Having examined Dean Farrar's observations on the Bible Canon, and seen
that it is a more or less arbitrary selection from Hebrew and early
Christian literature, many of the books being anonymous, while others
bear the names of authors who did not write them, and most of them being
much later compositions than orthodoxy supposes; we now take a leap
forward to his twelfth chapter to see what he has to say on the subject
of the Bible and Science. His first object is to drive home to his
co-religionists the mischief of adhering to the old doctrine of Bible
infallibility. Consequently he does not mince matters in dealing with
the difficulties of the literal theory of inspiration. Writers like
Gaussen contend that the Bible is a perfect authority in matters of
science. Mr. Gladstone argues that Moses supernaturally anticipated
the teachings of modern evolution, and that the inspired fishermen of
Galilee, notably St. Peter, no less supernaturally anticipated all that
modern astronomy teaches as to the final destiny of our planet. Dr.
Farrar declines to follow them in this perilous path. He does not walk
in the opposite direction, for that would lead him among the "infidels."
He strikes off at right angles, and takes the line that the Bible was
never intended to teach science, or anything else but religion.
He quotes with approval the saying of Archbishop Sumner, that "the
Scriptures have never revealed a scientific truth." He maintains that
the writers of Scripture had only a natural knowledge of exact science;
and that was precious little, and was indeed rather ignorance than
knowledge, as they belonged to "the most unscientific of all nations in
the most unscientific of all ages." "It is now understood by competent
inquirers," he says, "that geology is God's revelation to us of one set
of truths, and Genesis of quite another." "Nature," he says, "is a book
which contains a revelation of God in one sphere, and Scripture a book
which contains a revelation of him in another. Both books have often
been misread, but no _truth_ revealed in the one can be irreconcilable
with any truth revealed in the other." This, however, is a mere truism;
for one truth cannot be irreconcilable with another truth. Dr. Farrar's
statement sounds imposing and consolatory, but when you look into its
meaning you see it is only a pulpit platitude.
But before we proceed to criticise Dr. Farrar's position, let us glance
at his attack upon the literalists. He charges them with having opposed
and persecuted every modern science, and with having manufactured the
most absurd scientific theories from the text of the Bible; the said
theories being not only ludicrous, but irreconcilably opposed to each
other. Lactantius, with the Bible in his hand, ridiculed the rotundity
of the earth. Roger Bacon and Galileo were imprisoned and tortured for
teaching true science instead of the false science of the Church.
John Wesley declared the Copernican astronomy to be in opposition to
Scripture. Thomas Burnet's "Sacred Theory of the Earth," founded upon
the Bible, was assailed by William Whiston, who based a different
"Sacred Theory" upon the very same book. Buffon, the great French
scientist, was compelled by the Sorbonne to recant, and to abandon
everything in his writings that was "contrary to the narrative of
Moses." Even when God (that is to say Dr. Simpson) gave to the world the
priceless boon of anaesthetics, there were many Biblicists who declared
that the use of chloroform in cases of painful confinement was flying
in the face of God's curse upon the daughters of Eve. Catholic and
Protestant have alike pitted the Bible against Science, and both have
been ignominiously beaten.
But this is not all. The theologians have been disgraced as well as
defeated. With respect to the Buffon case, for instance, Dr. Farrar
writes as follows:--
"The line now taken by apologists is very different from that of
previous centuries, and less honest. It declares that Genesis and
geology are in exact accord. It no longer refuses to believe the facts
of nature, but instead of this it boldly sophisticates the facts of
Scripture."
John Stuart Mill said that every new truth passes through three phases
of reception. At first, it is declared to be false and dangerous;
secondly, it is discovered that there is something to be said for it;
lastly, its opponents turn round and declare "we said so all along."
Dr. Farrar dots all the "i's" in Mill's statement. He asserts that
"religious teachers" first say of every scientific discovery, "It is
blasphemous and contrary to Scripture." Next they say, "There is nothing
in Scripture which absolutely contradicts it." Finally they say, "It is
distinctly revealed in Scripture itself."
Dr. Farrar puts the historic case against "orthodoxy"--which, of course,
is not Christianity!--in the following fashion:--
"The history of most modern sciences has been as follows. Its
discoverers have been proscribed, anathematised, and, in every possible
instance, silenced or persecuted; yet before a generation has passed
the champions of a spurious orthodoxy have had to confess that their
interpretations were erroneous; and--for the most part without an
apology and without a blush--have complacently invented some new line
of exposition by which the phrases of Scripture can be squared into
semblable accordance with the now acknowledged facts."
Even in the comparatively recent case of Darwin this was perfectly true.
Dr. Farrar, who preached Darwin's funeral sermon in Westminster Abbey,
says that he "endured the fury of pulpits and Church Congresses." He
did so with quiet dignity; not an angry word escaped him. Yet before
Darwin's death not only was the scientific world converted, but leading
theologians said that, if Darwinism were proved to be true, there was
"nothing in it contrary to the creeds of the Catholic faith."
