Thus far we have proceeded solely on scientific grounds, and have seen
that Monism and Agnosticism fail to account for nature. We may
therefore feel ourselves justified in assuming, as the only promising
solution of the enigma of existence, the being of a Divine Creator.
But this does not wholly exhaust the relations of science to religion.
When Science has led us into the presence of the Creator, she has
brought us to the threshold of religion, and there she suggests the
possibility that the spirit of man may have other relations with God
beyond those established by merely physical law. Science may venture
to say: "If all nature expresses the will of the Creator as carried
out in his laws, if the instinct of lower animals is an inspiration of
God, should we not expect that there will be laws of a higher order
regulating the free moral nature of man, and that there will be
possibilities of the reason of man communicating with, or receiving
aid from, the Supreme Intelligence?" Science undoubtedly suggests this
much to our reason, and the suggestion has commended itself to most of
the greater and clearer minds that have studied nature, whatever their
religious beliefs or their want of them.
It may thus be allowable for us, without encroaching on the domain of
theology, to inquire to what extent scientific principles and
scientific habits of thought agree with or diverge from the religious
beliefs of men. I do not propose to enter here into the inquiry as to
the accordance of the Bible with the earth's geological history, or
that of its representations of nature with the facts as held by
science. These subjects I have fully discussed in other works, which
are sufficiently accessible.[15] I shall merely refer to certain
general relations of science to the probability of a divine
revelation, and to the character of such revelation.
As to what is termed natural religion, enough has already been said.
If nature testifies to the being of God, and if the reason and the
conscience implanted in man, "accusing and excusing" one another,
constitute a law of God within him, regulating in some degree his
relations to God and to his fellow-men, we have a sufficient basis for
the natural religion which more or less actuates the conduct of every
human being. The case is different with revealed religion. Here we
have an apparent interference on the part of the Creator with his own
work, an additional intervention in one department to effect results
which elsewhere are worked out by the ordinary operation of natural
law. In revelation, therefore, we may have something, quite out of the
ordinary course of nature. On the other hand, it is possible that even
here we may have something more in harmony with natural laws than at
first sight appears.
It cannot truly be said that a revelation from God to man is
improbable from the point of view of science. Physical laws and brute
instincts are in their nature unvarying, and neither require nor admit
of intervention. But the reason and the will of free agents are in
this respect different. Though necessarily under law, they can judge
and decide between one law and another, and can even evade or
counteract one law by employing another, or can resolve to be
disobedient. Rational free agents may thus enter into courses not in
harmony with their own interests or their relations to their
surroundings. Hence, so soon as it pleased God to introduce in any
part of the universe a free rational will gifted with certain powers
over lower nature, only two courses were possible: either God must
leave such free agent wholly to his own devices, making him a god on a
small scale, and so far practically abdicating in his favor, or he
must place him under some law, and this not of the nature of mere
physical compulsion--which, on the hypothesis, would be
inadmissible--but in the nature of requirements addressed to his
reason and his conscience. Hence we might infer _a priori_ the
probability of some sort of communication between God and man.
Further, did we find such rational creature beginning, on his
introduction into the world, to mar the face of nature, to inflict
unnecessary suffering or injury on lower creatures or on members of
his own species, to disregard the moral instincts implanted in him, or
to disown the God who had created him, we should still more distinctly
perceive the need of revelation. This would in such case be no more
at variance with science or with natural law than the education given
by wise parents to their children, or the laws promulgated by a wise
government for the guidance of its subjects, both of which are, and
are intended to be, interventions affecting the ordinary course of
affairs.
Of necessity, all this proceeds on the supposition that there is a
God. But in certain discussions now prevalent as to the "origin of
religion," it is customary quietly to assume that there is no God to
be known, and consequently that religion must be a mere gratuitous
invention of man. It is not too much to say, however, that any
scientific conception of the unity of nature and of man's place in it
must forbid our making atheistic assumptions. If man were a mere
product of blind, unintelligent chance, the idea of a God was not
likely ever to have occurred to him, still less to have become the
common property of all races of men. In like manner, there is no
scientific basis for the assumption that man originated in a low and
bestial type, and that his religion developed itself by degrees from
the instincts of lower animals, from which man is supposed to have
originated. Such suppositions are unscientific (1) because no ancient
remains of such low forms of man are known; (2) because the lowest
types of man now extant can be proved to be degraded descendants of
higher types; (3) because, if man had originated in a low condition,
this would not have diminished the probability of a divine revelation
being given to promote his elevation.
On the other hand, it is a sad reality that man tends to sink from
high ideal morality and reason into debasing vices and gross
superstitions that are not natural, but which, on the contrary, place
him at variance with natural as well as with moral law. Thus the
actual and the possible debasement of man, instead of proving his
bestial origin, only increases the need of a divine revelation for his
improvement.
