Part 4

The Christian consciousness did not err when it gave the name, because when he uttered the words which I have just read to you, “Except I see I will not believe,” he uttered that which is the very essence of scepticism. He suspended his belief upon an absolutely impossible condition. He declared that he would not give his assent except on this condition, that it should be made absolutely impossible for him to doubt. What he said to his brother disciples amounts to this:—“You tell me that you have seen the Lord, but I cannot believe you. It does not matter to me how strong your testimony may be, or how truthful I believe you to be, I will not be satisfied till I see it for myself. I will not accept of any testimony but that of my own senses.” He said his assent was only to be had by absolute demonstration, and its being made impossible for him to have any doubt. I say the condition makes all belief absolutely impossible. Belief, in the proper sense of the word, is assent on an amount of trust. If we have absolute demonstration of anything, the result is not belief at all, it is demonstration. What we see with the eyes of our body or mind, we don’t properly believe in. We know it. We have the certainty, not of faith, but of science, and where doubt is impossible, belief or faith is impossible. You may have certainty, but it will be the certainty of knowledge, it will not be the certainty of faith. It is quite clear that if any man makes it a condition of his assent to truth of any kind, that it must first be demonstrated to him as clear as that two and two make four; it is clear that is if there be any class of truths which cannot be so proved as that two and two make four, the man who makes that proof or demonstration a condition of his assent, must always be in doubt about those truths, or that class of truths; he must always in respect of them be a sceptic or doubter.

Again, one step further, it is clear that religion or Christianity is a truth, or class of truths that cannot be demonstrated scientifically. We cannot prove that there is a God, in the same way that we can prove that two and two make four. We cannot do this, because the idea of God is that he is invisible to us. The first utterance of religion is this: I believe in what I cannot see, I believe in an invisible God. Clearly he that says, I don’t believe anything I do not see, must be a sceptic or doubter about the truth of religion; and therefore it comes to pass, that though religion is by no means the only subject, or the only collection of truths that cannot be demonstrated, it is the principal one, and it has come to pass that though there are sceptics on other subjects, yet for this reason a sceptic is understood to be a man who doubts about religious subjects; a man who will not believe all the truths of Christianity, because they cannot be demonstrated to him in the way he thinks they should be demonstrated. You see now what a sceptic is, and what scepticism, is. By the word sceptic we mean a disbeliever in the truths of religion. A man may disbelieve some of the truths of religion and not be a sceptic. A Jew does not believe in Christianity, but he is not a sceptic. It is because he believes in Moses that he does not believe in Christ. We don’t call the Pantheists or the Deists sceptics, because they have a fixed belief. Some of their beliefs I think monstrous; they make a greater demand on faith than those do who believe in religion. I think the man who says there is no God must believe more contradictions than the man who says there is a God. He has a perfectly monstrous creed, but it is a creed. He is not so much a disbeliever as a misbeliever, for he believes in something else than God. Again, we don’t call a doubter a sceptic; a sceptic is a doubter, but the doubter is not necessarily a sceptic. A man may doubt of the truths of religion, only because he has not had evidence of the proper kind. A sceptic asks for evidence of an unreasonable kind. A man may doubt the truth of any assertion in history; he may think that all the historians or witnesses of the facts are untruthful or ill informed, I should not call that man a sceptic; but if a man said, I don’t believe the facts you allege in history, because I deny all human testimony; you cannot deny that these men lived some time since, and that they may have been liars; you cannot give me proof to the contrary: that man I should call a sceptic, because in matters historical he was demanding an unreasonable amount of evidence. It is not doubt nor unbelief that makes the difference as to the sceptic. The sceptic is not such because he doubts, but on account of the reason of his doubt. He seeks for evidence that it is not proper or reasonable that he should have.

