CERTAIN FACTS THE TRUTH OF WHICH CAN ONLY BE KNOWN BY REVELATION, AND THEN
REASON FROM THOSE FACTS TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE, CONSIDERED.
It has been objected that the very idea of such a revelation as that of
Christianity implies a defect on the part of the Creator in the original
construction of the Universe, and that He has been under the necessity of
interposing for the purpose of correcting this defect. It is affirmed that
divines endeavour to prove that a revelation was probable by first
assuming a number of the most irrational propositions, which, if true, can
only be proved to be so by the authority of the Bible, and then arguing
back again that it is highly probable that God would interfere to remedy
the defects of his creative work by a supernatural revelation; in other
words, that they assume a state of things which reason would pronounce to
be incredible, unless their truth was asserted in the Bible, and then
argue on the principles of that reason whose validity they deny, that it
is probable that the Creator would interfere to remedy a state of things
the existence of which reason pronounces to be incredible.
The author of “Supernatural Religion” has strongly urged this argument,
and placed the difficulty clearly before us. Although the entire passage
is too long for quotation, yet as it is important that we should have the
question which he raises before us in his own words, I will cite a portion
of it.
“Here again the argument is based on an assumption. The supposition of a
divine design in a revelation is the result of a foregone conclusion in
its favour, and not suggested by antecedent probability. Divines assume
that a communication of this nature is in accordance with reason, and was
necessary for the salvation of the human race simply because they believe
that it took place, and no evidence worthy of the name is ever offered in
support of the assumption. A revelation having, it is supposed, been made,
that revelation is consequently supposed to have been contemplated, and to
have justified any suspension of the order of nature. The proposition for
which evidence is demanded is necessarily employed as evidence for itself.
The considerations involved in the assumption of the necessity and
reasonableness of such a revelation, however, are antecedently incredible
and contrary to reason. We are asked to believe that God made man in His
own image, pure and sinless, and intended him to continue so; but scarcely
had His noblest work left the hand of his Creator, than man was tempted
into sin by Satan, the all‐powerful and persistent enemy of God, whose
existence and antagonism to a being in whose eyes sin is an abomination,
are not accounted for and are incredible. Adam’s fall brought a curse upon
the earth, and incurred the penalty of death for himself and for the whole
of his posterity. The human race thus created perfect and without sin,
thus disappointed the expectations of the Creator, and became daily more
wicked, the evil spirit having succeeded in frustrating the designs of the
Almighty, so that God repented that he had made man, and at length he
destroyed by a deluge all the inhabitants of the earth, with the exception
of eight persons who feared him. This sweeping purification, however, was
as futile as the original design, and the race of man soon became more
wicked than ever.” Here follows a statement of what may be regarded as a
plan of salvation as held by some modern Churches, and the apparent
contradiction of the whole to the divine character and perfections is
elaborately pointed out. He then concludes as follows: “We are asked to
believe in the frustration of the divine design of creation, and in the
fall of man into a state of wickedness hateful to God, requiring and
justifying the divine design of a revelation, and such a revelation as
this, as a preliminary to the further proposition that on the supposition
of such a design miracles would not be contrary to reason.” To this
follows an elaborate piece of reasoning, by which the author attempts to
prove that every proposition in this so‐called plan of salvation is
thoroughly contrary to reason.
The general positions laid down in this passage (omitting points of
detail) are as follows: Certain incredible occurrences in the past history
of man are assumed by divines to be facts on the authority of the Bible.
These include the complete breaking down of the divine plan in the
creation of man through the agency of a being who has frustrated the
purposes of the Almighty. Next it is asserted on the same authority that
another series of events has taken place which are in the highest degree
contrary to reason, for the purpose of remedying this failure of the
original plan. Then it is alleged that the probability of a divine
interference, in order to remedy a state of things which reason pronounces
to be incredible, is argued on the authority of reason for the purpose of
proving the occurrence of another state of things equally repugnant to
reason. Such a line of argument is affirmed to begin in irrational
assumptions, and to terminate in a vicious circle.
