Boros György (szerk.): Értesítő a Nemzetközi Unitárius Conferencziáról (Kolozsvár, 1897)
A Nemzetközi Unitárius Konferenczián tartott beszédek és felolvasások - Beszédek és felolvasások
The Changeable and the Permanent in Religion. by Denis Péterfi, Unitarian Minister of Kolozsvár. Is it possible, and if possible, is it legitimate to speak of a changeable element as well as of a permanent reality in religion? This is a question, to which divergent answers may be given from different points of view. The dogmatist gives a negative answer to the first half of the question, and claims for the whole of his religion the attribute of permanence. The sceptic does just the contrary, he negatives the latter half of the question and meets the former with a strong affirmative. In the eyes of the dogmatist there is nothing changeable in religion; in the eyes of the sceptic there is nothing permanent. To the dogmatist, religion is confessional belief, inherited from past times ; a hard petrification, which neither the storms of revolution, nor the melting heat of change had any power to penetrate or dissolve. To certain other thinkers, religion is a series of changes, over which hovers the dark shadow of a melancholy dissolution, nowhere brightened by a ray of eternal light. To the dogmatist, the source of religion is a unique revelation, the manifestation, made once for all, of the divine perfections, the appearance, once for all, of the glory of the divine countenance ; and religion, embodied in a church, is a perfect institution, that requires no mending in any part of it. To the sceptic, any gleam of divine revelation, any appearance of the divine glory, is invisible, by reason of a gloomy cloud, drawn between him and the divine light by uncertainty and doubt. — IO