Now I have shown you that there may be doubt without scepticism; and on the other hand, there may be belief, or at least assent, upon sceptical principles. It is quite possible that a man may be firmly persuaded of some of the truths of religion, and yet be in heart a sceptic. If a man were to say I cannot believe in the existence of a God till I have it demonstrated to me as clear as that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, then he is in principle a sceptic, because it is clear that if he could not have that sort of proof, he would begin to doubt of the existence of God. All the time his assent to the existence of God would not have rested upon any faith or trust, but upon demonstration. But when the idea of God ceased to be a scientific certainty, it is clear that he would be in heart a sceptic. And there is no doubt that the first belief of the apostle Thomas was rendered upon sceptical principles. He said, I will not believe till I put my finger in the print of the nails, &c., as if he had said, I will believe nothing but the evidence of my own senses. He believed only because he got this evidence of his senses; and mark this, when our Lord gave him what he asked, he pronounced no praise on his belief; he did not say to him as he said to another, “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjonas, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to thee;” but flesh and blood had revealed the fact to Thomas, and our Lord said, “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” Thus it is possible to doubt without being sceptical, and it is possible to assent, and to be still sceptical. I want you to dwell on this point of belief, doubt, and sceptical belief, because there are certain things that I am going to point out in this way. I ask you to test for yourselves what I am now going to say, and try the effect upon your own feelings. We cannot demonstrate Christianity. It is utterly impossible that I can give you a demonstration of Christianity, such as will leave no possible room for doubt or question. When those who have to follow me have said all they have to say; when they have put before you all the evidences of Christianity in all their fulness and variety; when they have shown how much more reasonable it is to believe than to disbelieve, how many more difficulties there are in the way of disbelief than of belief; when all this is done, there may still be a doubt on your minds; there will be questions that cannot be answered, there will be difficulties that cannot be explained, and which no living man can explain. We can give the highest degree of evidence, short of demonstration, for belief in Christ, but we cannot demonstrate Christianity. Now what effect has that announcement on your hearts? Possibly you have heard it with some disappointment. You may have come to hear these sermons, expecting to have all your doubts removed. You may say, “I thought you were going to answer all the questions with mathematical certainty.” Our answer is, If we could prove with as much certainty that there is a God as that two and two make four, or as that this is a book [holding it up], then our religion would do you as much good as the knowledge that two and two make four. We would not in that case cultivate the quality of faith in your souls, in spite of difficulties and doubts. We cannot demonstrate Christianity, but we can give sufficient reason for our belief in it, in spite of doubt.

What we have to say is this, that the evidences of Christianity are weapons to put in the hands of every one of you, with which every man and woman may fight out in his or her innermost soul the desolating and besieging doubt that from time to time will assault it. This is the real object of evidences of faith, but they are not meant to be the outlying works of the citadel of the soul outside of which the enemy is compelled to keep. The shield of faith in God you have to carry on your own arm, and with it quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. Though your own arm tremble, you must carry it to repel the darts that are aimed at your own heart.

There is another word of comfort we have to give you the really distressed doubter. Christianity does not repel the doubter who says, I believe, Lord help my unbelief. What Christianity is intolerant of is not doubt, but the spirit of doubt, not unbelief, but the demand for unreasonable, impossible conditions of belief. We don’t tell you to stamp out every doubt before you can become a Christian. We say if you believe but one point, you may come to believe all the rest, and our message to you is, weary as you may be of the load of doubt, the same as that of the Saviour who said “Come unto me all you that are weary and heavy laden,” and you will find rest to your souls.

And now I have clearly explained the difference between Christianity and Scepticism. Let us briefly sum up again and show the points of collision between Scepticism and Christianity. We saw last night that the question between Christianity and Freethought was a dispute as to the nature of liberty, so the question between Christianity and Scepticism is a dispute as to the nature of certainty. Christianity offers and gives certainty in the end; Scepticism demands certainty. But the certainty of Christianity is partly the certainty of reason and partly of faith and of experience. The certainty demanded by Scepticism is the certainty of science only. The most extreme of unbelievers will admit that there is something to be said for Christianity; and that it is not unworthy of a hearing as regards its evidences. The men who have believed in Christianity for the last 1800 years, have not been the greatest fools in the world. Liebnitz and Butler were not drivellers, and not those only, but hundreds and thousands of the greatest intellects that humanity has produced. They were not such utter fools that any man is entitled to dismiss Christianity with a wave of his hand. On the other hand, every reasonable Christian will admit that there is something fair and reasonable in some of the objections to Christianity. But the Christian says to the sceptic, It is unreasonable in you to ask that every difficulty should be got rid of and every question answered before you believe in Christianity. The sceptic replies, It is unreasonable in you to ask me to believe in Christianity till you have removed every doubt. I will ask you which is the reasonable demand—the demand of the Christian for faith upon probable evidence, or the demand of the sceptic for assent only upon scientific demonstration?

