" Just notice the myriad falsehoods of a phrase like
that! I will not discuss what is connoted by the words "past the phase
of mediaeval thought"--it connotes of course that the human mind changes
fundamentally with the centuries, and therefore that whatever we think
is probably wrong, and that what we are sure of we cannot be sure of, an
absurd conclusion. I will only note the historical falsehoods. When on
earth did the "Middle Ages" lay down that a "few words over lifeless
clay determined the fate of the soul for all eternity"? On the contrary,
the Middle Ages laid it down--it was their peculiar doctrine--that it
was impossible to determine the fate of the soul; that no one could tell
the fate of any one individual soul; that it was a grievous sin, among
the most grievous of sins, to affirm positive knowledge that any
individual had lost his soul. More than this, the Middle Ages were
peculiar in their insistence upon the doctrine that a man might have
been very bad and might have had all the appearance of having lost his
soul so far as human judgment went, and yet was liable to a midway place
between salvation and damnation, and they affirmed that this midway
place did not lead to either fate but necessarily to salvation and to
salvation only.
Again, whatever could help the human soul to salvation was by the most
rigorous theological definition of the Middle Ages applicable only
before death.
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