Christians say that only those who are naturally religious can
understand religion, or, as Archdeacon Wilson puts it, "Spiritual truths
must be spiritually discerned." This seems to amount to a claim that
religious people possess an extra sense or faculty.
When a man talks about "spiritual discernment," he makes a tacit
assertion which ought not to be allowed to pass unchallenged. What is
that assertion or implication? It is the implication that there is a
spiritual discernment which is distinct from mental discernment. What
does that mean? It means that man has other means of understanding
besides his reason.
This spiritual discernment is a metaphysical myth.
Man feels, sees, and reasons with his brain. His brain may be more
emotional or less emotional, more acute or less acute; but to invent a
faculty of reason distinct from reason, or to suggest that man can feel
or think otherwise than with his brain, is to darken counsel with a
multitude of words.
There is no ground for the assertion that a spiritual faculty exists
apart from the reason. But the Christian first invents this faculty, and
then tells us that by this faculty religion is to be judged.
Spiritual truths are to be spiritually discerned. What is a "spiritual
truth"? It is neither more nor less than a mental idea. It is an idea
originating in the brain, and it can only be "discerned," or judged, or
understood, by an act of reason performed by the brain.
The word "spiritual," as used in this connection, is a mere affectation.
It implies that the idea (which Archdeacon Wilson calmly dubs a "truth")
is so exalted, or so refined, that the reason is too gross to appreciate
it.
John says: "I know that my Redeemer liveth." Thomas asks: "How do you
know?" John says: "Because I _feel_ it." Thomas answers: "But that is
only a rhapsodical expression of a woman's reason: 'I know because I
_know_.' You say your religion is true because you feel it is true. I
might as well say it is not true because I feel that it is not true."
Then John becomes mystical. He says: "Spiritual truths must be
spiritually discerned." Thomas, who believes that _all_ truths, and all
errors, must be tried by the reason, shrugs his shoulders irreverently,
and departs.
Now, this mystical jargon has always been a favourite weapon of
theologians, and it is a very effective weapon against weak-minded, or
ignorant, or superstitious, or very emotional men.
We must deal with this deception sternly. We must deny that the
human reason, which we know to be a fact, is inferior to a postulated
"spiritual" faculty which has no existence. We must insist that to
make the brain the slave of a brain-created idea is as foolish as to
subordinate the substance to the shadow.
John declares that "God is love." Thomas asks him how he _knows_. John
replies that it is a "spiritual truth," which must be "spiritually
discerned." Thomas says: "It is not spiritual, and it is not true. It
is a mere figment of the brain." John replies: "You are incapable of
judging: you are spiritually blind." Thomas says: "My friend, you are
incapable of reasoning: you are mentally halt and lame." John says
Thomas is a "fellow of no delicacy."
I think there is much to be said in excuse for Thomas. I think it is
rather cool of John to invent a faculty of "spiritual discernment," and
then to tell Thomas that he (Thomas) does not possess that faculty.
That is how Archdeacon Wilson uses me. In a sermon at Rochdale he is
reported to have spoken as follows:
As regards the first axiom, the archdeacon reaffirmed his
declaration as to Mr. Blatchford's disqualification for such
a controversy... Whether Mr. Blatchford recognised the fact
or not, it was true that there was a faculty among men which,
in its developed state, was as distinct, as unequally distributed,
as mysterious in its origin and in its distribution, as was
the faculty for pure mathematics, for music, for metaphysics,
or for research. They might call it the devotional or religious
faculty. Just as there were men whose faculties of insight
amounted to genius in other regions of mental activity, so
there were spiritual geniuses, geniuses in the region in which
man holds communion with God, and from this region these who
had never developed the faculty were debarred. One who was
not devotional, not humble, not gentle in his treatment of
the beliefs of others, one who could lightly ridicule the
elementary forms of belief which had corresponded to the
lower stages of culture, past and present, was not likely
to do good in a religious controversy.
Here is the tyranny of language, indeed! Here is a farrago of myths and
symbols. "There is a faculty--we may call it the devotional or religious
faculty--there are geniuses in the region in which man holds communion
with God"!
Why the good archdeacon talks of the "region in which man holds
communion with God" as if he were talking of the telephone exchange.
He talks of God as if he were talking of the Postmaster-General. He
postulates a God, and he postulates a region, and he postulates a
communication, and then talks about all these postulates as if they were
facts. I protest against this mystical, transcendental rhetoric. It is
not argument.
Who has seen God? Who has entered that "region"? Who has communicated
with God?
There is in most men a desire, in some men a passion, for what is good.
In some men this desire is weak, in others it is strong. In some it
takes the form of devotion to "God," in others it takes the form of
devotion to men. In some it is coloured by imagination, or distorted
by a love of the marvellous; in others it is lighted by reason, and
directed by love of truth. But whether a man devotes himself to God and
to prayer, or devotes himself to man and to politics or science, he is
actuated by the same impulse--by the desire for what is good.
John says: "I feel that there is a God, and I worship Him." Thomas says:
"I do not know whether or not there is a God, and if there is, He does
not need my adoration. But I know there are men in darkness and women in
trouble, and children in pain, and I know they _do_ need my love and my
help. I therefore will not pray; but I will work."
To him says John: "You are a fellow of no delicacy. You lack spiritual
discernment. You are disqualified for the expression of any opinion
on spiritual truths." This is what John calls "humility," and "gentle
treatment of the beliefs of others." But Thomas calls it unconscious
humour.
