our study;(1006) partly because they have been much neglected by Christian
writers, partly because they are the forms which for the most part create
the doubts which Christians encounter in the present age. The principal
intellectual causes were considered(1007) to be, either the new material
of knowledge, such as the physical or metaphysical sciences, which may
present truth antagonistic to the teaching of the sacred literature; or
new methods of criticism, the application of which creates opinions
differing from those of the traditionary belief; and, above all, the
effects of the application of particular tests of truth,—sense, reason,
intuition, feeling,—to the doctrines of revealed religion.
This was our plan; and we have been employed in tracing the influence of
these causes in generating doubt in the four great crises, with a
minuteness which may almost have been tedious; endeavouring to supply the
natural as well as the literary history; analysing each successive step of
thought into the causes which produced it; searching for them when
necessary in the intellectual biography of individuals; and, if not
refuting results, at least laying bare by criticism the processes through
which they were attained. At the same time we have attempted to show the
grounds on which the faith of the church has reposed in the various ages
of history. A defence, itself also twofold in its character—emotional and
intellectual—has been generated by the attack in each of the crises, and
an example thus furnished of the law which governs human society,—progress
by antagonism. Permanent gain to truth was seen to be the result of the
various controversies; quiet and refreshment after the discharge of the
storm had cleared the atmosphere from the intellectual and moral ills with
which it was charged.
The utility of the inquiry will now, it is hoped, be apparent. Though
these lectures must be regarded as instructive for the believer, rather
than polemic against the unbeliever, yet they are intended to serve also a
controversial purpose.
There are times indeed when the mere instructiveness of a history,
independently of practical use, is a sufficient justification for writing
it;—times when it is important to take the gauge of past knowledge as the
condition of a step forward in the future. Those who are accustomed to
meditate on the present age, on the multifarious elements which in a time
of great peace are quietly laying the basis of great changes, and on the
unity of intellectual condition which the international intercourse is
creating in the world of letters, as really as in that of industry, will
perhaps think that the present is such a period, when the knowledge of the
history of the former perils of the Christian faith, the nature of the
attack and of the defence, is itself of value in regard to the prospects
of the future.(1008) Those again also, who are accustomed to look at the
contemporary works of evidence in our own country, will deplore the fact
that in many cases, however well meant in spirit, they are essentially
deficient in a due appreciation of the precise origin and character of
present forms of doubt, and the natural and literary history of doubt in
general;(1009) reproducing arguments unanswerable against older kinds of
doubt, but unavailing against the modern, like wooden walls against modern
weapons of war. We stand in the presence of forms of doubt, which press us
more nearly than those of former times, because they do not supersede
Christianity by disbelief, but disintegrate it by eclecticism; which come
in the guise of erudition, unknown in former times, appealing to new
canons of truth, reposing on new methods, invested with a new air. In such
a moment a reconsideration of the struggles of past ages becomes
indirectly a contribution to the evidences, by supplying the knowledge of
similarity and contrast, which is necessary, as a preliminary, before
entering on a new conflict.
The dangers to faith in the present day are sometimes exaggerated; but
there cannot be a doubt that we live in a time when old creeds are in
peril; when the doubt is the result not of ignorance, but of knowledge,
and acts in the minds that are pre-eminent for intellectual influence, and
advances with a firmness that is not to be repelled by force but by
argument. It is not the duty of Christians to shut their eyes to the
danger, like the ostrich, which supposes by burying her eyes in the sand
to avoid the huntsman’s arrow. There seems accordingly special reason why
in such an age an acquaintance with the forms of doubt is requisite on the
part of those who have to minister the religion which is the subject of
attack.
If accordingly a clergy is to be trained up likely to supply the
intellectual cravings of the present day, they must be placed on a level
with its ripest knowledge, and be acquainted with the nature and origin of
the forms of doubt which they will encounter. The church has indeed a
large field, where work and not thought is to be the engine which the
clergy must use in their labours; truly a home mission, where men and
women for whom Christ died, require to be lifted out of their mere
animalism, and taught the simplest truths of Christ, and prayer, and
immortality: and noble are the efforts that Christians have made, and are
making, for an object so religious and philanthropic; but there is a
danger lest this very energy of work, which accords so naturally with the
utilitarianism of the English character, should lead us to forget that
there is an opposite stratum of society, to which also Christianity has
its message, which is only to be reached by the delicate gifts of
intellect and by the ripest learning.
