You tell me that you have been shewing my letters to some of your young
friends, and that they have expressed various objections to
non-miraculous Christianity. Some say that I am an “optimist;” others
that it is a compromise between faith and reason, and that compromises
are always to be rejected; one says that I am for introducing “a new
religion;” others that a Gospel of illusion must, by its own shewing, be
itself illusive; others, that “these new notions are so vague that they
can never be put into a definite shape, and they are so mixed up with
theories and fancies and suppositions of error in every period of the
Church, that they can never commend themselves to the masses.”
Do you know what “cant” means, and why it was so called? “Cant” is the
sort of language used (not always deceitfully) when a man “chants,” or
utters in a kind of sing-song, words that he has not felt himself, or,
if he has ever felt, has ceased to feel, through the too frequent use of
them. Hence he cannot speak them, but “sing-songs” them, “chants” or
“cants” them. Now I take leave to think that two or three of the
objections above-mentioned come under this head of “cant.” I mean that
your young objectors, not knowing exactly at the moment what to say
about opinions that are new and require some thought to understand or
criticise, and being desirous of saying something at the moment, and
something, if possible, that shall be brief and smart, say what they
have heard other people say about other sets of opinions which have some
affinity of sound with mine. This is a very common habit with inferior
professional reviewers, who are bound to say something readable and
epigrammatic for limited remuneration and consequently in limited time:
but your friends have not come to that yet, and are therefore not to be
so easily excused.
“Optimist!” How can a man who believes in a real Satan be an optimist? I
thought an optimist was one who believed the world to be the best of all
possible worlds. This I do not, and cannot, believe. I trust indeed that
a time may come when we may be optimists after a fashion; when we shall
look back, in God, upon the universal sum of things and find that it has
been the best possible under the circumstances, and that evil has been
marvellously subordinated to good: but I never can believe that a
Universe in which God defeats Satan is better than a Universe in which
God reigns unresisted; and therefore, as to this “best of all possible
worlds,” I rest always humbly silent. Some people may believe, if they
can, that evil is another form of good; that the world is like one of
those spectroscopes—I think they call them—where several different
pictures on a round card, each meaningless by itself, are converted into
one significant picture by whirling the card round too quickly for the
eye to follow. In the same way they seem to suppose they can take little
pictures of oppression, adultery, murder, and the other myriad shapes of
sin, spin them round fast enough along with other little pictures of
temperance, purity, peace, and all the virtues; and the whole becomes a
panorama of moral perfection! Argue thus who will; I cannot.
If I am not an optimist in my view of this world, you will surely not
accuse me of optimism in my views of the next. Do my notions of heaven
and hell encourage any one to be selfish and luxurious or idle now, in
the hope that he will be let off easily hereafter? Have I not said that
there will be no “letting off”? That God will do the best thing for
Nero—is that do you think likely to make Nero altogether an optimist in
the life to come? I think He will do the best thing for me; but I
sometimes shiver when I say it; awe possesses me, awe mingled with
trust, but certainly not without a touch of fear. Assuredly the
certainty of retribution in heaven makes me no optimist for myself or
others, as to the life after death. In one sense only am I an optimist,
that I believe that the best will ultimately prevail, and that faith,
hope, and love, will prove the dominant powers in the Universe. This I
believe, and to this belief I cling as a most precious hope, to be
cherished by action as well as by meditation; but this is not, I think,
what is ordinarily meant by optimism; and certainly it does not
encourage the spirit of _laissez faire_ which optimism is supposed to
breed.
Next as to “compromise.” The ordinary cant about “compromise” is
sometimes the lazy expedient of those who wish to avoid the trouble of
coming to a decision, and to shelter their indolence under a noble
censoriousness. What they mean by “compromise” is any theory that
attributes results to more than one cause. It is generally very easy to
elaborate some extreme theory which shall explain almost everything by
some single cause, by Faith, for example, on the one side, or by Reason
on the other; and it is equally easy for the advocates on either side to
demolish the theory of their adversaries; but it is far from easy
afterwards to shew how, and to what extent, _both_ causes are
accountable for the result which has been fictitiously attributed to a
single cause. Now the two extreme parties, in their contests, afford us
fine cut-and-thrust exhibitions; the via media exhibits an organized
campaign. The theatrical multitude, which does not care in the least
about truth, but delights in intellectual slashers, soon finds it dull
work, after clapping an exciting _mêlée_, to have to sit still and
listen to a dispassionate and impartial discussion; so they cry
“compromise” and hiss. But the term is a misnomer. “Compromise,” or
“mutual promise,” cannot describe a legitimate conclusion that hits the
mark missed by two previously divergent shots. It is as if A were to hit
the top of the target, and B the bottom, and then both A and B were to
fall foul of C, and accuse him of “compromising”, because he pierces the
bull’s eye half way between the two. “Compromise” often implies a
failure of exact justice; as when Smith thinks Jones owes him 50_l._,
and Jones thinks he owes Smith only 40_l._; and they “split the
difference” and make it 45_l._; both of them thinking that the
arrangement is unjust, but both preferring the injustice to the
expensive formalities of legal justice. This is “compromise,” and
illogical; but there is none of this illogicality in a fair impartial
discussion avoiding previous bias.
