Philosophical Understanding and Religious Truth by Eric Frank

Abstract

BOOK REVIKWS Philosophical Understanding and Religious Truth. By ERIC FRANK. New York: Oxford University Press, 1945. Pp. 18~, with index. $~.50. Dr. Frank has tried to carry water on both shoulders, and much philosophical understanding and religious truth has been spilled in the attempt In the hope that a discussion of the problem envisaged in the title of this " philosophical study . . . might contribute toward a clarification of our present difficulties," Dr. Frank has addressed an appeal to modern " understanding that finds itself in search of a faith." His vigorous notation of philosophical trends leaves little doubt that difficulties exist, but his conciliation of the " conflict between religion and philosophy " is inadequate. However, Dr. Frank has produced many aphorisms and even whole passages which are remarkably perspicuous. His refractions of truth are in striking contrast to the opinions of many modern philosophers and his unhesitant intuition of the errors of both Positivism and Idealism place him in a position to appreciate a truly synolistic approach to philosophical problems. His judgments are substantiated by profuse annotations which evidence his wide acquaintance with philosophical literature. Dr. Frank offers allegiance to no school and no individual philosopher is recognized as his pedagogue. Whether he sits in the shadow of Emmanuel Kant or walks toe to heel behind Soren Kierkegaard cannot be definitely determined from these pages. But there can be little doubt that his judgments suffer from an inherited epistemological myopia and that his steps are guided by naturalism in its frustrated perfection. Although his intellectual genealogy may be uncertain, his present contribution to the heritage of human learning may be described, at least by an allegory. Precedent for these Bryn Mawr lectures now compiled in book form may be found in the " Advice from a Caterpillar " in the fifth chapter of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. With a mushroom as his rostrum, the caterpillar engaged Alice in scintillating dialectic. However, he offered her little consolation in her distress at being only three inches high, for he was of no greater stature himself. As a reward for Alice's patient attention , the caterpillar made the parting comment that if she were to eat of one side of the perfectly round mushroom, she would shrink, if she ate of the other, she would grow. With even less than a "spontaneous feeling " of faith to guide her in her quandary, Alice chewed. a piece of the mushroom she had taken in her right hand. The effect was disastrous. Her chin was so close to her shoe tops that she could scarcely nibble a bit 404 BOOK REVIEWS 405 from the other side of the mushroom. When she had swallowed the second morsel she grew-distorted. The dialectic of these essays is circular, self-contradictory, and futile. The reader is as likely to be stunted by specious philosophical principles as to thrive because of the surcharging of his ethico-religious consciousness. For, while the imperious assurances of a vague and generic religious faith become more peremptory, the very fundaments of credibility in religious. truth are being undermined by a latent Kantian antinomy. Confronted with numerous uncanny contradictions, a cautious reader will have as much difficulty in eliminating the errors from the author's really worth-while statements as he would in anathematizing a dream or excommunicating a ghost. Of a few of these errors, therefore, he would do well to be forewarned. The :first of these six essays treats of The Nature of Man, the "proper study" of modern philosophy. This initial step in the resolution of the " conflict between philosophy and religion " begins with a historical conspectus of the damage wrought to the concept of man by both the natural sciences and the "empirical knowledge of history." From the time of the discovery that man is not the master of the universe until the promulgation of the contemporary theory that he is a slave of animal instincts, the generally accepted interpretation of human nature has become progressively more incompatible with any ethico-religious notions. As a result, religious tenets are considered a threat to the progress of science and a· subterfuge of philosophers too timorous to take their destiny in their own hands. To this modern...