not attain to the knowledge of the truth, but some remain in darkness.
It is the fault of men who do not turn to the Word and so cannot fully
receive Him. Whence there is still more or less darkness remaining
among men, in proportion to the lesser or greater degree in which they
turn to the Word and receive Him. And so John, to preclude any thought
of deficiency in the illuminating power of the Word, after saying
"that life was the light of men," adds "the light shineth in darkness,
and the darkness comprehended it not." The darkness is not because the
Word does not shine, but because some do not receive the light of the
Word; as while the light of the material sun is shining over the
world, it is only dark to those whose eyes are closed or feeble[212].'
It has been necessary to dwell upon this doctrine because it has an
important bearing upon two further questions, which the philosophy of
evolution has brought into new prominence, the relation of
Christianity to previous philosophy and other religions. It was the
fashion, not long ago, to give an undue value to the part played by
environment or surrounding circumstances in the creation of characters
and institutions and creeds, to the exclusion of all elements of
native originality. And the attempt was made accordingly, in various
ways, to represent Christianity as the natural product of the
different religions and philosophies which were current in the world
at the time of its appearing. But the further study of evolution has
qualified this whole mode of thought by the way in which, as we have
seen above, it has led us to look at things as organisms rather than
machines. A machine has no internal principle of unity. Its unity is
impressed upon it from without. And it may be granted therefore, for
the sake of argument, that we might conceive a machine or number of
machines as formed like the patterns in a caleidoscope by a happy
coincidence of atoms; and man, if he were only a machine, as strictly
the creature of circumstance. But an organism is a different thing.
Dependent as it is upon its environment in an hundred various ways, it
is yet more dependent upon its own selective and assimilative
capacity, in other words upon its own individuality, its self. And so
the notions of individuality, originality, personal identity have been
restored to their place in the world of thought. The old error lingers
on, and is sometimes crudely re-asserted, especially in its
anti-Christian bearing; but it has been discredited by science, and is
in fact a thing of the past. And in consequence of this, the attempt
can no longer be plausibly made to account for Christianity apart from
the personality of Jesus Christ. The mythical theories have had their
day. And it is recognised on all hands that mere aspiration can no
more create a religion than appetite can create food. A foundation
needs a founder.
But the attack thus diverted from our religion glances off on our
theology. The Christian religion, it is granted, was founded by Jesus
Christ; but its theological interpretation is viewed as a
misinterpretation, a malign legacy from the dying philosophies of
Greece. This objection is as old as the second century, and has been
revived at intervals in various forms, and with varying degrees of
success. Modern historical criticism has only fortified it with fresh
instances. But it has no force whatever if we believe that the Divine
Word was for ever working in the world in co-operation with human
reason; inspiring the higher minds among the Jews with their thirst
for holiness, and so making ready for the coming of the Holy One in
Jewish flesh: but inspiring the Greeks also with their intellectual
eagerness, and preparing them to recognise Him as the Eternal Reason,
the Word, the Truth; and to define and defend, and demonstrate that
Truth to the outer world. The fact that Greek philosophy had passed
its zenith and was declining did not make its influence upon
Christianity an evil one, a corruption of the living by the dead. It
was only dying to be incorporated in a larger life. The food that
supports our existence owes its power of nutrition to the fact, that
it too once lived with an inferior life of its own. And so the Greek
philosophy was capable of assimilation by the Christian organism, from
the fact that it too had once been vitally inspired by the life that
is the light of men. And the true successors of Plato and Aristotle
were the men of progress who realized this fact; not Celsus, Lucian,
Porphyry, but the Fathers of the Church.
Clement and Origen, Athanasius and Augustine, the Gregories and Basil
understood Greek philosophy as clearly as S. Paul understood Judaism,
and recognised its completion as plainly in the Incarnation of the
Word. Nor was this view of the Incarnation in the one case, any more
than in the other, assumed for a merely apologetic purpose. These men
were essentially philosophers, among the foremost of their age. They
knew and have testified what philosophy had done for their souls, and
what it could not do; how far it had led them forward; and of what
longings it had left them full. True, philosophy had as little
expected Wisdom to become incarnate, and that amongst the barbarians,
the outcast and the poor, as Judaism had expected Messiah to suffer,
and to suffer at the hand of Jews. But no sooner was the Incarnation
accomplished, than it flooded the whole past of Greece no less than
Judaea with a new light. This was what it all meant; this was what it
unwittingly aimed at; the long process of dialectic and prophecy were
here united in their goal.