Really, Archdeacon Wilson's claim that only those possessing spiritual
discernment can discern spiritual truths means no more than that those
who cannot believe in religion do not believe in religion, or that a man
whose reason tells him religion is not true is incapable of believing
religion is true. But what he means it to mean is that a man whose
reason rejects religion is unfit to criticise religion, and that only
those who accept religion as true are qualified to express an opinion as
to its truth. He might as well claim that the only person qualified
to criticise the Tory Party is the person who has the faculty for
discerning Tory truth.
My claim is that ideas relating to spiritual things must be weighed by
the same faculties as ideas relating to material things. That is to
say, man can only judge in religious matters as he judges in all other
matters, by his reason.
I do not say that all men have the same kind or quantity of reason.
What I say is, that a man with a good intellect is a better judge on
religious matters than a man, with an inferior intellect; and that by
reason, and by reason alone, can truth of any kind be discerned.
The archdeacon speaks of spiritual geniuses, "geniuses in the region in
which man holds communion with God." The Saints, for example. Well, if
the Saints were geniuses in matters religious, the Saints ought to have
been better judges of spiritual truth than other men. But was it so? The
Saints believed in angels, and devils, and witches, and hell-fire
and Jonah, and the Flood; in demoniacal possession, in the working of
miracles by the bones of dead martyrs; the Saints accepted David and
Abraham and Moses as men after God's own heart.
Many of the most spiritually gifted Christians do not believe in these
things any longer. The Saints, then, were mistaken. They were mistaken
about these spiritual matters in which they are alleged to have been
specially gifted.
We do not believe in sorcerers, in witches, in miracle-working relics,
in devils, and eternal fire and brimstone. Why? Because science has
killed those errors. What is science? It is reason applied to knowledge.
The faculty of reason, then, has excelled this boasted faculty of
spiritual discernment in its own religious sphere.
It would be easy to multiply examples.
Jeremy Taylor was one of the most brilliant and spiritual of our
divines. But his spiritual perception, as evidenced in his works, was
fearfully at fault. He believed in hell-fire, and in hell-fire for all
outside the pale of the Christian Church. And he was afraid of God, and
afraid of death.
Archdeacon Wilson denies to us this faculty of spiritual perception.
Very well. But I have enough mental acuteness to see that the religion
of Jeremy Taylor was cowardly, and gloomy, and untrue.
Luther and Wesley were spiritual geniuses. They both believed in
witchcraft. Luther believed in burning heretics. Wesley said if we gave
up belief in witchcraft we must give up belief in the Bible.
Luther and Wesley were mistaken: their spiritual discernment had led
them wrong. Their superstition and cruelty were condemned by humanity
and common sense.
To me it appears that these men of "spiritual discernment" are really
men of abnormally credulous and emotional natures: men too weak to face
the facts.
We cannot allow the Christians to hold this position unchallenged. I
regard the religious plane as a lower one than our own. I think
the Christian idea of God is even now, after two thousand years of
evolution, a very mean and weak one.
I cannot love nor revere a "Heavenly Father" whose children have to pray
to Him for what they need, or for pardon for their sins. My children do
not need to pray to me for food or forgiveness; and I am a mere earthly
father. Yet Christ, who came direct from God--who _was_ God--to teach
all men God's will, directed us to pray to God for our daily bread, for
forgiveness of our trespasses against Him, and that He would not lead us
into temptation! Imagine a father leading his children into temptation!
What is there so superior or so meritorious in the attitude of a
religious man towards God? This good man prays: for what? He prays that
something be given to him or forgiven to him. He prays for gain or fear.
Is that so lofty and so noble?
But you will say: "It is not all for gain or for fear. He prays for
love: because he loves God." But is not this like sending flowers and
jewels to the king? The king is so rich already: but there are many
poor outside his gates. God is not in need of our love: some of God's
children are in need. Truly, these high ideals are very curious.
Mr. Augustine Birrell, in his _Miscellanies_, quotes a passage from "Lux
Mundi"; and although I cannot find it in that book, it is too good to
lose:
If this be the relation of faith to reason, we see the explanation
of what seems at first sight to the philosopher to be the most
irritating and hypocritical characteristic of faith. It is
always shifting its intellectual defences. It adopts this or
that fashion of philosophical apology, and then, when this is
shattered by some novel scientific generalisation of faith,
probably after a passionate struggle to retain the old position,
suddenly and gaily abandons it, and takes up the new formula,
just as if nothing had happened. It discovers that the new
formula is admirably adapted for its purposes, and is, in fact,
what it always meant, only it has unfortunately omitted to
mention it. So it goes on again and again; and no wonder that
the philosophers growl at those humbugs, the clergy.
That passage has a rather sinister bearing upon the Christian's claim
for spiritual genius.
But, indeed, the claim is not admissible. The Churches have taught many
errors. Those errors have been confuted by scepticism and science. It is
no thanks to spiritual discernment that we stand where we do. It is to
reason we owe our advance; and what a great advance it is! We have
got rid of Hell, we have got rid of the Devil, we have got rid of
the Christian championship of slavery, of witch-murder, of martyrdom,
persecution, and torture; we have destroyed the claims for the
infallibility of the Scriptures, and have taken the fetters of the
Church from the limbs of Science and Thought, and before long we shall
have demolished the belief in miracles. The Christian religion has
defended all these dogmas, and has done inhuman murder in defence
of them; and has been wrong in every instance, and has been finally
defeated in every instance. Steadily and continually the Church has been
driven from its positions. It is still retreating, and we are not to
be persuaded to abandon our attack by the cool assurance that we are
mentally unfit to judge in spiritual matters. Spiritual Discernment has
been beaten by reason in the past, and will be beaten by reason in
the future. It is facts and logic we want, not rhetoric.