I have before observed that the work from which the above passage is
taken, although entitled “Supernatural Religion, or an inquiry into the
reality of Divine Revelation,” is really an attack on the central position
of the New Testament, the historical value of the Gospels. In taking this
course the author raises an intelligible issue instead of spreading the
argument over an endless mass of controversial matter. If the historical
character of the Gospels cannot be maintained, the whole controversy as to
whether Christianity is a divine revelation is ended. This forms the key
of the Christian position, to which the other parts of the controversy
stand in the relation of mere outworks. If the events recorded in the
Gospels are historical, Christianity must be a divine revelation,
notwithstanding the difficulties connected with certain statements of the
Old Testament. The real point at issue between those who believe and those
who deny that God has made a supernatural revelation of Himself, is
confined to the following question: Are the contents of the Gospels
historically credible? Is the character of Jesus Christ as depicted in
them the delineation of an ideal conception or of an historical reality?
The author discerns clearly that this is the turning point of the
controversy, and has accordingly addressed himself to prove that the
Gospels are valueless as historical documents. This line of argument is
candid, and one which, if adhered to, will save an immense expenditure of
reasoning power.
Now the question of the historical character of the Gospels is quite
distinct from that of the truth or falsehood of any system of
Ecclesiastical Christianity, which asserts that its theology is a
deduction from the Gospels and the other portions of the New Testament. It
is not revelation itself but a system erected by the application of reason
to the facts of revelation. It is most important that this distinction
should be kept in view. The truth is, that the facts of revelation stand
in the same relation to theology as the facts of nature do to physical
science. Incorrect reasonings respecting both the one and the other are
alike possible. The Ptolemaic theory was propounded as an adequate
solution of the facts and phenomena of the universe, and although utterly
incorrect in all its parts, it for ages held unlimited sway over the human
mind. In a similar manner various theories have been propounded as
solutions of the facts of revelation, but it by no means follows because
they have attained a wide acceptance that they afford the true solution.
In examining the claims of the Gospels to be viewed as historical, it is
quite as much out of place to make them responsible for all the theories
which Ecclesiastical Christianity has propounded respecting the plan of
salvation, as it would be to make the facts and phenomena of the universe
answerable for all the theories which have been propounded for their
solution. In examining the claims of the Gospels to be accepted as
historical documents, it is most unreasonable to make them responsible for
theories which were not formulated in the Church until centuries after
their publication.
Most of the positions affirmed in the above quotation were not formulated
until a late period of the Church’s history. Certainly they are nowhere
directly laid down in the New Testament. The utmost which can be asserted
of them is, that they are alleged to be derived inferentially from its
teaching. They form no portion of the Apostles’ or of the Nicene Creeds,
which are the only formularies outside of the New Testament which can be
represented as embodying the creed of the universal Church. Nor can they
be found even in the Athanasian creed. In discussing the claims of the
Gospels to be esteemed as historical, they can only be made fairly
responsible for what they actually contain. To bring into such a
controversy positions only affirmed in recent attempts to formulate a body
of Christian doctrine, as though they had any bearing on the claims of the
New Testament to be viewed as containing a divine revelation, can lead to
no satisfactory result.
I now return to the consideration of the difficulties above referred to.
It is important to take a careful survey of the entire question, because
they are not only put with great force in the passage which I have quoted,
but I believe that in different forms they weigh heavily on the minds of
many thoughtful men. I will first offer a few observations on the general
principle.
Nothing is easier than to affirm that the introduction of moral evil into
the universe is a marring of the Creator’s plan in its formation. The
argument is founded on the supposition that an Almighty God exists, who is
wise, holy, and benevolent, and who intended to manifest these attributes
through the rational beings which he has created. It is affirmed that the
existence of moral evil in man is a failure of this purpose on the part of
God. But it is the most certain of facts that moral evil does exist in the
world, and that it exists quite independently of Christianity. The
objection therefore is not one directed solely against the Christianity of
the New Testament, but bears with equal weight against every form of
theism, which admits that the universe has been created, and is governed
by a God who is almighty, wise, holy, and benevolent.
