LECTURE III.
THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM 117
LECTURE IV.
NATURE 175
LECTURE V.
HUMANITY 245
LECTURE VI.
THE CREATOR 297
LECTURE VII.
THE FATHER 340
LECTURE I.
_OUR IDEA OF GOD._
(At Geneva, 17th Nov. 1863.--At Lausanne, 11th Jan. 1864.)
GENTLEMEN,
Some five-and-twenty or thirty years ago, a German writer published a
piece of verse which began in this way: "Our hearts are oppressed with
the emotions of a pious sadness, at the thought of the ancient Jehovah
who is preparing to die." The verses were a dirge upon the death of the
living God; and the author, like a well educated son of the nineteenth
century, bestowed a few poetic tears upon the obsequies of the Eternal.
I was young when these strange words met my eyes, and they produced in
me a kind of painful bewilderment, which has, I think, for ever engraven
them in my memory. Since then, I have had occasion to learn by many
tokens that this fact was not at all an exceptional one, but that men
of influence, famous schools, important tendencies of the modern mind,
are agreed in proclaiming that the time of religion is over, of religion
in all its forms, of religion in the largest sense of the word. Beneath
the social disturbances of the day, beneath the discussions of science,
beneath the anxiety of some and the sadness of others, beneath the
ironical and more or less insulting joy of a few, we read at the
foundation of many intellectual manifestations of our time these gloomy
words: "Henceforth no more God for humanity!" What may well send a
shudder of fright through society--more than threatening war, more than
possible revolution, more than the plots which may be hatching in the
dark against the security of persons or of property--is, the number, the
importance, and the extent of the efforts which are making in our days
to extinguish in men's souls their faith in the living God.
This fear, Gentlemen, I should wish to communicate to you, but I should
wish also to confine it within its just limits. Religion (I take this
term in its most general acceptation) is not, as many say that it is,
either dead or dying. I want no other proof of this than the pains which
so many people are taking to kill it. It is often those who say that it
is dead, or falling rapidly into dissolution, who apply themselves to
this work. They are too generous, no doubt, to make a violent attack
upon a corpse; and it is easy to understand, judging by the intensity of
their exertions, that in their own opinion they have something else to
do than to give a finishing stroke to the dying.
Present circumstances are serious, not for religion itself, which cannot
be imperilled, but for minds which run the risk of losing their balance
and their support. Let it be observed, however, that when it is said
that we are living in extraordinary times, that we are passing through
an unequalled crisis, that the like of what we see was never seen
before, and so on, we must always regard conclusions of this nature with
distrust. Our personal interest in the circumstances which immediately
surround us produces on them for us the magnifying effect of a
microscope: and our principal reason for thinking that our epoch is more
extraordinary than others, is for the most part that we are living in
our own epoch, and have not lived in others. A mind attentive to this
fact, and so placed upon its guard against all tendency to
exaggeration, will easily perceive that religious thought has in former
times passed through shocks as profound and as dangerous as those of
which we are witnesses. Still the crisis is a real one. Taking into
account its extent in our days, we may say that it is new for the
generation to which we belong; and it is worthy of close consideration.
To-day, as an introduction to this grave subject, I should wish first to
determine as precisely as possible what is our idea of God; to inquire
next from what sources we derive it; and lastly to point out, as clearly
as I may, the limits and the nature of the discussion to which I invite
you.
In asking what sense we must give to the word "God," I am not going to
propose to you a metaphysical definition, or any system of my own: I am
inquiring what is in fact the idea of God in the bosom of modern
society, in the souls which live by this idea, in the hearts of which it
constitutes the joy, in the consciences of which it is the support.
When our thoughts rise above nature and humanity to that invisible Being
whom we speak of as God, what is it which passes in our souls? They
fear, they hope, they pray, they offer thanksgiving. If a man finds
himself in one of those desperate positions in which all human help
fails, he turns towards Heaven, and says, My God! If we are witnesses of
one of those instances of revolting injustice which stir the conscience
in its profoundest depths, and which could not on earth meet with
adequate punishment, we think within ourselves,--There is a Judge on
high! If we are reproved by our own conscience, the voice of that
conscience, which disturbs and sometimes torments us, reminds us that
though we may be shut out from all human view, there is no less an Eye
which sees us, and a just award awaiting us. Thus it is (I am seeking to
establish facts) that the thought of God operates, so to speak, in the
souls of those who believe in Him. If you look for the meaning common to
all these manifestations of man's heart, what do you find? Fear, hope,
thanksgiving, prayer. To whom is all this addressed? To a Power
intelligent and free, which knows us, and is able to act upon our
destinies. This is the idea which is found at the basis of all
religions; not only of the religion of the only God, but of the most
degraded forms of idolatrous worship. All religion rests upon the
sentiment of one or more invisible Powers, superior to nature and to
humanity.
When philosophical curiosity is awakened, it disengages from the general
sentiment of power the definite idea of the cause which becomes the
explanation of the phenomena. The reason of man, by virtue of its very
constitution, finds a need of conceiving of an absolute cause which
escapes by its eternity the lapse of time, and by its infinite character
the bounds of limited existences; a principle, the necessary being of
which depends on no other; in a word a unique cause, establishing by its
unity the universal harmony. So, when reason meets with the idea of the
sole and Almighty Creator, it attaches itself to it as the only thought
which accounts to it for the world and for itself.
