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diff --git a/15563.txt b/15563.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c364a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/15563.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3195 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts +by Henry Rogers + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts + From The Edinburgh Review, October 1849, Volume 90, No. + CLXXXII. (Pages 293-356) + +Author: Henry Rogers + +Release Date: April 6, 2005 [EBook #15563] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REASON AND FAITH *** + + + + +Produced by Michael Madden + + + + + +REASON AND FAITH; THEIR CLAIMS AND CONFLICTS. + +[by Henry Rogers] + +THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, + +OCTOBER, 1849. + +[Volume 90] No. CLXXXII. [Pages 293-356] + + +Art.I--1. Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte Eighth +edition, pp. 60. 8vo. London. 2. The Nemesis of Faith. By J. A. Froude, +M. A., Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. 12mo. London: pp. 227. 3. +Popular Christianity, its Transition State and Probable Development. By +F. J. Foxton, B. A.; formerly of Pembroke College, Oxford, and Perpetual +Curate of Stoke Prior and Docklow, Herefordshire. 12mo. London: pp. 226. + +'Reason and Faith,' says one of our old divines, with the quaintness +characteristic of his day, 'resemble the two sons of the patriarch; +Reason is the firstborn, but Faith inherits the blessing. The image is +ingenious, and the antithesis striking; but nevertheless the sentiment +is far from just. It is hardly right to represent Faith as younger +than reason: the fact undoubtedly being, that human creatures trust and +believe, long before they reason or know. But the truth is, that both +reason and Faith are coeval with the nature of man, and were designed to +dwell in his heart together. In truth they are, and were, and, in such +creatures as ourselves, must be, reciprocally complementary--neither +can exclude the other. It is as impossible to exercise an acceptable +faith without reason for so exercising it,--that is, without exercising +reason while we exercise faith*,--as it is to apprehend by our reason, +exclusive of faith, all the truths on which we are daily compelled to +act, whether in relation to this world or the next. Neither is it right +to represent either of them as failing of the promised heritage, +except as both may fail alike, by perversion from their true end, and +depravation of their genuine nature; for it to the faith of which the +New Testament speaks so much, a peculiar blessing is promised, it is +evident from the same volume that it is not a 'faith without reason' any +more than a 'faith without works,' which is approved by the Author of +Christianity. And this is sufficiently proved by the injunction 'to +be ready to give a reason for the hope,'--and therefore for the +faith,--'which is in us.' + +____ + +* Let it be said that we are here playing upon an ambiguity in the +word Reason;--considered in the first clause as an argument; and in the +second, as the characteristic endowment of our species. The distinction +between Reason and Reasoning (though most important) does not affect our +statement; for though Reason may be exercised where there is no giving +of reasons, there can be no giving of reasons without the exercise of +Reason. + +____ + +If, therefore, we were to imitate the quaintness of the old divine, on +whose dictum we have been commenting, we should rather compare Reason +and Faith to the two trusty spies, 'faithful amongst the 'faithless,' +who confirmed each other's report of 'that good land which flowed with +milk and honey,' and to both of whom the promise of a rich inheritance +there was given,--and, in due time, amply redeemed. Or, rather, if we +might be permitted to pursue the same vein a little further, and throw +over our shoulders for a moment that mantle of allegory which none but +Bunyan could wear long and successfully, we should represent Reason and +Faith as twin-born beings,--the one, in form and features the image of +manly beauty,--the other, of feminine grace and gentleness; but to each +of whom, alas! was allotted a sad privation. While the bright eyes of +Reason are full of piercing and restless intelligence, his ear is closed +to sound; and while Faith has an ear of exquisite delicacy, on her +sightless orbs, as she lifts them towards heaven, the sunbeam plays in +vain. Hand in hand the brother and sister, in all mutual love, pursue +their way, through a world on which, like ours, day breaks and night +falls alternate; by day the eyes of Reason are the guide of Faith, and +by night the ear of Faith is the guide of Reason. As is wont with those +who labour under these privations respectively Reason is apt to be +eager, impetuous, impatient of that instruction which his infirmity will +not permit him readily to apprehend; while Faith, gentle and docile, is +ever willing to listen to the voice by which alone truth and wisdom can +effectually reach her. + +It has been shown by Butler in the fourth and fifth chapters (Part I.) +of his great work, that the entire constitution and condition of man, +viewed in relation to the present world alone, and consequently all the +analogies derived from that fact in relation to a future world, suggest +the conclusion that we are here the subjects of a probation discipline, +or in a course of education for another state of existence. But it +has not, perhaps, been sufficiently insisted on, that if in the actual +course of that education, of which enlightened obedience to the 'law +of virtue,' as Butler expresses it, or, which is the same thing, to the +dictates of supreme wisdom and goodness, is the great end, we give an +unchecked ascendency to either Reason or Faith, we vitiate the whole +process. The chief instrument by which that process is carried on is +not Reason alone, or Faith alone, but their well-balanced and reciprocal +interaction. It is a system of alternate checks and limitations, in +which Reason does not supersede Faith, nor Faith encroach on Reason. But +our meaning will be more evident when we have made one or two remarks +on what are conceived to be their respective provinces. In the domain +of Reason men generally include, 1st, what are called 'intuitions,' +2d, 'necessary deductions' from them; and 3d, deductions from their own +direct 'experience; while in the domain of Faith are ranked all truths +and propositions which are received, not without reasons indeed, but +for reasons underived from the intrinsic evidence (whether intuitive or +deductive, or from our own experience) of propositions themselves;--for +reasons (such as credible testimony, for example,) extrinsic to the +proper meaning and significance of such propositions: although such +reasons, by accumulation and convergency, may be capable of subduing +the force of any difficulties or improbabilities, which cannot be +demonstrated to involve absolute contradictions.* + +____ + +* Of the first kind of truths, or those received by intuition, we have +examples in what are called 'self-evident axioms,' and 'fundamental +laws' or 'conditions of thought,' which no wise man has ever attempted +to prove. Of the second, we have examples in the whole fabric of +mathematical science, reared from its basis of axioms and definitions, +as well as in every other necessary deduction from admitted premises. +The third virtually includes any conclusion in science based on direct +experiment, or observation; though the belief of the truth even of +Newton's system of the world, when received as Locke says he received +and as the generality of men receive it,--without being able to follow +the steps by which the great geometer proves his conclusions,--may be +represented rather as an act of faith rather than an act of Reason; +as much so as a belief in the truth of Christianity, founded on its +historic and other evidences. The greater part of man's knowledge, +indeed, even of science,--even the greater part of a scientific man's +knowledge of science, based as it is on testimony alone (and which +so often compels him to renounce to-day what he thought certain +yesterday),--may be not unjustly considered as more allied to Faith than +Reason. It may be said, perhaps, that the above classification of the +truths received by Reason and Faith respectively is arbitrary; that +even as to some of their alleged sources, they are not always clearly +distinguishable; that the evidence of experience may in some sort +be reduced to testimony,--that of sense, and testimony reduced to +experience,--that of human veracity under given circumstances; both +being founded upon the observed uniformity of certain phenomena under +similar conditions. We admit the truth of this; and we admit it the more +willingly, as it shows that so inextricably intertwined are the roots +both of Reason and Faith in our nature, that no definitions that can be +framed will completely separate them; none that will not involve many +phenomena which may be said to fall under the dominion of one as much as +the other. We have been content, for our practical purpose, without +any too subtle refinement, to take the line of demarcation which is, +perhaps, as obvious as any, and as generally recognised. Few would say +that a generalised inference from direct experience was not matter of +reason rather than of faith; though an act of faith is involved in +the process; and few would not call confidence in testimony where +probabilities were nearly balanced, by the name of faith rather than +reason, though an act of reason is involved in that process. We are much +more anxious to show their general involution with one another than the +points of discrimination between them. +____ + + +In receiving important doctrines on the strength of such evidence, and +in holding to them against the perplexities they involve, or, what is +harder still, against the prejudices they oppose, every exercise of +an intelligent faith will, on analysis, be found to consist; its only +necessary limit will be proven contradictions in the propositions +submitted to it; for, then, no evidence can justify belief, or even +render it possible. But no other difficulties, however, great, will +justify unbelief, where man has all that he can justly demand,--evidence +such in its nature as he can deal with, and on which he is accustomed +to act in his most important affairs in this world (thus admitting +its validity), and such in amount as to render it more likely that the +doctrines it substantiates are true, than, from mere ignorance of the +mode in which these difficulties can be solved, he can infer them to be +false. 'Probabilities,' says Bishop Bulter, 'are to us the very guide +to life; and when the probabilities arise out of evidence which we +are competent to pronounce, and the improbabilities merely from our +surmises, where we have no evidence to deal with, and perhaps, from the +limitation of our capacities, could not deal with it, if we had it, it +is not difficult to see what course practical wisdom tells man he ought +to pursue; and which he always does pursue, whatever difficulties beset +him,--in all cases except one! + +Such is the strict union--that mutual dependence of Reason and +Faith--which would seem to be the great law under which the moral school +in which we are being educated is conducted. This law is equally, or +almost equally, its characteristic, Whether we regard man simply in +his present condition, or in his present in relation to his future +condition,--as an inhabitant only of this world, or a candidate for +another; and to this law, by a series of analogies as striking as any +of those which Butler has pointed out (and on which we heartily wish his +comprehensive genius had expended a chapter or two), Christianity, +in the demands it makes on both principles conjointly, is evidently +adapted. + +Men often speak, indeed, as if the exercise of faith was excluded from +their condition as inhabitants of the present world. But it requires +but a very slight consideration to show that the boasted prerogative of +reason is here also that of a limited monarch; and that its attempts to +make itself absolute can only end in its own dethronement, and, after +successive revolutions, in all the anarchy of absolute pyrrhonism. + +For in the intellectual and moral education of man, considered merely +as a citizen of the present world, we see the constant and inseparable +union of the two principles, and provision made for their perpetual +exercise. He cannot advance a step, indeed without both. We see faith +demanded not only amidst the dependence and ignorance in which childhood +and youth are passed; not only in the whole process by which we acquire +the imperfect knowledge which is to fit us for being men; but to +the very last we may be truly said to believe far more than we know. +'Indeed,' said Butler, 'the unsatisfactory nature of the evidence with +which we are obliged to take up in the daily course of life, is scarce +to be expected.' Nay, in an intelligible sense, even the 'primary +truths,' or 'first principles,' or 'fundamental laws of thought,' or +'self-evident maxims,' or 'intuitions,' or by whatever other names +philosophers have been pleased to designate them, which, in a special +sense, are the very province of reason, as contra-distinguished from +'reasoning' or logical deduction, may be said almost as truly to depend +on faith as on reason for their reception.* For the only ground for +believing them true is that man cannot help so believing them! The same +may be said of that great fact, without which the whole world would +be at a stand-still--a belief in the uniformity of the phenomena of +external nature; that the same sun, for example, which rose yesterday +and to-day, will rise again tomorrow. That this cannot be demonstrated, +is admitted on all hands; and that it is not absolutely proved from +experience is evident, both from the fact that the uniformity supposed +is only accepted as partially and transiently true; the great bulk +of mankind, even while they so confidently act upon that uniformity, +rejecting the idea of its being an eternal uniformity. Every theist +believes that the order of the universe once began to be; and every +Christian and most other men, believe that it will also one day cease to +be. + +____ + +* Common language seems to indicate this: Since we call that disposition +of mind which leads some men to deny the above fundamental truths (or +affect to deny them), not by a word which indicates the opposite of +reason, but the opposite of faith,--Scepticism, Unbelief, Incredulity. +____ + +But perhaps the most striking example of the helplessness to which man +is soon reduced if he relies upon his reason alone, is The spectacle +of the issue of his investigations into that which one would imagine he +must know most intimately, if he knows anything; and that is, his own +nature--his own mind. There is something, to one who reflects long +enough upon it, inexpressibly whimsical in the questions which the mind +is for ever putting to itself respecting itself; and to which the said +mind returns from its dark caverns only an echo. We are apt, when we +speculate about the mind, to forget for the moment, that it is at once +the querist and the oracle: and to regard it as something out of itself, +like a mineral in the hands of the analytic chemist. We cannot fully +enter into the absurdities of its condition, except by remembering that +it is our own wise selves who so grotesquely bewilder us. The mind, on +such occasions, takes itself (if we may so speak) into its own hands, +turns itself about itself, listens to the echo of its own voice, and +is obliged, after all, to lay itself down again with a very puzzled +expression--and acknowledge that of its very self, itself knows little +or nothing! 'I am material,' exclaims one of those whimsical beings, +to whom the heaven-descended 'Know thyself' would seem to have been +ironically addressed. 'No!--immaterial,' says another. 'I am both +material and immaterial,' exclaims, perhaps, the very same mind at +different times. 'Thought itself may be matter modified,' says one. +'Rather,' says another of the same perplexed species, 'matter is +thought modified; for what you call matter is but a phenomenon.' But are +independent and totally distinct substances, mysteriously, inexplicably +conjoined,' says a third. 'How they are conjoined we know no more than +the dead. Not so much, perhaps.' 'Do I ever cease to think,' says the +mind to itself, 'even in sleep? Is not my essence thought?' 'You +ought to know your own essence best,' all creation will reply. 'I am +confident,' says one, 'that I never do cease to think,--not even in the +soundest sleep.' 'You do, for a long time, every night of your life,' +exclaims another, equally confident and equally ignorant. 'Where do I +exist?' it goes on. 'Am I in the brain? Am I in the whole body? 'Am I +anywhere? Am I nowhere?' 'I cannot have any local existence, for I know +I am immaterial,' says one. 'I have a local existence, because I am +material,' says another. 'I have a local existence, though I am not +material,' says a third. 'Are my habitual actions voluntary,' it +exclaims, 'however rapid they become; though I am unconscious of these +volitions when they have attained a certain rapidity; or do I become a +mere automaton as respects such actions? and therefore an automaton nine +times out of ten, when I act at all?' To this query two opposite answers +are given by different minds; and by others, perhaps wiser, none at all; +while, often, opposite answers are given by the same mind at different +times. In like manner has every action, every operation, every emotion +of the mind been made the subject of endless doubt and disputation. +Surely if, as Soame Jenyns imagined, the infirmities of man, and even +graver evils, were permitted in order to afford amusement to superior +intelligences, and make the angels laugh, few things could afford them +better sport than the perplexities of this child of clay engaged in the +study of himself. 'Alas,' exclaims at last the baffled spirit of this +babe in intellect, as he surveys his shattered toys--his broken theories +of metaphysics, 'I know that I am; but what I am--where I am--even how +I act--not only what is my essence, but what even my mode of +operation,--of all this I know nothing; and, boast of reason as I may, +all that I think on these points is matter of opinion--or is matter +of faith!' He resembles, in fact, nothing so much as a kitten first +introduced to its own image in a mirror: she runs to the back of it, +she leaps over it, she turns and twists, and jumps and frisks, in all +directions, in the vain attempt to reach the fair illusion; and, at +length, turns away in weariness from that incomprehensible enigma--the +image of herself. + +One would imagine--perhaps not untruly--that the Divine Creator had +subjected us to these difficulties--and especially that incomprehensible +trilemma,--that there is an union and interaction of two totally +distinct substances, or that matter is but thought, or that thought is +but matter,--one of which must be true, and all of which approach as +near to the mutual contradictions as can well be conceived,--for the +very purpose of rebuking the presumption of man, and of teaching him +humility; that He had left these obscurities at the very threshold--nay, +within the very mansion of the mind itself,--for the express purpose of +deterring man from playing the dogmatising fool when he looked abroad. +Yet, in spite of his raggedness and poverty at home, no sooner does man +look out of his dusky dwelling, than, like Goldsmith's little Beau, +who, in his garret up five pair of stairs, boasts of his friendship with +lords, he is apt to assume airs of magnificence, and, glancing at +the infinite through his little eye-glass, to affect an intimate +acquaintance with the most respectable secrets of the universe! + +It is undeniable, then, that the perplexities which uniformly puzzle +man in the physical world, and even in the little world of his own mind, +when he passes a certain limit, are just as unmanageable as those found +in the moral constitution and government of the universe, or in the +disclosures of the volume Revelation. In both we find abundance of +inexplicable difficulties sometimes arising from our absolute +ignorance, and perhaps quite as often from our partial knowledge. These +difficulties are probably left on the pages of both volumes for some of +the same reasons; many of them, it may be, because even the commentary +of the Creator himself could not render them plain to finite +understanding, though a necessary and salutary exercise of our humility +may be involved in their reception; others, if not purely (which seems +not probable) yet partly for the sake of exercising and training that +humility, as an essential part of the education of a child; others, +surmountable, indeed, in the progress of knowledge and by prolonged +effort of the human intellect, may be designed to stimulate that +intellect to strenuous action and healthy effort--as well as to supply, +in their solution, as time rolls on, an ever-accumulating mass of proofs +of the profundity of the wisdom which has so far anticipated all the +wisdom of man; and of the divine origin of both the great books which +he is privileged to study as a pupil, and even to illustrate as a +commentator,--but the text of which he cannot alter. + +But, for submitting to us many profound and insoluble problems, the +second of the above reasons--the training of the intellect and heart of +man to submission to the Supreme Intelligence alone be sufficient. +For it; as is indicated by every thing in human nature, and by the +representations of Scripture, which are in analogy with both, the +present world is but the school of man in this the childhood of his +being, to prepare him for the enjoyment of an immortal manhood in +another, everything might be expected to be subordinated to this +great end; and as the end of that education, can be no other than an +enlightened obedience to God, the harmonious and concurrent exercise +of reason and faith becomes absolutely necessary--not of reason to the +exclusion of faith, for otherwise there would be no adequate test of +man's docility and submission; nor of a faith that would assert itself, +not only independent of reason, but in contradiction to it,--which +would not be what God requires, and what alone can quadrate with that +intelligent nature He has impressed on His offspring--a reasonable +obedience. Implicit obedience, then, to the dictates of an all-perfect +wisdom, exercised amidst many difficulties and perplexities, as so many +tests of sincerity, and yet sustained by evidences which justify the +conclusions which involve them, would seem to be the great object of +man's moral education here; and to justify both the partial evidence +addressed to his reason, and the abundant difficulties which it leaves +to his faith. 