“It is about this little book of his,” Gildea said, with slow
reflectiveness, “‘Religionless Religion.’ I found it interesting.”
“Indeed?” said Maddock, “As interesting as the production of your dear
continental sceptics?”
“Well now,” Gildea said, in a tone that implied a certain amount of
candour, “to tell, what the French call, the true truth, I was struck
by several things both in it and in your reply to it. I thought that it
would have been difficult to have found a more typical example of the
average intelligent secular view of theological Christianity than that of
our good Judge.”
“I agree with you, and that was one of the reasons that made me decide to
attack it. It is typical.”
“And, therefore, to anyone who is, though only as an amateur, an observer
of things contemporary, it is interesting. Its very deficiencies will be
instructive. Well, what I want you to do, Doctor, if you will be so good,
is to help me with your superior knowledge of the things treated of to
arrive at the spiritual condition of the treater. Perhaps you will not
find the attempt too uninteresting, or....” He paused with a movement of
courtesy.
Maddock, who had a faint suspicion that Gildea was mocking, half grumbled
out humorously:
“Go on, then! Qualify yourself as a psychologist, my dear fellow, and
then we will have a plunge into social metaphysics. It is refreshing in a
country where they are all partizans, and Matthew Arnold and the purely
intellectual life are not appreciated. _Sic itur ad astra._ In the name
of all the lucidities, forward!”
“In the first place, then, we have to notice, have we not, that the
little book is polemical, which, at any rate to the amateur observer of
things contemporary, detracts somewhat from its historical value; for,
after all, is not a polemist, to a large extent a man who defends the
delusions of his friends against the delusions of his enemies, and leaves
Truth, like the proverbial pounds, to look after herself? But, if we
always remember to take off a percentage for the polemics, we need not
miss what it is that the polemist really means and feels?”
“Πως γαρ οὐ?” said Maddock.
“And the more easily, as our Parker is in earnest about, what he calls,
‘his most serious and difficult task.’”
“Forensic flourishes!”
“—In earnest as far as suits the disposition of a theistic polemist.”
“—Microscopically, that is to say. The lawyer’s, and especially the
successful lawyer’s, habit of thought tends towards earnestness as the
sparks fly downwards.”
“For the average lawyer’s habit of thought is perhaps the most typical
example of the average intelligent secular view of things. Is it not
the final fruit of what is called common-sense, that is to say of the
sense of common people? Our good Judge more than once speaks of himself
and his audience as “persons of ordinary common-sense,” as opposed to
“metaphysicians,” and especially “ecclesiastical metaphysicians.” He
wants clear solid statements which his mind can see, and as it were,
touch and handle. He scoffs at all statements other than these, looking
upon them as at bottom sophistical. It follows that, when he comes to
criticise the Bible, he claims the right to criticise it, not only with
the same spirit, but with the same manner, as he would criticise any
other book. He will not only look at it straight, fearlessly, logically,
but he will demand of its statements that they be clear and solid, that
they bear the ordinary interpretation of ordinary statements. He will
apply the same principles of examination to Moses and Jesus as he would
do to Blackstone or Chitty. And all the secular persons of ordinary
common-sense cry out: ‘Hear, hear!’”
“With the Judge,” said Maddock, “a metaphysician is a man who examines
the Bible by the aid of principles other than those of one who is
ignorant of all contemporary history save that which the Bible gives him.”
“The consequence of which is, that he is capable of such a statement as,
that ‘without question early Christianity was far more free from paganism
and from the taint of superstition than the Christianity of our own
time,’ and others of a like force.”
“He has no notion whatever of the philosophy of history—of, what I call,
the development of divine Truth.”
“And yet he is contradictory enough, while asserting the degradation
of the Christian ideal, to lay much stress on the development of
Divine truth in a civilization that has, till comparatively lately,
been Christianic. Yes, he sees the development of divine Truth, but
he does not understand the forms which that development has taken in
Christianity. The Trinity—the Atonement—the Deity of Christ—are to him
‘mere crude superstitions which disfigure and obscure pure and true
religion.’ It never seems to have occurred to him that, although these
doctrines may be empty formulæ to him, they were and are passionate
realities to others.”
“That is very true.”
“He will talk with the same ignorance of what he would call Jesuolatry
as a Protestant will of what he calls Mariolatry, neither he nor the
Protestant understanding any more of a deep spiritual truth than its
cut-and-dried dogmatical letter.” The Doctor assented, though with a
movement of slight qualification.
