CHAPTER VIII. THE OBJECTION THAT THE DEFENDERS OF CHRISTIANITY ASSUME
CERTAIN FACTS THE TRUTH OF WHICH CAN ONLY BE KNOWN BY REVELATION, AND THEN REASON FROM THOSE FACTS TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE, CONSIDERED.
It has been objected that the very idea of such a revelation as that of Christianity implies a defect on the part of the Creator in the original construction of the Universe, and that He has been under the necessity of interposing for the purpose of correcting this defect. It is affirmed that divines endeavour to prove that a revelation was probable by first assuming a number of the most irrational propositions, which, if true, can only be proved to be so by the authority of the Bible, and then arguing back again that it is highly probable that God would interfere to remedy the defects of his creative work by a supernatural revelation; in other words, that they assume a state of things which reason would pronounce to be incredible, unless their truth was asserted in the Bible, and then argue on the principles of that reason whose validity they deny, that it is probable that the Creator would interfere to remedy a state of things the existence of which reason pronounces to be incredible.
The author of “Supernatural Religion” has strongly urged this argument, and placed the difficulty clearly before us. Although the entire passage is too long for quotation, yet as it is important that we should have the question which he raises before us in his own words, I will cite a portion of it.
“Here again the argument is based on an assumption. The supposition of a divine design in a revelation is the result of a foregone conclusion in its favour, and not suggested by antecedent probability. Divines assume that a communication of this nature is in accordance with reason, and was necessary for the salvation of the human race simply because they believe that it took place, and no evidence worthy of the name is ever offered in support of the assumption. A revelation having, it is supposed, been made, that revelation is consequently supposed to have been contemplated, and to have justified any suspension of the order of nature. The proposition for which evidence is demanded is necessarily employed as evidence for itself. The considerations involved in the assumption of the necessity and reasonableness of such a revelation, however, are antecedently incredible and contrary to reason. We are asked to believe that God made man in His own image, pure and sinless, and intended him to continue so; but scarcely had His noblest work left the hand of his Creator, than man was tempted into sin by Satan, the all‐powerful and persistent enemy of God, whose existence and antagonism to a being in whose eyes sin is an abomination, are not accounted for and are incredible. Adam’s fall brought a curse upon the earth, and incurred the penalty of death for himself and for the whole of his posterity. The human race thus created perfect and without sin, thus disappointed the expectations of the Creator, and became daily more wicked, the evil spirit having succeeded in frustrating the designs of the Almighty, so that God repented that he had made man, and at length he destroyed by a deluge all the inhabitants of the earth, with the exception of eight persons who feared him. This sweeping purification, however, was as futile as the original design, and the race of man soon became more wicked than ever.” Here follows a statement of what may be regarded as a plan of salvation as held by some modern Churches, and the apparent contradiction of the whole to the divine character and perfections is elaborately pointed out. He then concludes as follows: “We are asked to believe in the frustration of the divine design of creation, and in the fall of man into a state of wickedness hateful to God, requiring and justifying the divine design of a revelation, and such a revelation as this, as a preliminary to the further proposition that on the supposition of such a design miracles would not be contrary to reason.” To this follows an elaborate piece of reasoning, by which the author attempts to prove that every proposition in this so‐called plan of salvation is thoroughly contrary to reason.
The general positions laid down in this passage (omitting points of detail) are as follows: Certain incredible occurrences in the past history of man are assumed by divines to be facts on the authority of the Bible. These include the complete breaking down of the divine plan in the creation of man through the agency of a being who has frustrated the purposes of the Almighty. Next it is asserted on the same authority that another series of events has taken place which are in the highest degree contrary to reason, for the purpose of remedying this failure of the original plan. Then it is alleged that the probability of a divine interference, in order to remedy a state of things which reason pronounces to be incredible, is argued on the authority of reason for the purpose of proving the occurrence of another state of things equally repugnant to reason. Such a line of argument is affirmed to begin in irrational assumptions, and to terminate in a vicious circle.
I have before observed that the work from which the above passage is taken, although entitled “Supernatural Religion, or an inquiry into the reality of Divine Revelation,” is really an attack on the central position of the New Testament, the historical value of the Gospels. In taking this course the author raises an intelligible issue instead of spreading the argument over an endless mass of controversial matter. If the historical character of the Gospels cannot be maintained, the whole controversy as to whether Christianity is a divine revelation is ended. This forms the key of the Christian position, to which the other parts of the controversy stand in the relation of mere outworks. If the events recorded in the Gospels are historical, Christianity must be a divine revelation, notwithstanding the difficulties connected with certain statements of the Old Testament. The real point at issue between those who believe and those who deny that God has made a supernatural revelation of Himself, is confined to the following question: Are the contents of the Gospels historically credible? Is the character of Jesus Christ as depicted in them the delineation of an ideal conception or of an historical reality? The author discerns clearly that this is the turning point of the controversy, and has accordingly addressed himself to prove that the Gospels are valueless as historical documents. This line of argument is candid, and one which, if adhered to, will save an immense expenditure of reasoning power.
