Part 5

In continuing this course of lectures, I naturally follow the same wording of the subjects as that taken by the Bishop of Peterborough; and I may say that those who charge me with misquoting the Bishop, will probably think differently when I say that I have taken fair pains to be accurate in my representation. I took careful and almost verbatim notes, and I hold in my hand a transcript of the notes of an independent shorthand writer, and where these have disagreed, which has been very seldom, I have checked them by so much of the lecture as appeared summarised in the _Daily Press_. It appeared to me to be accurate, and I think there was no ground for saying that I misrepresented the Bishop. You who think so, had better leave that for him to say, if he thinks it necessary. He took the instance of Thomas as that of a representative Sceptic. He was good enough to tell us that the unbelief of Thomas was not unreasonable, that, on the contrary, it was reasonable and natural that he should feel some doubt about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I propose to examine that position. Was it reasonable that Thomas should doubt? Thomas was a disciple selected by Jesus. He had been present at the whole of the miracles of Jesus. If the Bishop’s case be true, he had seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, he had heard Jesus say he came to die, and to rise again; and I ask you, if it was reasonable for Thomas to doubt after he had seen a hundred miracles performed, then how much more reasonable for me to doubt? I have never seen any miracles. But, said the Bishop, Thomas is a fair example of the Sceptic, for Thomas said, I will not believe unless I see, &c. This, the Bishop said, is the very essence of scepticism. Now I don’t know where my Lord Bishop got his notion of scepticism; I am sure that there is no writer on the side of the party which permits me to speak for it, who defines scepticism in that manner. I have here the explanation of Buckle, which I take as that of a man occupying a position independent of the prejudices attaching to my extreme heresy. “By Scepticism, I merely mean hardness of belief, so that an increased Scepticism is an increased perception of the difficulty of proving assertions, or, in other words, it is an increased application and an increased diffusion of the laws of evidence. This feeling of hesitation and of suspended judgment, has in every department of thought been the invariable preliminary to all the intellectual revolutions through which the human mind has passed, and without it there could be no progress, no change, no civilisation. In physics it is the necessary precursor of science, in politics of liberty, in theology of toleration.” Now I take leave to say that there is no sceptical writer, neither Hobbes, nor Hume, nor Locke, nor Berkeley, no sceptical writer either upon my own side or upon the side of theology, unless you take the ravings of some wretched madman, who defines Scepticism as my Lord Bishop defined it. I say it was either a false definition within the knowledge of the Bishop, or that Dr. Magee was imperfectly acquainted with the views he proposed to answer. The definition conveys a false notion of Scepticism, which is really but a word for investigation. The Bishop draws a distinction, and a correct distinction, between knowledge and belief, and in that very distinction he annihilated his own definition of Scepticism. He said, and rightly, When once the senses have taken cognizance of any phenomenon, that is no longer a matter of belief but a matter of knowledge. If I sensate any condition of existence, I have passed the stage of belief and arrived at the stage of knowledge. I now come to a marvellous position—marvellous as advanced by a bishop—viz., that religion or Christianity must be taken as incapable of scientific demonstration; because, if that be true, what becomes of the arguments of the Paleys, of the Pye Smiths, and of the Gillespies? Are the volumes of proofs of the existence of Deity all waste paper? What becomes of the huge mass yearly issued from the press to prove the truth of Christianity? I take it that in the opinion of the Bishop every one of these has hitherto failed, for he says we cannot demonstrate the existence of a Deity or the truth of the Christian religion so as to leave no doubt. A demonstration so complete that it leaves no doubt, is admitted to be impossible; that is an admission for which I thank the Lord Bishop, because it is a justification to doubters. We have two admissions, one that the doubt of Thomas is a reasonable doubt, and another, that Christianity under no circumstances can be rendered free from doubt. I will thank you to bear those two positions in mind. The Bishop says we cannot demonstrate the existence of God, and I am inclined to accept his position, but he gives reasons of the strangest description to justify his conclusions. He says we cannot prove the existence of God because he is invisible. Does the Bishop mean that only the things cognised by sight can be proved? Is it true that he believes in an invisible God? What say the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church? They say that Jesus, with body, flesh, and bones, ascended to heaven. Were these invisible? The Bishop believes what is pictured in the Bible. Does the Bible teach an invisible God? We read in the twenty-fourth chapter of Exodus, 9, 10, 11: “Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand; also they saw God, and did eat and drink.” I want to know if this God is an invisible God? I want to know whether the Bishop is on this point an infidel, and whether he here disbelieves the Bible? The Bible says that God is not invisible. Which are we to believe?