“We agree at starting, then, that his criticism as that of an historical
Bible student does not exist. The authorities he quotes are, as you point
out in your Reply, ludicrous. They culminate in his poor little some
‘celebrated Unitarian minister’ or other, than whom the habit of thought
of the legal Biblical critic can, it is to be hoped, no further go! He
is too, we agree, careless and superficial even in his own style, but
we must not lay too much stress on individual cases of this in the face
of his request for ‘indulgence’ for his ‘doubtless many imperfections
here.’”
“When a man speaks publicly of such a grave matter as religion,” said
Maddock, “he should _not_ be careless, he should _not_ be superficial! We
have a right to demand of those who make explosives, that they, at any
rate, do not smoke in the magazine.”
“True; but, if we all got our deserts, who, you know, should
escape whipping? Certainly not the producers of orthodox religious
literature.”—(The Doctor, after a pause, assented as before).—“Well,
we will proceed further against our good Judge, and say that his
appreciation of what is, as he says, ‘good and ennobling’ is ludicrously
inadequate. What can be said of a man who seriously speaks of Jesus,
‘when, in the garden of Gethsemane, he went apart and prayed, three
times over, the same prayer to God, within a short period,’—of Jesus
thus ‘_doing that which he told his disciples not to do—“use not vain_
repetitions, _as the heathen do,” for the reason that your heavenly
Father knoweth what things ye have need of_ before _ye_ ask _Him_.’
Habemus confitentem asinum! We can only burst out laughing: a reply to
such a statement is impossible! The lawyer’s habit of thought is at its
apogee, and (as Heine says) ‘_Gegen die Dummheit kämpfen wir Götter
selbst vergebens._’—Against stupidity the very gods themselves struggle
in vain.” The Doctor assented smiling.
“And statements similar to this are not scarce here. Our good Judge,
then, has not, it is clear, much experience of the spiritual life, of
those who live in the spirit. The ‘sudden conversion of Paul,’ for
instance, strikes him as one of the (it is supposed) ‘improbabilities so
forcible that no sane _thinking_ man or woman can accept’ the inspiration
of the Scriptures which relate them. Now, any one who knows anything
of human nature other than that of ‘persons of ordinary common-sense,’
knows that such ‘sudden conversions’ are not only not improbable, but
passably frequent. In some cases, as in that of Staniforth, quoted by
Arnold in his ‘St. Paul and Protestantism,’ the circumstances approach
so closely to those of Paul’s that we are enabled to assign to them a
definite place in the science of psychology. Nor are our good Judge’s
‘errors,’ as you say, exhausted yet. We have still to bring against him
the charge of, what Celsus calls, κουφοτης, and Arnold translates ‘want
of intellectual seriousness.’ So confused and incoherent is his knowledge
of the real position that the secular biblical critic takes up, that he
absolutely calls the position taken up by the orthodox biblical critic
(that is to say, biblical _critics_ who are orthodox; as, for instance,
you yourself, my dear Doctor): he absolutely calls this position
critically ‘untenable,’ not perceiving that it is his own only differing
in degree!—This is simply appalling! The κουφοτης of the Secularists is
not a whit better, after all, than that of the Christians!”
“Yes,” said Maddock, disregarding the last remark, “but then you must
remember that the Judge ‘does not intend to resort to any process of
subtle argument, nor to make any display of scholastic knowledge, nor to
indulge in learned disquisitions.’ He merely writes ‘popular, clear, and
simple’ nonsense for ‘the doubter who is trying to grope his way to the
light, but cannot; to the Atheist who believes in nothing, neither in a
Supreme Power, nor in a future life.’ And your secular ingratitude to
him, Sir Horace, strikes me, I must confess, as keener-toothed than the
winter wind of orthodoxy!”
“Doctor,” said Sir Horace, “you are poking fun at me! But I, who am, as
Shelley said of himself ‘rather serious’—I proceed in my examination,
whose sole confirmation as truth I find in your words or gestures of
approval. You will, I hope, forgive me for any repetition I may make of
your own criticism, as a master should a humble disciple? It is only a
proof of attention and admiration.”
“Go on,” said Maddock, “mocker!”
“All these faults, then, which we have remarked in our good Judge—his
polemically; his ignorance of the grammar (or, perhaps, as your Reply
says, the alphabet) of historical criticism; his ludicrously inadequate
conception of the good and the ennobling, of the spiritual calibre of
such men as, for instance, St. Paul; his superficial acquaintance with
the data of the subject of which it is treating; and, finally, his
κουφοτης, his want of intellectual seriousness—all these faults, are we
not agreed, are the faults of the average intelligent secular view, in
its negative consideration of Christian Theology? The question that now
arises is, has this view nothing but faults?—has it no excellencies?