The Creator is, first of all, He whose glory the heavens declare, while
the earth makes known the work of His hands. He is the Mighty One and
the Wise, whose will has given being to nature, and who directs at once
the chorus of stars in the depths of the heavens, and the drop of vital
moisture in the herb which we tread under foot.
If, after having looked around, we turn our regard in upon ourselves, we
then discover other heavens, spiritual heavens, in which shine, like
stars of the first magnitude, those objects which cause the heart of man
to beat, so long as he is not self-degraded: truth, goodness, beauty.
Now we feel that we are made for this higher world. Material enjoyments
may enchain our will; we may, in the indulgence of unworthy passions,
pursue what in its essence is only evil, error, and deformity; but, if
all the rays of our true nature are not extinguished, a voice issues
from the depth of our souls and protests against our debasement. Our
aspirations toward these spiritual excellences are unlimited. Our
thought sets out on its course: have we solved one question? immediately
new questions arise, which press, no less than the former, for an
answer. Our conscience speaks: have we come in a certain degree to
realize what is right and good? immediately conscience demands of us
still more. Is our feeling for beauty awakened? Well, sirs, when an
artist is satisfied with the work of his hands, do you not know at once
what to think of him? Do you not know that that man will never do any
thing great, who does not see shining in his horizon an ideal which
stamps as imperfect all that he has been able to realize? The voice
which urges us on through life from the cradle to the grave, and which,
without allowing us a moment's pause, is ever crying--Forward! forward!
this voice is not more imperious than the noble instinct which, in the
view of beauty, of truth, of good, is also saying to us--Forward!
forward! and, with the American poet, _Excelsior!_ higher, ever higher!
Many of you know that instinct familiar to the _climbers of the
Alps_,[2] as they are called, who, arrived at one summit, have no rest
so long as there remains a loftier height in view. Such is our destiny;
but the last peak is veiled in shining clouds which conceal it from our
sight. Perfection,--this is the point to which our nature aspires; but
it is the ladder of Jacob: we see the foot which rests upon the earth;
the summit hides itself from our feeble view amidst the splendors of the
infinite.
These objects of our highest desires--beauty in its supreme
manifestation, absolute holiness, infinite truth--are united in one and
the same thought--God! The attributes of the spiritual are never in us
but as borrowed attributes; they dwell naturally in Him who is their
source. God is the truth, not only because He knows all things, but
because He is the very object of our thoughts; because, when we study
the universe, we do but spell out some few of the laws which He has
imposed on things; because, to know truth is never any thing else than
to know the creation or the Creator, the world or its eternal Cause. God
it is who must be Himself the satisfaction of that craving of the
conscience which urges us towards holiness. If we had arrived at the
highest degree of virtue, what should we have done? We should have
realized the plan which He has proposed to spiritual creatures in their
freedom, at the same time that He is directing the stars in their
courses by that other word which they accomplish without having heard
it. God is the eternal source of beauty. He it is who has shed grace
upon our valleys, and majesty upon our mountains; and He, again, it is
(I quote St. Augustine) who acts within the souls of artists, those
great artists, who, urged unceasingly towards the regions of the ideal,
feel themselves drawn onwards towards a divine world.
God then above all is He who _is_,--the Absolute, the Infinite, the
Eternal,--in the ever mysterious depths of His own essence. In His
relation to the world, He is the cause; in His relation to the lofty
aspirations of the soul, He is the ideal. He is the ideal, because being
the absolute cause, He is the unique source, at the same time that He is
the object, of our aspirations: He is the absolute cause, because being
He who _is_, in His supreme unity, nothing could have existence except
by the act of His power. We are able already to recognize here, in
passing, the source at which are fed the most serious aberrations of
religious thought. Are truth, holiness, beauty considered separately
from the real and infinite Spirit in which is found their reason for
existing? We see thus appear philosophies noble in their commencement,
but which soon descend a fatal slope. The divine, so-called, is spoken
of still; but the divine is an abstraction, and apart from God has no
real existence. If truth, beauty, holiness are not the attributes of an
eternal mind, but the simple expression of the tendencies of our soul,
man may render at first a sort of worship to these lofty manifestations
of his own nature; but logic, inexorable logic, forces him soon to
dismiss the divine to the region of chimeras. These rays are
extinguished together with their luminous centre; the soul loses the
secret of its destinies, and, in the measureless grief which possesses
it, it proclaims at length that all is vanity. We shall have, in the
sequel, to be witnesses together of this sorrowful spectacle.
Such is the basis of our idea of God: we must now discover its summit.
Before the thought of this Sovereign Being, by whose Will are all
things, and who is without cause and without beginning, our soul is
overwhelmed. We are so feeble! the thought of absolute power crushes us.
