HERMESIANISM. The principles or philosophy of the Roman Catholic theologian George Hermes (1775 1831). Hermes is described by Erdmann as a Semi Kantian. In 1805 he published a work " Investigations relating to the Inner Truth of Christianity," and in 1819 Philosophical Introduction to Christian-Catholic Theology " (2nd ed. 1831). The latter work was censured by Gregory xvi. in 183.5. Hermes held that philosophical inquiry ought to begin by questioning everything that hitherto had been regarded as self-evident. As regards Christianity three preliminary questions have to be asked. 1. " Is it possible for us to decide regarding the truth in what ways it is attainable and whether any of these ways is applicable to the proof of Christianity? " 2.
Is there a God, and what is his nature? " 3. "Must a supernatural revelation of God to men be admitted as possible, and under what universal conditions must it be deemed actual?" As regards a God, " in opposition to Kant and Fichte, it is asserted that the certainty of the existence of God is not a moral certainty, but that it is a physical necessity for the theoretical rca-son to hold as real a certain, eternal, absolute, unchangeable, personal, creative first cause of the transitory world. It is other
wise as regards the attributes of God, where theoretical and practical reason, belief and assumption, unite in making us certain of the incomprehensible power, know ledge, and goodness, as well as of the holiness, freedom, and love of God, 1-n virtue of which God wills our happi ness, which. just because He wills it eternally, is there fore eternally willed and hence will endure eternally. In spite of this faith, rendered irrevocably certain through the theoretical and practical reason, it must not be misunderstood, that much that transcends the power of reason to conceive, as e.g., the infinitude of the divine attributes, can become certain to us only by the way of experience; especially, that the real nature of God remains to us. even after actual revelation, uncogniz able " (Erdmann). As regards the third question, " whereas the existence of God is securely established by the theoretical reason, the above-mentioned attributes of God by the theoretical and practical reason, revelation in general, and a definite revelation in particular, is guaranteed only by the obligatory reason, so that, there fore, it remains a moral necessity." See J. E. Erdmann; •ath. Diet.