Now in order to argue it fairly and without passion or prejudice, let us pass from the subject of religious doubt and let us consider the case of doubt in other matters than religion; we all know that men have doubted in other subjects. Try then to recall to your minds the first doubt; it was only a little later than the first belief. The first instinct of the child is to believe everything, that everything he sees and hears is true. All appearances to the child are realities. The sun is to him a ball of fire that climbs up the sky, the stars are little specks of light that shine at night. The earth is a flat plain. Very soon the child learns the first great lesson of doubt, learns that things are not what they appear to be, learns to distrust appearances, learns that under the appearances there is a reality. He gets his first teaching from doubt, and all-important is the instinct of doubt. Very soon is the awakening of the sceptical part of the mental nature of man, of his understanding. The nature of the understanding is ever to ask, What and why? The spirit of doubt leads the man from question to question, from step to step, till he gets answers to his questions; he goes on from doubt to belief, and from belief to doubt, and so on to greater knowledge. Thus doubt is the means of knowledge, the instrument of discovery. Without the instinct of doubt humanity would be stagnant; with it alone humanity progresses. I do not disparage doubt, I highly value it; but doubt is useful on one condition, and one only, that it starts from a first belief. What is the cause of all this doubt and pursuit of knowledge? The supreme instinctive belief, that under all appearances there is a reality, that something underlies and causes all being; and it is the search for this essence of existence that leads the doubter on, the search of this _I am_. If he had no faith in some underlying reality beneath these phenomena, there would be no progress, and so doubt is ever seeking for that which is below what appears, and yet never reaches it.

Never yet has science reached to the great reason of all reasons, to the great cause of all causes, that underlies all knowledge; and yet ever as we seek for it we are advancing in knowledge. We do not reach it, but are ever reaching and passing on, through that which lies between us and it. Doubt is like the mainspring of a watch, it is ever seeking to uncoil itself and yet never entirely doing so. The result is that the hands of the watch move uniformly because there is an attachment of the mainspring. Cut the attachment, and the hands will give one wild whirl and all will be still, and the watch useless. It is just the same with doubt and faith. Doubt is attached to the primary belief that there is a cause of all things, but it is ever seeking to detach itself from that belief and never succeeds. The consequence is, that there is a constant and measured progress of the human mind. But we have to consider how much further the intellect which has thus been the rule and test of our belief might go. A child not only believes in appearances or facts, but he has an instinctive belief in the truthfulness of humanity. The child has not learned that it is not wise to believe everything that is said to him. Was that a happy discovery? Should we tell a child not to believe the word of any human being until he had demonstration about it? Is it wisdom always to distrust human nature? We are always trusting. Give a logical proof that we are right in any of our trusts. A wife may be false, a child may hate its parents, and a man may be robbed by a friend or a confidential servant; yet are we to distrust everybody? If a man were not to trust any one till it was proved by demonstration that he ought to do so, he would be put in a lunatic asylum; and rightly so, as a man one part of whose nature had got diseased and had mastered all the other parts of his nature. I defy any one to say logically that the man may not be right, or to give a logical demonstration that it is absolutely impossible that his wife, children, and friend were not in a conspiracy to wrong him. There is thus an absolute necessity for trust in the ordinary affairs of life, I hope you will see that life must be conducted on the principle of faith or trust.