'The evidence of religion,' says Butler, 'is fully +sufficient for all the purposes of probation, how far soever it is from +being satisfactory as to the purposes of curiosity, or any other: and, +indeed, it answers the purposes of the former in several respects which +it would not do if it were as over-bearing as is required.'* Or as +Pascal beautifully puts it:--'There is light enough for those whose +sincere wish is to see,--and darkness enough to confound those of an +opposite disposition.'+ + +____ + +* Analogy, part 2. chap. viii. + Pensees. Faugere's edition, tom. ii. p. +151. The views here developed will be found an expansion of some brief +hints at the close of the article on Pascal's 'Life and Genius' (Ed. +Review, Jan. 1847), though our space then prevented us from more than +touching these topics. We may add that we gladly take this opportunity +of pointing the attention of our readers to a tract of Archbishop +Whately's, entitled 'The example of children as proposed to Christians,' +which his Grace, having been struck with a coincidence between some of +the thoughts in the tract and those expressed in the 'Review,' did us +the favour to transmit to us. Had we seen the tract before, we should +have been glad to illustrate and confirm our own views by those of this +highly gifted prelate. We earnestly recommend the tract in question +(as well as the whole of the remarkable volume in which it is now +incorporated, 'Essays on some of the Peculiarities of the Christian +Religion') to the perusal of our readers, and at the same time venture +to express our conviction (having been led by the circumstances above +mentioned to a fuller acquaintance with his Grace's theological writings +than we had previously possessed) that, though this lucid and eloquent +writer may, for obvious reasons, be most widely known by his 'Logic and +'Rhetoric,' the time will come when his Theological works will be, +if not more widely read, still more highly prized. To great powers of +argument and illustration, and delightful transparency of diction and +style, he adds a higher quality still--and a very rare quality it is--an +evident and intense honesty of purpose, an absorbing desire to arrive at +the exact truth, and to state it with perfect fairness and with the +just limitations. Without pretending to agree with all that Archbishop +Whately has written on the subject of theology (though be carries +his readers with him as frequently as any writer with whom we are +acquainted) we may remark that in relation to that whole class of +subjects, to which the present essay has reference, we know of no +writer of the present day whose contributions are more numerous or more +valuable. The highly ingenious ironical brochure, entitled 'Historic +Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte;' the Essays above mentioned, 'On +some of the Peculiarities of the Christian Religion;' those 'On some of +the Dangers to Christian Faith,' and on the 'Errors of Romanism;' the +work on the 'Kingdom of Christ,' not to mention others, are well worthy +of universal perusal. They abound in views both original and just, +stated with all the author's aptness of illustration and transparency of +language. We may remark, too, that in many of his occasional sermons, +he has incidentally added many most beautiful fragments to that ever +accumulating mass of internal evidence which the Scriptures themselves +supply in their very structure, and which is evolved by diligent +investigation of the relation and coherence of one part of them with +another. We are also rejoiced to see that a small and unpretending, but +very powerful, little tract, by the same writer, entitled 'Introductory +Lessons on Christian Evidences.' has passed through many editions, has +been translated into most of the European languages, and, amongst +the rest, very recently into German, with an appropriate preface, +by professor Abeltzhauser, of the University of Dublin. It shows +to demonstration that as much of the evidence of Christianity as is +necessary for conviction may be made perfectly clear to the meanest +capacity' and that, in spite of the assertions of Rome and of Oxford to +the contrary, the apostolic injunction to every Christian to be ready +to render a reason 'for the hope that is in him,'--somewhat better than +that no reason of the Hindoo or the Hottentot, that he believes what he +is told, without any reason except that he is told it,--is an injunction +possible to obey. +____ + +As He 'who spake as never man spake' is pleased often to illustrate +the conduct of the Father of Spirits to his intelligent offspring by +a reference to the conduct which flows from the relations of the +human parent to his children, so the present subject admits of similar +illustration. What God does with us in that process of moral education +to which we have just adverted, is exactly what every wise parent +endeavours to do with his children,--though by methods, as we may +well judge, proportionably less perfect. Man too instinctively, or by +reflection, adapts himself to the nature of his children; and seeing +that only so far as it is justly trained can they be happy, makes the +harmonious and concurrent development of their reason and their faith +his object; he too endeavours to teach them that without which they +cannot be happy,--obedience, but a reasonable obedience He gives them, +in his general procedure and conduct, sufficient proof of his superior +knowledge, superior wisdom, and unchanging love; and secure in the +general effect of this, he leaves them to receive by faith many things +which he cannot explain to them if he would, till they get older; many +things which he can only partially explain; and others which he might +more perfectly explain, but will not, partly as a test of their docility +and partly to invite and necessitate the healthy and energetic exercise +of their reason in finding out the explanation for themselves. Confiding +in the same general effect of his procedure and conduct, he does not +hesitate, when the foresight of their ultimate welfare justifies it, to +draw still more largely on their faith, in acts of apparent harshness +and severity. Time, he knows, will show, though perhaps not till his +yearning heart has ceased to beat for their welfare, that all that all +he did, he did in love. He knows, too, that if his lessons are taken +aright, and his children become the good and happy men he wishes them to +be, they will say, as they visit his sepulchre, and recall with sorrow +the once unappreciated love which animated him,--and perhaps with a +sorrow, deeper still, remember the transient resentments caused by a +solitary severity: 'He was indeed a friend; he corrected us not for his +pleasure, but for our profit; and what we once thought was caprice or +passion, we now know was love.' + +These analogies afford a true, though most imperfect, representation of +the moral discipline to which Supreme Wisdom is subjecting us; and as we +are accustomed to despair of any child with whom parental experience and +authority go for nothing, unless he can fully understand the intrinsic +reasons for every special act of duty which that experience and +authority dictate; as we are sure that he who has not learned to obey +when young will never, when of age, know how to govern either himself +or others: so a singular conduct in all the children of dust towards the +Father of Spirits justifies a still more gloomy augury; inasmuch as the +difference between the knowledge of man and the ignorance of a child, +absolutely vanishes, in comparison with that interval which must ever +subsist between the knowledge of the Eternal and the ignorance of man. + +The remarks that have been made are not uncalled for in the present day. +For unfortunately, it is now easy to detect in many classes of minds +a tendency to divorce Reason from Faith, or Faith from reason; and to +proclaim that 'what God hath joined together' shall henceforth exist in +alienation. We see this tendency manifested in relation both to Natural +Theology, and to Revealed Religion. The old conflict between the claims +of these two guiding principles of man (in no age wholly suppressed) +is visibly renewed in our day. In relation to Christianity especially, +there are large classes amongst us who press the claims of faith so far, +that it would become, if they had their will, an utterly unreasonable +faith; some of whom do not scruple to speak slightingly of the evidences +which substantiate Christianity; to decry and depreciate the study of +them; to pronounce that study unnecessary; and even in many cases +to insinuate their insufficiency. They are loud in the mean time in +extolling a faith which, as Whately truly observes, is no whit better +than the faith of a heathen; who has no other or better reason to offer +for his religion than that his father told him it was true! But +this plainly is not the intelligent faith which, as we have seen, is +everywhere inculcated and applauded in the Scriptures; it is not 'that +faith by which Christianity, appealing In the midst of a multitude of +such traditional religions, to palpable evidence addressed to man's +senses and understandings (in a way no other religion ever did) +everywhere destroyed the systems for which their votaries could only say +that their fathers told them they were true. And yet this blind belief +in such tradition, many advocates of Christianity would now enjoin us to +imitate! It might have occurred to them, one would think, that, on their +principles, Christianity never could have succeeded; for every mind must +have been hopelessly pre-occupied against all examination of its claims. +It is, indeed, incomparably better that a man should be a sincere +Christian even by an utterly unreasoning and passive faith (if that be +possible), than no Christian at all; but at the best, such a man is a +possessor of the truth only by accident: he ought to have, and, if he +be a sincere disciple of truth, will seek, some more solid grounds for +holding it. But it is but too obvious, we fear, that the disposition to +enjoin this obsequious mood of mind is prompted by a strong desire +to revive the ancient empire of priestcraft and the pretensions of +ecclesiastical despotism; to secure readmission to the human mind of +extravagant and preposterous claims, which their advocates are sadly +conscious rest on no solid foundation. They feel that reason is not with +them, it must be against them: and reason therefore they are determined +to exclude. + +But the experience of the present 'developments' of Oxford teaching +may serve to show us how infinitely perilous is this course; and how +fearfully, both outraged reason and outraged faith will avenge the +wrongs done them by their alienation and disjunction. Those results, +indeed, we predicted in 1843; before a single leader of the Oxford +school had gone over to Rome, and before any tendencies to the opposite +extreme of Scepticism had manifested themselves. We then affirmed that, +on the one hand, those who were contending for the corruptions of +the fourth century could not possibly find footing there, but must +inevitably seek their ultimate resting place in Rome--a prediction which +has been too amply fulfilled; and that, on the other, the extravagant +pretensions put forth on behalf of an uninquiring faith, and the +desperate assertion that the 'evidence for Christianity' was no stronger +than that for 'Church Principles,' must, by reaction, lead on to an +outbreak of infidelity. That prophecy, too, has been to the letter +accomplished. We then said,-- + +"We have seen it recently asserted by some of the Oxford school that +there is as much reason for rejecting the most essential doctrines of +Christianity--nay Christianity itself--as for rejecting their "church +principles." That, in short, we have as much reason for being infidels +as for rejecting the doctrine of Apostolical succession! What other +effect such reasoning can have than that of compelling men to believe +that there is nothing between infidelity and popery, and of urging them +to make a selection between the two, we know not .... Indeed, we fully +expect that, as a reaction of the present extravagancies, of the revival +of obsolete superstition, we shall have ere long to fight over again the +battle with a modified form of infidelity, as now with a modified form +of popery. Thus, probably, for some time to come, will the human +mind continue to oscillate between the extremes of error; but with a +diminished are at each vibration; until truth shall at last prevail, and +compel it to repose in the centre."* + +____ + +* Oxford Tract School, Ed. Rev., April, 1843. ____ + + +The offensive displays of self-sufficiency and flippancy, of ignorance +and presumption, found in the productions of the apostles of the +new infidelity of Oxford, (of which we shall have a few words to say +by-and-by) are the natural and instructive, though most painful, result +of attempting to give predominance to one principle of our nature, where +two or more are designed reciprocally to guard and check each other; and +such results must ever follow such attempts. The excellence of man--so +complexly constituted is his nature--must consist in the harmonious +action and proper balance of all the constituents of that nature; the +equilibrium he sighs for must be the result of the combined action of +forces operating in different directions; of his reason, his faith, his +appetites, his affections, his emotions; when these operate each in +due proportion, then, and then only, can he be at rest. It may, indeed, +transcend any calculus of man to estimate exactly the several elements +in this complicated polygon of forces; but we are at least sure that, +if any one principle be so developed as to supersede another, no safe +equipoise will be attained. We all know familiarly enough that this is +the case when the affections or the appetites are more powerful than the +reason and the conscience, instead of being in subjection to them: but +it is not less the case, though the result is not so palpable, when +reason and faith either exclude one another, or trench on each other's +domain; when one is pampered and the other starved.* Hence the perils +attendant upon their attempted separation, and the ruin which results +from their actual alienation and hostility. There is no depth of +dreary superstition into which men may not sink in the one case, and no +extravagance of ignorant presumption to which they may not soar in the +other. It is only by the mutual and alternate action of these different +forces that man can safely navigate his little bark through the narrow +straits and by the dangerous rocks which impede his course; and if Faith +spread not the sail to the breeze, or if Reason desert the helm, we are +in equal peril. +____ + +* It has been our lot to meet with disciples of the Oxford Tract School, +who have, by a fatal indulgence of an appetite of belief; brought +themselves to believe any mediaeval miracle, nay, any ghost story, +without examination, saying, with a solemn face, 'It is better to +believe that to reason.' They believe as they will to believe; and thus +is reason avenged. Reason, similarly indulged, believes, with Mr. Foxton +and Mr. Froude, that a miracle is even an impossibility; and this is the +'Nemesis' of faith. +____ + +If it be said that this is a disconsolate and dreary doctrine; that man +seeks and needs a simpler navigation than this troublesome and intricate +course, by star and chart, compass and lead line; and that this +responsibility, of ever + +'Sounding on his dim and perilous way,' + +is too grave for so feeble a nature; we answer that such is his actual +condition. This is a plain matter of fact which cannot be denied. The +various principles of his constitution, and his position in relation to +the external world, obviously and absolutely subject him to this very +responsibility throughout his whole course in this life. It is never +remitted or abated: resolves are necessitated upon imperfect evidence; +and action imperatively demanded amidst doubts and difficulties in which +reason is not satisfied, and faith is required. To argue therefore, +that God cannot have left man to such uncertainty, is to argue, as the +pertinacious lawyer did, who, on seeing a man in the stocks, asked him +what he was there for; and on being told, said, 'They cannot put you +there for that.' 'But I am here,' was the laconic answer. + +The analogy, then, of man's whole condition in this life might lead us +to expect the same system of procedure throughout; that the evidence +which substantiates religious truth, and claims religious action, would +involve this responsibility as well as that which substantiates other +kinds of truth, and demands other kinds of action. And after all, what +else, in either case, could answer the purpose, if (as already said) +this world be the school of training of man's moral nature? How else +could the discipline of his faculties, the exercise of patience, +humility, and fortitude, be secured? How, except amidst a state of +things less than certainty--whether under the form of that passive faith +which mimics the possession of absolute certainty, or absolute certainty +itself--could man's nature be trained to combined self-reliance and +self-distrust, circumspection and resolution, and, above all, to +confidence in God? Man cannot be nursed and dandled into the manhood of +his nature, by that unthinking faith which leaves no doubts to be felt, +and no objections to be weighed; Nor can his docility ever be tested, +if he is never called upon to believe any thing which it would not be +an absurdity and contradiction to deny. This species of responsibility, +then, not only cannot be dispensed with, but is absolutely necessary; +and, consequently, however desirable it may appear that we should +have furnished to us that short path to certainty which a pretended +infallibility* promises to man, or that equally short path which leads +to the same termination, by telling us that we are to believe nothing +which we cannot demonstrate to be true, or which, a priori, we may +presume to be false, must be a path which leads astray. In the one +case, how can the 'reasonable service' which Scripture demands--the +enlightened love and conscientious investigation of truth--its +reception, not without doubts, but against doubts--how could all this +co-exist with a faith which presents the whole sum of religion in +the formulary, 'I am to believe without a doubt, and perform without +hesitation. whatever my guide, Parson A. tells me?' Not that, even in +that case (as has often been shown), the man would be relieved form the +necessity of absolutely depending on the dreaded exercise of his private +judgment; for he must at least have exercised it once for all (unless +each man is to remit his religion wholly to the accident of his birth), +and that on two of the most arduous of all questions: first, which of +several churches, pretending to infallibility, is truly infallible? And +next, whether the man may infallibly regard his worthy Parson A. as +an infallible expounder of the infallibility. But, supposing this +stupendous difficulty surmounted, though then, it is true, all may seem +genuine faith, in reality there is none: where absolute infallibility +is supposed to have been attained (even though erroneously), faith, in +strict propriety--certainly that faith which is alone of any value as an +instrument of man's moral training--which recognises and intelligently +struggles with objections and difficulties--is impossible. Men may be +said, in such case, to know, but can hardly be said to believe. Before +Columbus had seen America, he believed in its existence; but when he +had seen it, his faith became knowledge. Equally impossible, and for the +same reason, is any place for faith on the opposite hypothesis; for if +man is to believe nothing but what his reason can comprehend, and to act +only upon evidence which amounts to certainly, the same paradox is true; +for when there is no reason to doubt, there can be none to believe. +Faith ever stands between conflicting probabilities; but her position +is (if we may use the metaphor) the centre of gravity between them, and +will be proportionally nearer the greater mass. +____ + +* See Archbishop Whately's admirable discourse, entitled 'The Search +after Infallibility, considered in reference to the Danger of Religious +Errors arising within the Church, in the primitive as well as in all +later Ages.' He here makes excellent use of the fruitful principle of +Butler's great work, by showing that, however desirable, a priori, an +infallible guide would seem to fallible man, God in fact has every where +denied it; and that, in denying it in relation to religion, he has acted +only as he always acts. +____ + +In the mean time, that arduous responsibility which attaches to man, and +which is obviated neither by an implicit faith in a human infallibility, +nor an exclusive reference of that faith to cases in which reason is +synonymous with demonstration, that is, to cases which leave no room +for it, is at once relieved, and effectually relieved, by the maxim--the +key-stone of all ethical truth--that only voluntary error condemns +us;--that all we are really responsible for, is a faithful, honest, +patient, investigation and weighing of evidence, as far as our abilities +and opportunities admit, and a conscientious pursuit of what we +honestly deem truth, wherever it may lead us. We concede that a really +dispassionate and patient conduct in this respect is what man is too +ready to assume he has practised,--and this fallacy cannot be too +sedulously guarded against. But that guilty liability to selfdeception, +does not militate against the truth of the representation now made. It +is his duty to see that he does not abuse the maxim,--that he does not +rashly acquiesce in any conclusion that he wishes to be true, or which +he is too lazy to examine. If all possible diligence and