Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 30:117 (Jan 1873)
Article: Unconscious Greek Prophecy
Author: Francis Wharton

BSac 30:117 (Jan 1872) p. 144

Unconscious Greek Prophecy

Francis Wharton

To the anthropological argument for the divinity of Christ Dr. Baumstark’s labors in the present work1 have been profitably devoted. It starts with viewing man as a spiritual being, and from this assumption proceeds to a series of pregnant inquiries: Can the spirit be viewed as a mere accident of matter? Does not the soul act as efficiently on the body as does the body on the soul? Must not materialism as an exclusive theory, therefore, be rejected, and must we not hold to the separate and continuous existence of the soul as a spiritual entity, distinguished by high prerogatives of intuition and reason from not merely matter, but from brute life?

So, also, as to the individuality of the soul as opposed to pantheism. By pantheism, as held by Spinoza, the individual has a phenomenal, and not a real existence. But can pantheism elucidate the problem of life, or resolve its difficulties, or direct its course? Must it not, as is shown by Dr. Baumstark, fail not only as a revealer of truth, but as a comforter in trouble and a vivifier of life?

But it is to man as a religious being that Dr. Baumstark mainly directs his argument. Man, he holds, has no intuitive divine consciousness — has no innate capacity that enables him, without the aid of revelation, to discover the divine nature. But, while such is the case, man has a need of religion, and to find out religion his various psychical powers are and have been constantly engaged. In other

BSac 30:117 (Jan 1872) p. 145

words, some true religion there must be. Which religion is true?

As facilitating this inquiry, Dr. Baumstark takes an elaborate survey of the various non-Christian religions, showing that by none of them are the religious needs of the soul satisfied. He begins with the lowest and less cultivated types, treating prominently among these the religions of the Africans, and of the North American and Australian aborigines. From this he ascends to consider the religions of nations of higher culture, noting successively the Peruvians, Mexicans, Chinese, Hindoos, Persians, Babylonians, Syrians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Gauls, and Germans. The last stage in this ascent comprehends the religious system of the Greeks and Romans. Mohammedanism he touches under a subsequent and independent head. The argument founded on this material is not new. It is simply this: The religion which we need is either A, or B, or C, or D. But it is not A, nor B, nor C. It is therefore D. But, while the argument in this its formal statement has been anticipated by others, nowhere have the proofs been brought out so fully and felicitously as in the pa...