If there be a God who is the Creator of the Universe, it is clear that He
must have been the Creator of man, and that man could only have come into
being in conformity with His pleasure. Now, if we decline to admit that
man was created morally perfect, yet as he must have been created a moral
agent, it is clear that the first man must have sprung into being either
with the moral faculties of a savage, or in some intermediate condition
between these and a state of moral perfection. It follows, therefore, that
man must have been made capable of moral progress. This is affirmed by all
those who assert that he was first produced in a savage state. But the
possibility of moral progress involves also the possibility of
retrogression. The truth of this is borne witness to by the most palpable
facts of daily experience. Men of the highest mental powers are capable of
abusing them to the worst purposes, and thus of sinking fearfully low in
the moral scale. The case of a man like Fouché will illustrate my
argument, a man gifted with high intellectual powers, but who sunk into
the lowest condition of moral turpitude. Such a man is incomparably worse
than the first original savage. I submit, therefore, that whatever view we
may take of the condition in which man was originally created, even if he
were created a savage, yet he was made a moral being capable of elevation
or degradation; and that, to use a human metaphor, the purpose of a holy
God must have been his elevation. Yet this involves the possibility of his
moral degradation. This degradation has also become a fact. It is clear,
therefore, that the difficulty is one which is inseparable from every
possible form of theistic belief, and is no peculiarity of Christianity.
I shall not attempt to enter on so profound a question as the origin of
evil, and how its existence is consistent with the perfection of a holy
God. It is a subject quite beyond the issue before us, and lies not at the
foundations of Christianity, but of theism, the truth of which is taken
for granted in the objections which the author adduces against the popular
view of the scriptural account; for if there is no God the objections are
valueless. Still he ought to have informed his readers that it is urged as
a partial explanation of those difficulties by the defenders of
Christianity, that it is highly probable that the creation of a moral
being possessed of free agency, but who at the same time is not capable of
sinking into a state of moral degradation, involves as great a
contradiction as the conception of a circle which should possess the
property of concavity and not of convexity. No rational man believes that
it is within the compass, even of omnipotence, to work contradictions. If
this be so, it follows that the possibility of the existence of moral evil
is a necessary condition of the existence of free agency. The production
of a free moral agent capable of yielding a willing obedience to the moral
law is a more glorious work than anything in the material universe, even
than that universe itself. It might, therefore, have been the good
pleasure of the wise, holy, and benevolent Creator to create free moral
agents, even if it involved the existence of moral evil. I am far from
propounding this as a complete solution of the difficulty, but when it is
thus used unsparingly against Christianity, it would have been only candid
to have told the reader that it bore with equal weight against every form
of theism, and to have given the partial explanation which has been
propounded by theologians.
In reply to the definite statements before us, I affirm that nowhere in
the Gospels, or in any other portion of the New Testament is it asserted
or even implied that revelation was rendered necessary by the frustration
of the divine purpose in creation, or that redemption was a kind of
afterthought in the divine mind rendered necessary by such a failure. On
the contrary, the synoptic Gospels make no affirmation whatever on the
subject. The fourth Gospel contains several statements about the end and
purposes of the Incarnation, but of a description totally different from
those which are alleged in the above quotation to constitute the
groundwork of Christianity. As I have already shown, the Gospel of St.
John speaks of its great purpose as being a revelation of the moral
character of God in the person of Jesus Christ. According to its theology
God has already manifested himself in creation; in the Gospel He makes a
still higher and nobler manifestation of His moral character in the person
of our Lord. The author of the first Epistle ascribed to St. John, whom I
must assume to have been the author of the Gospel, makes the following
direct affirmation on the subject. “That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have
looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life; for the life
was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you
that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us;
that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may
have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father and
with his Son Jesus Christ.” In these words it is evidently the intention
of the writer to set forth the divine purpose of the Incarnation. It is
true that in other passages he assumes the existence of evil in the
universe, and declares it to be the work of the devil, and that one of the
purposes of this divine manifestation was its destruction. Still he drops
no hint of any failure in the Creation, or that it was the purpose of the
Incarnation to mend a marred scheme. On the contrary, the great truth set
forth in the Epistle and in the Gospel is that Creation and Redemption
form portions of one great whole; and that the latter is a manifestation
of the divine glories beyond God’s previous manifestations of himself,
whether in creation or in history.