'Those who lived under the guidance of the Eternal Reason μετὰ λόγου
βιώσαντες as Socrates, Heraclitus, and such-like men, are Christians,'
run the well-known words of Justin Martyr, 'even though they were
reckoned to be atheists in their day.' (Ap. i. 46.) Different minds
have always differed, and will continue to differ widely as to the
degree in which Greek thought contributed to the doctrines of the
Trinity and the Incarnation. It is a difficult and delicate question
for historical criticism to decide. But the essential thing to bear in
mind is that the Christian doctrine of the Logos amply covers any
possible view which criticism may establish upon the point. For, in
the light of that doctrine, it is merely a question of the degree in
which the Eternal Word chose to reveal Himself through one agency
rather than another.
Any attack, therefore, upon our theology for its connection with Greek
thought, is powerless to disturb us; since we accept the fact but give
it another, a deeper interpretation: while we rejoice in every fresh
proof that the great thoughts of the Greek mind were guided by a
higher power, and consecrated to a nobler end than ever their authors
dreamed of; and that the true classic culture is no alien element but
a legitimate ingredient in Catholic, complete Christianity.
And the same line of thought gives us a clue to the history of
religious development, the latest field to which the philosophy of
evolution has been extended. For though a superficial comparison of
religions, with a more or less sceptical result, has often been
attempted before, as for instance in the thirteenth century with its
well-known story of the three impostors; anything like a scientific
study of them has been impossible till now. For now for the first time
we are beginning to have the facts before us; the facts consisting in
the original documents of the various historic creeds, and accumulated
observations on the religious ideas of uncivilized races. In both
these fields very much remains to be done; but still there is enough
done already to justify a few generalizations. But the subject is
intensely complex, and there has been far too great a tendency, as in
all new sciences, to rush to premature conclusions. For example, there
is the shallow scepticism which seizes upon facts, like the many
parallelisms between the moral precepts of earlier religions and the
sermon on the Mount, as a convincing proof that Christianity contains
nothing that is new. No serious student of comparative religions would
justify such an inference; but it is a very common and mischievous
fallacy in the half-culture of the day. Then there is the rash
orthodoxy, that is over eager to accept any result that tallies with
its own preconceived opinions as, for instance, the belief in a
primitive monotheism. No doubt several very competent authorities
think that the present evidence points in that direction. But a
majority of critics equally competent think otherwise. And meanwhile,
there is a mass of evidence still waiting collection and
interpretation, which may one day throw further light upon the point.
Under such circumstances, therefore, it is as impolitic as it is
unscientific to identify Christian apology with a position which may
one day prove untenable. Attention has already been called to a
similar imprudence in connection with Biogenesis, and the history of
past apology is full of warnings against such conduct. Then, again,
there is the converse view which is often as glibly stated as if it
were already a scientific truism; the view that religion was evolved
out of non-religious elements, such as the appearance of dead
ancestors in dreams. This rests, to begin with, on the supposition
that the opinions of uncivilized man, as we now find him, are the
nearest to those of man in his primitive condition; which, considering
that degradation is a recognised factor in history, and that
degradation acts more powerfully in religion than in any other region,
is a very considerable assumption. But even granting this, the
psychological possibility of the process in question, as well as the
lapse of time sufficient for its operation, are both as yet unproved.
It is an hypothetical process, happening in an hypothetical period;
but, logically considered, nothing more.
All this should make us cautious in approaching the comparative study
of religions. Still, even in its present stage, it has reached some
general results. In the first place, the universality of religion is
established as an empirical fact. Man, with a few insignificant
exceptions which may fairly be put down to degradation, within the
limits of our observation, is everywhere religious. The notion that
religion was an invention of interested priestcraft has vanished, like
many other eighteenth century fictions, before nineteenth century
science. Even in the savage races, where priestcraft is most
conspicuous, the priest has never created the religion, but always the
religion the priest. Beyond this fact it is unsafe to dogmatize. There
is abundant evidence of early nature-worship in very various forms,
but whether this was the degraded offspring of purer conceptions, or
as is more generally supposed the primitive parent from which those
conceptions sprang, is still an open question. The universality of the
fact is all that is certain.
Again, there is a progressive tendency observable in the religions of
the world; but the progress is of a particular kind, and largely
counteracted by degeneracy. Individuals elevate, masses degrade
religion. There is no progress by insensible modifications; no
improvement of a religion in committee. Councils like those of Asoka
or Chosroes can only sift and popularise and publish what it needed a
Buddha or Zarathustra to create. And so religion is handed on, from
one great teacher to another, never rising above the level of its
founder or last reformer, till another founder or reformer comes;
while in the interval it is materialized, vulgarized, degraded.
