It will be noted by the older among my readers, who are sure to be
obsessed more or less by elderly wrangles as to whether the gospels are
credible as matter-of-fact narratives, that I have hardly raised this
question, and have accepted the credible and incredible with equal
complacency. I have done this because credibility is a subjective
condition, as the evolution of religious belief clearly shows. Belief is
not dependent on evidence and reason. There is as much evidence that
the miracles occurred as that the battle of Waterloo occurred, or that a
large body of Russian troops passed through England in 1914 to take part
in the war on the western front. The reasons for believing in the murder
of Pompey are the same as the reasons for believing in the raising
of Lazarus. Both have been believed and doubted by men of equal
intelligence. Miracles, in the sense of phenomena we cannot explain,
surround us on every hand; life itself is the miracle of miracles.
Miracles in the sense of events that violate the normal course of our
experience are vouched for every day: the flourishing Church of Christ
Scientist is founded on a multitude of such miracles. Nobody believes
all the miracles: everybody believes some of them. I cannot tell why
men who will not believe that Jesus ever existed yet believe firmly that
Shakespear was Bacon. I cannot tell why people who believe that angels
appeared and fought on our side at the battle of Mons, and who believe
that miracles occur quite frequently at Lourdes, nevertheless boggle
at the miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius, and
reject it as a trick of priestcraft. I cannot tell why people who will
not believe Matthew's story of three kings bringing costly gifts to the
cradle of Jesus, believe Luke's story of the shepherds and the stable.
I cannot tell why people, brought up to believe the Bible in the old
literal way as an infallible record and revelation, and rejecting that
view later on, begin by rejecting the Old Testament, and give up the
belief in a brimstone hell before they give up (if they ever do) the
belief in a heaven of harps, crowns, and thrones. I cannot tell
why people who will not believe in baptism on any terms believe in
vaccination with the cruel fanaticism of inquisitors. I am convinced
that if a dozen sceptics were to draw up in parallel columns a list
of the events narrated in the gospels which they consider credible
and incredible respectively, their lists would be different in several
particulars. Belief is literally a matter of taste.