honesty have +been exerted in the search, the statement of Chillingworth, bold as +it is, we should not hesitate to adopt, in all the rigour of his own +language. It is to the effect, that if 'in him alone there were a +confluence of all the errors which have befallen the sincere professors +of Christianity, he should not be so much afraid of them, as to ask +God's pardon for them;' absolutely involuntary error being justly +regarded by him as blameless. + +On the other hand, we firmly believe, from the natural relations of +truth with the constitution of the mind of man, that, with the exception +of a very few cases of obliquity of intellect, which may safely be left +to the merciful interpretations and apologies of Him who created such +intellects, those who thus honestly and industriously 'seek' shall +'find;'--not all truth, indeed, but enough to secure their safety; and +that whatever remaining errors may infest and disfigure the truth they +have attained, they shall not be imputed to them for sin. According to +the image which apostolic eloquence has employed, the Baser materials +which unavoidable haste, prejudice, and ignorance may have incorporated +with the gold of the edifice, will be consumed by the fire which 'will +try every man's work of what sort it is,' but he himself will be saved +amidst those purifying flames. Like the bark which contained the Apostle +and the fortunes of the Gospel, the frail vessel may go to pieces on +the rocks, 'but by boat or plank' the voyager himself shall 'get safe to +shore.' + +It is amply sufficient, then, to lighten our responsibility, that we are +answerable only for our honest endeavours to discover and to practise +the truth; and, in fact, the responsibility is principally felt to be +irksome, and man is so prompt by devices of his own, to release himself +from it, not on account of any intrinsic difficulty which remains after +the above limitations are admitted, but because he wishes to be exempt +from that very necessity of patient and honest investigation. It is not +so much the difficulty of finding, as the trouble of seeking the truth, +from which he shrinks; a necessity, however, from which, as it is an +essential instrument of his moral education and discipline, he can never +be released. + +If the previous representations be true, the conditions of that +intelligent faith which God requires from his intelligent offspring, +may be fairly inferred to be such as we have already stated;--that the +evidence for the truths we are to believe shall be, first, such as our +faculties are competent to appreciate, and against which, therefore, the +mere negative argument arising from our ignorance of the true solution +of such difficulties, as are, perhaps, insoluble because we are finite, +can be no reply; and, secondly, such an amount of this evidence as shall +fairly overbalance all the objections which we can appreciate. This is +the condition to which God has obviously subjected us as inhabitants of +this world; and it is on such evidence we are here perpetually acting. +We now believe a thousand things we cannot fully comprehend. We may not +see the intrinsic evidence of their truth, but their extrinsic evidence +is sufficient to induce us unhesitatingly to believe, and to act +upon them. When that evidence is sufficient in amount, we allow it to +overbear all the individual difficulties and perplexities which +hang round the truths to which it is applied, unless, indeed, such +difficulties can be proved to involve absolute contradictions; for +these, of course, no evidence can substantiate. For example, in a +thousand cases, a certain combination of merely circumstantial evidence +in favour of a certain judicial decision, is familiarly allowed +to vanquish all apparent discrepancy on particular and subordinate +points;--the want of concurrence in the evidence of the witnesses on +such points shall not cause a shadow of a doubt as to the conclusion. +For we feel that it is far more improbable that the conclusion should be +untrue, than that the difficulty we cannot solve is truly incapable of +a solution; and when the evidence reaches this point the objection no +longer troubles us. + +It is the same with historic investigations. There are ten thousand +facts in history which no one doubts, though the narrators of them may +materially vary in their version, and though some of the circumstances +alleged may be in appearance inexplicable, but the last thing a +man would think of doing, in such cases, would be to neglect the +preponderant evidence on account of the residuum of insoluble +objections. He does not, in short, allow his ignorance to control his +knowledge, nor the evidence which he has not got to destroy what he has; +and the less so, that experience has taught him that in many cases such +apparent difficulties have been cleared up, in the course of time, +and by the progress of knowledge, and proved to be contradictions in +appearance only. + +It is the same with the conclusions of natural philosophy, when well +proved by experiment, however unaccountable for awhile may be the +discrepancy with apparently opposing phenomena. No one disbelieves the +Copernican theory now; though thousands did for awhile, on what they +believed the irrefragable evidence of their senses. Now, let us only +suppose the Copernican theory not to have been discovered by human +reason, but made known by revelation, and its reception enjoined on +faith, leaving the apparent inconsistency with the evidence of the +senses just as it was. Thousands, no doubt, would have said, that no +such evidence could justify them in disbelieving their own eyes, +and that such an insoluble objection was sufficient to overturn +the evidence. Yet we now see, in point of fact, that it is not only +possible, but true, that the objection was apparent only, and admits of +a complete solution. Thousands accordingly receive philosophy--this +very philosophy--on testimony which apparently contradicts their senses, +without even yet knowing more of it than if it were revealed from +heaven. This gives too much reason to suspect, that in other and higher +cases, the will has much to do with human scepticism. Nor do we well +know what thousands who neglect religion on account of the alleged +uncertainty of its evidence could reply, if God were to say to them, + +'And yet on such evidence, and that far inferior in degree, you have +never hesitated to act, when your own temporal interests were concerned. +You never feared to commit the bark of your worldly fortunes to that +fluctuating element. In many cases you believed on the testimony of +others what seemed even to contradict your own senses. Why were you so +much more scrupulous in relation to ME?' + +The above examples are fair illustrations, we venture to think, of the +conditions under which we are required to believe the far higher truths, +attended no doubt with great difficulties, which are authenticated in +the pages of the two volumes (Nature and Scripture) which God has put +into our hands to study; of the conditions to which He subjects us +in training us for a future state, and developing in us the twofold +perfection involved in the words 'a reasonable faith.' If the +considerations just urged were duly borne in mind, we cannot help +thinking that they would afford (where any modesty remained) all answer +to most of those forms of unbelief which, from time to time, rise up in +the world, and not least in our own day. These are usually founded on +one or more supposed insoluble objections, arising out of our ignorance. +The probability that they are incapable of solution is rashly assumed, +and made to overbear the far stronger probability arising from the +positive and appreciable evidence which substantiates the truths +involved in those difficulties: a course the more unreasonable inasmuch +as--first, many such difficulties might be expected; and, secondly, +in analogous cases, we see that many such difficulties have in time +disappeared. On the other hand, it is, no doubt much more easy to insist +on individual objections, which no man can effectually answer, than it +is to appreciate at once the total effect of many lines of argument, and +many sources of evidence, all bearing on one point. That difficulty was +long ago beautifully stated by Butler*, in a passage well worthy of the +reader's perusal; and as Pascal had observed before him, not only is it +difficult, but impossible, for the human mind to retain the impression +of a large combination of evidence, even if it could for a moment fully +realise the collective effect of the whole. But it cannot do even this, +any more than the eye can take in at once, in mass and detail, the +objects of an extensive landscape. +____ + +* 'The truth of our religion, like the truth of common matters, is to +be judged of by all the evidence taken together. And, unless the whole +series of things which may be alleged in this argument, and every +particular thing in it, can reasonably be supposing to have been by +accident (for here the stress of the argument of Christianity lies), +then is the truth of it proved. . . . It is obvious how much advantage +the nature of this evidence gives to those persons who attack +Christianity, especially in conversation. For it is easy to show in +a short and lively manner that such and such things are liable to +objection, but impossible to show, in like manner, the united force of +the whole argument in one view.'--Analogy, part II. chap. vii. +____ + +Let us now be permitted briefly to apply the preceding principles to +two of the greatest controversies which have exercised the minds of men; +that which relates to the existence of God, and that which relates to +the truth of Christianity; in both of which, if we mistake not, man's +position is precisely similar--placed, that is, amidst evidence +abundantly sufficient to justify his reasonable faith, and yet attended +with difficulties abundantly sufficient to baffle an indocile reason. + +Without entering into the many different sources of argument for the +existence of a Supreme Intelligence, we shall only refer to that proof +on which all theists, savage and civilised, in some form or other, +rely--the traces of an 'eternal power and godhead' in the visible +creation. The argument depends on a principle which, whatever may be its +metaphysical history or origin, is one which man perpetually recognises, +which every act of his own consciousness verifies, which he applies +fearlessly to every phenomenon, known or unknown; and it is this,--That +every effect has a cause (though he knows nothing of their connexion), +and that effects which bear marks of design have a designing cause. This +principle is so familiar that if he were to affect to doubt it in any +practical case in human life, he would only be laughed at as a fool, or +pitied as insane. The evidence, then, which substantiates the greatest +and first of truths mainly depends on a principle perfectly familiar and +perfectly recognised. Man can estimate the nature of that evidence; and +the amount of it, in this instance, he sees to be as vast as the sum of +created objects;--nay, far more, for it is as vast as the sum of their +relations. So that if (as is apt to be the case) the difficulties of +realising this tremendous truth are in proportion to the extent of +knowledge and the powers of reflection, the evidence we can perfectly +appreciate is cumulative in an equal or still higher proportion. Obvious +as are the marks of design in each individual object, the sum of proof +is not merely the sum of such indications, but that sum infinitely +multiplied by the relations established and preserved amongst all these +objects; by the adjustment which harmonises them all into one system, +and impresses on all the parts of the universe a palpable order and +subordination. While even in a single part of an organised being (as a +hand or an eye) the traces of design are not to be mistaken, these are +indefinitely multiplied by similar proofs of contrivance in the +many individual organs of one such being--as of an entire animal or +vegetable. These are yet to be multiplied by the harmonious relations +which are established of mutual proportion and subserviency amongst all +the organs of any one such being: And as many beings even of that one +species or class as there are, so many multiples are there of the same +proofs. Similar indications yield similar proofs of design in each +individual part, and in the whole individual of all the individuals +of every other class of beings; and this sum of proof is again to +be multiplied by the proofs of design in the adjustment and mutual +dependence and subordination of each of these classes of organised +beings to every other, and to all; of the vegetable to the animal---of +the lower animal to the higher. Their magnitudes, numbers, physical +force, faculties, functions, duration of life, rates of multiplication +and development, sources of subsistence, must all have been determined +in exact ratios, and could not transgress certain limits without +involving the whole universe in confusion. This amazing sum of +probabilities is yet to be further augmented by the fact that all these +classes of organised substances are intimately related to those great +elements of the material world in which they live, to which they are +adapted, and which are adapted to them; that all of them are subject to +the influence of certain mighty and subtle agencies which pervade all +nature,--and which are of such tremendous potency that any chance error +in their proportions of activity would be sufficient to destroy all, and +which yet axe exquisitely balanced and inscrutably harmonised. + +The proofs of design, arising from the relations thus maintained between +all the parts, from the most minute to the most vast, of our own world, +are still to be further multiplied by the inconceivably momentous +relations subsisting between our own and other planets and their common +centre; amidst whose sublime and solemn phenomena science has most +clearly discovered that everything is accurately adjusted by geometrical +precision of force and movement; where the chances of error are +infinite, and the proofs of intelligence, therefore, equal. These proofs +of design in each fragment of the universe, and in all combined, are +continually further multiplied by every fresh discovery, whether in the +minute or the vast--by the microscope or the telescope; for every fresh +law that is discovered, being in harmony with all that has previously +been discovered, not only yields its own proof of design, but infinitely +more, by all the relations in which it stands to other laws: it yields, +in fact, as many as there are adjustments which have been effected +between itself and all besides. Each new proof of design, therefore, is +not a solitary fact; but one which entering as another element into a +most complex machinery, indefinitely multiplies the combinations, in any +one of which chance might have gone astray. From this infinite array +of proofs of design, it seems to man's reason, in ordinary moods, stark +madness to account for the phenomena of the universe upon any other +supposition than that which docs account, and can alone account, for +them all,--the supposition of a Presiding Intelligence, illimitable +alike in power and in wisdom. + +The only difficulty is justly to appreciate such an argument to obtain a +sufficiently vivid impression of such an accumulation of probabilities. +This very difficulty, indeed, in some moods, may minister to a temporary +doubt. For let us catch man in those moods,--perhaps after long +meditation on the metaphysical grounds of human belief,--and he begins +to doubt, with unusual modesty, whether the child of dust is warranted +to conclude anything on a subject which loses itself in the infinite, +and which so far transcends all his powers of apprehension; he begins +half to doubt, with Hume, whether he can reason analogically from the +petty specimens of human ingenuity to phenomena so vast and so unique; +a misgiving which is strengthened by reflecting on all those to him +incomprehensible inferences to which the admission of the argument leads +him, and which seem almost to involve contradictions. Let him ponder for +awhile the ideas involved in the notion of Selfsubsistence, Eternity, +Creation; Power, Wisdom, and Knowledge, so unlimited as to embrace at +once all things, and all their relations, actual and possible,--this +'unlimited' expanding into a dim apprehension of the 'infinite';--of +infinitude of attributes, omnipresent in every point of space, and +yet but one and not many infinitudes;--let him once humbly ponder such +incomprehensible difficulties as these, and he will soon feel that +though in the argument from design, there seemed but one vast scene of +triumph for his reason, there is as large a scene of exertion left for +his faith. That faith he ordinarily yields; he sees it is justified by +those proofs of the great truth he can appreciate, and which he will +not allow to be controlled by the difficulties his conscious feebleness +cannot solve; and the rather, that he sees that if he does not +accept that evidence, he has equally incomprehensible difficulties to +encounter, and two or three stark contradictions into the bargain. His +reason, therefore, triumphs in the proofs, and his faith triumphs over +the difficulties. + +It is the same with the doctrine of the Divine government of the world. +In ordinary states of mind man counts it an absurdity to suppose +that the Deity would have created a world to abandon it; that, having +employed wisdom and power so vast in its construction, he would leave +it to be the sport of chance. He feels that the intuitions of right and +wrong; the voice of conscience; satisfaction in well-doing; remorse for +crime; the present tendency, at least, of the laws of the universe,--all +point to the same conclusion, while their imperfect fulfilment equally +points to a future and more accurate adjustment. Yet let the man look +exclusively for awhile on the opposite side of the tapestry; let him +brood over any of the facts which seem at war with the above conclusion; +on some signal triumph of baseness and malignity; on oppressed virtue, +on triumphant vice; on 'the wicked spreading himself like a green bay +tree;' and especially on the mournfull and inscrutable mystery of the +'Origin of Evil,' and he feels that 'clouds and darkness' envelope the +administration of the Moral Governor, though 'justice and judgment are +the habitation of his throne.' The evidences above mentioned for the +last conclusion are direct and positive, and such as man can appreciate; +the difficulties spring from his limited capacity, or imperfect +glimpses of a very small segment of the universal plan. Nor are those +difficulties less upon the opposite hypothesis: and they are there +further burdened with two or three additional absurdities. The +preponderant evidence, far from removing the difficulties, scarcely +touches them,--yet it is felt to be sufficient to justify faith, though +most abundant faith is required still. + +Are the evidences, then, in behalf of Christianity less of a nature +which man can appreciate? or can the difficulties involved in its +reception be greater than in the preceding cases? If not, and if, +moreover, while the evidence turns as before on principles with which we +are familiar, the more formidable objections, as before, are such that +we are not competent to decide upon their absolute insolubility, we +see how man ought to act; that is, not to let his ignorance control his +knowledge, but to let his reason accept the proofs which justify his +faith, in accepting the difficulties. In no case is he, it appears, +warranted to look for the certainty which shall exclude (whatever the +triumphs of his reason) a gigantic exercise of his faith. Let us briefly +consider a few of the evidences. And in order to give the statement a +little novelty, we shall indicate the principal topics of evidence, not +by enumerating what the advocate of Christianity believes in believing +it to be true, but what the infidel must believe in believing it to +be false. The a priori objection to Miracles we shall briefly touch +afterwards. + +First, then, in relation to the Miracles of the New Testament, whether +they be supposed masterly frauds on men's senses committed at the time +and by the parties supposed in the records, or fictions (designed +or accidental) subsequently fabricated--but still, in either case, +undeniably successful and triumphant beyond all else in the history +whether of fraud or fiction--the infidel must believe as follows: On +the first hypothesis, he must believe that a vast number of apparent +miracles--involving the most astounding phenomena--such as the instant +restoration of the sick, blind, deaf, and lame, and the resurrection +of the dead--performed in open day, amidst multitudes of malignant +enemies--imposed alike on all, and triumphed at once over the strongest +prejudices and the deepest enmity:--those who received them and those +who rejected them differing only in the certainly not very trifling +particular--as to whether they came from heaven or from hell. He +must believe that those who were thus successful in this extraordinary +conspiracy against men's senses and against common sense, were Galilaean +Jews, such as all history of the period represents them; ignorant, +obscure, illiterate; and, above all, previously bigoted, like all +their countrymen, to the very system, of which, together with all other +religions on the earth, they modestly meditated the abrogation; he must +believe that, appealing to these astounding frauds in the face both of +Jews and Gentiles as an open evidence of the truth of a new revelation, +and demanding on the strength of them that their countrymen should +surrender a religion which they acknowledged to be divine, and that all +other nations should abandon their scarcely less venerable systems +of superstition, they rapidly succeeded in both these very probable +adventures; and in a few years, though without arms, power, wealth, +or science, were to an enormous extent victorious over all prejudice, +philosophy, and persecution; and in three centuries took nearly +undisputed possession, amongst many nations, of the temples of the +ejected deities. He must farther believe that the original performers, +in these prodigious frauds on the world, acted not only without +any assignable motive, but against all assignable motive; that they +maintained this uniform constancy in unprofitable falsehoods, not only +together, but separately, in different countries, before different +tribunals, under all sorts of examinations and cross-examinations, and +in defiance of the gyves, the scourge, the axe, the cross, the stake; +that these whom they persuaded to join their enterprise, persisted like +themselves in the same obstinate belief of the same 'cunningly +devised' frauds; and though they had many accomplices in their singular +conspiracy, had the equally singular fortune to free themselves and +their coadjutors flout all transient weakness towards their cause and +treachery towards one another; and, lastly, that these men, having, +amidst all their ignorance, originality enough to invent the most pure +and sublime system of morality which the world has ever listened to, +had, amidst all their conscious villany, the effrontery to preach it, +and, which is more extraordinary, the inconsistency to practise it!