Similar are the views of the Apostle Paul. According to him, while many
other purposes were effected by the Incarnation, there is one great
purpose running through all divine revelation. In several passages he
affirms that its influence extends far beyond that which it exerts on the
race of man. He again and again asserts that it was the gradual unfolding
of an idea or purpose which existed from eternity in the divine mind. Thus
he writes: “And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery
which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God who created all
things by Jesus Christ, to the intent that now unto the principalities and
powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom
of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus
our Lord.” (Eph. iii. and ix.) “Having made known to us the mystery of His
will, according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself, that
in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather in one all
things in Christ, both which are in heaven and in earth, even in Him.”
(Eph. i. 9, 10.) “And having made peace by the blood of His cross, by Him
to reconcile all things unto Himself: by Him, I say, whether they be
things in earth or things in heaven.” (Col. i. 20.) I fully admit that the
Apostle affirms that the design of bringing man into union with God was a
portion of this purpose. Nothing however is more foreign to the ideas of
St. Paul than that revelation is an afterthought adopted as a remedy for a
marred plan.
Nor are the views of the other writers of the New Testament different. St.
Peter tells us that the angels desire to look into the redemption wrought
by Christ. St. James assures us that, “known unto God are all His works
from the foundation of the world.” The author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews speaks to the same effect: “God, who at sundry times and in divers
manners spake in times past unto the fathers in (by) the prophets, hath in
these last days spoken unto us in His Son.” So far from its being the idea
of the sacred writers that redemption is an afterthought designed to
remedy the failure of the original purpose of creation, that both of them
are viewed as parts of the same whole; both are purposes which have
existed in the divine mind during the eternal ages, and have been
gradually evolved in time. Nothing is further from their mind than that
the divine mode of working is by fits or starts, or sudden interventions.
Man was the last form of life which God has introduced into the world, and
in that sense He is said to have rested from His creative work. But God is
no less distinctly affirmed to be always working in nature and in
providence, so that Sabbath days form no exception: “My Father worketh
hitherto and I work.”
Such being the views of the writers of the New Testament on this subject,
the whole of those objections, as far as they are founded on the assertion
that revelation is intended to remedy the failure of God’s creative
purpose, fall to the ground. My present supposition is that I am reasoning
with believers in theism. If God has gradually evolved creation, each
successive stage of the evolution forms a part of one great and
comprehensive whole. At each stage the work is incomplete, but its
incompleteness is no proof of failure. A period has existed when the only
beings in the world were devoid of rationality. If an objector could have
contemplated it in this stage, he might have urged that the plan of
creation was a failure, while in reality it was only incomplete. Man came
in at the next stage of the great design. The next stage, according to the
New Testament, is the Incarnation of the Son of God, intended as a higher
manifestation of the moral glories of the Creator for the purpose of
raising man to a higher moral and spiritual elevation. To the attainment
of this purpose all the previous events in man’s history have been made
subservient. Surely those persons with whom I am reasoning ought to be the
last to object that there is anything inconsistent with the divine
character in such a gradual unfolding of the divine purposes. We might as
well object that every advancing stage of the great design of Creation was
introduced to remedy a preceding defect as assert that Christianity
originated in this cause. The world was in a most unfinished state when it
was only tenanted by the lower forms of life, and great fault might have
been found with its construction. But a higher came, and a higher, then
man, then Christ our Lord, the second Adam, as St. Paul designates him,
“from heaven heavenly.” Whatever may have been the assertions of certain
classes of theologians who have attempted to fathom the divine mind by
their own short sounding line, the sacred writers take no narrow view of
the purposes of the Incarnation. It is declared that they will be realized
in the yet distant future, towards which consummation they are gradually
being carried out in time.
It follows, therefore, that the New Testament affirms that a purpose is
consistently carried out in the history of redemption far different from
that which has been here placed before us as the assumptions of
Ecclesiastical Christianity. The author has placed these in their most
objectionable form; and if Christian apologists have affirmed on such
premises as those above stated that a divine interposition was rendered
probable, I shall not attempt to defend them. To establish the probability
of a revelation additional to that afforded by creation we have no
occasion to appeal to theories, but to facts.
The existing moral and spiritual condition of mankind is universally
admitted to be imperfect. Both believers and unbelievers in revelation
alike acknowledge that the attempt to improve it is desirable. No less
certain is it that man possesses faculties which can only receive their
perfect development in a higher condition of things than the present.