Does there remain, after the attack on it of so admirable a theological
polemist as Dr. Maddock is, no residuum of real and vital truth?
Let us try and see.—To begin with, did we not find that, despite a
contradiction, our good Judge perceived the reality of, what you so
finely call, the development of divine Truth?—
“_Yet I doubt not thro’ the ages one increasing purpose runs,_
_and the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns._”
“No,” said Maddock, “I cannot grant him even that! A faint glimmering of
a thing cannot be called a perception. Consider this very contradiction
of his! Consider, again, his unspeakably gross and ignorant treatment of
the Old Testament which he brands with blood-thirstiness and impurity. He
works by a rule of thumb. The higher spiritual mathematics are mere names
to him. He is—I must declare—too much of a blockhead to ever rise beyond
the spiritual Rule of Three.”
“I agree to a large extent, dear Doctor; but you will admit, I think,
that even the Rule of Three is not without its use, without its real and
vital truth?”
“Not when the schoolboy cannot use it properly! I have pointed out, for
example, that, in attacking the doctrine of the Divine Sonship, he only
attacks a dummy doctrine of his own. Your schoolboy does not know which
of the three is his third quantity! He wants, then, to be whipped and put
onto the dunce’s stool—to encourage the others!” The Doctor spoke for the
first time with a little testiness.
“Be it so,” Gildea said, “our good Judge is not to be allowed more than a
faint glimmering of that fine theory of ours of the world’s unseen τελος.
The ‘divine far-off event’ is not more than a fog-lamp to him, which he
will not, then, mistake for the moon, or its light for moonshine. But
that he is too much of a blockhead to even rise beyond the spiritual
rule of thumb, the spiritual Rule of Three, seems to me, I confess, dear
Doctor ... well, a rather strong statement. The average intelligent
secular view of things is, is it not, less pedantic, less given to
accepting the conventional value of things as their true value, than the
average intelligent orthodox view? Are not, indeed, these tears a most
convincing proof of it? Is it not just because our good Judge refuses,
for instance, to accept the orthodox view of Jesus and of God that he
wrote his little book, and you replied to it? Now the orthodox view of
God is, if you will let me say so, excessively pedantic: it adheres to
the expressions of a belief in which in its heart it does _not_ believe
at all. Parker’s criticism on this is excellent. ‘It is impossible,’ he
says, ‘to lay down any definition of God which will even satisfy man’s
conception of God.’ What, then, is the good, he asks, of holding up this
‘magnified non-natural man’ of yours, and asking me to fall down and
worship it? Common-sense revolts against such an idea and common-sense,
dear Doctor, is, will you not agree, for once right?”
“You surprise me, Sir Horace,” said Maddock. “Are you too going to spend
your time and trouble in demolishing the survivals of verbal inspiration?”
“Certainly _not_! I am only trying to see wherein common-sense is a safe
guide as a biblical critic. We are agreed, then,—you, that is, the Judge
and I—that we must unite in opposing many of ‘the statements which,’ as
the Judge says, ‘the orthodox are pleased to call evidence.’ Because, for
instance (to continue with the Judge’s own words), ‘the fallible man Paul
says in a letter to Timothy that the Scriptures were inspired, it does
not make them so.’ We are agreed here?”
“We are agreed here,” said Maddock, with deliberation.
“Or again, to take another instance, when Matthew and Luke, for whatever
purpose, strive in their genealogical tables ‘to give Jesus’ (I always
use the Judge’s words) ‘a divine origin, conceived of a virgin by the
Holy Ghost, and yet to connect him with David by making Joseph the
natural father of Jesus.’—are we not here faced by two ideas which ‘no
one short of an ecclesiastical metaphysician,’ or, as you say, a ‘very
bad critic,’ would or could ‘reconcile?’—We are still agreed, of course.”
“We are still agreed—to a certain extent.”
“Nay, let us go further, then, and chime in with the Judge to the effect
that ‘on far stronger evidence (if evidence it can be called) than that
which supports’—let us say, almost all—‘of the events or miracles’ of
the Scriptures, ‘the Roman Catholic Church propound to the world their
miracles,’ which ‘the Protestant section of Christianity reject as
incredulous.’”
“Proceed,” said Maddock.
“Nay, let us go further still, and notice how we no longer look on the
Genesis account of the Creation as more than allegory, of the Flood as
being strictly accurate; of the tower of Babel as, again, more than
allegory, and so on in many other similar cases. And how in the same way
we do not look upon the statements of Christ, and after him of the author
of the ‘Revelations,’ of the close approach of the Apocalypse, as literal
but only figurative. ‘The statement of Jesus,’ as the Judge puts it, ‘as
to his coming again before the then generation have passed away does not
mean that he will so come: ‘generation’ being merely used figuratively,
but when he does come he is still to come in the clouds of heaven, and
with great glory, sounds of trumpets, rushings of winds, and mourning
of tribes; for’ (Gildea paused)—‘all this has not yet been falsified by
the event.’ This is, I think, undoubtedly the conclusion at which common
sense arrives, but common sense is of course wrong.”