* +____ + +* So far as we have any knowledge from history, this must have been the +case; and Gibbon fully admits and insists upon it. Indeed, no infidel +hypothesis can afford to do without the virtues of the early Christians +in accounting for the success of the falsehoods of Christianity. Hard +alternatives of a wayward hypothesis! +____ + +On the second of the above-mentioned hypothesis, that these miracles +were either a congeries of deeply contrived fictions, or accidental +myths, subsequently invented, the infidel must believe, on the former +supposition, that, though even transient success in literary forgery, +when there are any prejudices to resist, is among the rarest of +occurrences; yet that these forgeries--the hazardous work of many minds, +making the most outrageous pretensions, and necessarily challenging the +opposition of Jew and Gentile were successful beyond all imagination, +over the hearts of mankind; and have continued to impose, by an +exquisite appearance of artless truth, and a most elaborate mosaic of +feigned events artfully cemented into the ground of true history, on +the acutest minds of different races and different ages; while, on the +second supposition, he must believe that accident and chance have given +to these legends their exquisite appearance of historic plausibility; +and on either supposition, he must believe (what is still more +wonderful) that the world, while the fictions were being published, and +in the known absence of the facts they asserted to be true, suffered +itself to be befooled into the belief of their truth, and out of its +belief of all the systems it did previously believe to be true; and +that it acted thus notwithstanding persecution from without, as well +as prejudice front within; that strange to say the strictest historic +investigation bring this compilation of fictions or myths-even by the +admission of Strauss himself--within thirty or forty years of the very +time in which all the alleged wonders they relate are said to have +occurred; wonders which the perverse world knew it had not seen, but +which it was determined to believe in spite of evidence, prejudice, and +persecution! In addition to all this, the infidel must believe that the +men who were engaged in the compilation of these monstrous fictions, +chose them as the vehicle of the purest morality; and, though the most +pernicious deceivers of mankind were yet the most scrupulous preachers +of veracity and benevolence! Surely of him, who can receive all these +paradoxes--and they form but a small part of what might be mentioned--we +may say, 'O infidel, great is thy Faith!' + +On the supposition that neither of these theories, whether of fraud +or fiction, will account, if taken by itself, for the whole of the +supernatural phenomena, which strew the pages of the New Testament, then +the objector, who relies on both, must believe, in turn, both sets of +the above paradoxes; and then, with still more reason than before, may +we exclaim, 'O infidel, great is thy Faith!' + +Again; he must believe that till those apparent coincidences, which +seem to connect Prophecy with the facts of the origin and history +of Christianity,--some, embracing events too vast for hazardous +speculations and others, incidents too minute for it,--are purely +fortuitous; that all the cases in which the event seems to tally with +the prediction, are mere chance coincidences: and he must believe +this, amongst other events, of two of the most unlikely to which human +sagacity was likely to pledge itself, and yet which have as undeniably +occurred, (and after the predictions) as they were a priori improbable +and anomalous in the world's history; the one is that the Jews should +exist as a distinct nation in the very bosom of all other nations, +without extinction, and without amalgamation,--other nations and even +races having so readily melted away under less than half the +influence which have been at work upon them*; the other, and opposite +paradox,--that a religion, propagated by ignorant, obscure, and +penniless vagabonds, should diffuse itself amongst the most diverse +nations in spite of all opposition,--it being the rarest of phenomena to +find any religion which is capable of transcending the limits of race, +clime, and the scene of its historic origin; a religion which, if +transplanted, will not die, a religion which is more than a local or +national growth of superstition! That such a religion as Christianity +should so easily break these barriers, and though supposed to be cradled +in ignorance, fanaticism, and fraud, should, without force of arms, +and in the face of persecution, 'ride forth conquering and to conquer,' +through a long career of victories, defying the power of kings and +emptying the temples of deities,--who, but an infidel, has faith enough +to believe?+ + +____ + +* The case of the Gipsies, often alleged as a parallel, is a ludicrous +evasion of the argument. These few and scattered vagabonds, whose very +safety has been obscurity and contempt, have never attracted towards +them a thousandth part of the attention, or the hundred thousandth part +of the cruelties, which have been directed against the Jews. Had it been +otherwise, they would long since have melted away from every country in +Europe. We repeat that the existence of a nation for 1800 years in the +bosom of all nations, conquered and persecuted, yet never extinguished, +and the propagation of a religion amongst different races without force, +and even against it,--are both, so far as known, paradoxes in history. ++ 'They may say,' says Butler, 'that the conformity between the +prophecies and the event is by accident; but there are many instances in +which such conformity itself cannot be denied.' His whole remarks on the +subject, and especially those on the impression to be derived from the +multitude of apparent coincidences, in a long series of prophecies, some +vast, some minute; and the improbability of their all being accidental +are worthy of his comprehensive genius. It is on the effect of the +whole, not on single coincidences, that the argument depends. +____ + +Once more then; if, from the external evidences of this religion, we +pass to those which the only records by which we know any thing of its +nature and origin supplies, the infidel must believe, amongst other +paradoxes, that it is probable that a knot of obscure and despised +plebeians--regarded as the scum of a nation which was itself regarded as +the scum of all other nations--originated the purest, most elevated, and +most influential theory of ethics the world has ever seen; that a system +of sublimest truth, expressed with unparalleled simplicity, sprang +from ignorance; that precepts enjoining the most refined sanctity were +inculcated by imposture; that the first injunctions to universal love +broke from the lips of bigotry! He must further believe that these men +exemplified the ideal perfection of that beautiful system in the most +unique, original, and faultless picture of virtue ever conceived--a +picture which has extorted the admiration even of those who could not +believe it to be a portrait, and who have yet confessed themselves +unable to account for it except as such.* He must believe, too, that +these ignorant and fraudulent Galileans voluntarily aggravated the +difficulty of their task, by exhibiting their proposed ideal, not by +bare enumeration and description of qualities, but by the most arduous +of all methods of representation--that of dramatic action; and, what is +more, that they succeeded; that in that representation they undertook +to make him act with sublime consistency in scenes of the most +extraordinary character and the most touching pathos, and utter moral +truth in the most exquisite fictions in which such truth was ever +embodied; and that again they succeeded; that so ineffably rich in +genius were these obscure wretches, that no less than four of them were +found equal to this intellectual achievement; and while each has told +many events, and given many traits which the others have omitted, that +they have all performed their task in the same unique style of invention +and the same unearthly tone of art; that one and all, while preserving +each his own individuality, has, nevertheless, attained a certain +majestic simplicity of style unlike any tiring else (not only in +any writings of their own nation, their alleged sacred writings, +and infinitely superior to any thing which their successors, Jews +or Christians, though with the advantage of these models, could ever +attain,) but, unlike any acknowledged human writings in the world, and +possessing the singular property of being capable of ready transfusion, +without the loss of a thought or a grace, into every language spoken by +man: he must believe that these fabricators of fiction, in common with +the many other contributors to the New Testament, most insanely added to +the difficulty of their task by delivering the whole in fragments and in +the most various kinds of composition,--in biography, history, travels, +and familiar letters; incorporating and interfusing with the whole +an amazing number of minute facts, historic allusions, and specific +references to persons, places, and dates, as if for the very purpose of +supplying posterity with the easy means of detecting their impositions: +he must believe that, in spite of their thus encountering what Paley +calls the 'danger of scattering names and circumstances in writings +where nothing but truth can preserve consistency,' they so happy +succeeded, that whole volumes have been employed pointing out their +latent and often most recondite congruities; many of them lying so deep, +and coming out after such comparison of various passages and collateral +lights, that they could never have answered the purposes of fraud, +even if the most prodigious genius for fraud had been equal to the +fabrication; congruities which, in fact, were never suspected to exist +till they were expressly elicited by the attacks of Infidelity, and were +evidently never thought of by the writers; he must believe that they +were profoundly sagacious enough to construct such a fabric of artful +harmonies, and yet such simpletons as, by doing infinitely more than +was necessary, to encounter infinite risks of detection, to no purpose; +sagacious enough to out-do all that sagacity has ever done, as shown +by the effects, and yet not sagacious enough to be merely specious: and +finally, he must believe that these illiterate impostors had the art +in all their various writings, which evidently proceed from different +minds, to preserve the same inimitable marks of reality, truth, and +nature in their narrations--the miraculous and the ordinary alike--and +to assume and preserve, with infinite case, amidst their infinite +impostures, the tone and air of undissembled earnestness.+ +____ + +* To Christ alone, of all the characters ever portrayed to man, belongs +that assemblage of qualities which equally attract love and veneration; +to him alone belong in perfection those rare traits which the Roman +historian, with affectionate flattery, attributes too absolutely to the +merely mortal object of his eulogy: 'Nec illi, quod est rarissimum aut +facilitas auctoritatem, aut severitas amorem, deminuit.' Still more +beautiful is the Apostles description of superiority to all Human +failings, with ineffable pity for human sorrows: 'He can be touched with +the feelings of our infirmities, though without sin.' + Was there ever +in truth a man who could read the appeals of Paul to his converts, and +doubt either that the letters were real or that the man was in earnest? +We scarcely venture to think it. +____ + +If, on the other hand, he supposes that all the congruities of which +we have spoken, were the effect not of fraudulent design, but of happy +accident,--that they arranged themselves in spontaneous harmony--he must +believe that chance has done what even the most prodigious powers of +invention could not do. And lastly, he must believe that these same +illiterate men, who were capable of so much, were also capable of +projecting a system of doctrine singularly remote from all ordinary and +previous speculation; of discerning the necessity of taking under their +special patronage those passive virtues which man least loved, and found +it must difficult to cultivate; and of exhibiting, in their preference +of the spiritual to the ceremonial, and their treatment of many of the +most delicate questions of practical ethics and casuistry, a justness +and elevation of sentiment as alien as possible from the superstition +and fanaticism of their predecessors who had corrupted the Law--and the +superstition and fanaticism of their followers very soon corrupted the +Gospel; and that they, and they alone, rose above the strong tendencies +to the extravagances which had been so conspicuous during the past, +and were soon to be as conspicuous in the future.--These and a thousand +other paradoxes (arising out of the supposition that Christianity is +the fraudulent or fictitious product of such an age, country, and, above +all, such men as the problem limits us to), must the infidel receive, +and receive all at once; and of him who can receive them we can but once +more declare that so far 'from having no faith', he rather possesses +the 'faith' which removes 'mountains!'--only it appears that his faith, +like that of Rome or of Oxford, is a faith which excludes reason. + +On the other hand, to him who accepts Christianity, none of these +paradoxes present themselves. On the supposition of the truth of +the miracles and the prophecies, he does not wonder at its origin +or success: and as little does he wonder at all the literary and +intellectual achievements of its early chroniclers--if their elevation +of sentiment was from a divine source, and if the artless harmony, and +reality of their narratives was the simple effect of the consistency of +truth, and of transcription from the life. + +Now, on the other hand, what are the chief objections which Reconcile +the infidel to his enormous burden of paradoxes, and which appear to the +Christian far less invincible than the paradoxes themselves? They +are, especially with all modern infidelity, objections to the a priori +improbability of the doctrines revealed, and of the miracles which +sustain them. Now, here we come to the very distinction on which we +have already insisted, and which is so much insisted on by Butler. The +evidence which sustains Christianity is all such as man is competent to +consider; and is precisely of the same nature as that which enters into +his every-day calculations of probability; While the objections are +founded entirely on our ignorance and presumption. They suppose that we +know more of the modes of the divine administration--of what God may +have permitted, of what is possible and impossible to the ultimate +development of an imperfectly developed system, and its relations to the +entire universe,--than we do or can know.* +___ + +* The possible implications of Christianity with distant regions of the +universe, and the dim hints which hints which Scripture seems to throw +out as to such implication, are beautifully treated in the 4th, 5th, +and 6th of Chalmer's 'Astronomical Discourses;' and we need not tell the +read of Butler how much he insists upon similar considerations. +____ + +Of these objections the most widely felt and the most specious, +especially in our day, is the assumption that miracles are an +impossibility+; and yet we will venture to say that there is none more +truly unphilosophical. That miracles are improbable viewed in relation +to the experience of the individual or of the mass of men, is granted; +for if they were not, they would, as Paley says, be no miracles; an +every-day miracle is none. But that they are either impossible or so +improbable that, if they were wrought, no evidence could establish them, +is another matter. The first allegation involves a curious limitation of +omnipotence; and the second affirms in effect, that, if God were to work +a miracle, it would be our duty to disbelieve him! +___ + ++ It is, as we shall see, the avowed axiom of Strauss; he even +acknowledges, that if it be not true, he would not think it worth while +to discredit the history of the Evangelists; that is, the history +must be discredited, because he has resolved that a miracle is an +impossibility! +____ + +We repeat our firm conviction that this a priori assumption against +miracles is but a vulgar illusion of one of Bacon's idola tribus. So +far from being disposed to admit the principle that a 'miracle is an +impossibility,' we shall venture on what may seem to some a paradox, but +which we are convinced is a truth,--that time will come, and is coming, +when even those who shall object to the evidence which sustains the +Christian miracles will acknowledge that philosophy requires them to +admit that men have no ground whatever to dogmatise on the antecedent +impossibility of miracles in general; and that not merely because if +theists at all, they will see the absurdity of the assertion, while +they admit that the present order of things had a beginning; and, if +Christians at all, the equal absurdity of the assertion, while they +admit that it will have an end;--not only because the geologist will +have familiarised the world with the idea of successive interventions, +and, in fact, distinct creative acts, having all the nature of +miracles;--not only, we say, for these special reasons, but for a +more general one. The true philosopher will see that, with his limited +experience and that of all his contemporaries, he has no right to +dogmatise about all that may have been permitted or will be permitted +in the Divine administration of the universe; he will see that those +who with one voice denied, about half a century ago, the existence of +aerolites, and summarily dismissed all the alleged facts as a silly +fable, because it contradicted their experience,--that those who refused +to admit the Copernican theory because, as they said, it manifestly +contradicted their experience,--that the schoolboy who refuses to admit +the first law of motion because, as he says, it gives the lie to all +his experience,--that the Oriental prince (whose scepticism Hume vainly +attempts, on his principle, to meet) who denied the possibility of ice +because it contradicted his experience,--and, in the same manner, that +the men who, with Dr. Strauss, lay down the dictum that a miracle +is impossible and a contradiction because it contradicts their +experience,--have all been alike contravening the first principles of +the modest philosophy of Bacon, and have fallen into one of the most +ordinary illusions against which he has warned us namely, that that +cannot be true which seems in contradiction to our own experience. We +confidently predict that the day will come when the favourite argument +of many so called philosopher in this matter will be felt to be the +philosophy of the vulgar only; and that though many may, even then, deny +that the testimony which supports the Scripture miracles is equal to +the task, they will all alike abandon the axiom which supersedes the +necessity of at all examining such evidence, by asserting that no +evidence can establish them. + +While on this subject, we may notice a certain fantastical tone of +depreciation of miracles as an evidence of Christianity, which is +occasionally adopted even by some who do not deny the possibility or +probability, or even the fact, of their occurrence. They affirm them to +be of little moment, and represent them--with an exquisite affectation +of metaphysical propriety--as totally incapable of convincing men of any +moral truth; upon the ground that there is no natural relation between +any displays of physical power and any such truth. Now without denying +that the nature of the doctrine is a criterion, and must be taken into +account in judging of the reality of any alleged miracle, we have but +two things to reply to this: first, that, as Paley says in relation +to the question whether any accumulation of testimony can establish a +miraculous fact, we are content 'to try the theorem upon a simple case,' +and affirm that man is so constituted that if he himself sees the blind +restored to sight and the dead raised, under such circumstances as +exclude all doubt of fraud on the part of others and all mistake on +his own, he will uniformly associate authority with such displays of +superhuman power; and, secondly, that the notion in question is in +direct contravention of the language and spirit of Christ himself, who +expressly suspends his claims to men's belief and the authority of +his doctrine on the fact of his miracles. 'The works that I do in my +Father's name, they bear witness of me.' 'If ye believe not me, believe +my works.' 