We are asked to be as fair toward the evidence of Bible witnesses as we
are toward other evidence. We are told that we believe a great deal that
we have never seen, and that we accept it on the word of others; that we
have never seen a man hung, but that we believe that men have been hung;
we never saw Napoleon's great feats of generalship, but we believe in
them because history records them. Why not believe in the Bible as well
as in other history? Why not, on the testimony of witnesses, believe
that Christ turned water into wine, as readily as that a man was hung?
Why not accept the miracle of the loaves and fishes on evidence, as
readily as the victories of Napoleon?
Now that line of argument, although it is the one used by and for
theological students, is entirely illogical. It will not work with
people who think. The cases are not parallel.
We believe the facts of history and the occurrences of to-day not
solely on the testimony of others, but because they are in accord with
common-sense and experience and judgment; because they fall within the
range of possibility, and do not antagonize the laws of nature. We know
a man can be hung. We know one general may defeat another. We are asked
to believe nothing outside of reasonable bounds. Here then the only
thing to examine is the credibility of the witnesses.
If, however, our witnesses told us that whenever Napoleon wanted to know
the strength of an enemy he flew up over their camp and counted their
men; or that when he found too many he prayed down fire from heaven and
burned them up, we should dismiss their testimony at once as unworthy
of farther notice. We should know that they were deceived, or that they
were trying to deceive us. We should know that Napoleon's real means
of estimating the strength of his enemy were of a different nature,
and that he did not resort to the upper air and flit about at will. We
should know that no fire was prayed down, and that although soldiers
might be told to put their trust in God, the little addition--"and keep
your powder dry"--would be the really important part of the command.
So when we are told that wine was made out of water, and bread and fish
out of nothing in large quantities, we know that we are listening to
statements that simply go out of the field of credible testimony into
the realm of supreme credulity. Such assertions require you to believe
not only what you have not seen, but what all experience and reason tell
you you never can see. They ask you not only to believe in a past
event, but in a past event outside of all reason, beyond all experience,
incapable of demonstration, unsupported by nature, opposed to all
natural laws--beneath the realm of reason, out of the light of
experience, under the shadow of superstition!
The great electric light of the intellect is turned off at the church
door. On one day out of every seven the human lamps enter in utter
darkness a field of superstition. During six days the light is turned
full on the world of commerce, science, art, and literature, and these
glow and grow and are examined by its rays. When, however, the signal
tolls from the steeple on the seventh day, the light is turned off for
that day, and for that topic alone; and then there is brought out once
more the old tallow candle of ignorance that hides in shadow the cobwebs
of undeveloped thought!
Use your noblest powers of thought freely in the bank; strain and
develop your ability to improve and control in the engine-room; train
and exert your judgment in literature and art; push and brighten and
sharpen your reason in science or political economy.
In the practical affairs of life faith will not help you. It is childish
and insecure. It will not honor your cheque; it will not prevent the
broken engine from hurling its human companion into eternity. It will
not prove the rotundity of the earth, nor establish a sound financial
basis for a nation. In all such matters it leads to nothing but
ignorance and disaster. In theology it is the one element of light.
As a test and an aid in this world, it is puerile and trifling; but the
depths of the Great Beyond it fathoms to a nicety. It gives no grasp
upon the truths of Time; but it is the all-sufficient hold on Eternity.
It leads to the discovery of no important principle here; but it holds
the keys to the secret chambers of divinity! It is an attribute of
childish development now. It is to indicate infinite mental superiority
hereafter!
It is a strange philosophy which asserts that a faculty which is a
hindrance to superiority in this world is the one thing needful for the
soul of man!
Give me the brain that dares to think! Give me the mind that grasps
with herculean power the rocks that crush the treasures of intellectual
growth, and tears them from their foundation! Give me the mind that
dares to step from the fallen stones, that leaps from rock to rock past
the dark rift torn in the superstitions of ages past, and that, standing
on the farthest crag, waits and watches for the breaking light! He can
trust his future whose present scorns stagnation!