Romantic Prophecy

Expanding the Frontiers of Belief

In 1823, the philosopher scientist Thomas Dick complained that he heard many preachers say from the pulpit, “There never was, nor ever will be, through all the ages of eternity so wonderful a display of the Divine glory, as in the cross of Christ.” Dick, though a fervent evangelical, dismisses the seemingly innocuous Christian verbiage as

nothing more than a presumptuous assumption, which has a tendency to limit the perfections of Deity. . . . It takes for granted, that we know all the events which have already happened, and which are now taking place throughout the whole range of God’s Universal Empire. This empire appears unbounded; and that portion of it which we can minutely explore, is but as a point in comparison of the whole. But before we can, on good grounds, hazard such an assertion as that under consideration, we must have explored all the dispensations of God, through every portion of his vast dominions; and be able to form a comparison between the different displays of Divine glory, made to all the different classes of intellectual beings, under the government of the Creator.

How can we “set limits to the operations of [the] Almighty”?

Dick’s American editor could not resist interpolating into a footnote his shock and indignation at Dick’s criticism. The guardians of orthodoxy frequently feel alarm at what they suppose are fragile veneers safeguarding divine dignity. Dick’s words, of course, were meant to untether God’s love from any conceptual limitations—religious or cosmological.