Creatures of a day, how should we understand the Eternal? Frail as we
are, and evil, we tremble at the idea of holiness. But milder accents,
as you know, have been heard upon the earth: This Sovereign God--He
loves us. In proportion as this idea gains possession of our
understanding, in the same proportion our soul has glimpses of the paths
of peace. He loves us, and we take courage. He hears us, and prayer
rises to Him with the hope of being heard. He governs all, and we
confide in His Providence. When your gaze is directed towards the depths
of the sky, does it never happen to you to remain in a manner terrified,
as you contemplate those worlds which without end are added to other
worlds? As you fix your thoughts upon the immeasurable abysses of the
firmament,--as you say to yourselves that how far soever you put back
the boundary of the skies, if the universe ended there, then the
universe, with its suns and its groups of stars, would still be but a
solitary lamp, shining as a point in the midst of the limitless
darkness,--have you never experienced a sort of mysterious fright and
giddiness? At such a time turn your eyes upon nearer objects. He who has
made the heavens with their immensity, is He who makes the corn to
spring forth for your sustenance, who clothes the fields with the
flowers which rejoice your sight, who gives you the fresh breath of
morning, and the calm of a lovely evening: it is He, without whose
permission nothing occurs, who watches over you and over those you love.
Possess yourselves thoroughly with this thought of love, then lift once
more your eyes to the sky, and from every star, and from the worlds
which are lost in the furthest depths of space, shall fall upon your
brow, no longer clouded, a ray of love and of peace. Then with a feeling
of sweet affiance you will adopt as your own those words of an ancient
prophet: "Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee
from Thy Presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: if I make
my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the
morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall
Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me:"[3] then you will
understand those grand and sweet words of Saint Augustine, some of the
most beautiful that ever fell from the lips of a man: "Are you afraid of
God? Run to His arms!"
Thus our idea of God is completed,--the idea of Him whom, in a feeling
of filial confidence, we name the Father, and whom we call the
_Heavenly_ Father, while we adore that absolute holiness, of which the
pure brightness of the firmament is for us the visible and magnificent
symbol. Goodness is the secret of the universe; goodness it is which has
directed power, and placed wisdom at its service.
My object is not to teach this idea, but to defend it: it is not, I say,
to teach it, for we all possess it. There is no one here who has not
received his portion of the sacred deposit. This sacred idea may be
veiled by our sorrows, perverted by our errors, obscured by our faults;
but, however thick be the layer of ashes heaped together in the depth of
our souls--look closely: the sacred spark is not extinguished, and a
favorable breath may still rekindle the flame.
We have considered the essential elements of which our idea of God is
composed. And whence comes this idea? What is its historical origin? I
do not ask what is the historical origin of religion, for religion does
not take its rise in history; it is met with everywhere and always in
humanity. Those who deny this are compelled to "search in the darkness
for some obscure example known only to themselves, as if all natural
inclinations were destroyed by the corruption of a people, and as if, as
soon as there are any monsters, the species were no longer any
thing."[4] The consciousness of a world superior to the domain of
experience is one of the attributes characteristic of our nature. "If
there had ever been, or if there still anywhere existed, a people
entirely destitute of religion, it would be in consequence of an
exceptional downfall which would be tantamount to a lapse into
animality."[5] I am not therefore inquiring after the origin of the
idea and sentiment of the Deity, in a general sense, but after the
origin of the idea of the only and Almighty Creator as we possess it. In
fact, if religion is universal, distinct knowledge of the Creator is not
so.
Our own past strikes its roots into the historic soil which, in the
matter of creeds, is known by the name of paganism or idolatry. At first
sight what do we find in the opinions of that ancient world? No trace of
the divine unity. Adoration is dispersed over a thousand different
beings. Not only are the heavenly bodies adored and the powers of
nature, but men, animals, and inanimate objects. The feeling of the
holiness of God is not less wanting, it would seem, than the idea of His
unity. Religion serves as a pretext for the unchaining of human
passions. This is the case unfortunately with religion in general, and
the true religion is no exception to the rule: but what characterizes
paganism is that in its case religion, by its own proper nature, favors
the development of immorality. Celebrated shrines become the dens of a
prostitution which forms part of the homage rendered to the gods; the
religious rites of ancient Asia, and those of Greece which fell under
their influence, are notorious for their lewdness. The temples of false
deities, too often defiled by debauchery, are too often also dishonored
by frightful sacrifices. The ancient civilization of Mexico was elegant
and even refined in some respects; but the altars were stained, every
year, with the blood of thousands of human beings; and the votaries of
this sanguinary worship devoured, in solemn banquets, the quivering
limbs of the victims. Let us not look for examples too far removed from
the civilization which has produced our own. In the Greek and Roman
world, the stories of the gods were not very edifying, as every one
knows: the worship of Bacchus gave no encouragement to temperance, and
the festivals of Venus were not a school of chastity. It would be easy,
by bringing together facts of this sort, to form a picture full of
sombre coloring, and to conclude that our idea of God, the idea of the
only and holy God, does not proceed from the impure sources of idolatry.
The proceeding would be brief and convenient; but such an estimation of
the facts, false because incomplete, would destroy the value of the
conclusion. In pagan antiquity, in fact, the abominations of which I
have just reminded you did not by themselves make up religious
tradition. Side by side with a current of darkness and impurity, we meet
with a current of pure ideas and of strong gleams of the day.