Darwin never answered the clergy. He had better work to do. All he did
was to smile at them. In one of his letters he said that when the men
of science are agreed about anything all the clergy have to do is to say
ditto. He understood that when science is victorious it will always have
clerical patronage. Had he been able to do it, he would have smiled, in
that beautiful benevolent way of his, at Dr. Farrar's funeral sermon.
The worthy Dean thought they had got Darwin at last; and the grand old
philosopher might have said, "Why yes, my _corpse!_"
So much for Dr. Farrar's impeachment of "orthodoxy" and its doctrine
of plenary inspiration. Let us now examine his own position, and see
whether it is logical as well as convenient.
Take the first chapter of Genesis. It is not a scientific revelation,
though it seems to be. Whoever wrote it had only the science of his
time. Nevertheless, it is of "transcendent value," according to Dr.
Farrar. "Its true and deep object," he says, "was to set right an erring
world in the supremely important knowledge that there was one God and
Father of us all, the Creator of heaven and earth, a God who saw all
things which he has made, and pronounced them to be very good."
This is very pretty in its way; but how absurd it is in the light of the
fact that the Hebrew creation story is all _borrowed!_ While the
Jews were desert nomads, long before the concoction of their sacred
scriptures the doctrine of a Creator of heaven and earth was known in
India and in Egypt, not to recite a list of other nations. If this is
all the first chapter of Genesis teaches, we may well exclaim, "Thank
you for nothing!" It is a curious "revelation" which only discloses
what is familiar. Had the Bible never been written, had the Jews never
existed, the "true and deep object" of the first chapter of Genesis
would have been quite as well subserved. Wherever the Christian
missionaries have gone they have found the creation story in front of
them. Wherever they took it they were carrying coals to Newcastle.
We venture to suggest that if Dr. Farrar thinks that all things God has
made are very good, there are many persons who do not share his opinion.
It would be idle to read that text to a sailor pursued by a shark. We
could multiply this instance a thousandfold; but why give a list of
all the predatory and parasitical creatures on this planet, from human
tyrants and despoilers down to cholera microbes? Dr. Farrar may reply
that everything ends in mystery, that we must have faith, that it is our
interest as well as our duty to believe. But that is exactly what the
Catholic Church says, and Dr. Farrar laughs it to scorn. The truth is,
that all theology is ultimately a matter of faith; and the quarrel about
more or less is a domestic difference. The greater difference is between
Faith and Reason. This was clearly seen by Cardinal Newman, who pointed
out that every mystery of the Roman Catholic faith is matched by a
mystery in Protestant theology.
Finally, we have to remark that Dr. Farrar overlooks a very important
point in this controversy. Having argued that the Bible was not intended
to teach science, and has not in fact helped the world to a single
scientific discovery; having also admitted that the Bible has all along
been used to hinder the progress of natural knowledge, and to justify
the persecution of honest investigators; he seems to imagine that there
is no more to be said. But there is _much_ more to be said. We forbear
to press the objection that Omniscience was very curiously employed in
entangling a religious revelation with scientific blunders, which would
necessarily retard the progress of scientific truth, and therefore of
human civilisation. What we wish to emphasise is less open to the retort
that Omniscience is beyond our finite judgment. We desire to urge that
the Bible is not simply non-scientific. It is anti-scientific. Let us
take, for instance, the story of the creation and fall of man. Even
if it be not taken literally, but allegorically, it is thoroughly
antagonistic to the teachings of Evolution. At the very least it implies
that man is something special and unique, whereas he is included in the
general scheme of biology, and is but "the paragon of animals." Get rid
of the actual garden and the actual tree of knowledge, as Dr. Farrar
does, and there still remains the fact that the fall of man is a
falsehood, and the ascent of man a verity. The allegory does not
correspond to the essential truth of man's history; and in spite of all
the flattering rhetoric with which Dr. Farrar invests it--a rhetoric
so inharmonious with its own consummate simplicity--there is something
inexpressibly childish to the modern mind in the awful heinousness which
is attributed to the mere eating of forbidden fruit. An act is really
not vicious because it is prohibited, or virtuous because it conforms to
the dictates of authority. When man attains to intellectual maturity
he smiles at the ethical trick which was played upon his youthful
ignorance. It is not sufficient to tell him that he must do this, and
must not do that. He requires a reason. His intelligence must go hand in
hand with his emotions. It is this union, indeed, which constitutes what
we call conscience.
The truth is that the Bible is steeped in superstition and
supernaturalism. Its cosmogony, its conception of man's origin and
position in the universe, its infantile legends, its miracles and magic,
its theory of madness and disease, its doctrine of the external efficacy
of prayer, its idea that man's words and wishes avail to change the
sweep of universal forces and the operation of their immutable laws: all
this is in direct opposition to the letter and spirit of Science. The
special pleading of clergymen like Dr. Farrar may afford a temporary
relief to trembling Christians, and keep them for a further term in
the fold of faith; but it will never make the slightest impression upon
sceptics, unless it fills them with contemptuous pity for a number of
clever men who are obliged, for personal reasons, to practise the lowest
arts of sophistry.