And from the nature of this progress, as the work of great
individuals, another consequence has historically followed; viz. that
all the pre-Christian religions have been partial, have emphasized,
that is to say, unduly if not exclusively one requirement or another
of the religious consciousness, but never its complex whole. For the
individual teacher, however great, cannot proclaim with prophetic
intensity more than one aspect of a truth; and his followers
invariably tend to isolate and exaggerate this aspect, while any who
attempt to supply its complement are regarded with suspicion. Hence
the parties and sects and heresies of which religious history is full.
The simplest illustration of this is the fundamental distinction
between Theism and Pantheism, or the transcendence and immanence of
God; the one often said to be a Semitic, the other an Aryan tendency
of thought. But however this may be, both these principles must be
represented in any system which would really satisfy the whole of our
religious instincts; while, as a matter of fact, they were separated
by all the pre-Christian religions, and are separated by Mahometanism
and Buddhism, the only two religious systems which compete with
Christianity to-day.
These, then, are a few broad results of our comparative survey of
religions. That religion, however humble the mode of its first
appearing, is yet universal to man. That it progresses through the
agency of the great individual, the unique personality, the spiritual
genius; while popular influence is a counter-agent and makes for its
decay. That its various developments have all been partial, and
therefore needed completion, if the cravings of the human spirit were
ever to be set at rest.
And all this is in perfect harmony with our Christian belief in a God
Who, from the day of man's first appearance in the dim twilight of the
world, left not Himself without witness in sun and moon, and rain and
storm-cloud, and the courses of the stars, and the promptings of
conscience, and the love of kin: and Who the while was lighting every
man that cometh into the world, the primaeval hunter, the shepherd
chieftain, the poets of the Vedas and the Gathas, the Chaldaean
astronomer, the Egyptian priest, each, at least in a measure, to spell
that witness out aright; ever and anon when a heart was ready
revealing Himself with greater clearness, to one or another chosen
spirit, and by their means to other men; till at length, in the
fulness of time, when Jews were yearning for one in whom righteousness
should triumph visibly; and Greeks sighing over the divorce between
truth and power, and wondering whether the wise man ever would indeed
be king; and artists and ascetics wandering equally astray, in vain
attempt to solve the problem of the spirit and the flesh; 'the Word
was made Flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.' The
pre-Christian religions were the age-long prayer. The Incarnation was
the answer. Nor are we tied to any particular view of the prehistoric
stages of this development. We only postulate that whenever and
however man became truly man, he was from that moment religious, or
capable of religion; and this postulate deals with the region that
lies beyond the reach of science, though all scientific observation
is, as we have seen, directly in its favour.
In short, the history of the pre-Christian religion is like that of
pre-Christian philosophy, a long preparation for the Gospel. We are
familiar enough with this thought in its Jewish application from the
teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews. But it seems to be often
forgotten that the principles laid down in that Epistle admit of no
limitation to any single race of men. They are naturally illustrated
from Hebrew history in a writing addressed to Hebrews. But their scope
is universal. They compel their own application to every religious
history, which the growth of our knowledge brings to light. And from
this point of view the many pagan adumbrations of Christian doctrine,
similarities of practice, coincidences of ritual, analogies of phrase
and symbol, fall naturally into place. The fathers and early
missionaries were often perplexed by these phenomena, and did not
scruple to attribute them to diabolic imitation. And even in the
present day they are capable of disturbing timid minds, when
unexpectedly presented before them. But all this is unphilosophical,
for in the light of evolution the occurrence of such analogies is a
thing to be expected; while to the eye of faith they do but emphasize
the claim of Christianity to be universal, by shewing that it contains
in spiritual summary the religious thoughts and practices and ways of
prayer and worship, not of one people only, but of all the races of
men.
'In the whole of our Christian faith,' says Thomassin, 'there is
nothing which does not in the highest degree harmonize with that
natural philosophy which Wisdom, who made all things, infused into
every created mind, and wrote upon the very marrow of the reason; so
that, however obscured by the foul pleasures of the senses, it never
can be wholly done away. It was this hidden and intimate love of the
human mind, however marred, for the incorruptible truth, which won the
whole world over to the gospel of Christ, when once that Gospel was
proclaimed[213].'
But when all this has been said, there is a lingering suspicion in
many minds, that even if the details of the doctrine of development
are not inconsistent with Christianity, its whole drift is
incompatible with any system of opinion which claims to possess
finality. And if Christianity were only a system of opinion, the
objection might be plausible enough. But its claim to possess finality
rests upon its further claim to be much more than a system of opinion.