So in the present instance. Some have been biassed in favour of Faith,
others in favour of Reason; some have accepted as historical all the
miracles and mighty works in the Old and New Testament indiscriminately,
others have rejected all indiscriminately; some have declared that every
word in the Old and New Testament (I don’t quite know how they have got
rid of the difficulty of various readings) is exactly inspired and every
detail historically true; others, that there are so many errors and
illusions that the books may be put aside as no better than myths: some
have said that, since we cannot worship an unknown Being, we must
worship the human race; others that, since we cannot worship our very
degraded selves, we must worship some being altogether different from
ourselves: some have said that Christ is God, and have ignored His
humanity; others have said that He was a “mere man,” and therefore not
divine. Now in all these cases the truth lies between the two extremes.
Man derives religious truth from Faith, but Faith assisted by Reason;
Christ did not perform miracles, but He did perform mighty works; the
Old and New Testament, like all other vehicles of revelation, contain
illusion, but illusion preserving and protecting truth; we must not
worship ourselves, and yet we cannot worship one who is altogether
different from ourselves; Christ is a man, and yet Christ is God. But to
all these conclusions we are not led by “mutual promise,” give and take
of any kind, but by full and unbiassed consideration of all sides of the
subject, knowing that (for the present at all events) we shall displease
all, both the orthodox and heterodox alike.
So far from suggesting any compromise between Faith and Reason, I have
merely pointed out that the provinces of the two are, to a very large
extent, distinct, so that many of their operations can be performed
altogether independently. I have never said, “Do not follow out the
conclusions of your Reason in this or that instance because you would be
led to inconvenient results,” but, “Follow out the conclusions of your
Reason in every instance and presently acknowledge that you are led, in
some cases, to results so absurd and unpractical that you must infer
Reason to be out of its province in these cases. Reason your utmost for
example about a First Cause and Predestination and the Origin of Evil
and the like; but then, when you have come to the conclusion that,
logically speaking, it is equally absurd to suppose that the world had
no cause, and that the First Cause had no cause, give the subject up as
being beyond the syllogistic powers.” Surely there is no unworthy
compromise here, nothing but common sense! Wherever historical facts are
affirmed in religion, I have said that the accounts of those facts are
to be judged upon evidence and by Reason alone; here Faith and Hope have
no place; history in the New Testament is to be judged like history in
Thucydides.
In reality it is not I with my via media that am guilty of compromise;
it is the Hyper-orthodox (if I may use a term that is nominally
meaningless but really quite intelligible) and the Agnostic. For the
Hyper-orthodox say “Accept the Scriptures in a lump.” Why? “Because it
would be so very inconvenient not to have an infallible guide.” Of
course they do not say so in these precise words: but this is what their
replies ultimately amount to. Again the Agnostics say, “Reject the
Scriptures _in toto_.” Why? “Because it would be so very inconvenient to
weigh evidence and discriminate the true from the false.” It is these,
not I, who are calling in emotion to do the work of Reason, and who
(partly, I think, to avoid facing unpalatable facts) force Reason to
make a compromise with prejudice. “Convenience,” as I have pointed out
in a previous letter, may be a legitimate basis for accepting as a Law
of Nature the tried and tested suggestions of the Imagination; but it is
not a legitimate basis on which to construct a belief in the genuineness
of the Book of Daniel or the Second Epistle of St. Peter.
Let me mention one point where, in appearance, but not in reality, my
theory is liable to the charge of compromise: I mean the discussion of
the Miraculous Conception and the Supernatural Incarnation. In
discussing the Miraculous Conception I have advised you to trust to your
Reason alone, because here you have to deal with a statement of physical
facts, true or untrue, and to be proved or disproved by evidence; but as
regards the Supernatural Incarnation and the statement that the Word of
God became a human spirit, I have pointed out that here we have a
statement that cannot be proved or disproved by simple historical
evidence, nor even by miracle, because even if an archangel descended
from heaven to trumpet forth a “Yes” or “No” to the world, the message
might be from the Devil. If then we are to believe in the Incarnation we
must have a twofold testimony. First must come the historical evidence
indicating the words, and deeds, and character, and results, of the life
of Christ, the truth of which must be judged by the Reason; and then
there must come the witness of the conscience exclaiming “This life is
divine; this man is one with God.” Consequently it is quite possible to
accept the Supernatural Incarnation while denying the Miraculous
Conception; and this I have felt obliged to do. But where is the
compromise or inconsistency? I am compelled by evidence and Reason to
deny the truth of the Miraculous Conception, on account of the very
small amount of evidence for it and the very large amount of evidence
against it; I am equally compelled by evidence and Faith to accept the
Supernatural Incarnation, because the evidence convinces me that a
certain life has been lived on earth, and my conscience convinces me
that this life could not have been lived by any being who was not one
with God.