Almost all the pagans seem to have had a glimpse of the Divine unity
over the multiplicity of their idols, and of the rays of the Divine
holiness across the saturnalia of their Olympi. It was a Greek who wrote
these words: "Nothing is accomplished on the earth without Thee, O God,
save the deeds which the wicked perpetrate in their folly."[6] It was in
a theatre at Athens that the chorus of a tragedy sang, more than two
thousand years ago: "May destiny aid me to preserve unsullied the purity
of my words and of all my actions, according to those sublime laws
which, brought forth in the celestial heights, have Heaven alone for
their father, to which the race of mortal men did not give birth, and
which oblivion shall never entomb. In them is a supreme God, and one who
waxes not old."[7] It would be easy to multiply quotations of this
order, and to show you in the documents of Grecian and Roman
civilization numerous traces of the knowledge of the only and holy God.
Listen now to a voice which has come forth actually from the recesses of
the sepulchre: it reaches us from ancient Egypt.
In Egypt, as you know, the degradation of the religious idea was in
popular practice complete. But, under the confused accents of
superstition, the science of our age is succeeding in catching from afar
the vibrations of a sublime utterance. In the coffins of a large number
of mummies have been discovered rolls of papyrus containing a sacred
text which is called the _Book of the Dead_. Here is the translation of
some fragments which appear to date from a very remote epoch. It is God
who speaks: "I am the Most Holy, the Creator of all that replenishes the
earth, and of the earth itself, the habitation of mortals. I am the
Prince of the infinite ages. I am the great and mighty God, the Most
High, shining in the midst of the careering stars and of the armies
which praise me above thy head.... It is I who chastise and who judge
the evil-doers, and the persecutors of godly men. I discover and
confound the liars.... I am the all-seeing Judge and Avenger ... the
guardian of my laws in the land of righteousness."[8]
These words are found mingled, in the text from which I extract them,
with allusions to inferior deities; and it must be acknowledged that the
translation of the ancient documents of Egypt is still uncertain enough.
Still this uncertainty does not appear to extend to the general sense
and bearing of the recent discoveries of our savants. Myself a simple
learner from the masters of the science, I can only point out to you the
result of their studies. Now, this is what the masters tell us as to the
actual state of mythological studies. Traces are found almost
everywhere, in the midst of idolatrous superstitions, of a religion
comparatively pure, and often stamped with a lofty morality. Paganism is
not a simple fact: it offers to view in the same bed two currents, the
one pure and the other impure. What is the relation between these two
currents? A passage in a writer of the Latin Church throws a vivid light
upon their actual relation in practical life. It is thus that Lactantius
expresses himself: "When man (the pagan) finds himself in adversity,
then it is that he has recourse to God (to the only God). If the horrors
of war threaten him, if there appear a contagious disease, a drought, a
tempest, then he has recourse to God.... If he is overtaken by a storm
at sea, and is in danger of perishing, immediately he calls upon God; if
he finds himself in any urgent peril, he has recourse to God.... Thus
men bethink themselves of God when they are in trouble; but as soon as
the danger is past, and they are no longer in any fear, we see them
return with joy to the temples of the false gods, make to them
libations, and offer sacrifices to them."[9] This is a striking picture
of the workings of man's heart in all ages; for, as our author observes,
"God is never so much forgotten of men as when they are quietly enjoying
the favors and blessings which He sends them."[10] As regards our
special object, this page reveals in a very instructive manner the
religious condition of heathen antiquity. The thought of the sovereign
God was stifled without being extinguished; it awoke beneath the
pressure of anguish; but ordinary life, the life of every day, belonged
to the easy worship of idols.
It may now be asked what is the historical relation between the two
currents of paganism of which we have just established the actual
relation in practical life. Did humanity begin with a coarse fetichism,
and thence rise by slow degrees to higher conceptions? Do the traces of
a comparatively pure monotheism first show themselves in the most recent
periods of idolatry? Contemporary science inclines more and more to
answer in the negative. It is in the most ancient historical ground
(allow me these geological terms) that the laborious investigators of
the past meet with the most elevated ideas of religion. Cut to the
ground a young and vigorous beech-tree, and come back a few years
afterwards: in place of the tree cut down you will find coppice-wood;
the sap which nourished a single trunk has been divided amongst a
multitude of shoots. This comparison expresses well enough the opinion
which tends to prevail amongst our savants on the subject of the
historical development of religions. The idea of the only God is at the
root,--it is primitive; polytheism is derivative. A forgotten, and as it
were slumbering, monotheism exists beneath the worship of idols; it is
the concealed trunk which supports them, but the idols have absorbed all
the sap. The ancient God (allow me once more a comparison) is like a
sovereign confined in the interior of his palace: he is but seldom
thought of, and only on great occasions; his ministers alone act,
entertain requests, and receive the real homage.