'If I had not come among them, and done the works that none +other man did, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for +their sin.' + +We have enumerated some of the paradoxes which infidelity is required +to believe; and the old-fashioned, open, intelligible infidelity of the +last century accepted them, and rejected Christianity accordingly. That +was a self-consistent, simple, Ingenuous thing, compared with those +monstrous forms of credulous reason, incredulous faith, metaphysical +mysticism, even Christian Pantheism--so many varieties of which have +sprung out of the incubation of German rationalism and German philosophy +upon the New Testament. The advocates of these systems, after +adopting the most formidable of the above paradoxes of infidelity, and +(notwithstanding the frequent boast of originality) depending mainly +on the same objections, and defending them by the very same critical +arguments*, delude themselves with the idea that they have but purified +and embalmed Christianity; not aware that they have first made a mummy +of it. They are so greedy of paradox, that they, in fact, aspire to be +Christians and infidels at the same time. Proclaiming the miracles of +Christianity to be illusions of imagination or mythical legends,--the +inspiration of its records no other or greater than that of Homer's +'Iliad,' or even 'Aesop's Fables;'--rejecting the whole of that +supernatural clement with which the only records which can tell us +any thing about the matter are full; declaring its whole history +so uncertain that the ratio of truth to error must be a vanishing +fraction;--the advocates of these systems yet proceed to rant and +rave--they are really the only words we know which can express our +sense of their absurdity--in a most edifying vein about the divinity +of Christianity, and to reveal to us its true glories. 'Christ,' says +Strauss, 'is not an individual, but an idea; that is to say, humanity. +In the human race behold the God-made-man! behold the child of the +visible virgin and the invisible Father!--that is, of matter and of +mind; behold the Saviour, the Redeemer, the Sinless One; behold him who +dies, who is raised again, who mounts into the heavens I Believe in this +Christ! In his death, his resurrection, man is justified before God!'+ + +____ + +* The main objection, both with the old and the new forms of infidelity, +is, that against the miracles; the main argument with both, those which +attempt to show their antecedent impossibility; and criticism directed +against the credulity of the records which contain them. The principal +difference is, that modern infidelity shrinks from the coarse imputation +of fraud and imposture on the founders of Christianity; and prefers the +theory of illusion or myth to that of deliberate fraud. But with this +exception, which touches only the personal character of the founders +of Christianity, the case remains the same. The same postulates and the +same arguments are made to yield substantially the same conclusion. +For, all that is supernatural in Christianity and all credibility in +its records, vanish equally on either assumption. Nor is even the modern +mode of interpreting many of the miracles (as illusions or legends) +unknown to the older infidelity; only it more consistently felt that +neither the one theory nor the other, could be trusted to alone. Velis +et remis was its motto. + Such is Quinet's brief statement of Strauss's +mystico-mythical Christiantity, founded on the Hegelian philosophy. +For a fuller, we dare not say a more intelligible, account of it in +Strauss's own words, and the metaphysical mysteries on which it depends, +the reader may consult Dr. Beard's translation;--pp. 44, 45. of his +Essay entitled 'Strauss, Hegel, and their Opinions. +____ + +Whether it be the Rationalism of Paulus, or the Rationalism of +Strauss--whether that which declares all that is supernatural in +Christianity (forming the bulk of its history) to be illusion, or that +which declares it myth,--the conclusions can be made out only by a +system of interpretation which can be compared to nothing but the +wildest dreams and allegorical systems of some of the early Fathers#; +while the results themselves are either those elementary principles of +ethics for which there was no need to invoke a revelation at all, +or some mystico-metaphysical philosophy, expressed in language as +unintelligible as the veriest gibberish of the Alexandrian Platonists. +In fact, by such exegesis and by such philosophy, any thing may be made +out of any thing; and the most fantastical data be compelled to yield +equally fantastical conclusions. +____ + +# Of the mode of accounting for the supernatural occurrences in the +Scriptures by the illusion produced by mistaken natural phenomena, +(perhaps the most stupidly jejune of all the theories ever projected +by man), Quinet eloquently says, 'The pen which wrote the Provincial +Letters would be necessary to lay bare the strange consequences of this +theology. According to its conclusion, the tree of good and evil was +nothing but a venomous plant, probably a manchineal tree, under which +our first parents fell asleep. The shining face of Moses on the heights +of Mount Sinai was the natural result of electricity; the vision of +Zachariah was effected by the smoke of the chandeliers in the temple; +the Magian kings, with their offerings of myrrh, of gold, and of +incense, were three wandering merchants, who brought some glittering +tinsel to the Child of Bethlehem; the star which went before them a +servant bearing a flambeau; the angels in the scene of the temptation, a +caravan traversing the desert, laden with provisions; the two angels in +the tomb, clothed in white linen, an illusion caused by a linen garment; +the Transfiguration, a storm.' Who would not sooner be an old-fashioned +infidel than such a doting and maundering rationalist? +____ + +But the first and most natural question to ask is obviously this: how +any mortal can pretend to extract any thing certain, much more divine, +from records, the great bulk of which he has reduced to pure frauds, +illusions, or legends,--and the great bulk of the remainder to an +absolute uncertainty of how little is true and how much false?* Surely +it would need nothing less than a new revelation to reveal this sweeping +restriction of the old; and we should then be left in an ecstasy of +astonishment-first, that the whole significance of it should have +been veiled in frauds, illusions, or fictions; secondly, that its true +meaning should have been hidden from the world for eighteen hundred +years after its divine promulgation; thirdly, that it should be revealed +at last, either in results which needed no revelation to reveal them, +or in the Egyptian darkness of the +allegorieo-metaphysico-mystico-logico-transendental, 'formulae' of the +most obscure and contentious philosophy ever devised by man; and lastly, +that all this superfluous trouble is to give us, after all, only the +mysteries of a most enigmatical philosophy: For of Hegel, in particular, +we think it may with truth be said that the reader is seldom fortunate +enough to know that he knows his meaning, or even to know that Hegel +knew his own. +____ + +* Daub naively enough declares that, if you except all that relates +to angels, demons, and miracle, there is scarcely any mythology in the +Gospel.' An exception which reminds one of the Irish prelate who, on +reading 'Gulliver's Travels,' remarked that there were some things in +that book which he could not think true. +____ + +Whether, then, we regard the original compilers of the evangelic records +as inventing all that Paulus or Strauss rejects, or sincerely believing +their own delusions, or that their statements have been artfully +corrupted or unconsciously disguised, till Christ and his Apostles are +as effectually transformed and travestied as these dreamers are pleased +to imagine, with what consistency can we believe any thing certain +amidst so many acknowledged fictions inseparably incorporated with them? +If A has told B truth once and falsehood fifty times, (wittingly or +unwittingly,) what can induce B to believe that he has any reason to +believe A in that only time in which he does believe him, unless he +knows the same truth by evidence quite independent of A, and for +which he is not indebted to him at all? Should we not, then, at once +acknowledge the futility of attempting to educe any certain historic +fact, however meagre, or any doctrine, whether intelligible or obscure, +from documents nine tenths of which are to be rejected as a tissue of +absurd fictions? Or why should we not fairly confess that, for aught +we can tell, the whole is a fiction? For certainly, as to the amount of +historic fact which these men affect to leave, it is obviously a matter +of the most trivial importance whether we regard the whole Bible as +absolute fiction or not. Whether an obscure Galilean teacher, who taught +a moral system which may have been as good (we can never know from +such corrupt documents that it was as good) as that of Confucius, or +Zoroaster, ever lived or not; and whether we are to add another name to +those who have enunciated the elementary truths of ethics, is really of +very little moment. Upon their principles we can clearly know nothing +about him except that he is the centre of a vast mass of fictions, the +invisible nucleus of a huge conglomerate of myths. A thousand times +more, therefore, do we respect those, as both more honest and more +logical, who, on similar grounds, openly reject Christianity altogether; +and regard the New Testament, and speak of it, exactly as they would of +Homer's 'Iliad,' or Virgil's 'Aeneid.' Such men, consistently enough, +trouble themselves not at all in ascertaining what residuum of truth, +historical or critical, may remain in a book which certainly gives +ten falsehoods for one truth, and welds both together in inextricable +confusion. The German infidels, on the other hand, with infinite labour, +and amidst infinite uncertainties, extract either truth 'as old as the +creation,' and as universal as human reason,--or truth which, after +being hidden from the world for eighteen hundred years in mythical +obscurity, is unhappily lost again the moment it is discovered, in the +infinitely deeper darkness of the philosophy of Hegel and Strauss; who +in vain endeavour to gasp out, in articulate language, the still +latent mystery of the Gospel! Hegel, in his last hours, is said to have +said,--and if he did not say, he ought to have said,--'Alas! there is +but one man in all Germany who understands my doctrine,--and he does not +understand it!' And yet, by his account, Hegelianism and Christianity, +'in their highest results,' [language, as usual, felicitously obscure] +'are one.' Both, therefore, are, alas! now for ever lost. + +That great problem--to account for the origin and establishment Of +Christianity in the world, with a denial at the same time of its +miraculous pretensions--a problem, the fair solution of which is +obviously incumbent on infidelity--has necessitated the most gratuitous +and even contradictory hypotheses, and may safely be said still to +present as hard a knot as ever. The favourite hypothesis, recently, has +been that of Strauss--frequently re-modified and re-adjusted indeed by +himself--that Christianity is a myth, or collection of myths--that is, +a conglomerate (as geologists would say) of a very slender portion +of facts and truth, with an enormous accretion of undesigned fiction, +fable, and superstitions; gradually framed and insensibly received, like +the mythologies of Greece and Rome, or the ancient systems of Hindoo +theology. It is true, indeed, that the particular critical arguments, +the alleged historic discrepancies and so forth, on which this author +founds his conclusion--are for the most part, not original; most of +them having been insisted on before, both in Germany, and especially +in our own country during the Deistical controversies of the preceding +century. His idea of myths, however, may be supposed original; and he +is very welcome to it. For of all the attempted solutions of the +great problem, this will be hereafter regarded as, perhaps, the most +untenable. Gibbon, in solving the same problem, and starting in fact +from the same axioms,--for he too endeavoured to account for the +intractable phenomenon--on natural causes alone,--assigned, as one +cause, the reputation of working miracles, the reality of which he +denied; but he was far too cautious to decide whether the original +thunders of Christianity had pretended to work miracles, and had been +enabled to cheat the world into the belief of them, or whether the world +had been pleased universally to cheat itself into that belief. He was +far too wise to tie himself to the proof that in the most enlightened +period of the world's history--amidst the strongest contrarieties +of national and religious feeling--amidst the bitterest bigotry of +millions in behalf of what was old, and the bitterest contempt of +millions of all that was new--amidst the opposing forces of ignorance +and prejudice on the one hand and philosophy and scepticism on the +other--amidst all the persecutions which attested and proved those +hostile feelings on the part of the bulk of mankind--and above all, in +the short space of thirty years (which is all that Dr. Stauss allows +himself),--Christianity could be thus deposited, like the mythology +of Greece and Rome! These, he knew, were very gradual and silent +formations; originating in the midst of a remote antiquity and an +unhistoric age, during the very infancy and barbarism of the races which +adopted them, confined, be it remembered, to those races alone; +and displaying, instead of the exquisite and symmetrical beauty of +Christianity, those manifest signs of gradual accretion which were +fairly to be expected; in the varieties of the deposited or irrupted +substances--in the diffracted appearance of various parts--in the very +weather stains, so to speak, which mark the whole mass. + +That the prodigious aggregate of miracles which the New Testament +asserts, would, if fabulous, pass unchallenged, elude all detection, and +baffle all scepticism.--collect in the course of a few years energetic +and zealous assertors of their reality, in the heart of every civilised +and almost every barbarous community, and in the course of three +centuries, change the face of the world and destroy every other myth +which fairly came in contact with it,--who but Dr. Strauss can believe? +Was there no Dr. Strauss in those days? None to question and detect, as +the process went on, the utter baselessness of these legends? Was +all the world doting--was even the persecuting world asleep? Were all +mankind resolved on befooling themselves? Are men wont thus quietly to +admit miraculous pretensions, whether they be prejudiced votaries of +another system or sceptics as to all? No: whether we consider the age, +the country, the men assigned for the origin of these myths, we see the +futility of the theory. It does not account even for their invention, +much less for their success. We see that if any mythology could in such +an age have germinated at all, it must have been one very different from +Christianity; whether we consider the sort of Messiah the Jews expected, +or the hatred of all Jewish Messiahs, which the Gentiles could not but +have felt. The Christ offered them so far from being welcome, was to +the one a 'stumbling block' and to the other 'foolishness'; and yet he +conquered the prejudices of both. + +Let us suppose a parallel myth--if we may abuse the name. Let us suppose +the son of some Canadian carpenter aspiring to be a moral teacher, but +neither working nor pretending to work miracles; as much hated by +his countrymen as Jesus Christ was hated by his, and both he and his +countrymen as much hated by all the civilised world beside, as were +Jesus Christ and the Jews: let us further suppose him forbidding his +followers the use of all force in propagating his doctrine's, and then +let us calculate the probability of an unnoticed and accidental deposit, +in thirty short years, of a prodigious accumulation about these simple +facts. of supernatural but universally accredited fables, these legends +escaping detection or suspicion as they accumulated, and suddenly laying +hold in a few years of myriads of votaries in all parts of both worlds, +and in three centuries uprooting and destroying Christianity and all +opposing systems! How long will it be before the Swedenborgian, or the +Mormonite, or any such pretenders, will have similar success? Have there +not been a thousand such, and has any one of them had the slightest +chance against systems in possession,--against the strongly rooted +prejudices of ignorance and the Argus-eyed investigations of scepticism? +But all these were opposed to the pretensions of Christianity; nor can +any one example of at all similar sudden success be alleged, except in +the case of Mahomet; and to that the answer is brief. The history of +Mahomet is the history of a conqueror--and his logic was the logic of +the sword. + +In spite of the theory of Strauss, therefore, not less than that of +Gibbon, the old and ever recurring difficulty of giving a rational +account of the origin and establishment of Christianity still presents +itself for solution to the infidel, as it always has done, and, we +venture to say, always will do. It is an insoluble phenomenon, except by +the admission of the facts of the--New Testament. 'The miracles,' says +Butler, 'are a satisfactory account of the events, of which no other +satisfactory account can be given; nor any account at all, but what is +imaginary merely and invented.' + +In the meantime, the different theories of unbelief mutually refute one +another; and we may plead the authority of one against the authority of +another. Those who believe Strauss believe both the theory of imposture +and the theory of illusion improbable; and those who believe in the +theory of imposture believe the theory of myths improbable. And both +parties, we are glad to think, are quite right in the judgment they form +of one another. + +But what must strike every one who reflects as the most surprising thing +in Dr. Strauss, is, that with the postulatum with which he sets out, +and which he modestly takes for granted as too evident to need proof, he +should have thought it worth while to write two bulky volumes of minute +criticism on the subject. A miracle he declares to be an absurdity, an +contradiction, an impossibility. If we believed this, we should deem a +very concise enthymene (after having proved that postulatum though) all +that it was necessary to construct on the subject. A miracle cannot be +true; ergo, Christianity, which in the only records by which we know +anything about it, avows its absolute dependence upon miracles, must be +false. + +It is a modification of one or other of these monstrous forms of +unbelieving belief and Christian infidelity, that Mr. Foxton, late of +Oxford, has adopted in his 'Popular Christianity;' as perhaps also Mr. +Froude in his 'Nemesis.' It is not very easy, indeed, to say what +Mr. Foxton positively believes; having, like his German prototypes, a +greater facility of telling what he does believe, and of wrapping up +what he does believe in a most impregnable mysticism. He certainly +rejects, however, all that which, when rejected a century ago, left, +in the estimate of every one, an infidel in puris naturalibus. Like his +German acquaintances, he accepts the infidel paradoxes--only, like them, +he will still be a Christian. He believes, with Strauss, that a miracle +is an impossibility and contradiction--'incredible per se.' As to the +inspiration of Christ--he regards it as, in its nature, the same as that +of Zoraster, Confucius, Mahomet, Plato, Luther, and Wickliffe--a curious +assortment of 'heroic souls.'(Pp. 62, 63.) With a happy art of confusing +the 'gifts of genius' no matter whether displayed in intellectual or +moral power, and of forgetting that other men are not likely to overlook +the difference, he complacently declares 'the wisdom of Solomon and the +poetry of Isaiah the fruit of the same inspiration which is popularly +attributed to Milton or Shakspeare, or even to the homely wisdom of +Benjamin Franklin' (P. 72.) in the same pleasant confusion of mind, he +thinks that the 'pens of Plato, of Paul and of Dante, the pencils of +Raphael and of Claude, the Chisels of Canova and of Chantrey, no less +than the voices of Knox of Wickliffe, and of Luther are ministering +instruments, in different degrees, of the same spirit.' (P. 77.) He +thinks that 'we find, both in the writers and the records of Scripture, +every evidence of human infirmity that can possibly be conceived; and +yet we are to believe that God himself specially inspired them with +false philosophy, vicious logic, and bad grammar.'(P. 74.) He denies +the originality both of the Christian ethic (which he says are a gross +plagiarism from Plato) as also in great part of the system of Christian +doctrine.* Nevertheless, it would be quite a mistake, it seems, to +suppose that Mr. Foxton is no Christian! He is, on the contrary, of +the very few who can tell us what Christianity really is; and who can +separate the falsehoods and the myths which have so long disguised it. +He even talks most spiritually and with an edifying onction. He tells us +"God was," indeed, "in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." And +but little deduction need be made from the rapturous language of Paul, +who tells us that "in him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" +(P. 65); I concede to Christ' (generous admission!) 'the highest +inspiration hitherto granted to the prophets of God' (P. 143),--Mahomet, +it appears, and Zoroaster and Confucius, having also statues in his +truly Catholic Pantheon. 'The position of Christ,' he tells us in +another place, is 'simply that of the foremost man in all the world,' +though he 'soars far above "all principalities and powers"--above all +philosophies hitherto known--above all creeds hitherto propagated in his +name'--the true Christian doctrine, after having been hid from ages and +generations, being reserved to be disclosed, we presume, by Mr. Foxton. +His spiritualism, as usual with the whole school of our new Christian +infidels, is, of course, exquisitely refined,--but, unhappily, very +vague. He is full of talk of 'a deeep insight,'--of a 'faith not in dead +histories, but living realities--a revelation to our innermost nature.' +'The true seer,' he says, 'looking deep into causes, carries in his +heart the simple wisdom of God. The secret harmonies of Nature vibrate +on his ear, and her fair proportions reveal themselves to his eye. He +has a deep faith in the truth of God.' (P. 146.) 