Are my accusers equally free from confusion? I think not. Ask the
Hyper-orthodox why they believe in the Miraculous Conception in spite of
the silence of all the earliest documents; they will reply, (if you
penetrate below their first superficial answers, such as, “Because it is
in the Bible,” “Because I have believed it from my youth upward,” and
the like), “Jesus must have been born miraculously, because He was the
Son of God”—a confusion of things historical and spiritual, and a
manifest expulsion of Reason from her rightful province. Again, ask the
Agnostic why he does not believe that Jesus was the Son of God; he will
reply that he sees no proof of the fact, nor even of the existence of a
God; and if you press him to define what he means by “proof” of the
existence of a God, you will find that he wholly ignores the influence
of Imagination as a means of arriving at truth, and that he requires
some kind of evidence that shall entirely dispense with Faith. Thus the
Hyper-orthodox and the Agnostic are equally guilty, the one of
dispossessing Reason, the other of dispossessing Faith, from their
rightful provinces; and they accuse me of “compromising,” not because I
really compromise, but because I pursue truth at the cost of some
trouble, while they—partly perhaps to avoid the pain of thinking, and
the prospect of colliding with hard unpleasing truths—pursue severally
that form of untruth to which they are inclined by prejudice.
And now for the next objection, that “this is a new religion.” How can
men give the name of a new religion to that which proclaims as the one
means of salvation the Eternal Word of God believed in of old by Jews as
well as by Christians? Or is it a mark of novelty to accept Jesus of
Nazareth as that Word incarnate? The one thing new about the opinions
put forward in my letters is this—that it is not a necessary condition
for believing in Christ, that men should accept a number of historical
statements which are, and have been, doubted by many honest seekers
after truth. I believe I might add, without any exaggeration, that the
statements which I impugn are rejected by so large a number of those who
are most competent to judge, that, in spite of many inducements—some
richly substantial, some nobly spiritual—many of the ablest and best
educated young men of England cannot in these days be persuaded to
become ministers of the religion which appears to insist on them. Beyond
this protest, there is nothing, or very little, that is new about the
theory which I have endeavoured to set forth. I do not protest against
any moral abuse in the Church of England or the orthodox churches—such
abuses as made a great gulf in the days of Luther between the Roman
Catholic Church and the Protestants, when indulgences for sins were sold
by the cart-load. Possibly indeed the protracted belief in the
miraculous, when it has long outlived the conditions which made it
natural or pardonable, may tend to produce some moral evil; some
over-estimation of ostentatious and, so to speak, theatrical force; some
depreciation of the quiet processes by which God has mostly taught and
shaped mankind; some latent trust in a capricious God, who will not
“reward men according to their works” but will exercise a dispensing
power at the Day of Judgment. I say this may possibly soon happen, if it
has not already begun to happen; but at all events it is at present
latent, and it is not on any ground of this kind that I am advocating a
new view of the Old and New Testament. My object has been not to destroy
the old belief, but to remove certain obstacles which tend to prevent
people from embracing the essence of the old belief. The existence of a
God, the immortality of the soul, the conflict between God and Satan,
the redemption of mankind through the sacrifice of the eternal Son of
God incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus,
the operation of the Holy Spirit, the certainty of a heaven and hell,
the efficacy of prayer, the ultimate triumph of goodness and God— all
these things I steadfastly believe. But I see not the slightest reason
why, in order to hold fast these precious truths, I should be compelled
to believe that Joshua stopped the sun (or the earth?) or that an ass
talked with a human voice, or that the incarnate Son of God drowned two
thousand swine or destroyed a fig-tree with a word.
I am probably doing no more than give utterance to thoughts which have
been already expressed by others, or which, though unexpressed, are
latent in thousands of doubtful and expectant souls. But even were it
otherwise, even were it granted that the form of Christianity set forth
in my letters has some points of novelty, is mere novelty to suffice for
its condemnation?—and this in our century, when God has been teaching
and is teaching His children so much that is new in every department of
knowledge! Is it absolutely incredible that the same Supreme Teacher who
allowed some nineteen centuries to elapse between the Promise and the
promised Seed, should allow another nineteen centuries to elapse between
the Seed and the Harvest? Is it inconsistent that He who has led men to
the truths of science through mistakes and illusions should lead men by
the same paths to spiritual truth? How often must the Law of Illusion be
inculcated before we take it to heart? Illusions have encompassed
spiritual truth for Israel, for the Jews, for the Twelve in their
Master’s lifetime, for the first generation of Christians, and for every
subsequent generation down to the time of Luther. So much we Protestants
are bound to admit. Are we not then intolerably presumptuous in assuming
that illusions must have suddenly disappeared in the fifteenth century
and have left the theological atmosphere for the first time since the
creation of the world free from all spiritual refraction? How much
humbler and truer to suppose that every century and every generation has
its special cloud of illusions through which in due course we must all
toil upward, penetrating layer after layer of the illusive mist till we
reach at last the summit of the hill of Truth!
I find I have left myself too little time to answer your last two
objections as to the “vagueness” of my views and their inability to
“commend themselves to the masses.” I will try to answer them in my next
letter.
XXIX
THE RELIGION OF THE MASSES