Walter M. Horton

Has Modern Theology Made Christian Prayer Anomalous

gion a shadowy remnant of her former domains after the disastrous theological defeats of the eighteenth century. They gave, in effect, to victorious science the whole field of fact, while reserving for religion certain territories where conflict between science and religion was inconceivable -in Kants case, the realm of moral values; in Schleiermachers, that of emotional appreciations. In both cases, religions claim to have genuine knowledge of ultimate reality was practically abandoned; and the doctrines of theology have accordingly come to be regarded as mere symbolic

Reasons for Believing in God

Admitting that the idea of God arises through an imaginative process of thought which attributes our interests to a supposed Cosmic Being, this article attempts to analyze more closely the validity of this process. It is indisputable that our life is what it is because of its response to stimuli. What are the stimuli which occasion religious beliefs? There seems to be no valid reason for restricting cosmic stimuli to mere mechanical forces. Taking all the facts of experience into account, the most reasonable hypothesis is the affirmation of personal factors in the total cosmic environment. Skepticism as to the existence of God is compared with the solipsistic skepticism as to the reality of an external world.