02.04 - Part 2, Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV RATIONALIST ORTHODOXY AT this point, however, it may perhaps occur to the reader that I have somewhat too lightly assumed that Rationalism is the high-road to Naturalism. Why, it may be asked, is there any insuperable difficulty in framing another scheme of belief which shall permanently satisfy the requirements of consistency, and yet harmonise in its general procedure with the rationalising spirit? Why are we to assume that the extreme type of this mode of thought is the only stable type? Such doubts would be the more legitimate because there is actually in existence a scheme of great historic importance, and some present interest, by which it has been sought to run Modern Science and Theology together into a single coherent and self-sufficient system of thought, by the simple process of making Science supply all the premises on which theological conclusions are afterwards based. If this device be really adequate, no doubt much of what was said in the last chapter, and much that will have to be said in future chapters, becomes superfluous. If ’our ordinary method of interpreting sense-perception,’ which gives us Science, is able also to supply us with Theology, then at least, whether it be philosophically valid or not, the majority of mankind may very well rest content with it until philosophers come to some agreement about a better. If it does not satisfy the philosophic critic, it will probably satisfy everyone else; and even the philosophic tritic need not quarrel with its practical outcome. The system by which these results are thought to be attained pursues the following method. It divides Theology into Natural and Revealed. Natural Theology expounds the theological beliefs which may be arrived at by a consideration of the general course of Nature as this is explained to us by Science. It dwells principally upon the numberless examples of adaptation in the organic world, which apparently display the most marvellous indications of ingenious contrivance, and the nicest adjustment of means to ends. From facts like these it is inferred that Nature has an intelligent and a powerful Creator. From the further fact that these adjustments and contrivances are in a large number of cases designed for the interests of beings capable of pleasure and pain, it is inferred that the Creator is not only intelligent and powerful, but also benevolent; and the inquiring mind is then supposed to be sufficiently prepared to consider without prejudice the evidence for there having been a special Revelation by which further truths may have been imparted, not otherwise accessible to our unassisted powers of speculation. The evidences of Revealed Religion are not drawn, like those of Natural Religion, from general laws and widely disseminated particulars; but they profess none the less to be solely based upon facts which, according to the classification I have adhered to throughout these Notes, belong to the scientific order. According to this theory, the logical burden of the entire theological structure is thrown upon the evidence for certain events which took place long ago, and principally in a small district to the east of the Mediterranean, the occurrence of which it is sought to prove by the ordinary methods of historical investigation, and by these alone unless, indeed, we are to regard as an important ally the aforementioned presumption supplied by Natural Theology. It is true, of course, that the immediate reason for accepting the beliefs of Revealed Religion is that the religion is revealed. But it is thought to be revealed because it was promulgated by teachers who were inspired; the teachers are thought to have been inspired because they worked miracles; and they are thought to have worked miracles because there is historical evidence of the fact, which it is supposed would be more than sufficient to produce conviction in any unbiassed mind.

Now it must be conceded that if this general train of reasoning be assumed to cover the whole ground of ’Christian Evidences/ then, whether it be conclusive or inconclusive, it does at least attain the desideratum of connecting Science on the one hand, Religion ’Natural’ and ’Revealed’ on the other, into one single scheme of interconnected propositions. But it attains it by making Theology in form a mere annex or appendix to Science; a mere footnote to history; a series of conclusions inferred from data which have been arrived at by precisely the same methods as those which enable us to pronounce upon the probability of any other events in the past history of man, or of the world in which he lives. We are no longer dealing with a creed whose real premises lie deep in the nature of things. It is no question of metaphysical speculation, moral intuition, or mystical ecstasy with which we are concerned. We are asked to believe the Universe to have been designed by a Deity for the same sort of reason that we believe Canterbury Cathedral to have been designed by an architect; and to believe in the events narrated in the Gospels for the same sort of reason that we believe in the murder of Thomas a Becket.