Let us ask if morality can exist without faith or trust, whether we can get a demonstrative or scientific basis for morality itself? I ask this, because those who ask for the destruction of our religion talk of the gain to morality. They say, Sweep away the influences of religion and morality will be stronger. Let us see how morality will bear the assaults of scepticism. Morality is that code or rule of action which we follow in questions of right or wrong, or it is that code of right and wrong which every man adopts for himself. To take the first definition. Have we got the universal sense of humanity upon any moral question of right or wrong? If the majority of mankind agree with us, can we prove logically that they must always be right and the minority wrong? Again, which morality will we have—that of to-day or that of a past generation? If we cannot settle the question by majority or minority, how are we to settle it? By asking the opinion of the wise and good. Before we know the wise and good we must know what wisdom and goodness are; and if we know what they are, what need have we to look to the wise and good to tell us? Who are the wise and good? Those who gave good opinions. Is that logical? Will it stand sceptical inquiry? If it is not to be settled by the appeal to the universal voice of humanity—which is simply illogical and preposterous, for this reason, that we are part of universal humanity, and if we differ from that verdict it is not the verdict of universal humanity, and if we agree with it, we might as well have taken our own in the first instance—then man must decide for himself what is right and wrong. What is it decides in a man what is right or wrong? Conscience. Why must a man submit to the decision of his own conscience? We are told that it is part of our moral nature. What demonstration is there that one part of our nature is to yield to another? Have we any logical demonstration as to what we are? I have a scientific demonstration that I am made of carbon, lime, phosphate, and certain other chemicals, but no man of science has ever demonstrated spirit or conscience. Why is it that a man is to obey the bidding of one convolution of his brain more than another? It cannot be made as clear as that two and two make four, that a man is to do to another man as he would be done unto. Duty and right are words of the spirit, of the soul, but science and logic never yet revealed the soul.

Therefore the man who will believe nothing but what can be demonstrated to him, will deny at last the obligation of duty in obedience to his sceptical intellect, just as he began with denying the existence of God. How does he get out of this great difficulty? By calling up the instinct of faith. He wills to believe that he is something more than a bundle of material elements, that the conscience in his soul is something supreme and divine, that the man in him is something above the animal; and by an exercise of faith in his own higher and better self, he silences the eternal _why_ of the sceptical intellect, the serpent more subtile than any other beast of the field, which if it had its way would make man a beast.

There is only one more question to which I have to call your attention. Having shown you that the sceptical intellect is not the only judge, having shown you that there are domains of human knowledge and human life into which, if it comes at all, it must come as the servant and not as the master; having shown you that scepticism is really nothing else than the intrusion of the mere understanding into the province of the soul and the spirit, it remains to ask, Is religion, is Christianity, one of those subjects on which the understanding is not to be the only judge, but on which the spirit and soul and heart of man have something to say about his belief? Surely then if Christianity be what it professes to be, a life, like all human and temporal life, it must be conducted upon a principle of faith or trust. If we cannot live our ordinary human life without trust, where we cannot have certainty, neither can we live the spiritual life without trust, where we can neither prove nor demonstrate; then if we think of this life in close relationship with the divine and the infinite life, can it possibly be otherwise than that out of the meeting place of those two mysteries there shall grow mystery and difficulty? All that Christianity requires is, not that man shall not ask for reasonable proof, but that we should not deal with it in a different way from that in which we deal with human life and morality. We don’t ask you in religion to believe without evidence, but to require large evidence. Now my friends, still remember when we ask you to believe before you see all, it is that you may experience all. Christianity has a certainty, but it comes not as the proof, but as the reward of faith. There is a demonstration of the spirit, an evidence of divine life, in the soul of the Christian, that he cannot demonstrate to others, because it is as invisible as his own soul and spirit, and yet it fills the inner core of the spirit—it is the strengthener of the spirit. Christianity is a great experiment, a probable experiment, a reasonable experiment, but still it is an experiment, and you may try it. If you have a simple and earnest desire to ascertain its truth, try it, casting aside the trivial interests that the profligate man has in the disproof of it. Try it and see if there does not come into your soul that conviction not created by science, but springing from the inner life of the soul, that shall be like a well of water springing up to everlasting life. As in life so in religion, “blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

SECOND REPLY OF MR. C. BRADLAUGH. CHRISTIANITY AND SCEPTICISM.

ON Tuesday evening, April 4th, Mr. Bradlaugh delivered his second lecture on “Christianity and Scepticism,” before a very crowded audience, in the Free Library. He commenced by observing: