Read: 13 August, 2011I have the very good fortune of having been born into a family with solid ties to its history. So this summer, while attending my cousin's wedding in our family's old farmhouse, I picked up a collection of addresses written by W.S. Rainsford, published in 1902. I had to read carefully lest the book fall apart in my hands!
Keeping in mind that this is a collection of addresses and not essays or arguments, I nonetheless couldn't help but judge them as apologetics. Certainly, several of the addresses were clearly meant that way since they claimed to address certain theological issues.
The titular address, "The Reasonableness of Faith," perfectly illustrates my distaste for theologians. Rainsford sets out to prove that faith is perfectly reasonable. How does he do this? By redefining faith as "that which is not unreasonable." It's muddy thinking at its finest. Faith is defined solely by what it is not and never by what it is.
It's all the more a shame because Rainsford is clearly a good writer and a good thinker. He's just suffering from the brain-rot of theology.
It was interesting to see a book from 1902 accept evolution as a known scientific fact - something that many theologians (though by no means all) are still struggling with over a century later.
This made for lovely drizzly summer afternoon in the country reading, but it was vacuous. Beautiful prose and the occasional interesting observation are this book's only saving graces.
No comments:
Post a Comment