But, supposing the need of a revelation to be admitted, other
questions might arise as to its mode. Here the anticipations of
science would be guided by the analogy of nature. We should suppose
that the revelation would be made through the medium of the beings it
was intended to affect. It would be a revelation impressed on human
minds and expressed in human language. It might be in the form of
laws with penalties attached, or in that of persuasions addressed to
the reason and the sentiments. It would probably be gradual and
progressive--at first simple, and later more complex and complete. It
would thus become historical, and would be related to the stages of
that progress which it was intended to promote. It would necessarily
be incomplete, more especially in its earlier portions, and it would
always be under the necessity of more or less rudely representing
divine and heavenly things by earthly figures. Being human in its
medium, it would have the characteristics and the idiosyncrasies of
man to a certain extent, except in so far as it might please God to
communicate it directly through a perfect humanity identified with
divinity, or through higher and more perfect intelligences than man.
We should further expect that such revelation would not conflict with
what is good in natural religion or in the natural emotions and
sentiments of man; that it would not contradict natural facts or laws;
and that it would take advantage of the familiar knowledge of mankind
in order to illustrate such higher spiritual truths as cannot be
expressed in human language. Such a revelation would of necessity
require that we should receive it in faith, but faith resting on
evidence derived from things known, and from the analogy of the
revelation itself with what God reveals in nature. It would be no valid
objection to such a revelation to say that it is anthropomorphic,
since, in the nature of the case, it must come through man and be
suited to man; nor would it be any valid objection that it is
figurative, for truth as to spiritual realities must always be
expressed in terms of known phenomena of the natural world.
It has been objected, though not on behalf of science, that such a
revelation, if it related to things discoverable by man, would be
useless, while, if it related to things not discoverable, it could not
be understood. This is, however, a mere play upon words, and reminds
one of the doctrine attributed to the Arabian caliph with reference to
the Alexandrian Library: If its books contain what is written in the
Koran, they are useless; if anything different, they are injurious;
therefore let them be destroyed. It would indeed be subversive of all
education, human as well as divine; for the essence of this is to take
advantage of what the pupil knows, and to build on it acquirements
which, unaided, he could not have attained.
But, though all may agree as to the possibility, or even the
probability, of a revelation, many may dissent from particular dogmas
contained in or implied by the particular form of revelation in which
Christians believe. It is true that this dissent is based, not so much
on science as on alleged opposition to human sentiments; but it is
more or less supposed to be reinforced by scientific facts and laws.
Of doctrines supposed to be objectionable from these points of view, I
may name the reality of miracles and of prophecy; the efficacy of
prayer and of atonement or sacrifice; and the permanence of the
consequences of sin. Admitting that these doctrines are not original
discoveries of man, but revealed to him, and that they are not founded
on science, it may nevertheless be easily shown that they are in
harmony with the analogy of nature in a greater degree than either
their friends or their opponents usually suppose.
Miracles--or "signs," as they are more properly called in the New
Testament--are sometimes stated to imply suspension of natural law. If
they were such, and were alleged to be produced by any power short of
that of the Lawmaker himself, they would be incredible; and if
asserted to be by his power, they would be so far incredible as
implying changeableness, and therefore imperfection. It may be
affirmed, however, of the miracles recorded in Scripture, that they do
not require suspension of natural laws, but merely modifications of
the operation and peculiar interactions of these. Many of them,
indeed, profess to be merely unusual natural effects arranged for
special purposes, and depending for their miraculous character on
their appositeness in time to certain circumstances. This is the case,
for instance, with the plagues of Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea,
and the supply of quails to the Israelites. Miracles, whether
performed as attestations of revelation or as works of mercy or of
judgment, belong to the domain of natural law, but to those operations
of it which are beyond human control or foresight. Their nature in
this respect we can understand by considering the many operations
possible to civilized men which may appear miraculous to a savage, and
which, from his point of view, may be amply sufficient as evidence of
the superior knowledge and power of him who performs them. That one
man should be able instantaneously to transmit his thoughts to another
situated a thousand miles away was, until the invention of the
electric telegraph, impossible. The actual performance of such an
operation would have been as much a miracle as the communication of
thought from one planet to another would be now. But if man can thus
work miracles, why should not the Almighty do so, when higher moral
ends are to be served by apparent interference with the ordinary
course of matter and force? Admitting the existence of God, physical
science can have nothing to say against miracles. On the contrary, it
can assure us of the probability that if God reveals himself to us at
all by natural means, such revelation will probably be miraculous.
If the possibility of God communicating with his rational creatures be
conceded, then the objections taken to prophecy lose all value. If
anything known to God and unknown to man can be revealed, things past
and future may be revealed as well as things present. Science abounds
in prophecy. All through the geological history there have been
prophetic types, mute witnesses to coming facts. Minute disturbances
of heavenly bodies, altogether inappreciable by the ordinary
observer, enable the astronomer to predict the discovery of new
planets. A line in a spectrum, without significance to the
uninitiated, foretells a new element. The merest fragment, sufficient
only for microscopic examination, enables the palæontologist to
describe to incredulous auditors some organism altogether unknown in
its entire structures. What possible reason can there be for excluding
such indications of the past and the future from a revelation made by
him who knows perfectly the end from the beginning, and to whom the
future results of human actions to the end of time must be as evident
as the simplest train of causes and effects is to us? It is Huxley, I
think, who says that if the laws affecting human conduct were fully
known to us, it would have been possible to calculate a thousand years
ago the exact state of affairs in Britain at this moment. Probably
such a calculation might be too complicated for us, even if the data
were given; but it cannot be too complicated for the Divine Mind, and
possibly might even be mastered by some intelligences in the universe
subject to God, but higher than man.