The proposition of the historical priority of monotheism is very
important, and is not universally admitted. It will therefore be
necessary to show you, by a few quotations at least, that I am not
speaking rashly. One of the most accredited mythologists of our time,
Professor Grimm, of Berlin, writes as follows: "The monotheistic form
appears to be the more ancient, and that out of which antiquity in its
infancy formed polytheism.... All mythologies lead us to this
conclusion."[11] Among the French savants devoted to the study of
ancient Egypt, the Vicomte de Rongé stands in the foremost rank. This is
what he tells us: "In Egypt the supreme God was called the one God,
living indeed, He who made all that exists, who created other beings. He
is the Generator existing alone who made the heaven and created the
earth." The writer informs us that these ideas are often found
reproduced "in writings the date of which is anterior to Moses, and many
of which formed part of the most ancient sacred hymns;" then he comes
to this conclusion: "Egypt, in possession of an admirable fund of
doctrines respecting the essence of God, and the immortality of the
soul, did not for all that defile herself the less by the most degrading
superstitions; we have in her, sufficiently summed up, the religious
history of all antiquity."[12] As regards the civilization which
flourished in India, M. Adolphe Pictet, in his learned researches on the
subject of the primitive Aryas, arrives, in what concerns the religious
idea, at the following conclusion: "To sum up: primitive monotheism of a
character more or less vague, passing gradually into a polytheism still
simple, such appears to have been the religion of the ancient
Aryas."[13] One of our fellow-countrymen, who cultivates with equal
modesty and perseverance the study of religious antiquities, has
procured the greater part of the recent works published on these
subjects in France, Germany, and England. He has read them, pen in hand,
and, at my urgent request, he has kindly allowed me to look over his
notes which have been long accumulating. I find the following sentence
in the manuscripts which he has shown me: "The general impression of
all the most distinguished mythologists of the present day is, that
monotheism is at the foundation of all pagan mythology."
The savants, I repeat, do not unanimously accept these conclusions:
savants, like other men, are rarely unanimous. It is enough for my
purpose to have shown that it is not merely the grand tradition
guaranteed by the Christian faith, but also the most distinctly marked
current of contemporary science, which tells us that God shone upon the
cradle of our species. The august Form was veiled, and idolatry with its
train of shameful rites shows itself in history as the result of a fall
which calls for a restoration, rather than as the point of departure of
a continued progress.
The august Form was veiled. Who has lifted the veil? Not the priests of
the idols. We meet in the history of paganism with movements of
reformation, or, at the very least, of religious transformation:
Buddhism is a memorable example of this; but it is not a return towards
the pure traditions of India or of Egypt which has caused us to know the
God whom we adore. Has the veil been lifted by reflection, that is to
say by the labors of philosophers? Philosophy has rendered splendid
services to the world. It has combated the abominations of idolatry; it
has recognized in nature the proofs of an intelligent design; it has
discerned in the reason the deeply felt need of unity; it has indicated
in the conscience the sense of good, and shown its characteristics; it
has contemplated the radiant image of the supreme beauty--still it is
not philosophy which has restored for humanity the idea of God. Its
lights mingled with darkness remained widely scattered, and without any
focus powerful enough to give them strength for enlightening the world.
To seek God, and consequently to know Him already in a certain measure;
but to remain always before the altar of a God glimpsed only by an
_élite_ of sages, and continuing for the multitudes the unknown God:
such was the wisdom of the ancients. It prepared the soil; but it did
not deposit in it the germ from which the idea of the Creator was to
spring forth living and strong, to overshadow with its branches all the
nations of the earth. And when this idea appeared in all its splendor,
and began the conquest of the universe, the ancient philosophy, which
had separated itself from heathen forms of worship, and had covered
them with its contempt, contracted an alliance with its old adversaries.
It accepted the wildest interpretations of the common superstitions, in
order to be able to league itself with the crowd in one and the same
conflict with the new power which had just appeared in the world. And
this sums up in brief compass the whole history of philosophy in the
first period of our era.
The monotheism of the moderns does not proceed historically from
paganism; it was prepared by the ancient philosophy, without being
produced by it. Whence comes it then? On this head there exists no
serious difference of opinion. Our knowledge of God is the result of a
traditional idea, handed down from generation to generation in a
well-defined current of history. Much obscurity still rests upon man's
earliest religious history, but the truth which I am pointing out to you
is solidly and clearly established. Pass, in thought, over the
terrestrial globe. All the superstitions of which history preserves the
remembrance are practised at this day, either in Asia or in Africa, or
in the isles of the Ocean. The most ridiculous and ferocious rites are
practised still in the light of the same sun which gilds, as he sets,
the spires and domes of our churches. At this very day, there are
nations upon the earth which prostrate themselves before animals, or
which adore sacred trees. At this very day, perhaps at this hour in
which I am addressing you, human victims are bound by the priests of
idols; before you have left this room, their blood will have defiled the
altars of false deities. At this very day, numerous nations, which have
neither wanted time for self-development, nor any of the resources of
civilization, nor clever poets, nor profound philosophers, belong to the
religion of the Brahmins, or are instructed in the legends which serve
as a mask to the pernicious doctrines of Buddha. Where do we meet with
the clear idea of the Creator? In a unique tradition which proceeds from
the Jews, which Christians have diffused, and which Mahomet corrupted.
God is known, with that solid and general knowledge which founds a
settled doctrine and a form of worship, under the influence of this
tradition and nowhere else. We assert this as a simple fact of
contemporary history; and there is scarcely any fact in history better
established.