—the Bishop, the Bible, or the Thirty-nine Articles? We are forbidden to deny either the Bible or the Thirty-nine Articles under penalty of prosecution. The Bishop said a Jew is not a sceptic, and the reason given is certainly equally a marvellous one, for he said the Jew believes in Moses, and therefore cannot believe in Jesus. Is it logical that any body who believes in Moses cannot believe in Jesus? Surely the Bishop contradicted himself, for it is to Moses and the prophets he appeals. It is not true, even from the Church of England stand-point, that a man disbelieves in Jesus because he believes in Moses. It is not true that if I believe in the authenticity of the Pentateuch, it necessarily excludes my belief in the Gospel, and yet this is the reasoning indulged in by the able and learned confuter of modern infidelity. The Bishop said that the Deist and the Pantheist are not sceptics, for they have a belief, nor, he said, are even those sceptics who say there is no God. I never read, except in tracts and sermons, and religious essays, of any who say there is no God. Some persons talk about the fools who say there is no God, and bishops preach against them, but an Atheist does not say there is no God. The Atheist says the term “God” conveys no idea to his mind. I have never yet heard a definition of God from any living man, nor have I read a definition by dead or living man that was not self-contradictory. I don’t deny the word “God,” because I don’t know anything about its meaning. Denial like affirmation must refer to some proposition that is understood. But the moment you tell me you mean the God of the Bible, or the God of the Koran, or the God of any particular church, I am prepared to tell you that I deny that God. So long as the term means your absence of knowledge as to particular phenomena, and represents the undiscovered, I am not “fool” enough to say there is no God; and I say the Bishop should have known that no modern Atheist ever propounded such a proposition to any one. It is when you tell me of God distinct from the universe, creating the universe different from himself, and adding to his own existence, that I am compelled to deny that God. The Bishop said the sceptic is not only one who denies, but one who asks for evidence of an unreasonable kind. Suppose myself; am I a sceptic as to the Bible, according to the Bishop’s notion? When I examine the Bible, I find it is admitted that the common version is so bad that a better is now in hand. I find when I refer to the sources of this version there are only three sources—the Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Septuagint. When I examine the Septuagint I find the Protestant writers such as Fulke and Whittaker, writing against Bellarmine and others, declaring that the Septuagint is corrupt from beginning to end. Dr. Irons says no one knows where the so-called Septuagint version was written, when it was written, nor by whom it was written, and it is clearly the work of different generations. When I examine the Greek of the Septuagint as against the Hebrew, I find words and verses in the one that are not in the other. As a sceptic is it unreasonable for me to ask the Bishop how he knows that one is better than the other? When I go to the Hebrew the difficulty is still greater. I say that not even the Bishop knows enough of the Hebrew to guide us with reasonable explanation. It is not enough to say that mere ignorant infidels do not know it. I find Spinoza, writing 200 years ago, declaring that Hebrew was a language utterly dead, that its grammars and lexicons were lost, that time, the great consumer, had blotted out the meaning of many words from the memory of man. Suppose that I have recourse to those professing some knowledge of Hebrew. Gesenius, Bellamy, Parkhurst, Newman, Eichorn, Bresslau, Ginsburg, give me different meanings for many of the same words on important points of theology. How am I to be satisfied? What objections will be reasonable? Suppose I try to be content with the ordinary Hebrew version, what then? I find that it is a version written with points, which points have not existed more than 1250 or 1300 years; and the text itself is of two characters. That which is written is not always read, and that which is read is not written. I find a clergyman of the Church like Dr. Irons admitting that the traditional reading of the Hebrew text is often of more value than the text. I find Christians saying this Hebrew is an ancient language, and when I try to trace it I find that before 2500 years back there is no trace of it at all. Moses could not have written in the Hebrew we have, for what to-day we call the Hebrew did not then exist. Who is to decide on this point as to the reasonableness of my scepticism? Am I to decide or my Lord Bishop? Let us consider this a little more. We have a Samaritan, a Septuagint, and Hebrew Bible, but in the Samaritan we have only the Pentateuch, and I find words and verses in the Samaritan not in the Septuagint, and not in the Hebrew, and I find