'The inspired man is +one whose outward life derives all its radiance from the light within +him. He walks through stony places by the light of his own soul, and +stumbles not. No human motive is present to such a mind in its highest +exultation--no love of praise--no desire of fame--no affection, no +passion mingles with the divine afflatus, which passes over without +ruffling the soul.' (P. 44.) And a great many fine phrases of the same +kind, equally innocent of all meaning. +____ + +* (Pp. 51--60.) We are hardly likely to yield to Mr. Foxton in our love +of Plato, for whom we have expressed, and that very recently, (April, +1848,) no stinted admiration: and what we have there affirmed we are by +no means disposed to retract,--that no ancient author has approached, in +the expression of ethical truth, so near to the maxims and sometimes the +very expressions, of the Gospel. Nevertheless, we as strongly affirm, +that he who contrasts (whatever the occasional sublimity of expression) +the faltering and often sceptical tone of Plato on religious subjects, +with the uniformity and decision of the Evangelical system,--his dark +notions in relation to God (candidly confessed) with the glorious +recognition of Him in the Gospel as 'our Father,'--his utterly absurd +application of his general principles of morals, in his most Utopian of +all Republics, with the broad, plain social ethics of Christianity,--the +tone of mournful familiarity (whatever his personal immunity) in +which he too often speaks of the saddest pollutions that ever degraded +humanity, with the spotless purity of the Christian rule of life,--the +hesitating, speculative tone of the Master of the Academy with the +decision and majesty of Him who 'spake with authority, and not as +the Scribes,' whether Greek or Jewish.--the metaphysical and abstract +character of Plato's reasonings with the severely practical character of +Christ's,--the feebleness of the motives supplied by the abstractions +of the one, and the intensity of those supplied by the other,--the +adaptation of the one to the intelligent only, and the adaptation of +the other to universal humanity,--the very manner of Plato, his +gorgeous style, with the still more impressive simplicity of the Great +Teacher,--must surely see in the contrast every indication, to say +nothing of the utter gratuitousness (historically) of the contrary +hypothesis, that the sublime ethics of the Gospel, whether we regard +substance, or manner, or, tone, or style, are no plagiarism from Plato. +As for the man who can hold such a notion, he must certainly be very +ignorant either of Plate or of Christ. As the best apology for Mr. +Foxton's offensive folly we may, perhaps, charitably hope that he is +nearly ignorant of both.--Equally absurd is the attempt to identify the +metaphysical dreams of Plato with the doctrinal system of the Gospel, +though it is quite true, that long subsequent to Christ the Platonising +Christians tried to accommodate the speculations of the sage they loved, +to the doctrines of a still greater master. But Plato never extorted +from his friends stronger eulogies than Christ has often extorted from +his enemies. + +____ + +It is amazing and amusing to see with what case Mr. Foxton decides +points which have filled folios of controversy. 'In the teaching of +Christ himself, there is not the slightest allusion to the modern +evangelical notion of an atonement.' 'The diversities of "gifts" to +which Paul alludes, Cor. i. 12. are nothing more than those different +"gifts" which, in common parlance, we attribute to the various tempers +and talents of men.' (P. 67.) 'It is, however, after all, absurd to +suppose that the miracles of the Scriptures are subjects of actual +belief; either to the vulgar or the learned.' (P. 104.) What an easy +time of it must such an all-sufficient controvertist have! + +He thinks it possible; too, that Christ, though nothing more than an +ordinary man, may really have 'thought himself Divine,' without being +liable to the charge of a visionary self-idolatry or of blasphemy,--as +supposed by every body, Trinitarian or Unitarian, except Mr. Foxton. He +accounts for it by the 'wild sublimity of human emotion, when the rapt +spirit first feels the throbbings of the divine afflatus,' &c. &c. A +singular afflatus which teaches a man to usurp the name and prerogatives +of Deity, and a strange 'inspiration' which inspires him with so +profound an ignorance of his own nature! This interpretation, we +believe, is peculiarly Mr. Foxton's owe. + +The way in which he disposes of the miracles, is essentially that of a +vulgar, undiscriminating, unphilosophic mind. There have been, he tells +us in effect, so many false miracles, superstitious stories of witches, +conjurors, ghosts, hobgoblins, of cures by royal touch, and the +like,--and therefore the Scripture miracles are false! Why, who denies +that there have been plenty of false miracles? And there have been +as many false religions. Is there, therefore, none true? The proper +business in every such case is to examine fairly the evidence, and +not to generalise after this absurd fashion. Otherwise we shall never +believe any thing; for there is hardly one truth that has not its half +score of audacious counterfeits. + +Still he is amusingly perplexed, like all the rest of the infidel world, +how to get rid of the miracles--whether on the principle of fraud, or +fiction, or illusion. He thinks there would be 'a great accession to +the ranks of reason and common sense by disproving the reality of the +miracles, without damaging the veracity or honestly of the simple, +earnest, and enthusiastic writers by whom they are recorded;' and +complains of the coarse and undiscriminating criticism of most of the +French and English Deists, who explain the miracles 'on the supposition +of the grossest fraud acting on the grossest credulity.' But he soon +finds that the materials for such a compromise are utterly intractable. +He thinks that the German Rationalists have depended too much on some +'single hypothesis, which often proves to be insufficient to meet the +great variety of conditions and circumstances with which the miracles +have been handed down to us.' Very true; but what remedy? 'We find one +German writer endeavouring to explain away the miracles on the mystical +(mythical) theory; and another riding into the arena of controversy +on the miserable hobby-horse of "clairvoyance" or "mesmerism"; each of +these, and a host of others of the same class, rejecting whatever light +is thrown on the question by all the theories together.' He therefore +proposes, with great and gratuitous liberality, to heap all these +theories together, and to take them as they are wanted; not withholding +any of the wonders of modern science--even, as would seem, the possible +knowledge of 'chloroform' (PP. 104.. 86, 87.)--from the propagators of +Christianity! + +But, alas! the phenomena are still intractable. The stubborn 'Book' will +still baffle all such efforts to explain it away; it is willing to be +rejected, if it so pleases men, but it guards itself from being +thus made a fool of. For who can fail to see that neither all or any +considerable part of the multifarious miracles of the New Testament can +be explained by any such gratuitous extension of ingenious fancies; +and that if they could be so explained, it would be still impossible +to exculpate the men who need such explanations from the charge of +perpetuating the grossest frauds! Yet this logical ostrich, who +am digest all these stones, presumptuously declares a miracle an +impossibility and the very notion of it a contradiction.* But enough of +Mr. Foxton. + +____ + +* Mr. Foxton denies that men, in Paley's 'single case in which he +tries the general theorem,' would believe the miracle; but he finds +it convenient to leave out the most significant circumstances on which +Paley makes the validity of the testimony to depend, instead of stating +them fairly in Paley's own words. Yet that the sceptics (if such there +could be) must be the merest fraction of the species, Mr. Foxton himself +immediately proceeds to prove by showing what is undeniably the case) +that almost all mankind readily receive miraculous occurrences on far +lower evidence than Paley's common sense would require them to demand. +Surely he must be related to the Irishman who placed his ladder against +the bough he was cutting off. I + +____ + + +There are no doubt some minds amongst us, whose power we admit, and +whose perversion of power we lament, who have bewildered themselves by +really deep meditation on inexplicable mysteries; who demand certainty +where certainty is not given to man, or demand for truths which are +established by sufficient evidence, other evidence than those truths +will admit. We can even painfully sympathise in that ordeal of doubt +which such powerful minds are peculiarly exposed--with their Titanic +struggles against the still mightier power of Him who has said to the +turbulent intellect of man, as well as to the stormy ocean 'Hitherto +shalt thou come, but no farther,--and here shall thy proud waves be +staid.' We cannot wish better to any such agitated mind than that it may +listen to those potent and majestic words: 'Peace--be still!' uttered +by the voice of Him who so suddenly hushed the billows of the Galilean +lake. + +But we are at the same time fully convinced that in our day there are +thousands of youths who are falling into the same errors and perils +from sheer vanity and affectation; who admire most what they least +understand, and adopt all the obscurities and paradoxes they stumble +upon, as a cheap path to a reputation for profundity; who awkwardly +imitate the manner and retail the phrases of the writers they +study; and, as usual, exaggerate to caricature their least agreeable +eccentricities. We should think that some of these more powerful +minds must be by this time ashamed of that ragged regiment of shallow +thinkers, and obscure writers and talkers who at present infest our +literature, and whose parrot-like repetition of their own stereotyped +phraseology, mingled with some barbarous infusion of half Anglicised +German, threatens to form as odious a cant as ever polluted the stream +of thought or disfigured the purity of language. Happily it is not +likely to be more than a passing fashion; but still it is a very +unpleasant fashion while it lasts. As in Johnson's day, every +young writer imitated as well as he could the ponderous diction and +everlasting antitheses of the great dictator as in Byron's day, there +were thousands to whom the world 'was a blank' at twenty or thereabouts, +and of whose dark imaginings,' as Macaulay says, the waste was +prodigious; so now there are hundreds of dilettanti pantheists', mystics +and sceptics to whom everything is a 'sham,' an 'unreality'; Who tell +us that the world stands in need of a great 'prophet,' a seer,' a 'true +prophet', a large soul,' a god-like soul,'*--who shall dive into 'the +depths of the human consciousness,' and whose 'utterances' shall +rouse the human mind from the 'cheats and frauds' which have hitherto +everywhere practised on its simplicity. The tell us, in relation to +philosophy, religion, and especially in relation to Christianity, +that all that has been believed by mankind has been believed only on +'empirical' grounds; and that the old answers to difficulties will do +no longer. They shake their sage heads at such men as Clarke, Paley, +Butler, and declare that such arguments as theirs will not satisfy +them.,--We are glad to admit that all this vague pretension is now +but rarely displayed with the scurrilous spirit of that elder unbelief +against which the long series of British apologists for Christianity +arose between 1700 and 1750; But there is often in it an arrogance +as real, though not in so offensive a form. Sometimes the spirit +of unbelief even assumes an air of sentimental regret at its own +inconvenient profundity. Many a worthy youth tells us he almost wishes +he could believe. He admires, of all things, the 'moral grandeur'--the +'ethical beauty' of many parts of Christianity; he condescends to +patronize Jesus Christ, though he believes that the great mass of +words and actions by which alone we know anything about him, are sheer +fictions or legends; he believes--gratuitously enough in this instance, +for he has no ground for it--that Jesus Christ was a very 'great man' +worthy of comparison at least with Mahomet, Luther, Napoleon, and 'other +heroes'; he even admits that happiness of a simple, child-like faith, in +the puerilities of Christianity--it produces such content of mind! But +alas! he cannot believe--his intellect is not satisfied--he has revolved +the matter too profoundly to be thus taken in; he must, he supposes, +(and our beardless philosopher sighs as he says it) bear the penalty of +a too restless intellect, and a too speculative genius; he knows all +the usual arguments which satisfied Pascal, Butler, Bacon, Leibnitz; but +they will do no longer: more radical, more tremendous difficulties +have suggested themselves, 'from the 'depths of philosophy,' and far +different answers are required now!+ + +____ + +* Foxton's last chapter, passim, from some expressions one would almost +imagine that our author himself aspired to be, if not the Messiah, at +least the Elias, of this new dispensation. We fear, however, that this +'vox clamantis' would reverse the Baptist's proclamation, and would cry, +'The straight shall be made crooked. and the plain places rough.' + +We fear that many young minds in our day are exposed to the danger +of falling into one or other of the prevailing forms of unbelief, and +especially into that of pantheistic mysticism--from rashly meditating +in the cloudy regions of German philosophy--on difficulties which would +seem beyond the limits of human reason, but which that philosophy too +often promises to solve--with what success we may see from the rapid +succession and impenetrable obscurities of its various systems. Alas! +when will men learn that one of the highest achievements of philosophy +is to know when it is vain to philosophise. When the obscure principles +of these most uncouth philosophies, expressed, we verily believe, in the +darkest language ever used by civilised man, are applied to the solution +of the problems of theology and ethics, no wonder that the natural +consequence, as well as just retribution, of such temerity is a +plunge into tenfold night. Systems of German philosophy may perhaps be +advantageously studied by those who are mature enough to study them; but +that they have an incomparable power of intoxicating the intellect of +the young aspirant to their mysteries, is, we think, undeniable. They +are producing the effect just now in a multitude of our juveniles, +who are beclouding themselves in the vain attempt to comprehend +ill-translated fragments of ill-understood philosophies, (executed in a +sort of Anglicised-German, or Germanised-English, we know not which to +call it, but certainly neither German nor English,) from the perusal of +which they carry away nothing but some very obscure terms, on which they +themselves have superinduced a very vague meaning. These terms you in +vain implore them to define; or, if they define them, they define +them in terms which as much need definition. Heartily do we wish that +Socrates would reappear amongst us, to exercise his accoucheur's art on +these hapless Theaetetuses and Menos of our day! Many such youths might +no doubt reply at first to the sarcastic Querist, (who might gently +complain of a slight cloudiness in their speculations.) that the truths +they uttered were too profound for ordinary reasoners. We may easily +imagine how Socrates would have dealt with such assumptions. His reply +would be rather more severe than that of Mackintosh to Coleridge in a +somewhat similar case; namely, that if a notion cannot be made clear to +persons who have spent the better part of their days in resolving the +difficulties of metaphysics and philosophy, and who are conscious +that they are not destitute of patience for the effort requisite to +understand them, it may suggest a doubt whether the truth be not in the +medium of communication rather than elsewhere; and, indeed, whether the +philosopher be not aiming to communicate thoughts on subjects on which +man can have no thoughts to communicate. Socrates would add, perhaps, +that language was given us to express, not to conceal our thoughts; and +that, if they cannot be communicated, invaluable as they doubtless are, +we had better keep them to ourselves; one thing it is clear he would +do,--he would insist on precise defintions. But in truth it may be more +than surmised that the obscurities of which all complain, except +those (and in our day they are not a few) to whom obscurity is a +recommendation, result from suffering the intellect to speculate in +realms forbidden to its access; into caverns of tremendous depth and +darkness, with nothing better than our own rushlight. Surely we have +reason to suspect as much when some learned professor, after muttering +his logical incantations, and conjuring with his logical formulae, +surprises you by saying, that he has disposed of the great mysteries of +existence and the universe, and solved to your entire satisfaction, in +his own curt way, the problems of the ABSOLUTE and the INFINITE! If the +cardinal truths of philosophy and religion hitherto received are doomed +to be imperilled by such speculations, one feels strongly inclined to +pray with the old Homeric hero,--'that if they must perish, it may be +at least in daylight.' We earnestly counsel the youthful reader to +defer the study of German philosophy, at least till he has matured and +disciplined his mind, and familiarised himself with the best models of +what used to be our boast--English clearness of thought and expression. +He will then learn to ask rigidly for definitions, and not rest +satisfied with half-meanings--or no meaning. To the naturally venturous +pertinacity of young metaphysicians, few would be disposed to be more +indulgent than ourselves. From the time of Plato downwards--who tells +us that no sooner do they 'taste' of dialectics than they are ready to +dispute with every body--'sparing neither father nor mother, scarcely +even the lower animals,' if they had but a voice to reply. They have +always expected more from metaphysics than (except as a discipline) they +will ever yield. He elsewhere, still more humorously describes the same +trait. He compares then, to young dogs who are perpetually snapping +at every thing about them:--Hoimai gar se ou lelethenai, hoti +hoi meirakiskoi, hotan to proton logon geuontai, os paidia autois +katachrontai, aei eis antilogian chromenoi kai mimoumenoi tous +exelenchontas autoi allous elenchousi, chairontes osper skulakia te +kai sparattein tous plesion aei. But we hope we shall not see our +metaphysical 'puppies' amusing themselves--as so many 'old dogs' amongst +neighbours (who ought to have known better) have done,--by tearing into +tatters the sacred leaves of that volume, which contains what is better +than all their philosophy. + +____ + + +This is easily said, and we know is often said, and loudly. But the +justice with which it is said is another matter; for when we can get +these cloudy objectors to put down, not their vague assertions of +profound difficulties, uttered in the obscure language they love, but a +precise statement of their objections, we find them either the very same +with those which were quite as powerfully urged in the course of the +deistical controversies of the last century (the case with far the +greater part), or else such as are of similar character, and +susceptible of similar answers. We say not that the answers were always +satisfactory, nor are now inquiring whether any of them were so; we +merely maintain that the objections in question are not the novelties +they affect to be. We say this to obviate an advantage which the very +vagueness of much modern opposition to Christianity would obtain, from +the notion that some prodigious arguments have been discovered which +the intellect of a Pascal or a Butler was not comprehensive enough to +anticipate, and which no Clarke or Paley would have been logician enough +to refute. We affirm, without hesitation, that when the new advocates of +infidelity descend from their airy elevation, and state their objections +in intelligible terms, they are found, for the most part, what we +have represented them. When we read many of the speculations of German +infidelity, we seem to be re-perusing many of our own authors of the +last century. It is as if our neighbours had imported our manufactures; +and, after re-packing them, in new forms and with some additions, +had re-shipped and sent them back to us as new commodities. Hardly an +instance of discrepancy is mentioned in the 'Wolfenbutted Fragments,' +which will not be found in the pages of our own deists a century ago; +and, as already hinted, of Dr. Strauss's elaborate strictures, the vast +majority will be found in the same sources. In fact, though far from +thinking it to our national credit, none but those who will dive a +little deeper than most do into a happily forgotten portion of our +literature, (which made noise enough in its day, and created very +superfluous terrors for the fate of Christianity,) can have any idea of +the extent to which the modern forms of unbelief in Germany--so far as +founded on any positive grounds, whether of reason or of criticism,--are +indebted to our English Deists. Tholuck, however, and others of his +countrymen, seem thoroughly aware of it. + +The objections to the truth of Christianity are directed either against +the evidence itself; or that which it substantiates. Against the latter, +as Bishop Butler says, unless the objections be truly such as prove +contradictions in it, they are 'perfectly frivolous;' since we cannot be +competent judges either as to what it is worthy of the Supreme Mind +to reveal, or how far a portion of an imperfectly-developed system may +harmonise with the whole; and, perhaps, on many points, we never can be +competent judges, unless we can cease to be finite. The objections to +the evidence itself are, as the same great author observes, 'well worthy +of the fullest attention.' The a priori objection to miracles we have +already briefly touched. If that objection be valid, it is vain to argue +further; but if not, the remaining objections must be powerful enough to +neutralise the entire mass of the evidence, and, in fact, to mount to a +proof of contradictions; 'not on this or that minute point of historic +detail,--but on such as shake the foundations of the whole edifice of +evidence. It will not do to say, 'Here is a minute discrepancy in the +history of Matthew or Luke as compared with that of 'Mark or John;' +for, first, such discrepancies are often found, in other authors, to be +apparent, and not real,--founded on our taking for granted that there is +no circumstance unmentioned by two writers which, if known, would +have been seen to harmonise their statements. We admit this possible +reconciliation readily enough in the case of many seeming discrepancies +of other historians; but it is a benefit which men are slow to admit in +the case of the sacred narratives. There the objector is always apt to +take it for granted that the discrepancy is real; though it may be easy +to suppose a case (a possible case is quite sufficient for the purpose) +which would neutralise the objection. Of this perverseness (we can call +it by no other name) the examples are perpetual in the critical tortures +which Strauss has subjected the sacred historians.