The doctrine of development or evolution, we must remember, is not a
doctrine of limitless change, like the old Greek notion of perpetual
flux. Species once developed are seen to be persistent, in proportion
to their versatility, their power, i.e. of adapting themselves to the
changes of the world around them. And because man, through his mental
capacity, possesses this power to an almost unlimited extent, the
human species is virtually permanent. Now in scientific language, the
Incarnation may be said to have introduced a new species into the
world--a Divine man transcending past humanity, as humanity
transcended the rest of the animal creation, and communicating His
vital energy by a spiritual process to subsequent generations of men.
And thus viewed, there is nothing unreasonable in the claim of
Christianity to be at least as permanent as the race which it has
raised to a higher power, and endued with a novel strength.
III. But in saying this we touch new ground. As long as we confine
ourselves to speaking of the Eternal Word as operating in the
mysterious region which lies behind phenomena, we are safe it may be
said from refutation, because we are dealing with the unknown. But
when we go on to assert that He has flashed through our atmosphere,
and been seen of men, scintillating signs and wonders in His path, we
are at once open to critical attack. And this brings us to the real
point at issue between Christianity and its modern opponents. It is
not the substantive body of our knowledge, but the critical faculty
which has been sharpened in its acquisition that really comes in
conflict with our creed. Assuming Christianity to be true, there is,
as we have seen, nothing in it inconsistent with any ascertained
scientific fact. But what is called the negative criticism assumes
that it cannot be true, because the miraculous element in it
contradicts experience. Still criticism is a very different thing from
science, a subjective thing into which imagination and personal
idiosyncrasy enter largely, and which needs therefore in its turn to
be rigorously criticised. And the statement that Christianity
contradicts experience suggests two reflections, _in limine_.
In the first place the origin of all things is mysterious, the origin
of matter, the origin of energy, the origin of life, the origin of
thought. And present experience is no criterion of any of these
things. What were their birth throes, what were their accompanying
signs and wonders, when the morning stars sang together in the dawn of
their appearing, we do not and cannot know. If therefore the
Incarnation was, as Christians believe, another instance of a new
beginning, present experience will neither enable us to assert or
deny, what its attendant circumstances may or may not have been. The
logical impossibility of proving a negative is proverbial. And on a
subject, whose conditions are unknown to us, the very attempt becomes
ridiculous. And secondly, it is a mistake to suppose that as a matter
of strict evidence, the Christian Church has ever rested its claims
upon its miracles. A confirmatory factor indeed, in a complication of
converging arguments, they have been, and still are to many minds. But
to others, who in the present day are probably the larger class, it is
not so easy to believe Christianity on account of miracles, as
miracles on account of Christianity. For now, as ever, the real burden
of the proof of Christianity is to be sought in our present
experience.
There is a fact of experience as old as history, as widely spread as
is the human race, and more intensely, irresistibly, importunately
real than all the gathered experience of art and policy and
science,--the fact which philosophers call moral evil, and Christians
sin. It rests upon no questionable interpretation of an Eastern
allegory. We breathe it, we feel it, we commit it, we see its havoc
all around us. It is no dogma, but a sad, solemn, inevitable fact. The
animal creation has a law of its being, a condition of its perfection,
which it instinctively and invariably pursues. Man has a law of his
being, a condition of his perfection, which he instinctively tends to
disobey. And what he does to-day, he has been doing from the first
record of his existence.
Video meliora proboque,
Deteriora sequor.
Philosophers have from time to time attempted to explain this dark
experience away, and here and there men of happy temperament, living
among calm surroundings, have been comparatively unconscious of the
evil in the world. But the common conscience is alike unaffected by
the ingenuity of the one class, or the apathy of the other; while it
thrills to the voices of men like S. Paul or S. Augustine, Dante or
John Bunyan, Loyola or Luther; recognising in their sighs and tears
and lamentations, the echo of its own unutterable sorrow made
articulate. Nor is sin confined to one department of our being. It
poisons the very springs of life, and taints its every action. It
corrupts art; it hampers science; it paralyses the efforts of the
politician and the patriot; and diseased bodies, and broken hearts,
and mental and spiritual agony, are amongst its daily, its hourly
results. It would seem indeed superfluous to insist upon these things,
if their importance were not so often ignored in the course of
anti-Christian argument. But when we are met by an appeal to
experience, it is necessary to insist that no element of experience be
left out.
And moral evil, independently of any theory of its nature or its
origin, is a plain palpable fact, and a fact of such stupendous
magnitude as to constitute by far the most serious problem of our
life.