words and verses in the Hebrew and Septuagint, which are not in the Samaritan. Is it unreasonable for me to ask how so many blunders have got into this book, if it contains a revelation from God? Then I come to try to get a clue from the Gospels, and I find again that no man knows when they were written, where they were written, or by whom they were written. Clergymen of the Church have invented arguments from the first century fathers for the existence of the Gospels. I used to believe that such testimony existed; I could not suppose that writers like Dr. Paley had invented testimony of the fathers, but when I went to the great libraries to verify authorities, and I found that he manufactured evidence, I ask, was I, as a sceptic, a reasonable man in challenging the Church? The Bishop says a Sceptic is not to be attacked because he doubts, but because of his reason for the doubt. I doubt because I cannot help it. Is that a good reason or not? Is the Church entitled to say “It is not true, you might believe if you like?” And mark, the Bishop had the audacity to declare that Christianity is not intolerant of the doubter, but of the spirit of doubt. The Church used to burn the doubter, and then it burnt his books, and locked him up in prison. It now gathers 3,000 people into the nave of the Cathedral to hear the attack on the doubter, and refuses to grant the use of any place for a reply. It is not intolerant to the doubter, it is only intolerant of the spirit of doubt! I learned from the Bishop that a man might be a religious believer, and at the same time a sceptic, and in explaining this he used language of an astounding character. He said if a man were to say, _I_ cannot believe in the existence of God till I have it demonstrated to me as clearly as that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, then he is in principle a sceptic, because if he had not that sort of proof, he would begin to doubt of the existence of God; all this time his assent to the existence of God would have rested on a sceptical foundation. This was one of the most marvellous pieces of nonsense that any one could talk. How can any one, while assenting to God’s existence, say, I cannot believe in God till it is proved to demonstration? He makes the true believer commence by saying he cannot believe in God till it is proved. If anyone here had used that language, I should have said that he did not understand what he was talking about; but when a Bishop, a learned Bishop, the paragon of eloquence and logic, brought here as more competent than your own Bishop, talks such nonsense, how am I to reply? Let us take a startling contrast which the Bishop thought right to give us. He contrasted Thomas the doubter with Simon Peter the believer. I have read the Bible a little, and I think that of all the cowardly rascals of whom I ever read, the greatest rascal was Simon Peter. He was called under great advantages; he had been out fishing, and he caught nothing, and the Lord helped him to a good catch of fish; Simon Peter’s wife’s mother was cured of a fever; Simon Peter was with Jesus when he fed the people with a few loaves and fishes, and he took part in the collection of the fragments. He was present at the transmigration. It was to him that Jesus said, “To thee I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” Simon Peter was with the Lord all through his life; and when Jesus came to trouble, he was the first who abandoned him and denied him, even with oaths, “I know not the man;” and that Peter is the model of faith whom the Bishop presents to you. Of the two I rather prefer Thomas to Peter. Certainly Peter came back to the Church when he caught more fish. When Jesus rose from the dead, Peter did not or would not know him, but when Jesus said “Throw in your net,” and he did so, and caught more fish, then he knew Jesus directly. I will ask what lesson the Lord Bishop meant to convey by the contrast between those two? In what sort of way is Peter put in contrast? Simon Peter was true enough when any profit was to be got by it; he ran away when danger came. This is the model which the Lord Bishop puts before you to copy. But Dr. Magee said that Christianity could not be demonstrated. Christian evidences were of some use as weapons when believers were exposed to assaults on their faith. If I thought he had intended to preach a comic sermon instead of a serious one, I could have heartily laughed at this. He says that the evidences of Christianity are weapons to put in the hands of every man and woman when his or her innermost soul is assailed by the enemy with desolating doubt. Is it true that God permits an enemy to reduce man to the level of the beast, and to be continually besieging the soul of man? Is it true that the subtle devil tempts man from the faith? If it be true, then the devil exists either because God cannot help it, or will not prevent it; and if he exists because God is powerless to prevent, then God is not omnipotent; if God wills it, then God consents to—nay, strives to procure man’s damnation. But, says the Bishop, Christianity does not repel the doubter, and he even admits the utility of doubt, subject only to one condition. Before I deal with the Bishop’s condition, permit me to quote what Buckle has said on the effect of doubt, and I quote him because he stands in a position entitling him to the attention of the extreme heterodox, as well as of the extreme orthodox. He says:

“Although the acquisition of fresh knowledge is the necessary precursor of every step in social progress, such acquisition must itself be preceded by a love of inquiry, and therefore by a spirit of doubt, because without doubt there will be no inquiry, and without inquiry there will be no knowledge, for knowledge is not an inert and passive principle which comes to us whether we will or no; but it must be sought before it can be won; it is the product of great labour, and, therefore, of great sacrifice. And it is absurd to suppose that men will incur the labour and make the sacrifice for subjects respecting which they are already perfectly content. They who do not feel the darkness, will never look for the light. If on any point we have attained to certainty, we make no further inquiry on that point, because inquiry would be useless or perhaps dangerous. The doubt must intervene before the investigation can begin. Here, then, we have the act of doubting as the originator, or at all events the necessary antecedent of all progress. Here we have that scepticism, the very name of which is an abomination to the ignorant, because it disturbs their lazy and complacent minds; because it troubles their cherished superstitions; because it imposes on them the fatigue of inquiry; and because it rouses even sluggish understandings to ask if things are as they are commonly supposed, and if all is really true which they from their childhood have been taught to believe. The more we examine this great principle of scepticism, the more distinctly shall we see the immense part it has played in the progress of European civilisation. To state in general terms, what in this introduction will be fully proved, it may be said that to scepticism we owe that spirit of inquiry which, during the last two centuries, has gradually encroached on every possible subject, has reformed every department of practical and speculative knowledge; has weakened the authority of the privileged classes, and thus placed liberty on a surer foundation; has chastised the despotism of princes; has restrained the arrogance of the nobles, and has even diminished the prejudices of the clergy. In a word, it is this which has remedied the three fundamental errors of the olden time, errors which made the people in politics too confiding, in science too credulous, in religion too intolerant. We have thus seen the rise of that scepticism which in physics must always be the beginning of science, and in religion must always be the beginning of toleration. There is, indeed, no doubt that in both cases individual thinkers may by a great effort of original genius, emancipate themselves from the operation of this law. But in the progress of nations no such emancipation is possible. As long as men refer the movements of the comets to the immediate finger of God, and as long as they believe that an eclipse is one of the modes by which Deity expresses his anger, they will never be guilty of the blasphemous presumption of attempting to predict such supernatural appearances. Before they could dare to investigate the causes of these mysterious phenomena, it was necessary that they should suspect that the phenomena themselves were capable of being explained by the human mind. In the same way until men are content in some degree to bring their religion before the bar of their own reason, they never can understand how it is that there should be a diversity of creeds, or how any one can differ from themselves without being guilty of the most enormous and unpardonable crime.”

Chillingworth says, “Reason gives us knowledge, while faith only gives us belief, which is a part of knowledge, and is, therefore, inferior to it. It is by reason, and not by faith, that we must discriminate in religious matters, and it is by reason alone that we can distinguish truth from falsehood.” He solemnly reminds his readers that in religious matters no one ought to be expected to draw strong conclusions from imperfect premises, or to credit improbable statements upon scanty evidence; still less, he says, was it ever intended that men should so prostitute their reason as to believe with infallible faith that which they are unable to prove with infallible arguments. The Bishop, agreeing in the utility of doubt, which he expressed in language nearly as strong as that of Buckle, says there is one condition without which doubt cannot be useful, and this condition, being in truth an entire hindrance to doubt, is utterly unreasonable and impossible. He says the condition on which doubt can be accepted as useful is that it starts on a certain basis of religious belief. Now a doubt so based is only a fictitious doubt, a sham doubt, a hypocritical pretence of doubt. When the Bishop said it was possible to have a doubt based on belief in the proposition to be doubted, he said what he could not defend on any platform where reply was permitted. I feel that in talking of a man in his absence I may be under the imputation of saying harsh things. The manner in which this debate has gone on is not one of my fashioning. The Church has taken the pains to give lectures in the Cathedral where no reply could be offered; but I promise you that I will endeavour to carry the war into Peterborough, and see whether the Bishop will attempt an answer under the shadow of his own cathedral.