These as much point to a higher development of man as the organization of
the lower forms of animal life points to the higher and more perfect ones.
If, therefore, God be the Creator and moral Governor of the world, a
further manifestation of Him is rendered highly probable.
This probability may be reasoned out by analogies in the history of the
past. Higher developments from lower forms have been the rule. Are they
then to cease with man in his present state of imperfection? How man came
to be thus imperfect, how his moral degradation has originated, is a
question which does not fall within the present argument. It is a fact, by
whatever theory it may be attempted to be accounted for. If a rational
being had existed in those ages during which there was manifested nothing
but the lower forms of life, and had come to the conclusion that the world
as it then existed was the work of an intelligent Creator, he would have
pronounced it highly probable that the resources of creative power would
yet receive a more glorious manifestation. When vertebrate life was first
introduced into the world, a careful examination of the state of things
would have led to a similar conclusion. But the lower forms of vertebrate
life are typical of the higher, and the higher point to man. Before man
entered the world a being capable of comprehending the condition of things
as then existing would have pronounced it highly probable that there would
be yet a further manifestation of creative energy, and that the work
required for its consummation the production of rationality.
Such and far more numerous have been the actual stages of creative action.
Are we entitled to call them a failure because they were relatively
imperfect, or any fresh intervention of divine power an interference to
remedy a previous failure? On the contrary, these so‐called interventions
are the persistent carrying out of a determined purpose. The acts of Deity
are inaccurately designated interventions. He is always working with the
most perfect knowledge of the means which He employs, and the most perfect
controul over them. Failure with Him is impossible. The word
“intervention” as applied to the operations of God conveys the idea of a
machine which He originally constructed, and then left to its own
operations. Such a machine will in course of time get out of order, or
perform its work imperfectly, and require to be supplemented by additional
contrivances. Thus when the clock ceases to go there arises a necessity
for the intervention of the clockmaker. He constructs his clock and leaves
it to itself. But creation is no mere machine; the Divine worker is always
present in His works. The last idea which would have occurred to the
authors of the Bible was that God was obliged to be making a number of
special interventions to cure defects in the results of His operations. As
the Bible cannot help using the language of man, expressions derived from
the defects of human language are at times used in it, but the one
prevalent idea is that God is always present working in the kingdoms of
nature and of grace, that all His actions are the constant carrying out of
a predetermined purpose, and that with Him is no variableness neither
shadow of turning.
If the possibility of the introduction of moral evil into the universe is
a necessary condition of the creation of a free moral agent, or in other
words, if the contrary supposition involves a contradiction, the Creator
must have viewed the production of such a free agent as so desirable, that
it formed a part of His purpose to create him notwithstanding this
possibility. If then moral evil became a fact, it involved no failure in
the purposes of God. He must have viewed the existence of such beings as
desirable, even if this contingency became a fact. Why, I ask, may not a
further manifestation of Himself, by means of which moral evil might be
reduced to the smallest dimensions, or even ultimately removed, while
freedom is still preserved, form a portion of the same great purpose of
the divine mind? If this be possible, the assertion that Redemption is a
special intervention of God for the purpose of remedying the breaking down
of his creative plan, is disproved, and with it all the other inferences
of the numerous writers whose views I am considering.
In affirming the probability of a revelation, the Christian apologist need
not go beyond the region of actual facts. He has no occasion to rest his
proof on any statement made by a supposed revelation the truth of which is
the point at issue. To do so would be to assume the thing which requires
to be proved. But facts as they exist, independently of any statements in
the Bible, are quite sufficient. Man exists. He is possessed of powers and
aspirations which this state of things does not gratify. He is capable of
moral action, and there is something within him which affirms that he
ought to obey the moral law. Yet its realization by him is of the most
imperfect character. Does the actual condition of man afford satisfaction
even to the unbeliever, account for it as he may? Is there not a great
amount of moral evil in the world? Do not considerable numbers of men,
instead of progressing to higher degrees of moral perfection degenerate
through various stages of moral corruption? Does not moral evil cause a
great amount of physical suffering? Are not vast numbers of men the prey
of ignorance and superstition—great evils doubtless, and of which
unbelievers heavily complain? In one word, when we contemplate the present
condition of mankind, does not the sternest reason affirm that it is
inconceivable that this can be the final condition of God’s creative work?