*"-- + +It may be objected, perhaps, that the gratuitous supposition of some +unmentioned fact--which, if mentioned, would harmonise the apparently +counter-statements of two historians--cannot be admitted, and is, in +fact, a surrender of the argument. But to say so, is only to betray an +utter ignorance of what the argument is. If an objection be founded +on the alleged absolute contradiction of two statements, it is quite +sufficient to show any (not the real, but only a hypothetical and +possible) medium of reconciling them; and the objection is, in all +fairness, dissolved. And this would be felt by the honest logician, even +if we did not know of any such instances in point of fact. We do know +however, of many. Nothing is more common than to find, in the narration +of two perfectly honest historians,--referring to the same events from +different points of view, or for a different purpose,--the omission +a fact which gives a seeming contrariety to their statements; a +contrariety which the mention of the omitted fact by a third writer +instantly clears up.+ + +___ + +* The reader may see some striking instances of his disposition to +take the worse sense, in Beard's 'Voices of the Church.' Tholuck truly +observes, too, in his strictures on Strauss, 'We know how frequently the +loss of a few words in one ancient author would be sufficient to cast +an inexplicable obscurity over another.' The same writer well observes, +that there never was a historian who, if treated on the principles of +criticism which his countryman has applied to the Evangelists, might +not be proved a mere mytholographer ... 'It is plain', he says, 'that +if absolute among historians'--and still more absolute apparent +agreement--is necessary to assure us that we possess in their writings +credible history, we must renounce all pretence to any such possession.' +The translations from Quinet, Coquerel, and Tholuck are all, in +different ways, well worth reading. The last truly says, 'Strauss came +to the study of the Evangelical history with the forgone conclusion that +"miracles are impossible;" and where an investigator brings with him an +absolute conviction of the guilt of the accused to the examination +of his case, we know how even the most innocent may be implicated and +condemned out of his own mouth.' In fact, so strong and various are the +proofs of truth and reality in the history of the New Testament, that +none would ever have suspected the veracity of the writers, or tried to +disprove it, except for the above forgone conclusion--'that miracles +are impossible.' We also recommend to the reader an ingenious brochure +included in the 'Voices of the Church, in reply to Strauss,' constructed +on the same principle with Whately's admirable 'Historic Doubts,' +namely; 'The Fallacy of the Mythical Theory of Dr. Strauss, illustrated +from the History of Martin Luther, and from the actual Mohammedan Myths +of the Life of Jesus.' What a subject for the same play of ingenuity +would be Dean Swift! The date, and place of his birth disputed--whether +he was an Englishman or an Irishman--his incomprehensible relations to +Stella and Vanessa, utterly incomprehensible on any hypothesis--his +alleged seduction of one of one, of both, of neither--his marriage with +Stella affirmed, disputed, and still wholly unsettled--the numberless +other incidents in his life full of contradiction and mystery--and, not +least, the eccentricities and inconsistencies of his whole character and +conduct! Why, with a thousandth part of Dr. Strauss's assumptions, it +would be easy to reduce Swift to as fabulous a personage as his own +Lemuel Gulliver. +Any apparent discrepancy with either themselves or +profane historians is usually sufficient to satisfy Dr. Strauss. He +is ever ready to conclude that the discrepancy is real, and that the +profane historians are right. In adducing some striking instances of the +minute accuracy of Luke, only revealed by obscure collateral evidence +(historic or numismatic) discovered since, Tholuck remarks, 'What an +outcry would have been made had not the specious appearance of error +been thus obviated. Luke calls Gallio proconsul of Achaia: we should +not have expected it, since though Achaia was originally to senatorial +province. Tiberius had changed it into an imperial one, and the title +of its governor, therefore, was procurator; now a passage in Suetonius +informs us, that Claudius had restored the province to the senate.' The +same Evangelist calls Sergius Paulus governor of Cyprus; yet we might +have expected to find only a praetor, since Cyprus was an imperial +province. In this case, again: says Tholuck, the correctness of the +historian has been remarkable attested. Coins and later still a passage +in Dion Cassius, have been found, giving proof that Augustus restored +the province to the senate; and thus, as if to vindicate the Evangelist, +the Roman historian adds, 'Thus, proconsuls began to be sent into that +island also.' Trans. From Tholuck, pp. 21, 22. In the same manner +coins have been found proving he is correct in some other once disputed +instances. Is it not fair to suppose that many apparent discrepancies of +the same order may be eventually removed by similar evidence? + +____ + + +Very forgetful of this have the advocates of infidelity usually been: +nay, (as if they would make up in the number of objections what they +want in weight,) they have frequently availed themselves not only of +apparent contrarieties, but of mere incompleteness in the statements +of two different writers, on which to found a charge of contradiction. +Thus, if one writer says that a certain person was present at a given +time or place, when another says that he and two more were there; or +that one man was cured of blindness, when another says that two were,-- +such a thing is often alleged as a contradiction; whereas, in truth, it +resents not even a difficulty--unless one historian be bound to say +not only all that another says but just so much, and no more. Let such +objections be what they will, unless they prove absolute contradictions +in the narrative, they are as mere dust in the balance, compared with +the stupendous mass and variety of that evidence which confirms the +substantial truth of Christianity. And even if they establish real +contradictions, they still amount, for reasons we are about to state, +to dust in the balance, unless they establish contradictions not in +immaterial but in vital points. The objections must be such as, if +proved, leave the whole fabric of evidence in ruins. For, secondly, we +are fully disposed to concede to the objector that there are, in the +books of Scripture, not only apparent but real discrepancies,--a point +which many of the advocates of Christianity are, indeed, reluctant to +admit but which we think, no candid advocate will feel to be the less +true. Nevertheless, even such an advocate of the Scriptures may justly +contend that the very reasons which necessitate this admission of +discrepancies also reduce them to such a limit that they do not affect, +in the slightest degree, the substantial credibility of the sacred +records; and, in our judgment, Christians have unwisely damaged their +cause, and given a needless advantage to the infidel, by denying that +any discrepancies exist, or by endeavouring to prove that they do not. +The discrepancies to which we refer are just those which, in the course +of the transcription of ancient books, divine or human, through +many ages,--their constant transcription by different hands,--their +translation into various languages,--may not only be expected to occur, +but which must occur, unless there be a perpetual series of most minute +and ludicrous miracles--certainly never promised, and as certainly never +performed--to counteract all the effects of negligence and inadvertence, +to guide the pen of every transcriber to infallible accuracy, and +to prevent his ever deviating into any casual error! Such miraculous +intervention, we need not say, has never been pleaded for by any +apologist of Christianity; has certainly never been promised; and, if it +had,--since we see, as a matter of fact, that the promise has never been +fulfilled,--the whole of Christianity would fall to the ground. But +then, from a large induction, we know that the limits within which +discrepancies and errors from such causes will occur, must be very +moderate; we know, from numberless examples of other writings, what the +maximum is,--and that it leaves their substantial authenticity untouched +and unimpeached. No one supposes the writings of Plato and Cicero, of +Thucydides and Tacitus, of Bacon or Shakspeare, fundamentally vitiated +by the like discrepancies, errors, and absurdities which time and +inadvertence have occasioned. + +The corruptions in the Scriptures from these causes are likely to +be even less than in the case of any other writings; from their very +structure,--the varied and reiterated forms in which all the great +truths are expressed; from the greater veneration they inspired; the +greater care with which they would be transcribed; the greater number +of copies which would be diffused through the world,--and which, though +that very circumstance would multiply the number of variations, would +also afford, in their collation, the means of reciprocal correction;--a +correction which we have seen applied in our day, with admirable +success, to so many ancient writers, under a system of canons which +have now raised this species of criticism to the rank of an inductive +science. This criticism, applied to the Scriptures, has in many +instances restored the true rending, and dissolved the objections which +might have been founded on the uncorrected variations; and, as time +rolls on, may lead, by yet fresh discoveries and more comprehensive +recensions, to a yet further clarifying of the stream of Divine truth, +till 'the river of the water of life' shall flow nearly in its original +limpid purity. Within such limits as these, the most consistent advocate +of Christianity not only must admit--not only may safely admit--the +existence of discrepancies, but may do so even with advantage to his +cause. he must admit them, since such variations must be the result of +the manner in which the records have been transmitted, unless we suppose +a supernatural intervention, neither promised by God nor pleaded for by +man: he may safely admit them, because--from a general induction from +the history of all literature--we see that, where copies of writings +have been sufficiently multiplied, and sufficient motives for care have +existed in the transcription, the limits of error are very narrow, and +leave the substantial identity untouched: and he may admit them with +advantage; for the admission is a reply to many objections rounded on +the assumption that he must contend that there are no variations, when +he need only contend that there are none that can be material. + +But it may be said, 'May not we be permitted, while conceding the +miraculous and other evidences of Christianity, and the general +authority of the records which contain it, to go a step further, and +to reject some things which seem palpably ill-reasoned, distasteful, +inconsistent, or immoral?' 'Let every man be fully persuaded in his +own mind.' For ourselves, we honestly confess we cannot see the logical +consistency of such a position; any more than the reasonableness, after +having admitted the preponderant evidence for the great truth of Theism, +of excepting some phenomena as apparently at variance with the Divine +perfections; and thus virtually adopting a Manichaean hypothesis. We +must recollect that we know nothing of Christianity except from its +records; and as these, once fairly ascertained to be authentic and +genuine, are all, as regards their contents, supported precisely by the +same miraculous and other evidence; as they bear upon them precisely +the same internal marks of artlessness, truth, and sincerity; and, +historically and in other respects, are inextricably interwoven with one +another; we see not on what principles we can safely reject portions as +improbable, distasteful, not quadrating with the dictates of reason;' +our 'intuitional consciousness,' and what not. This assumed liberty, +however is, as we apprehend, of the very essence of Rationalism; and +it may be called the Manichaeism of interpretation. So long as the +canonicity of any of the records, or any portion of them, or their true +interpretation, is in dispute, we may fairly doubt; but that point once +decided by honest criticism, to say we receive such and such portions, +on account of the weight of the general evidence, and yet reject other +portions, though sustained by the same evidence, because we think there +is something unreasonable or revolting in their substance, is plainly +to accept evidence only where it pleases us, and to reject it where it +pleases us not. The only question fairly at issue must ever be whether +the general evidence for Christianity will overbear the difficulty which +we cannot separate from the truths. If it will not, we must reject it +wholly; and if it will, we must receive it wholly. There is plainly no +tenable position between absolute infidelity and absolute belief. +And this is proved by the infinitely various and Protean character of +Rationalism, and the perfectly indeterminate, but always arbitrary, +limits it imposes on itself. It exists in all forms and degrees, from a +moderation which accepts nearly the entire system of Christianity, +and which certainly rejects nothing that can be said to constitute its +distinctive truth, to an audacity of unbelief, which, professing still +vaguely to reverence Christianity as 'something divine,' sponges out +nine tenths of the whole; or, after reducing the mass of it to a caput +mortuum of lies, fiction, and superstitions, retains only a few drops of +fact and doctrine,--so few as certainly not to pay for the expenses of +the critical distillation.* + +____ + +* It may be as well to remark, that we have frequently observed a +disposition to represent the very general abandonment of the theory +of 'verbal inspiration' as a concession to Rationalism; as if it +necessarily followed from admitting that inspiration is not verbal, +that therefore an indeterminate portion of the substance or doctrine +is purely human. It is plain, however, that this is no necessary +consequence: an advocate of plenary inspiration may contend, that, +though he does not believe that the very words of Scripture were +dictated, yet that the thoughts were either so suggested, (if the matter +was such as could be known only by revelation,) or so controlled, (if +the matter were such as was previously known,) that (excluding errors +introduced into the text since) the Scriptures as first composed +were--what no book of man ever was, or can be, even in the plainest +narrative of the simplest events--a perfectly accurate expression of +truth. We enter not here, however, into the question whether such a view +of inspiration is better or worse than another. We are simply anxious +to correct a fallacy which has, judging from what we have recently read, +operated rather extensively. Inspiration may be verbal, or the contrary; +but, whether one or the other, he who takes the affirmative or negative +of that question may still consistently contend that it may still be +plenary. The question of the inspiration of the whole or the inspiration +of a part, is widely different from that as to the suggestion of the +words or the suggestion of the thoughts. But these questions we leave to +professed theologians. We merely enter our protest against a prevailing +fallacy. + +____ + + +Nor will the theory of what some call the 'intuitional consciousness +avail us here. It is true, as they assert, that the constitution of +human nature is such that, before its actual development, it has a +capacity of developing to certain effects only,--just as the flower +in the germ, as it expands to the sun, will have certain colours and a +certain fragrance, and no other;--all which, indeed, though not very new +or profound, is very important. But it is not so dear that it will give +us any help on the present occasion. We have an original susceptibility +of music, of beauty, of religion, it is said. Granted; but as the actual +development of this susceptibility exhibits all the diversities between +Handel's notions of harmony and those of an American Indian--between +Raphael's notions of beauty and those of a Hottentot--between St. Paul's +notions of a God and those of a New Zealander--it would appear that +the education of this susceptibility is at least as important as the +susceptibility itself, if not more so; for without the susceptibility +itself, we should simply have no notion of music, beauty, or religion; +and between such negation and that notion of all these which New +Zealanders and Hottentots possess, not a few of our species would +probably prefer the former. It is in vain then to tell us to look into +the 'depths of our own nature' (as some vaguely say), and to judge +thence what, in a professed revelation, is suitable to us, or worthy of +our acceptance and rejection respectively. This criterion is, as we +see by the utterly different judgments formed by different classes of +Rationalists as to the how much they shall receive of the revelation +they might generally admit, a very shifting one--a measure which has no +linear unit; it is to employ, as mathematicians say, a variable as if it +were a constant quantity; or, rather, it is to attempt to find the value +of an unknown quantity by another equally unknown. + +We cannot but judge, then, the principles of Rationalism to be logically +untenable. And we do so, not merely or principally on account of the +absurdity it involves,--that God has expressly supplemented human +reason by a revelation containing an indeterminate but large portion +of falsities, errors, and absurdities and which we are to commit to our +little alembic, and distil as we may; not only from the absurdity of +supposing that God has demanded our faith, for statements which are +to be received only as they appear perfectly comprehensible by our +reason;--or, in other words, only for what it is impossible that we +should doubt or deny; not merely because the principle inevitably leaves +man to construct the so-called revelation entirely for himself; so that +what one man receives as genuine communication from heaven, another, +from having a different development of 'his intuitional consciousness,' +rejects as an absurdity too gross for human belief:--Not wholly, we +say, nor even principally, for these reasons; but for the still stronger +reason, that such a system of objections is an egregious trifling with +that great complex mass of evidence which, as we have said, applies to +the whole of Christianity or to none of it. As if to baffle the efforts +of man consistently to disengage these elements of our belief, the whole +are inextricably blended together. The supernatural element, especially, +is so diffused through all the records, that it is more and more felt, +at every step, to be impossible to obliterate it without obliterating +the entire system in which it circulates. The stain, if stain it be, +is far too deep for any scouring fluids of Rationalism to wash it out, +without destroying the whole texture of our creed: and, in our judgment, +the only consistent Rationalism is the Rationalism which rejects it all. + +At whatever point the Rationalist we have attempted to describe may take +his stand, we do not think it difficult to prove that his conduct is +eminently irrational. If, for example, he be one of those moderate +Rationalists who admit (as thousands do) the miraculous and other +evidence of the supernatural origin of the Gospel, and therefore also +admit such and such doctrines to be true,--what can he reply, if further +asked what reason he can have for accepting these truths and rejecting +others which are supported by the very same evidence? How can he be sure +that the truths he receives are established by evidence which, to all +appearance, equally authenticates the falsehoods he rejects? Surely, as +already said, this is to reject and accept evidence as he pleases. +If, on the other hand, he says that he receives the miracles only to +authenticate what he knows very well without them, and believes true on +the information of reason alone, why trouble miracles and revelation +at all? Is not this, according to the old proverb to 'take a hatchet to +break an egg'?