RATIONALISM

To rationalize is to ask for reasons out of place; to ask improperly how we are to account for certain things, to be unwilling to believe them unle they can be accounted for, i. e. referred to something else as a cause, to some existing system as harmonizing with them, or taking them up into itself. Again; since whatever is a igned as the reason for the original fact canva ed, admits in turn of a like question being raised about itself, unle it be ascertainable by the senses, and be the subject of personal experience, Rationalism is bound properly to pursue onward its course of investigation on this principle, and not to stop, till it can directly or ultimately refer to self as a witne , whatever is offered to its acceptance. Thus it is characterized by two peculiarities; its love of systematizing, and its basing its system upon personal experience, on the evidence of sense. In both it stands opposed to what is commonly understood by the word faith , or belief in testimony; for which it deliberately substitutes system (or, what is popularly called reason ) and sight. Rationalism is concerned with Anthropology , Faith with Theology .