The light comes to us from the Gospel. This light did not appear as a
sudden and absolutely new illumination. It had cast pale gleams on the
soul of the heathen in their search after the unknown God; it had shone
apart upon that strange and glorious people which bears the name of
Israel. Israel had preserved the primitive light encompassed by
temporary safe-guards. It was the flame of a lamp, too feeble to live in
the open air, and which remained shut up in a vase, until the moment
when it should have become strong enough to shine forth from its
shattered envelope upon the world. The worship of Jehovah is a local
worship; but this worship, localized for a time, is addressed to the
only and sovereign God. To every nation which says to Israel as Athaliah
to Joash:
I have my God to serve--serve thou thine own,[14]
Israel replies with Joash:
Nay, Madam, but my God is God alone;
Him must thou fear: thy God is nought--a dream![15]
Israel does not affirm merely that the God of Israel is the only true
God, but affirms moreover that the time will come when all the earth
will acknowledge Him for the only and universal Lord. A grand thought, a
grand hope, is in the soul of this people, and assures it that all
nations shall one day look to Jerusalem. Its prophets threaten, warn,
denounce chastisements, predict terrible catastrophes; but in the midst
of their severer utterances breaks forth ever and again the song of
future triumph:
Uplift, Jerusalem, thy queenly brow:
Light of the nations, and their glory, thou![16]
Thus is preserved in the ancient world the knowledge of God amongst an
exceptional people, amidst the darkness of idolatry and the glimmerings
of an imperfect wisdom. And not only is it preserved, but it shines with
a brightness more and more vivid and pure. The conception of sovereignty
which constitutes its foundation, is crowned as it advances by the
conception of love. At length He appears by whom the universal Father
was to be known of all.
Have you not remarked the surprising simplicity with which Jesus speaks
of His work? He speaks of the universe and of the future as a lawful
proprietor speaks of his property. The field in which the Word shall be
sown is the world. He introduces that worship in spirit and in truth
before which all barriers shall fall. He knows that humanity belongs to
Him; and when He foretells His peaceful conquest, one knows not which
predominates in His words, simplicity or grandeur. Now this predicted
work has been done, is being done, and will be done. No one entertains
any serious doubt of this. The idea of God, as it exists amongst
Christian peoples, bears on its brow the certain sign of victory.
In many respects, we are passing through the world in times which are
not extraordinary, and among things little worthy of lasting record.
Still great events are being accomplished before our eyes. The ancient
East is shaken to its foundations. The work of foreign missions is taken
up again with fresh energy. Ships, as they leave the shores of Europe,
carry with them,--together with those who travel for purposes of
commerce, or from curiosity, or as soldiers,--those new crusaders who
exclaim: God wills it! and are ready to march to their death in order
to proclaim the God of life to nations plunged in darkness. The advances
of industry, the developments of commerce, the calculations of ambition,
all conspire to diffuse spiritual light over the globe. These are noble
spectacles, revealing clearly the traces of a superior design, which the
mighty of this world are accomplishing, even by the craft and violence
of their policy: they are the manifest instruments of a Will to which
oftentimes they are insensible. The knowledge of God is extending; and
while it is extending, it is enriching itself with its own conquests.
Just as it absorbed the living sap of the doctrines of the Greeks, so it
is strengthening itself with the doctrines of the ancient East and of
old Egypt, which an indefatigable science is bringing again to light.
Christian thought is growing, not by receiving any foreign impulse from
without, but like a vigorous tree, whose roots traverse new layers of a
fertile soil. All truth comes naturally to the centre of truth as to its
rallying-point; and to the universal prayer must be gathered all the
pure accents gone astray in the superstitious invocations which rise
from the banks of the Ganges or from the burning regions of Africa. The
day will come, when our planet, in its revolutions about the sun, shall
receive on no point of its surface the rays of the orb of day, without
sending back, over the ruins of idol-temples for ever overthrown, a song
of thanksgiving to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, become through
Jesus Christ the God of all mankind.
We know now whence comes our idea of God: it is Christian in its origin.
It proceeds from this source, not only for those who call themselves
Christians, but for all those who, in the bosom of modern society,
believe sincerely and seriously in God. But little study and reflection
is required for the acknowledgment that the doctrines of our deists are
the product of a reason which has been _evangelized_ without their own
knowledge. They have not invented, but have received the thought, which
constitutes the support of their life. A mind of ordinary cultivation is
free henceforward from all danger of falling into the artless error of
J.J. Rousseau, when he pretended that even though he had been born in a
desert island and had never known a human being, he would have been able
to draw up the confession of faith of the _Vicaire Savoyard_. The habit
of historical research has dispelled these illusions. A French writer,
distinguished for solid erudition, wrote not long ago: "The civilized
world has received from Judea the foundations of its faith. It has
learned of it these two things which pagan antiquity never
knew--holiness and charity; for all holiness is derived from belief in a
personal, spiritual God, Creator of the universe; and all charity from
the doctrine of human brotherhood!"[17] Religion, in its most general
sense, is found wherever there are men; but distinct knowledge of the
Heavenly Father is the fruit of that word which comes to us from the
borders of the Jordan,--a word in which all the true elements of ancient
wisdom are found to have mutually drawn together, and strengthened each
other. In the very heart of our civilization, those men of mind who
succeed in freeing themselves in good earnest from the influence of this
word come, oftener than not, to throw off all belief in the real and
true God, if they have strength of mind enough properly to understand
themselves.