* + +____ + + +* If such a man says that he rejects certain doctrines, not on +rationalistic grounds, but because he denies the canonical authority, or +the interpretation of portions of the records in which they are +found, and is willing to abide by the issue if the evidence on those +points--evidence with which the human mind is quite competent to +deal,--we answer, that he is not the man with whom we are now arguing. +The points in dispute will be determined by the honest use of history, +criticism, and philology. But between such a man and one who rejects +Christianity altogether, we can imagine no consistent position. + +____ + + +Nor can we disguise from ourselves, indeed, that consistency in the +application of the essential principle of Rationalism would compel us +to go a few steps further; for since, as Bishop Butler has shown, no +greater difficulties (if so great) attach to the page of Revelation than +to the volume of Nature itself,--especially those which are involved in +that dread enigma, 'the origin of evil,' compared with which all other +enigmas are trifles,--that abyss into which so many of the +difficulties of all theology, natural and revealed, at last disembogue +themselves,--we feel that the admission of the principle of Rationalism +would ultimately drive us, not only to reject Christianity, but to +reject Theism in all its forms, whether Monotheism, or Pantheism, and +even positive or dogmatic Atheism itself. Nor could we stop, indeed, +till we had arrived at that absolute pyrrhonism which consists, if such +a thing be possible, in the negation of all belief,--even to the belief +that we do not believe! + +But though the objections to the reception of Christianity are numerous, +and some insoluble, the question always returns, whether they over +balance the mass of the evidence in its favour? nor is it to be +forgotten that they are susceptible of indefinite alleviation as time +rolls on; and with a few observations on this point we will close the +present article. + +A refinement of modern philosophy often leads our rationalist to speak +depreciatingly, if not contemptuously, of what he calls a stereotyped +revelation--revelation in a book. It ties down, he is fond of saying, +the spirit to the letter; and limits the 'progress' and 'development' of +the human mind in its 'free' pursuit of truth. The answer we should +be disposed to make is, first, that if a book does contain truth, the +sooner that truth is stereotyped the better; secondly, that if such +book, like the book of Nature, or, as we deem, the book of Revelation, +really contains truth, its study, so far from being incompatible with +the spirit of free inquiry, will invite and repay continual efforts more +completely to understand it. Though the great and fundamental truths +contained in either volume will be obvious in proportion to their +importance and necessity, there is no limit to be placed on the +degree of accuracy with which the truths they severally contain may be +deciphered, stated, adjusted--or even on the period in which fragments +of new truth shall cease to be elicited. It is true indeed that theology +cannot be said to admit of unlimited progress, in the same sense as +chemistry--which may, for aught we know, treble or quadruple its +present accumulations, vast as they are, both in bulk and importance. +But, even in theology as deduced from the Scripture, minute fragments +of new truth, or more exact adjustments of old truth, may be perpetually +expected. Lastly, we shall reply, that the objection to a revelation's +being consigned to a 'book' is singularly inapposite, considering that +by the constitution of the world and of human nature, man, without +books,--without the power of recording, transmitting, and perpetuating +thought, of rendering it permanent and diffusive, ever is, ever has +been, and ever must be little better than a savage; and therefore, if +there was to be a revelation at all, it might fairly be expected that it +would be communicated in this form; thus affording us one more analogy, +in addition to the many which Butler has stated, and which may in +time be multiplied without end, between 'Revealed Religion and the +Constitution and Course of Nature.' + +And this leads us to notice a saying of that comprehensive genius, +which we do not recollect having seen quoted in connexion with recent +controversies, but which is well worthy of being borne in mind, as +teaching us to beware of hastily assuming that objections to Revelation, +whether suggested by the progress of science, or from the supposed +incongruity of its own contents, are unanswerable. We are not, he says, +rashly to suppose that we have arrived at the true meaning of the whole +of that book. 'It is not at all incredible that a book which has been +so long in the possession of mankind, should contain many truths as +yet undiscerned. For all the same phenomena and the same faculties of +investigation, from which such great discoveries in natural knowledge +have been made in the present and last age, were equally in the +possession of mankind several thousand year's before.' These words are +worthy of Butler: and as many illustrations of their truth have been +supplied since his day, so many others may fairly be anticipated in the +course of time. Several distinct species of argument for the truth +of Christianity from the very structure and contents of the books +containing it have been invented--of which Paley's 'Horae Paulinae' is a +memorable example. The diligent collation of the text, too, has removed +many difficulties; the diligent study of the original languages of +ancient history, manners and customs, has cleared up many more; and by +supplying proof of accuracy where error of falsehood had been charged, +has supplied important additions to the evidence which substantiates the +truth of Revelation. Against the alleged absurdity of the laws of +Moses, again, such works as that of Micholis have disclosed much of that +relative wisdom which aims not at the abstractedly best, but the best +which a given condition of humanity, a given period of the world's +history, and a given purpose could dictate. In pondering such +difficulties as still remain in those laws, we may remember the answer +of Solon to the question, whether he had given the Athenians the best +laws; viz. that he had given them the best of which they were capable: +or the judgment of the illustrious Montesquieu, who remarks, 'When +Divine Wisdom said to the Jews, "I have given you precepts which are not +good," this signifies that they had only a relative goodness: and this +is the sponge which wipes out all the difficulties which are to be found +in the laws of Moses.' This is a truth which we are persuaded a profound +philosophy will understand the better the more deeply it is revolved; +and only those legislative pedants will refuse weight to it, who would +venturously propose to give New Zealanders and Hottentots, in the +starkness of their savage ignorance, the complex forms of the British +constitution. In similar manner, many of the old objections of our +deistical writers have ceased to be heard of in our day, unless it be +from the lips of the veriest sciolism; the objections, for instance, +of that truly pedantic philosophy which once argued that ethical and +religious truth are not given in the Scripture in a system such as a +schoolman might have digested it into; as if the brief iteration and +varied illustration of pregnant truth, intermingled with narrative, +parable, and example, were not infinitely better adapted to the +condition of the human intellect in general! For similar reasons, the +old objection, that statements of Christian morality are given without +the requisite limitations, and cannot be literally acted upon, has +been long since abandoned as an absurdity. It is granted that a hundred +folios could not contain the hundredth part of all the limitations of +human actions, and all the possible cases of a contentious casuistry; +and it is also granted that human nature is not so inept as to be +incapable of interpreting and limiting for itself such rules as +'Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.' + +In the same manner have many of the objections suggested at different +periods by the progress of science been dissolved; and, amongst the +rest, those alleged from the remote historic antiquity of certain +nations on which infidels, like Volney and Voltaire, once so confidently +relied. And it is worthy of remark, that some of the old objections +of philosophers have disappeared by the aid of that very +science--geology--which has led, as every new branch of science probably +will, to new ones. Geology has, however, in our judgment, done at least +as much already to remove difficulties as to occasion them; and it is +not illogical, or perhaps unfair, to surmise that, we will only have +patience, its own difficulties, as those of so many other branches of +science, will be eventually solved. One thing is clear,--that, if the +Bible be true and geology be true, that cannot be geologically true +which is scripturally false, or vice versa; and we may therefore +laugh at the polite compromise which is sometimes affected by learned +professors of theology and geology respectively. All we demand of +either--all that is needed--is, that they refrain from a too hasty +conclusion of absolute contradictions between their respective sciences, +and retain quiet remembrance of the imperfection of our present +knowledge both of geology and, as Butler says, of the Bible. The recent +interpretation of the commencement of Genesis--by which the first verse +is simply supposed to affirm the original creation of all things, while +the second immediately refers to the commencement of the human economy; +passing by those prodigious cycles which geology demands, with a silence +worthy of a true revelation, which does not pretend to gratify our +curiosity as to the previous condition of our globe any more than our +curiosity as to the history of other worlds--was first suggested by +geology, though suspected and indeed anticipated by some of the +early church Fathers. But it is now felt by multitudes to be the more +reasonable interpretation,--the second verse certainly more naturally +suggesting previous revolutions in the history of the earth than its +then instant creation: and though we frankly concede that we have +not yet seen any account of the whole first chapter of Genesis which +quadrates with the doctrines of geology, it does not become us hastily +to conclude that there can be none. If a further adjustment of those +doctrines, and a more diligent investigation of the Scripture together, +should hereafter suggest any possible harmony,--though not the true +one but one ever so gratuitously assumed,--it will be sufficient to +neutralise the objection. This, it will be observed, is in accordance +with what has been already shown,--that wherever an objection is founded +on an apparent contradiction between two statements, it is sufficient to +show any possible way in which the statements may be reconciled, whether +the true one or not. The objection, in that case, to the supposition +that the facts are gratuitously assumed, though often urged, is, in +reality, nothing to the purpose.* If it should ever be shown, for +example, that supposing as many geological eras as the philosopher +requires to have passed in the chasm between the first verse, which +asserts the original dependence of all things on the fiat of the +Creator, and the second, which is supposed to commence the human era, +any imaginable condition of our system--at the close, so to speak, of a +given geological period--would harmonise with a fair interpretation of +the first chapter or Genesis, the objection will be neutralised. + +____ + +* Some admirable remarks in relation to the answers we are bound to give +to objections to revealed religion have been made by Leibnitz (in reply +to Bayle) in the little tract prefixed to his Theodicee, entitled 'De +la Conformite de la Foi avec la Raison.' He there shows that the utmost +that can fairly be asked is, to prove that the affirmed truths involve +no necessary contradiction. + +____ + + +We have little doubt in our own minds that the ultimately converging +though, it may be, transiently discrepant conclusions of the sciences of +philology, ethnology, and geology (in all of which we may rest assured +great discoveries are yet to be made) will tend to harmonise with the +ultimate results of a more thorough study of the records of the race as +contained in the book of Revelation. Let us be permitted to imagine +one example of such possible harmony. We think that the philologist may +engage to make out, on the strictest principles of induction, from the +tenacity with which all communities cling to their language, and the +slow observed rate of change by which they alter; by which Anglo-Saxon, +for example has become English*, Latin Italian, and ancient Greek modern +(though these languages have been affected by every conceivable cause of +variation and depravation); that it would require hundreds of thousands, +nay millions, of years to account for the production, by known natural +causes, of the vast multitude of totally distinct languages, and tens +of thousands of dialects, which man now utters. On the other hand, the +geologist is more and more persuaded of comparatively recent origin +of the human race. What, then, is to harmonise these conflicting +statements? Will it not be curious if it should turn out that nothing +can possibly harmonise them but the statement of Genesis, that in order +to prevent the natural tendency of the race to accumulate on one spot +and facilitate their dispersion and destined occupancy of the globe, a +preternatural intervention expedited the operation of the causes +which would gradually have given birth to distinct languages? Of the +probability of this intervention, some profound philologist have, on +scientific grounds alone, expressed their conviction. But in all such +matters, what we plead for is only--patience; we wish not to dogmatise; +all we ask is, a philosophic abstinence from dogmatism. In relation to +many difficulties, what is now a reasonable exercise of faith may one +day be rewarded by a knowledge which on those particular points may +terminate it. And, in such ways, it is surely conceivable that a great +part of the objections against Revelation may, in time, disappear; and, +though other objections may be the result of the progress of the other +sciences or the origination of new, the solution of previous objections, +together with the additions to the evidences of Christianity, external +and internal, which the study of history and of the Scriptures +may supply, and the still brighter light cast by the progress of +Christianity and the fulfilment of its prophecies, may inspire +increasing confidence that the new objections are also destined to yield +to similar solvents. Meanwhile, such new difficulties, and those more +awful and gigantic shadows which we have no reason to believe will ever +be chased from the sacred page,--mysteries which probably could not be +explained from the necessary limitation of our faculties, and are, +at all events, submitted to us as a salutary discipline of our +humility,--will continue to form that exercise of faith which is +probably nearly equal in every age--and necessary in all ages, if we +would be made 'little children,' qualified 'to enter the kingdom of +God.' + +____ + ++ It contains, let us recollect, (after all causes of changes, including +a conquest, have been at work upon it,) a vast majority of the Saxon +words spoken in the time of Alfred--nearly a thousand years ago! + +____ + + +In conclusion we may remark, that while many are proclaiming that +Christianity is effete, and that, in the language of Mr. Proudhon (who +complacently says it amidst the ignominious failure of a thousand social +panaceas or his own age and country), it will certainly 'die out in +about three hundred years;' and while many more proclaim that, as a +religion of supernatural origin and supernatural evidence, it is already +dying, if not dead; we must beg leave to remind them that, even if +'Christianity be false, as they allege, they are utterly forgetting the +maxims of a cautious induction in saying that it will therefore cease to +exert dominion over mankind. What proof is there of this? Whether +true or false, it has already survived numberless revolutions of human +opinions, and all sorts of changes and assaults. It is not confined, +like other religions, to any one race--to any one clime--or any one form +of political constitution. While it transmigrates freely from race to +race, and clime to clime, its chief home; too, is still in the bosom of +enterprise, wealth, science, and civilisation; and it is at this moment +most powerful amongst the nations that have most of these. If not true, +it has such an appearance of truth as to have satisfied many of the +acutest and most powerful intellects of the species;--a Bacon, a Pascal, +a Leibnitz, a Locke, a Newton, a Butler;--such an appearance of truth as +to have enlisted in its support an immense army of genius and learning: +genius and learning, not only in some sense professional, and often +wrongfully represented as therefore interested, but much of both, +strictly extra-professional; animated to its defence by nothing but +a conviction of the force of the arguments by which its truth is +sustained, and that 'hope full of immortality' which its promises have +inspired. Under such circumstances it must appear equally rash and +gratuitous to suppose, even if it be a delusion, that an institute, +which has thus enlisted the sympathies of so many of the greatest minds +of all races and of all ages--which is alone stable and progressive +amidst instability and fluctuation,--will soon come to an end. Still +more absurdly premature is it to raise a paean over its fall, upon every +new attack upon it, when it has already survived so many. This, in fact, +is a tone which, though every age renews it, should long since have been +rebuked by the constant falsification of similar prophecies, from +the time of Julian to the time of Bolingbroke, and from the time of +Bolingbroke to the time of Strauss. As Addison, we think, humorously +tells the Atheist, that he is hasty in his logic when he infers that if +there be no God, immortality must be a delusion, since, if chance +has actually found him a place in this bad world, it may, perchance, +hereafter find him another place in a worse,---so we say, that if +Christianity be a delusion, since it is a delusion which has been proof +against so much of bitter opposition, and has imposed upon such hosts +of mighty intellects, these is nothing to show that it will not do so +still, in spite of the efforts either of Proudhon or a Strauss. Such +a tone was, perhaps, never so triumphant as during the heat of the +Deistical controversy in our own country, and to which Butler alludes +with so much characteristic but deeply satirical simplicity, in the +preface to his great work:--'It is come,' says he, 'I know not how, to +be taken for granted by many persons that Christianity is not so much +a subject of inquiry, but that it is now at length discovered to be +fictitious .... On the contrary, thus much at least will here be found, +not taken for granted, but proved, that any reasonable man, who will +thoroughly consider the matter, may be as much assured as he is of his +own being, that it is not, however, so clear that there is nothing in +it.' The Christian, we conceive, may now say the same to the Froudes, +and Foxtons, and to much more formidable adversaries of the present day. +Christianity, we doubt not, will still live, when they and their works, +and the refutations of their works, are alike forgotten; and a new +series of attacks and defences shall have occupied for a while (as so +many others have done) the attention of the world. Christianity, like +Rome, has had both the Gaul and Hannibal at her gates: But as the +'Eternal City' in the latter case calmly offered for sale, and sold, at +an undepreciated price, the very ground on which the Carthaginian had +fixed his camp, with equal calmness may Christianity imitate her example +of magnanimity. She may feel assured that, as in so many past instances +of premature triumph on the part of her enemies, the ground they occupy +will one day be its own; that the very discoveries, apparently hostile, +of science and philosophy, will be a great extent with the discoveries +in chronology and history; and thus will it be, we are confident, (and +to a certain extent has been already), with those in geology. That +science has done much, not only to render the old theories of Atheism +untenable and to familiarise the minds of men to the idea of miracles, +by that of successive creations, but to confirm the Scriptural statement +of the comparatively recent origin of our Race. Only the men of science +and the men of theology must alike Guard against the besetting fallacy +of their kind,--that of too hastily taking for granted that they already +know the whole of their respective sciences, and of forgetting the +declaration of the Apostle, equally true of all man's attainments, +whether in one department of science or another,--'We know but in part, +and we prophesy in part.' + +Though Socrates perhaps expressed himself too absolutely when he said +that 'he only knew nothing,' yet a tinge of the same spirit,--a deep +conviction of the profound ignorance of the human mind, even at its +best--has ever been a characteristic of the most comprehensive genius. +It has been a topic on which it has been fond of mournfully dilating. +It is thus with Socrates, with Plato, with Bacon (even amidst all his +magnificent aspirations and bold predictions), with Newton, with Pascal, +and especially with Butler, in whom, if in any, the sentiment is carried +to excess. We need not say that it is seldom found in the writings of +those modern speculators who rush, in the hardihood of their adventurous +logic, on a solution of the problems of the Absolute and the Infinite, +and resolve in delightfully brief demonstrations the mightiest problems +of the universe--those great enigmas, from which true philosophy +shrinks, not because it has never ventured to think of them, but because +it has thought of them enough to know that it is in vain to attempt +their solution. To know the limits of human philosophy is the 'better +part' of all philosophy; and though the conviction of our ignorance is +humiliating, it is, like every true conviction, salutary. Amidst +this night of the soul, bright stars--far distant fountains of +illumination--are wont to steal out, which shine not while the imagined +Sun of reason is above the horizon! and it is in that night, as in the +darkness of outward nature, that we gain our only true ideas of the +illimitable dimensions of the universe, and of our true position in it. + +Meanwhile we conclude that God has created 'two great lights,'--the +greater light to rule man's busy day--and that is Reason, and the lesser +to rule his contemplative night--and that is Faith. + +But faith itself shines only so long as she reflects some faint +Illumination from the brighter orb. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Reason and Faith; Their Claims and +Conflicts, by Henry Rogers + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REASON AND FAITH *** + +***** This file should be named 15563.txt or 15563.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/5/6/15563/ + +Produced by Michael Madden + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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