Photo: Nigel Fearon Photography, Riverview NB, CBC, November 30 2021
Edited from PhD
2010 Theodicy and Practical Theology: PhD thesis, the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, Lampeter
Twitter version I
Twitter version I
Humanity must bring itself out of the chaos and confusion of reality to have a workable system in able to work out ‘a single plan.’ Mill (1833)(1985)(2009: 6). (1 of 2)
Twitter version II
This type of world was anticipated ‘by individuals of exceptional genius’ but could only become true after a long period of scientific examination and thought. Mill (1833)(1985)(2009: 6).(2 of 2)
BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
CAREY, GEORGE W. (2002) ‘The Authoritarian Secularism of John Stuart Mill’, in On Raeder’s Mill and the Religion of Humanity, Volume 15, Number 1, Columbia, University of Missouri Press.
GORDON, DAVID (2000) ‘John Stuart Mill on Liberty and Control’, in The Mises Review, Volume 6, Number 1, Auburn, Alabama, Ludwig Von Mises Institute.
MILL, JOHN STUART (1825-1868)(1984) Essays on Equality, Law, and Education, John M. Robson (ed.), University of Toronto Press, Toronto, University of Toronto Press.
MILL, JOHN STUART (1833)(1985)(2009) Theism: John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume X - Essays on Ethics, Religion, and Society, Toronto, University of Toronto Press.
MILL, JOHN STUART (1874)(2002) The Utility of Religion, London, Longman, Green, and Reader.
http://www.laits.utexas.edu/poltheory/mill/three/utilrelig.html
MILL, JOHN STUART (1874)(1885) Nature the Utility of Religion and Theism, London,
Longmans, Green and Co.
MILLBANK, JOHN, CATHERINE PICKSTOCK, and GRAHAM WARD (2001) Radical Orthodoxy, London, Routledge.
SHEDD, WILLIAM G.T. (1874-1890)(1980) Dogmatic Theology, Volume 1, Nashville, Thomas Nelson Publishers.
WAINWRIGHT, WILLIAM J. (1996) ’Demiurge’, in Robert Audi, (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
My response
Edited from my PhD and two related website articles
Mill desired to replace the God of Christianity with a Religion of Humanity. Carey (2002: 110). In The Utility of Religion from 1874, Mill explains that Christianity offers rewards in the next life for good conduct and the Religion of Humanity would be superior as human virtue would exist for unselfish reasons. Mill (1874)(2002: 16). Although I reason Christians should do what is good and right, just because it is good and right, and not primarily for a possible reward, Mill does not demonstrate in my mind a conclusive argument in how human beings, as they are, can or will ever operate with completely unselfish motives. Is all selfishness wrong, or does some degree of human self-concern and a desire for self-benefit remain an integral part of how God intended humanity to be? Carey (2002: 114).
A finite deity, that was held to be Mill, although admittedly logically possible, requires further explanation. Hypothetically, humanity and the universe could have been created by a finite God that was created by another cause. If the being is not revealed through Scriptural revelation, it is a God of primarily, philosophical speculation and requires further elaboration on the part of Mill. In regards to, for instance, why humanity should believe in and follow this type of deity, assuming that there is not a greater, infinite, eternal first cause that would necessarily exist behind that being.