Now I am not concerned to maintain that these arguments are bad; on the contrary, my personal opinion is that, as far as they go, they are good. The argument, or perhaps I should say an argument, from design, in some shape or other, will always have value; while the argument from history must always form a part of the evidence for any historical religion. The first will, in my opinion, survive any presumptions based upon the doctrine of natural selection; the second will survive the consequences of critical assaults. But more than this is desirable; more than this is, indeed, necessary. For however good arguments of this sort are, or may be made, they are not equal by themselves to the task of upsetting so massive an obstacle as developed Naturalism. They have not, as it were, sufficient intrinsic energy to effect so great a change. They may not be ill directed, but they lack momentum. They may not be technically defective, but they are assuredly practically inadequate. To many this may appear self-evident. Those who doubt it will, I think, be convinced of its truth if they put themselves for a moment in the position of a man trained on the strictest principles of Naturalism; acquainted with the general methods and results of Science; cognisant of the general course of secular human history, and of the means by which the critic and the scholar have endeavoured to extort the truth from the records of the past. To such a man the growth and decay of great religions, the legends of wonders worked and suffering endured by holy men in many ages and in different countries, are familiar facts to be fitted somehow into his general scheme of knowledge. They are phenomena to be explained by anthropology and sociology, instructive examples of the operation of natural law at a particular stage of human development this, and nothing more.

Now present to one whose mind has been so prepared and disciplined, first this account of Natural Religion, and then this version of the evidences for Revelation. So far as Natural Religion is concerned he will probably content himself with saying, that to argue from the universality of causation within the world to the necessity of First Cause outside the world is a process of very doubtful validity: that to argue from the character of the world to the benevolence of its Author is a process more doubtful still: but that, in any case, we need not disturb ourselves about matters we so little understand, inasmuch as the Deity thus inferred, if He really exists, completed the only task which Natural Religion supposes Him to have undertaken when, in a past immeasurably remote, He set going the machinery of causes and effects, which has ever since been in undisturbed operation, and about which alone we have any real sources of information. Supposing, however, you have induced your Naturalistic philosopher to accept, if only for the sake of argument, your version of Natural Religion, what will he say to your method of extracting the proofs of Revealed Religion from the Gospel history? Explain to him that there is good historic evidence of the usual sort for believing that for one brief interval during the history of the Universe, and in one small corner of this planet, the continuous chain of universal causation has been broken; that in an insignificant country inhabited by an unimportant branch of the Semitic peoples events are alleged to have taken place which, if they really occurred, at once turn into foolishness the whole theory in the light of which he has been accustomed to interpret human experience, and convey to us knowledge which no mere contemplation of the general order of Nature could enable us even dimly to anticipate. What would be his reply? His reply would be, nay, is (for our imaginary interlocutor has unnumbered prototypes in the world about us), that questions like these can scarcely be settled by the mere accumulation of historic proofs. Granting all that was asked, and more, perhaps, than ought to be conceded; granting that the evidence for these wonders was far stronger than any that could be produced in favour of the apocryphal miracles which crowd the annals of every people; granting even that the evidence seemed far more than sufficient to establish any incident, however strange, which does not run counter to the recognised course of Nature; what then? We were face to face with a difficulty, no doubt; but the interpretation of the past was necessarily full of difficulties. Conflicts of testimony with antecedent probability, conflicts of different testimonies with each other, were the familiar perplexities of the historic inquirer. In thousands of cases no absolutely satisfactory solution could be arrived at. Possibly the Gospel histories were among these. Neither the theory of myths, nor the theory of contemporary fraud, nor the theory of late invention, nor any other which the ingenuity of critics could devise, might provide a perfectly clean-cut explanation of the phenomena. But at least it might be said with confidence that no explanation could be less satisfactory than one which required us, on the strength of three or four ancient documents at the best written by eye-witnesses of little education and no scientific knowledge, at the worst spurious and of no authority to remodel and revolutionise every principle which governs us with an unquestioned jurisdiction in our judgments on the Universe at large.

Thus, slightly modifying Hume, might the disciple of Naturalism reply. And as against the rationalising theologian, is not his answer conclusive? The former has borrowed the premises, the methods, and all the positive conclusions of Naturalism. He advances on the same strategic principles, and from the same base of operations. And though he professes by these means to have overrun a whole continent of alien conclusions with which Naturalism will have nothing to do, can he permanently retain his conquests? Is it not certain that the huge expanse of his theology, attached by so slender a tie to the main system of which it is intended to be a dependency, will sooner or later have to be abandoned; and that the weak and artificial connection which has been so ingeniously contrived will snap at the first strain to which it shall be subjected by the forces either of criticism or sentiment?