The conclusion of Mœhler, Tholuck, and others, that all speculation on
such a subject must be vain and fruitless.
Considering the vast wilderness of speculation which exists on the subject
under consideration, it is not at all surprising that many should turn
away from every speculative view of it with disgust, and endeavour to
dissuade others from such pursuits. Accordingly Mœhler has declared, that
“so often as, without regard to revelation, _the relation of the human
spirit to God hath been more deeply investigated_, men have found
_themselves forced ... to the adoption of pantheism, and, with it, the
most arrogant deification of man_.”(57) And Tholuck spreads out the
reasoning from effect to cause, by which all things are referred to God,
and God himself only made the greatest and brightest link in the chain;
and assuming this to be an unanswerable argument, he holds it up as a
dissuasive from all such speculations. He believes that reason necessarily
conducts the mind to fatalism.
We cannot concur with these celebrated writers, and we would deduce a far
different conclusion from the speculations of necessitarians. This sort of
scepticism or despair is more common in Germany than it is in this
country; for there, speculation pursuing no certain or determinate
_method_, has shown itself in all its wild and desolating excesses. But it
is sophistry, and not reason, that leads the human mind astray; and we
believe that reason, in all cases, is competent to detect and expose the
impositions of sophistry. We do not believe that one guide which the
Almighty has given us, can, by the legitimate exercise of it, lead us to a
different result from that of another guide. We are persuaded that if
reason seems to force us into any system which is contradicted by the
testimony of our moral nature, or by the truths of revelation, this is
unsound speculation: it is founded either on false premises, or else
springs from false conclusions, which reason itself may correct, either by
pointing out the fallacy of the premises, or the logical incoherency of
the argument. We do not then intend to abandon speculation, but to plant
it, if we can, on a better foundation, and build it up according to a
better method.