Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE NEOPLATONIC PHILOSOPHY AND EPOCH3 I 5nature, most clear in its results, in which the soul isthe form of the body. The tie between the creaturethus made and the Creator is so stringent, the dependenceof the one on the other so absolute, that naturethrough its whole realm offers no parallel. For inevery operation of nature that which is produced isproduced out of something pre-existing. So far andno farther experience carries us, and an observationproceeding only from experience and limited to physicalappearances had left the Greek philosophic mindshort of the idea itself of creation. The parerirelation led up the nearest to that between thCreator and the creature. But the parent communicates only a part of his nature to the child, and thpart the less noble. The distance which remaistween the function of the natural parent and theact of creation transcends altogether the conception ofsuch fathership. The exercise of illimitable poweron one side finds adequate correspondence only inabsolute dependence on the other. Such a dependencewas the foundation of all that the Church taughtrespecting the duties and the hopes of man.2. The philosophy, proceeding from its false notionas to the nature of the human soul, gave a physicalnotion of evil as inherent in the junction of mind andmatter. The notion of evil which the Church assertedwas one purely spiritual, that is, rebellion against theeternal law in thought, word, or deed. The eteilaw is the sanctity of God exhibited in His c< mmands. These commands were summed up in therst and second tables of the law. The rebellion ofman against his Creator was therefore the radtion of sin and this rebellion would extend throughthe whole of his nature, beginning from the spirit,