“Common-sense is wrong,” said Maddock.
“Common-sense too, as exemplified in this its typical blockhead
who cannot ever rise beyond the spiritual Rule of thumb and Three;
common-sense observes of the development of divine Truth, as exemplified
in the Christian theology of yesterday and to-day, that its ‘golden
rule apparently is to adopt those interpretations’ of its Scriptures
‘which best satisfy the exigency of the particular position of the time
being,’ and thus we have no further guarantee that the God of to-day
will be the God of to-morrow than that the God of yesterday is certainly
not the God of to-day. ‘Heaven forgive me,’ exclaims ‘that great poet
and brilliant philosopher,’ Heine, ‘but I often feel as if the Mosaic
God were but a reflected image of Moses himself.’ And we all remember
with what contempt Taine speaks of this God of Christianity, revised
and amended to suit the latest edition of scientific and historical
discovery—rooted up out of the earth and momentary intercourse with
man—driven out of the clouds and the occasional interposition of his
strong right hand—spied and telescoped from the radiant bowers of the
stars, and finally lodged out of sight, and all but out of mind, in the
eternal infinitudes of Time and Space! After all, then, may not our good
Judge have had, not of course a perception, but a faint glimmering, of
sapience, when he spoke of the position taken up by the orthodox biblical
criticism as critically ‘not only untenable, but absolutely suicidal?’
The thought is, as we agreed before, simply appalling. Spirits of Butler,
Paley, Neander, Weiss, Westcott, Lightfoot, and many another mortal or
immortal immortal, rise and thunder ‘_No!_’ When this exponent of the
average secular intelligence declares that contemporary Theology is an
impossible compromise between Reason and Absurdity; that the Protestant
is quite inconsistent who with one face rejects ‘the events or miracles
propounded by the Roman Catholic Church because they involve a violation
or suspension of unvarying natural laws; because such things do not
happen, and because _reason_ refuses to give credence to them,’ and with
another face accepts as truth the sojourn of Jonah in the belly of some
sea-monster (at present conveniently extinct, even to the bones), or the
communications of, what Gordon describes as,
‘that duffer at walls,
the talkative roadster of Balaam:—’
rise, I say, and in Olympian accents demonstrate to him and his benighted
audience, that these were but links ‘in the development of divine Truth,’
and that ‘one lesson at a time of this difficult kind was enough, and as
history shows more than enough, for human weakness.’”
“You are a treacherous and malicious young man,” said Maddock, laughing
in spite of himself, “and have no right to quote my words in such an
irreverent and grotesque manner!”
“It is my orthodox ingratitude,” said Gildea, “—And yet,” he added
suddenly, with a complete change of tone and manner, “in less than fifty
years polemics like these will be looked upon as childish, and, those who
spent their life and energy upon them, as we now look on the mediæval
Schoolmen. It is a sad thought.”
Maddock was a little puzzled at these swift chameleon changes in his
friend.
“And now,” said Gildea, looking up with yet another change of tone and
manner, “and now we have done with the negative side of the good Judge’s
criticism and can turn to the affirmative.—But that,” he added, “must, I
am afraid, be after lunch—if you will, Doctor?”
“I will,” said Maddock, “and you shall not then find me so passive, for
your treachery and malice are now quite laid bare to me.”
Gildea smiled.
“But not my loyalty and admiration? Believe me, Doctor, that, if it were
only for this one remark of yours, I could never fail in my interest and
gratitude to you. ‘Our blackfellows,’ you say, ‘had no punishment for
offences against their elementary ideas of purity but spearing. _And
it was infinitely better that they should spear for impurity than lose
their first step towards a higher life._’ ... But here we are,” he said,
“This is the house. Fitzgerald and Hawkesbury have to leave us soon
after lunch. Mrs. Medwin and her niece, Miss Medwin, are coming later
to make tea for me, and then we are going out for a sail in the yacht.
Mr. Medwin is thinking of a legislative career, and so Alcock is to be
cultivated. Can you come with us? You know how pleased it would make us
all.”
The Doctor explained that he was due at his hotel at half-past three to
meet Mrs. Maddock, and both he and Gildea expressed their due regrets at
his not being able to make one of the party on the yacht.