How is it that the full idea of the Creator,--an idea which true
philosophers have sought after in all periods of history, and of which
they have had, so to speak, glimpses and presentiments,--how is it that
this idea is a living one only under the influence of the tradition
which, proceeding originally from Abraham and Moses, has been continued
by Jesus Christ? It is not impossible to point out the spiritual causes
of this great historical phenomenon. Faith in God, in order to maintain
itself in presence of the difficulties which rise in our minds, and--to
come at once to the core of the question--the idea of the love of God,
in order to maintain itself in presence of evil and of the power of evil
on the earth, has need of resources which the Christian belief alone
possesses. The knowledge of the Heavenly Father is essentially connected
with the Gospel: this is the historical fact. This fact is accounted for
by the existence of an organic bond between all the great Christian
doctrines: this is my deliberate conviction. I frankly declare here my
own opinions: to do so is for me a matter almost of honor and good
faith; but I declare them, without desiring to lay any stress upon them
in these lectures. My present object is to consider the idea of God by
itself. I isolate it for my own purposes from Christian truth taken as a
whole, but without making the separation in my thoughts. The thesis
which I propose to maintain is common to all Christians, that is quite
clear; but further; in a perfectly general sense, and in a merely
abstract point of view, it is a proposition maintained equally by the
disciples of Mahomet; it is maintained by J.J. Rousseau and the
spiritualist philosophers who reproduce his thoughts. It is clear in
fact that just as Jesus Christ is the corner-stone of all Christian
doctrine, so God is the foundation common to all religions.
Before concluding this lecture I desire to answer a question which may
have suggested itself to some amongst you. What are we about when we
take up a Christian idea in order to defend it by reasoning? Are we
occupied about religion or philosophy? Are we treading upon the ground
of faith, or on the ground of reason? Are we in the domain of tradition,
or in that of free inquiry? I have no great love, Gentlemen, for hedges
and enclosures. I know very well, better, perhaps, than many amongst
you, because I have longer reflected on the subject, what are the
differences which separate studies specially religious, from
philosophical inquiries. But when the question relates to God, to the
universal cause, we find ourselves at the common root of religion and
philosophy, and distinctions, which exist elsewhere, disappear. Besides,
these distinctions are never so absolute as they are thought to be. You
will understand this if you pay attention to these two considerations:
there is no such thing as pure thought disengaged from every traditional
element: there is no such thing as tradition received in a manner purely
passive, and disengaged from all exercise of the reflective faculties.
You think you are employed about philosophy when you shut yourself up in
your own individual thoughts. A mistake! The most powerful genius of
modern times failed in this enterprise. Descartes conceived the project
of forgetting all that he had known, and of producing a system of
doctrine which should come forth from his brain as Minerva sprang all
armed from the brain of Jupiter. Now-a-days a mere schoolboy, if he has
been well taught, ought to be able to prove that Descartes was mistaken,
because the current of tradition entered his mind together with the
words of the language. It is not so easy as we may suppose to break the
ties by which God has bound us all together in mutual dependence. Man
speaks, he only thinks by means of speech, and speech is a river which
takes its rise in the very beginnings of history, and brings down to the
existing generation the tribute of all the waters of the past. No one
can isolate himself from the current, and place himself outside the
intellectual society of his fellows. We have more light than we had on
this subject, and the attempt of Descartes, which was of old the happy
audacity of genius, could in our days be nothing but the foolish
presumption of ignorance.
As for the purely passive reception of tradition, this may be conceived
when only unimportant legends are in question, or doctrines which occupy
the mind only as matters of curiosity; but when life is at stake, and
the interests of our whole existence, the mind labors upon the ideas
which it receives. Religion is only living in any soul when all the
faculties have come into exercise; and faith, by its own proper nature,
seeks to understand. The distinction between traditional data therefore
and pure philosophy is far from being so real or so extensive as it is
commonly thought to be. But for lack of time, I might undertake to prove
to you more at length that the labor of individual thought upon the
common tradition is the absolute and permanent law of development for
the human mind.
We have to steer between two extreme and contrary pretensions. What
shall we say to those theologians who deny all power to man's reason,
and consider the understanding as a receiver which does nothing but
receive the liquid which is poured into it? to those theologians who,
not content with despising Aristotle and Plato, think themselves obliged
to vilify Socrates and calumniate Regulus? We will tell them that they
depart from the grand Christian tradition, of which they believe
themselves _par excellence_ the representatives. We will add that they
outrage their Master by seeming to believe that in order to exalt Him it
is necessary to calumniate humanity. Again, what shall we say to those
philosophers, who do not wish for truth except when they have succeeded
in educing it by themselves? to those philosophers who draw a little
circle about their own personal thought, and say: If truth discovers
itself outside this circle we have no wish to see it; and who boast that
they only are free, because they have abandoned the common beliefs? We
will tell them that they are deceiving themselves by taking for their
own personal thought the _débris_ of the tradition of the human race.
We will add that their pretended independence is a veritable slavery. A
strange sort of liberty that, which should forbid those who affect it to
accept a faith which appeared to them to be true, because they were not
the inventors of it. Listen to this wise reflection of a contemporary
writer: "Philosophy allows us to range ourselves on the side of
Platonism: why should it not also allow us to range ourselves on the
side of the Christian faith, if there it is that we find wisdom and
immutable truth? The choice ought to seem as free and as worthy of
respect on the one side as on the other; and philosophy which claims
liberty for itself, is least of all warranted in refusing it to
others."[18] To be free, is to look for truth wherever it may be found,
and it is to obey truth wherever we meet with it. When the question
therefore relates to God, or to the soul and its eternal destinies,--to
the man who asks me, Are you occupied with religion or philosophy? I
have only one answer to give: I am a man, and I am seeking truth.
