concerns in order in materialism to deny their existence, or in agnosticism to postulate the special principium.

It is

noteworthy, there-

which began in the latter part of the last century, a broad life-circle has been formed in Europe and America, which has abandoned the special prinfore, that since the apostasy,

cipium, in order, in Spiritualism, to revive the ancient effort after

necromancy.

This Sj)iritualism

lowers by the millions, and

its

now

main desire

counts is

its

fol-

to obtain an

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