If Christianity is to be presented to this class, adapted to the demands
of the age so far as they are reasonable, but unmutilated and unaltered in
its body of revealed doctrine, preserving in its integrity the faith
delivered to the saints; so that apostles might recognize it as being that
which they themselves taught, and for which they laid down their lives; it
is necessary that Christian students should be trained specially for the
work, by a learned and intelligent appreciation of truth, such as will
create orthodoxy without bigotry, and charity without latitude. If we have
to dread their going forth with hesitating opinions, teaching, through
their very silence concerning the mysterious realities which constitute
the very essence of Christianity, another gospel than that which was once
for all miraculously revealed; there is almost equal ground for alarm if
they go forth, able only to repeat the shibboleths of a professional
creed, and unable to give a reason of the glorious hope that is in them.
In the former case they will fail to teach historic and dogmatic
Christianity, because they do not believe it; in the latter because they
do not understand its meaning and evidence. If they need piety as the
first requisite, they need knowledge as the second. In certain conditions
of the church, study is second only to prayer itself as an instrument for
the Christian evangelist.
It is hoped, therefore, that a sketch of a department not previously
treated as a whole, may indirectly be an aid to the Christian faith, if it
shall perform the humble office of supplying some elements of instruction
to the Christian student.
Such a purpose however would hardly have justified the introduction of the
subject here. The motive which dictated its consideration was much more
practical. It was hoped that the answer to many species of doubt would be
found by referring them to the forms of thought or of philosophy from
which they had sprung; that it would be possible to perceive how they
might be refuted, by understanding why and how men have come to believe
them.(1010) This is a study of mental pathology seldom undertaken. The
practical aim of Christian writers has generally suggested to them a
readier mode of treating the history of unbelief, by referring its origin
to intellectual pride; and, if any margin remained unaccounted for by this
explanation, to refer it to an invisible agent, the direct operation of
Satan.(1011) Such a method, however true, commits the error, against which
Bacon utters a warning, of ascending at once to the most general causes
without interpolating the intermediate. It ignores the intellectual class
of causes, and omits to trace the subtlety of their mode of
manifestation;—a problem equally interesting, whether they be regarded as
original causes of doubt, or only as secondary instruments obeying the
impulse of the emotional causes. It would have been possible to
investigate the subject, by selecting a few leading instances to
illustrate the natural history of doubt; but the most likely mode for
exhausting the subject, as well as for presenting it in a manner which
would fall in with the historic tastes of the age, seemed to be, to treat
it by means of a critical history, presenting the antidote by a running
criticism; and to ask, frankly and fully, what have been the grounds on
which Christianity has been doubted; and what have been those on which the
faith of Christians in their hour of peril has reposed; and then finally
to gather up the lessons which the history itself teaches.
The inquiry has been analogous to the study of the history of a disease;
and scientific rigour required that it should be conducted with a similar
spirit of fairness towards those that manifest its symptoms. As the
physiologist, who wishes to learn the laws of a disease, watches patiently
the symptoms in the subject of it, not reproaching the sufferer, even if
the malady be self-caused; so in moral diagnosis, the student of mental
and religious error must carry out his inquiries in the spirit of cold
analysis, if he would arrive at the real character of the intricate facts
which he studies. The candour of our examination has not been prompted by
any spirit of indifference to truth, nor by sympathy with error; but
partly by the demands of historical accuracy, partly by deep pity for
those who are the subject of spiritual doubts, even when the doubts are of
their own fault.
This view of the inquiry, as an analysis of the intellectual causes of
doubt, will also explain one or two peculiarities in it, which, if left
unnoticed, might leave an impression of its inutility.
It will be seen, for example, that in the investigation of the natural
history of doubt, and in the explanation of the antecedent metaphysical or
critical questions which have produced it, we have indicated the schools
of thought which have created it, but have abstained from insisting on the
inherent necessity of the relation which subsists between the metaphysical
tests of truth and the religious conclusions discussed. The reason is,
that it seemed unfit to assume a side eagerly in the metaphysical
controversy; and therefore, while showing that the use of certain grounds
of belief and methods of inquiry has produced, both as a matter of history
and logic, certain species of doubt or disbelief; we have not attempted to
condemn the particular metaphysical theories on the ground of the logical
consequences which are supposed to flow from them, nor to deny that they
could be so amended, as either to avoid the sceptical conclusions to which
our objections are taken, or be rendered innocuous by the co-existence of
other causes. Science only shows the general tendency or law of logical
connection between intellectual causes and effects. The production of the
results in particular cases is subject to exception from the introduction
of interfering causes.(1012)
Another peculiarity which appertains to the analysis of the intellectual
sources of doubt, besides the seeming absence of invariable necessity in
their operation, might be thought to destroy the practical value of the
inquiry; viz. the feeling of disappointment excited when it is perceived
that they do not wholly explain the phenomenon, and are merely antecedents
or elements, not causes. This arises from the very nature of mental
analysis. Being in nature like chemical, it aims only at the detection of
the elements that make up the compound, and furnishes the material or
formal causes, not the efficient. This longing of the mind to find causes,
and to discover the original motive power, is however a witness to the
ineffaceable connection of the idea of power with that of will. And while
it does not destroy the completeness of the analysis, as the solution of
the intellectual problem proposed, it nevertheless points to the
instinctive wish of the heart to resolve the causes of doubt into some
ultimate source in the will; and is thus a witness to the truth of the
position which we have always asserted,(1013) that the intellectual causes
selected for our special study are only one branch, and must be united to
the emotional in order to attain a full explanation of the phenomenon of
doubt.
