"In Christianity and History...[t]here were the same objections to the "stiffnecked" who "goad" man to "greater wickedness" than they would otherwise commit. There was the same objection to the "superficiality" of the "idealists" and the "spiritual impoverishment" of the "self-styled prophets" of the last generation, along with the same claim that "we create tragedy after tragedy for ourselves" if we adopt the "lazy, unexamined doctrine of man" which rests on the "recent" and "very disastrous heresy" that one should "have faith in human nature"... It was argued that the past was not a fight of "the pure and righteous" against the "diabolically wicked" but a manifestation of the fact that "human nature is imperfect generally". It was added that the historian "must join hands with the theologian" in "tearing the mask from human nature", and that the point in doing this was to show that all human actions, souls, and systems were under judgement, that they were all doomed to decay, and that humanism, liberalism, and secular idealism were as transitory as any others."
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Historians from EnglandPhilosophers from EnglandUniversity of Cambridge facultyPeople from LeedsChristians from the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
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Maurice Cowling, 'Herbert Butterfield, 1900–1979', Proceedings of the British Academy, Volume 65 (1979), pp. 602-603
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Herbert_Butterfield
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Herbert Butterfield
Herbert Butterfield (October 7, 1900 – July 20, 1979) was a British historian and philosopher of history who is remembered chiefly for a slim volume entitled, The Whig Interpretation of History (1931).
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