Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 413

TO JUDGE THE SPECIAL PRINCIPIUM ?

CiiAi-. II]

When God

certainty_forJJifi__natuxal principium.

from giving

certainty to

this

389 refrains

our self-consciousness,

we

lapse into insanity, generally after the course has been run It is indeed true, that

of the several stadii of scepticism.

with respect to this natural principium, as a rule, we make no mention of the " witness of God as Creator," but this is explained from the sciousness,

fact, that it coincides

and that further account

self-consciousness

is

rarely taken.

from which departure

is

of

It is

The

made.

with our self-conthe origin of this

simply the

first truth

special principium,

on

the other hand, enters into this self -consciousness as a sense of a different kind,

and

is

thereby of

itself

reduced to

its

But however strongly this may deeper origin in God. appear with men of higher development, who, after they have lived for a long time by the natural principium only,

now

perceive the light in their consciousness from that other

is much less the case, and sometimes not with common believers, who, regenerated in their youth, have never experienced this transition in their conIn the case of such, immediate faith has been sciousness. given equally naturally and as fully with their self-consciousness, as immediate knoivledge for the natural principium is given with the awakening of our natural self-consciousness. For man as creature there can never be any other principium of knowledge but his Creator, naturaliter, as well as by the way of grace. What the Psalmist declares, only " in thy light shall we see light," remains the absolute ground of explanation for all human knowledge.

source as well, this at all,

§ 72.

Universality of this Principium

One who, himself some

sound mind, should have to live on insane people, would run a great becoming himself insane and in such a condition a

isolated island

risk of

of a

among

;

very strong mind only could maintain the reality of its consciousness. Just because we do not exist atomically, but are bound together with others organically, also in our consciousness, in order to remain firm our own sense cannot afford to lose the support of a similar sense in others. The

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