Thus the analysis offered will have, it is hoped, a utility in the limited
sphere which was claimed for it, in supplying the account of the tangled
and subtle processes through which doubt has insinuated itself.
-------------------------------------
What then are the lessons which the whole history teaches? To discover
these was part of our original purpose,(1014) as well as to learn the
facts and find the causes; to satisfy the longings of the heart, no less
than the curiosity of the understanding.
First, What has been the office of doubt in history? Has it been wholly an
injury, a chronic disease? or simply a gain? or has it operated in both
ways? Let us find the answer, by testing each of these theories of its
office by means of the facts.
The first of the three is that which has generally been held within the
Christian church. It dates from the first ages of the church, and
witnesses to a valuable truth. The sacred care with which the Christians
treasured the doctrine, and spurned the attempts of heretics to explain it
away, proves the strength of the conviction that they possessed a definite
treasure of divine truth, introduced at a definite period. Their very want
of toleration,(1015) the tenacity of their attachment to the faith, is a
proof of their undoubting conviction concerning the historic verity of the
facts connected with redemption, and the definite character of the dogmas
which interpreted the facts. In later ages however, the same idea of
sacredness has been extended by the Romish church to the mass of error
which Christianity has taken up into itself in the progress of ages; and
in Protestant countries has led to the attempt to restrain the thoughts of
men even on the secular subjects most remote from religion, where the
ancient sacred literature seemed to suggest any indirect information. The
doubt on the part of religious men, of any progress being made by free
thought, has often expressed itself too in the affirmation, that the
history of unbelief shows an exact recurrence of the same doubts, without
progress from age to age, and an intimation that new suggestions of doubt
are only old foes under new faces.
While Christians have thus generally regarded free inquiry in religion as
wholly a loss; freethinkers have taken the very opposite view, and
regarded it as an unmixed gain. The distinguished writer(1016) of our own
time on the history of civilisation, whose premature death will prevent
the fulfilment of his large design, has illustrated, with the clearness
and grasp over facts which constitute some of his excellences, the office
of scepticism, in securing for the human mind the political liberty and
toleration which he prized so dearly. His central thought was, that
civilisation depended upon the progress of intellect,(1017) the
emancipation of the human mind from all authority save that of inductive
science: he pointed out with triumphant enthusiasm, the services which he
conceived that unbelief had performed, in rescuing Europe from degrading
beliefs like witchcraft, and from the introduction of supernatural causes
for natural events, and in securing in France, in the eighteenth century,
the political rights of the lower orders against the claims of the church.
Accordingly in his opinion scepticism was an almost unmixed boon.
Those who recall the outline of the history will probably think that each
of these views, taken alone, is one-sided, and contains a partial truth.
The review of facts shows that free thought has had an office in the
world; and, like most human agencies permitted under the administration of
a benevolent Providence, its influence has neither been unmixed evil nor
unmixed good. It has been an evil, so far as in the conflict of opinions
it has invaded the body of essential truth which forms the treasure given
to the world, in the miraculous revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ; but
it has been a good, so far as it has contributed, either directly to
further human progress intellectually and socially, or indirectly to bring
out into higher relief these very truths by the progress of discussion.
When, for example, Christian doctrine has been overlaid from age to age by
concretions which had gathered round it, as was the case previously to the
Reformation,(1018) it has been free thought which has attacked the system,
and, piercing the error, has removed those elements which had been
superadded. Or, when the church has attempted to fetter human thought in
other departments than its own proper domain of religion, as when the
ecclesiastical authorities disgraced themselves by vetoing the discoveries
of Galileo,(1019) it has been to free thought that we owe the emancipation
of the human mind. Or, when the church linked itself in alliance with a
decaying political system, as in the last century in France, it was free
thought that recalled to it the lesson to render to Cæsar the things that
were Cæsar’s, and to God the things that were God’s. It is instances like
these, where free thought has been the means of making undoubted
contributions to human improvement, or of asserting toleration, which have
led writers to describe it as almost innocuous, and hastily to regard the
ratio of the emancipation of the human mind from the teaching of the
priesthood to be the sole measure of human improvement.