That there should be suffering at all in the universe is, no doubt, a
mysterious thing; but the fact is evident, and certain benefits which
flow from it are also evident. Indeed, we fail to see how a world of
sentient beings could continue to exist, unless the penalty of
suffering were attached to natural law. Further, all such penalties
are, in consequence of the permanence of matter and the conservation
of force, necessarily permanent, unless in cases where some reaction
sets in under the influence of some other law or force than that which
brings the penalty. Even in this case, the effect of any violation of
any natural law is eternal and infinite. No sane man doubts this in
the case of what may be called sins against natural laws; but many,
with strange inconsistency, doubt and disbelieve it in the higher
domain of morals. If we were for a moment to admit the materialist's
doctrine that appetites, passions, and sentiments are merely effects
of physical changes in nerve-cells, then we should be shut up to the
conclusion that the effects of any derangement of these must be
perpetual and coextensive with the universe. Why should it be
otherwise in things belonging to the domains of reason and conscience?
Further, if natural laws are the expression of the will of the
Creator, and if these unfailingly assert themselves, and must do so,
in order to the permanence of the material universe, would not analogy
teach that, unless the Supreme Being is wholly bound up in material
processes, and is altogether indifferent to moral considerations, the
same regularity and constancy must prevail in the spiritual world?
This question is closely connected with the ideas of sacrifice and
atonement. Nothing is more certain in physics than that action and
reaction are equal, and that no effect can be produced without an
adequate cause. It results from this that every action must involve a
corresponding expenditure of matter and force. Anything else would be
pure magic; which, we know, is nonsense. Thus every intervention on
behalf of others must imply a corresponding sacrifice. We cannot raise
a fallen child or aid the poor or the hungry without a sacrifice of
power or means proportioned to the result. So, in the moral world,
degradation cannot be remedied nor punishment averted without
corresponding sacrifice; and this, it may be, on the part of those who
are in no degree blameworthy. If men have fallen into moral evil and
God proposes to elevate them from this condition, this must be done
by some corresponding expenditure of force, else we have one of those
miracles which would imply a subversion of law of the most portentous
kind. The moral stimulus given by the sacrifice itself is a secondary
consideration to this great law of equivalency of cause and effect.
There is, therefore, a perfect conformity to natural analogy in the
Christian idea of the substitution of the pure and perfect Man for the
sinner, as well as in that of the putting forth of the divine power
manifested in him to raise and restore the fallen.
The efficacy of prayer is one of the last things that a scientific
naturalist should question, if he is at the same time a theist. Prayer
is itself one of the laws of nature, and one of those that show in the
finest way how higher laws override and modify those that are lower.
The young ravens, we are told, cry to God; and so they literally do;
and their cry is answered, for the parent-ravens, cruel and voracious,
under the impulse of a God-given instinct range over land and water
and exhaust every energy that they may satisfy that cry. The bleat of
the lamb will not only meet with response from the mother-ewe, but
will even exercise a physiological effect in promoting the secretion
of milk in her udder. The mother who hears the cry of her child,
crushed under some weighty thing which has fallen on it, will never
pause to consider that it is the law of gravitation which has caused
the accident; she will defy the law of gravitation, and if necessary
will pray any one who is near to help her. Prayer, in short, is a
natural power so important that without it the young of most of the
higher animals would have little chance of life; and it triumphs over
almost every other natural law which may stand in its way. If, then,
irrational animals can overcome the forces of dead nature in answer to
prayer; if man himself, in answer to the cry of distress, can do
things in ordinary circumstances almost impossible,--how foolish is it
to suppose that this link of connection cannot subsist between God and
his rational offspring! One wonders that any man of science should for
a moment entertain such an idea, if, indeed, he has any belief
whatever in the existence of a God.
There is another aspect of prayer insisted on in revelation on which
the observation of nature throws some light. In the case of animals,
there must be a certain relation between the one that prays and the
one that answers--a filial relation, perhaps--and in any case there
must be a correspondence between the language of prayer and the
emotions of the creature appealed to. Except in a few cases where
human training has modified instinct, the cry of one species of animal
awakes no response in another of a different kind. So prayer to God
must be in the Spirit of God. It must also be the cry of real need,
and with reference to needs which have his sympathy. There is a prayer
which never reaches God, or which is even an abomination to him; and
there is prayer prompted by the indwelling Spirit of God, which cannot
be uttered in human words, yet will surely be answered. All this is so
perfectly in accordance with natural analogies, that it strikes one
acquainted with nature as almost a matter of course.
In tracing these analogies, I do not desire to imply that natural
science can itself teach us religion, or that it is to afford the test
of what is true in spiritual things. I have merely wished to direct
attention to obvious analogies between things natural and things
spiritual, which show that there is no such antagonism between
science and revelation as many suppose, and that, in grand essential
laws and principles, it may be true that earth is
"But the shadow of heaven, and things therein
Each to the other like more than on earth is thought."