He affirms that natural reason has _not yet_ attained to (evidence of) Supernatural Being.

He does not deny that it _may do so_, because the capacity of natural reason in the pursuit of evidence of Supernatural Being is not, so far as he is aware, fixed."-- "The power of reason is yet a growth.

To deny its power absolutely would be hazardous; and in the case of a speculative question, not to admit that the opposite views may in some sense be tenable, is to assume your own infallibility,--a piece of arrogance the public always punish by disbelieving you when you are in the right."[258] Accordingly the thesis which Mr.Holyoake undertook to maintain in public discussion was couched in these terms:--"That we have _not sufficient evidence_ to believe in the existence of a Supreme Being independent of Nature;"[259] and so far from venturing to deny His existence, he makes the important admission, that "_denying implies infinite knowledge as the ground of disproof_." It is admitted, then, by the Secularist himself,--that there _may be_ a God,--that there may be evidence of His existence,--that it may yet be discovered in the progress of natural reason,--and that to deny any one of these possibilities would be to assume "infallibility," or to arrogate "infinite knowledge as the ground of disproof." Now, we humbly conceive that there is enough in these admissions, if not to disarm the Secular polemic, yet to shut up every seriously reflecting man, not, perhaps, to the instant recognition of a Divine Being, but certainly to the duty of earnest, patient, and persevering inquiry.

It was with this view that both Chalmers and Foster penned those powerful passages which seem to have left some impression on the mind even of Mr.Holyoake, not for the purpose, as he seems to imagine, of confounding Atheism with Anti-theism, but for the very opposite purpose of discriminating between the two, so as to show that, the one being impossible, the _other_ can afford no security against the possible truth of Religion.

And every word of warning which they convey should tell with powerful effect on Mr.Holyoake's conscience, after the admissions which he has deliberately made, especially when he is engaged in the cheerless task of undermining the faith of multitudes in their "Father which is in heaven." Dr.Chalmers devotes a chapter of his "Natural Theology" to illustrate "the duty which is laid upon men by the _possibility_ or even the _imagination_ of a God." He does not overlook, on the contrary he founds upon, the distinction between Skeptical and Dogmatic Atheism.