Philosophy not Faith by Editor

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · May 1, 1879

Philosophy not Faith.

By Editor

We do not know the author of the following, which we clip from an exchange. There is an important truth contained in it. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." That which is provable is not a matter of faith. We believe natural truths because they may be demonstrated. We believe Scriptural truths because they are the word of God.

"How the dead shall arise is no question of my faith. To believe only possibilities is not faith, but mere philosophy. Many things are true in divinity which are neither inducible by reason nor confirmable by sense, and many things in philosophy confirmable by sense yet not inducible by reason. Thus it is impossible, by any solid or demonstrative reasons, to persuade a man to believe the conversion of the needle to the north, though this be possible and true, and easily credible upon a single experiment, unto the sense."