Yet these things are no theories but obvious facts, and on the supposition
on which we are reasoning, facts in the universe of God.
It follows therefore, that facts such as these, when contemplated by
reason, establish the probability, nay almost the certainty of a further
divine action. Of course this is based on the assumption that there is a
wise and holy God who is the author of the universe, but both the
opponents and believers in revelation can only argue this subject at all
on the supposition that God exists. Any fresh mode of divine action will
probably differ from the preceding ones, because man exists as a moral and
spiritual being. It is therefore probable that such divine action will be
moral rather than physical; or, in other words, the divine purpose of
creation includes within it a yet further manifestation of the divine
character and perfections. This is what the New Testament affirms to have
taken place in the Incarnation. This is my position.
I shall only add one or two more brief remarks. Those who charge
theologians with making unfounded assumptions should be guiltless of
making them themselves. The warning against falling into this error may be
profitably taken to heart by both parties to this controversy. It is
affirmed that the constitution of nature bears everywhere the indications
of systematic upward progression. I ask, is this systematic upward
progression everywhere true of man? Are there no where indications of
retrogression? Europeans generally during the last two thousand years have
progressed, although even this is not universally true, for some of the
fine arts attained to greater perfection in the ancient than in the modern
world. But has the Hindoo race progressed during the last three thousand
years? Have the Chinese? Is it not true that the progress of these two
races has been one of considerable retrogression? Where is the progress
made by the Negro races from the first dawnings of their history? Yet
these three races form more than half of the human family. Again, have the
Arab races progressed since the days of Abraham? Are the Mahommedan races
in a state of gradual improvement? These are questions to which a definite
answer must be returned before the proposition above referred to can be
esteemed a solution of all the problems of human history.
It will perhaps be replied that nature is gradually extinguishing these
unprogressive races, under the pressure of her inexorable laws. Yet they
constitute an overwhelming majority of the human race, and it is strange
to talk of this progressive improvement of the human race as a great law
of nature, if the mode of improvement be the extinction of the great
majority of mankind. But are the Hindoo, Chinese, Negro, and other
unprogressive races less numerous than they were three thousand years ago?
The evidence is all the other way. We want present facts and not theories
of the future. It has been affirmed, that “The survival of the fittest is
the stern law of nature. The invariable action of law of itself eliminates
the unfit. Progress is necessary to existence. Extinction is the doom of
Retrogression.” These assertions may receive their fulfilment in some
period of the distant future, but they certainly do not agree with the
past history of man. Whatever progress the European races may be capable
of, certain conditions of climate form an inexorable barrier to their
supplanting the Negro, the Hindoo, or the Chinese, and we know that
European blood in certain climates has actually degenerated.
Again, it is stated “that the highest effect contemplated by the supposed
revelation is to bring man into harmony with law; and this is insured by
law acting on intelligence, and even on instinct.” Where, I ask, is the
proof of this derived from the history of man? Is the moral condition of
the races above referred to higher than it was three thousand years ago?
Did the moral condition of the Greek race progress or retrograde during
the four centuries which preceded the Advent? Which was the more elevated
condition of Roman morality, that of the century which preceded and
followed the conquest of Italy, or that of the empire and its crumbling
institutions?
Again, we are told that “there is not in reality a gradation of breach of
law that is not followed by an equivalent gradation of punishment.” This
may be the case in some Utopia in which the author lives, but it certainly
neither is nor ever has been the condition of this world. Does villany, I
ask, always receive adequate punishment in this world? It has been the all
but universal opinion of mankind that it does not. Did not Fouché die
quietly in his bed, possessed of wealth and honours, and a darkened
conscience? Did not Philip II. of Spain, after all his crimes, die under
the delusions of self‐approbation? In a controversy like this the most
confident assertions will not supply the want of facts on which to ground
our reasonings.
It follows, therefore, that the assertion that the Christian argument
involves reasoning in a circle, or else that it assumes the point at
issue, is disproved.