In many instances also, free thought has indirectly contributed to
intellectual good, in points where it has ran a greater risk, than in
those just cited, of trespassing upon the sacred truths of religion;
instances, in fact, where the benefit resulting has been owing to the
overruling Providence which brings good out of evil, rather than to any
direct intention on the part of those who have exercised it. Examples are
to be found in those epochs, when some sudden outburst of knowledge
compelled a reconsideration of old truths by the light of new discoveries.
The awakening of the mind in the middle age, the Renaissance, the advance
of modern science, the birth of literary criticism, are instances of such
moments, wherein free inquiry has been a necessity forced on the mind by
outward circumstances, not self-prompted. This attitude of inquiry, this
exercise of a provisional doubt, was not, like that described, called
forth merely by the circumstance that religion had received additions from
error, but must have arisen even if the faith once delivered had been
preserved uncorrupted. For religion being a fixed truth, while truth in
other departments is progressive, it would have been impossible to avoid
the necessity of comparison of it with them from time to time, in those
spheres where it intersected the field occupied by them.
Such examples, indeed, are not restricted to Christian history, but are
general facts of the history of the human mind. The fifth century B.C. was
such an epoch in Greece;(1020) when various causes, social and
intellectual, created a sudden awakening of the human mind to reconsider
its old beliefs, and find a home for the new views of nature and of the
world which were opening. The free thought of the Sophists was the
scepticism of doubt, of distrust; the proposal to surrender, to destroy
the old: the free thought of Socrates was the scepticism of inquiry, the
attempt to reconsider first principles, to rebuild truth anew. In all such
moments, investigation is indirectly the means of stimulating knowledge.
The history of the progress of it, in reference to the difficulties which
have beset the Christian church, shows us that the epochs of doubt have
not generally been produced by unbelief taking the initiative in attacking
old truths without some fresh stimulus, and repeating old objections so as
to exhibit perpetually recurring cycles of unbelief. We have rather seen
that doubt is reawakened by the introduction of new forms of knowledge;
and though old doubts recur, yet that they come arrayed in a new garb,
suggested by different motives, deduced from fresh premises, and
accompanied by doubts of a new kind before unknown. In a practical point
of view, frequently they may be thought not to differ widely in appearance
from old ones, and to present similar effects as well as forms; but in a
scientific one, they ought not to be confounded, inasmuch as they do not
present identity of cause. There has been a slow but real progress in
knowledge, and a slow but real change in the modes of applying it to
Christian religion. The effect of the defence offered for Christianity is
equally powerful in leaving its impress on subsequent doubt, as the
progress of knowledge is in suggesting novelty of form. The sphere is
narrowed, or the direction changed. If thought seems to have come round in
its revolution to the same spot in its orbit, it will be found to be
moving not on a circle, but on a spiral; slowly but surely approaching a
little nearer to the great central truth, toward which it is unconsciously
attracted.
The value of the free inquiry in this latter class of cases is not in the
process, but in the results; in producing the branch of theology which
sets forth the evidences of revealed truth. We have previously had
occasion to imply that the Christian evidences are too often regarded as
mere weapons of defence; like the battle-fields of history, monuments of
the struggle of evil. Being a form of truth which would never have been
called forth if the church had not been attacked, the apologetic
literature is usually regarded, either as obsolete because controversial,
or as useless for believers. Yet truths brought to light by it, though
dearly purchased, are a real contribution to Christian knowledge. As
miracles are a part of Christianity as well as an evidence, so apologetic
literature, while useful in argument, serves the purpose of instruction as
well as of defence.(1021) The controversy with heresy or unbelief has
caused truths to be perceived explicitly, which otherwise would have been
only implicit; and has illustrated features of the Christian doctrine
which might otherwise have remained hidden. Though these good results have
not been designed by unbelievers, and cannot therefore warrant the claim
asserted for scepticism, that it is always innocuous, nor be set down to
the credit of free thought as a spirit; yet they evidence the value of it
as a method; the free thought, that is, which is inquiry and
consideration, not that which is disbelief.
While therefore fully appreciating the reverent wish of Christian men to
defend the truth with sacred tenacity, which leads them to regard all
doubt with alarm; we can frankly allow the function and use of the
phenomenon of doubt in history, when viewed as an intellectual fact. The
use of it is to test all beliefs, with the view of bringing out their
truth and error. But the good result has often, we perceive, been
undesigned. It has frequently too been dearly bought, attained at an
incalculable spiritual loss to the souls of those who have doubted. The
result accordingly leaves untouched the responsibility of the doubter, and
only shows the use which an allwise Providence makes free thought subserve
in the general progress of the world.