A final consideration will perhaps put these thoughts in a more
striking light. If you think the most important of the discussions of
our day to be that between natural and revealed religion, between deism
and the Gospel, you have not well discerned the signs of the times. The
fundamental discussion is now between men who believe in God, in the
soul, and in truth, and men, who, denying truth, deny at the same time
the soul and God. When these high problems are in question, periodicals
and other publications, which have the widest circulation, and which
gain admission into every household, bring us too often the works of
writers without convictions, eager to spread amongst others the doubt
which has devoured their own beliefs. They have received entire, and
without losing an obole of it, the heritage of the Greek Sophists. They
involve in fact in the same proscription Socrates and Jesus Christ, Paul
of Tarsus and Plato of Athens: they have no more respect for the
opinions of Descartes and Leibnitz than for those of Pascal and Bossuet.
The great question of the day is to know whether our desire of truth is
a chimæra; whether our effort to reach the divine world is a spring into
the empty void. When the question relates to God, inasmuch as He is the
basis of reason no less than the object of faith, all the barriers which
exist elsewhere disappear: to defend faith is to defend reason; to
defend reason is to defend faith. The unbridled audacity of those who
deny fundamental truths is bringing ancient adversaries, for a moment at
least, to fight beneath the same flag. What they would rob us of, is not
merely this or that article of a definite creed, but all faith whatever
in Divine Providence, every hope which goes beyond the tomb, every look
directed towards a world superior to our present destinies. But take
courage. This flame lighted on the earth, and which is evermore directed
towards heaven, has passed safely through rougher storms than those
which now threaten it; it has shone brightly in thicker darkness than
that in which men are laboring so hard to enshroud it. It is not going
to be extinguished, be very sure, before the affected indifference of a
few wits of our day, and the haughty disdain of a few contemporary
journalists.
In a word, Gentlemen,--to take the idea of God as it has been handed
down to us, and to study its relation to the reason, the heart, and the
conscience of man,--this is my proposed method of proceeding. To show
you that this idea is truth, because it satisfies the conscience, the
heart, and the reason--this is the object I have in view. Of this object
I am sure you feel the importance: nevertheless, and that we may be more
alive to it still, I propose to you to sound with me the abysses of
sorrow and darkness which are involved in those terrible words--"without
God in the world."
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Aux _grimpeurs des Alpes_.
[3] Psalm cxxxix. 7-10.
[4] J.J. Rousseau.
[5] _Les Origines Indo-Européennes_, by Adolphe Pictet, ii. 651.
[6] Cleanthes, _Hymn to Jupiter_.
[7] Sophocles, _OEdipus R._
[8] _Handbuch der gesammten ägyptischen Alterthumskunde_, von Dr. Max
Uhlemann. Leipzig, 1857.
[9] _Institutions divines_, ii. 1.
[10] Id.
[11] _Deutsche Mythol._ Third edition, page lxiv.
[12] _Annales de philosophie chrétienne_, t. 59, p. 228._r_.
[13] _Les Origines Indo-Européennes_, ii. 720.
[14] J'ai mon Dieu que je sers, vous servirez le vôtre.
[15]
Il faut craindre le mien;
Lui seul est Dieu, Madame, et le vôtre n'est rien.
[16]
Lève, Jérusalem, lève ta tête altière!
Les peuples à l'envi marchent à ta lumière.
[17] _Etudes Orientales_, par Adolphe Franck, p. 427.
[18] Barthélemy St. Hilaire, in the _Séances et travaux de l'Académie
des sciences morales et politiques_, LXX., p. 134.
LECTURE II.
_LIFE WITHOUT GOD._
(At Geneva, 20th Nov. 1863.--At Lausanne, 13th Jan. 1864.)
GENTLEMEN,
I propose to examine to-day what are the consequences for human life of
the total suppression of the idea of God. This suppression is the result
of atheism properly so called: it is also the result of scepticism
raised into a system. The soul which doubts, but which seeks, regrets,
hopes, is not wholly separated from God. It gives Him a large share in
its life, inasmuch as the desire which it feels to meet with Him, and
the sadness which it experiences at not contemplating Him in a full
light, become the principal facts of its existence. But doubt adopted as
a doctrine realizes in its own way, equally with atheism properly so
called, life without God, the mournful subject of our present study.
Having God, the spiritual life has a firm base and an invincible hope.
The vapors of earth may indeed for a moment obscure the sky. One while
fogs hang about the ground; another while clouds send forth the
thunder-bolt; but, above the regions of darkness and of tempest, the eye
of faith contemplates the eternal azure in its unchanging calm. Life has
its sorrows for all; but it is not only endurable, it is blessed, when
in view of the instability of all things, in view of evil, of injustice,
and of suffering, there can breathe from the depths of the soul to the
eternal, the Holy One, the Comforter, those words of patience in life
and of joy in death: _My God!_ Take God away, and life is decapitated.
Even this comparison is not sufficient; life, rather, becomes like to a
man who should have lost at once both his head and his heart. The
immense subject which opens before us falls into an easy and natural
division: we will fix our attention successively upon the individual and
upon society.