Now the question of the historical character of the Gospels is quite distinct from that of the truth or falsehood of any system of Ecclesiastical Christianity, which asserts that its theology is a deduction from the Gospels and the other portions of the New Testament. It is not revelation itself but a system erected by the application of reason to the facts of revelation. It is most important that this distinction should be kept in view. The truth is, that the facts of revelation stand in the same relation to theology as the facts of nature do to physical science. Incorrect reasonings respecting both the one and the other are alike possible. The Ptolemaic theory was propounded as an adequate solution of the facts and phenomena of the universe, and although utterly incorrect in all its parts, it for ages held unlimited sway over the human mind. In a similar manner various theories have been propounded as solutions of the facts of revelation, but it by no means follows because they have attained a wide acceptance that they afford the true solution. In examining the claims of the Gospels to be viewed as historical, it is quite as much out of place to make them responsible for all the theories which Ecclesiastical Christianity has propounded respecting the plan of salvation, as it would be to make the facts and phenomena of the universe answerable for all the theories which have been propounded for their solution. In examining the claims of the Gospels to be accepted as historical documents, it is most unreasonable to make them responsible for theories which were not formulated in the Church until centuries after their publication.
Most of the positions affirmed in the above quotation were not formulated until a late period of the Church’s history. Certainly they are nowhere directly laid down in the New Testament. The utmost which can be asserted of them is, that they are alleged to be derived inferentially from its teaching. They form no portion of the Apostles’ or of the Nicene Creeds, which are the only formularies outside of the New Testament which can be represented as embodying the creed of the universal Church. Nor can they be found even in the Athanasian creed. In discussing the claims of the Gospels to be esteemed as historical, they can only be made fairly responsible for what they actually contain. To bring into such a controversy positions only affirmed in recent attempts to formulate a body of Christian doctrine, as though they had any bearing on the claims of the New Testament to be viewed as containing a divine revelation, can lead to no satisfactory result.
I now return to the consideration of the difficulties above referred to. It is important to take a careful survey of the entire question, because they are not only put with great force in the passage which I have quoted, but I believe that in different forms they weigh heavily on the minds of many thoughtful men. I will first offer a few observations on the general principle.
Nothing is easier than to affirm that the introduction of moral evil into the universe is a marring of the Creator’s plan in its formation. The argument is founded on the supposition that an Almighty God exists, who is wise, holy, and benevolent, and who intended to manifest these attributes through the rational beings which he has created. It is affirmed that the existence of moral evil in man is a failure of this purpose on the part of God. But it is the most certain of facts that moral evil does exist in the world, and that it exists quite independently of Christianity. The objection therefore is not one directed solely against the Christianity of the New Testament, but bears with equal weight against every form of theism, which admits that the universe has been created, and is governed by a God who is almighty, wise, holy, and benevolent.
If there be a God who is the Creator of the Universe, it is clear that He must have been the Creator of man, and that man could only have come into being in conformity with His pleasure. Now, if we decline to admit that man was created morally perfect, yet as he must have been created a moral agent, it is clear that the first man must have sprung into being either with the moral faculties of a savage, or in some intermediate condition between these and a state of moral perfection. It follows, therefore, that man must have been made capable of moral progress. This is affirmed by all those who assert that he was first produced in a savage state. But the possibility of moral progress involves also the possibility of retrogression. The truth of this is borne witness to by the most palpable facts of daily experience. Men of the highest mental powers are capable of abusing them to the worst purposes, and thus of sinking fearfully low in the moral scale. The case of a man like Fouché will illustrate my argument, a man gifted with high intellectual powers, but who sunk into the lowest condition of moral turpitude. Such a man is incomparably worse than the first original savage. I submit, therefore, that whatever view we may take of the condition in which man was originally created, even if he were created a savage, yet he was made a moral being capable of elevation or degradation; and that, to use a human metaphor, the purpose of a holy God must have been his elevation. Yet this involves the possibility of his moral degradation. This degradation has also become a fact. It is clear, therefore, that the difficulty is one which is inseparable from every possible form of theistic belief, and is no peculiarity of Christianity.
I shall not attempt to enter on so profound a question as the origin of evil, and how its existence is consistent with the perfection of a holy God. It is a subject quite beyond the issue before us, and lies not at the foundations of Christianity, but of theism, the truth of which is taken for granted in the objections which the author adduces against the popular view of the scriptural account; for if there is no God the objections are valueless. Still he ought to have informed his readers that it is urged as a partial explanation of those difficulties by the defenders of Christianity, that it is highly probable that the creation of a moral being possessed of free agency, but who at the same time is not capable of sinking into a state of moral degradation, involves as great a contradiction as the conception of a circle which should possess the property of concavity and not of convexity. No rational man believes that it is within the compass, even of omnipotence, to work contradictions. If this be so, it follows that the possibility of the existence of moral evil is a necessary condition of the existence of free agency. The production of a free moral agent capable of yielding a willing obedience to the moral law is a more glorious work than anything in the material universe, even than that universe itself. It might, therefore, have been the good pleasure of the wise, holy, and benevolent Creator to create free moral agents, even if it involved the existence of moral evil. I am far from propounding this as a complete solution of the difficulty, but when it is thus used unsparingly against Christianity, it would have been only candid to have told the reader that it bore with equal weight against every form of theism, and to have given the partial explanation which has been propounded by theologians.
In reply to the definite statements before us, I affirm that nowhere in the Gospels, or in any other portion of the New Testament is it asserted or even implied that revelation was rendered necessary by the frustration of the divine purpose in creation, or that redemption was a kind of afterthought in the divine mind rendered necessary by such a failure. On the contrary, the synoptic Gospels make no affirmation whatever on the subject. The fourth Gospel contains several statements about the end and purposes of the Incarnation, but of a description totally different from those which are alleged in the above quotation to constitute the groundwork of Christianity. As I have already shown, the Gospel of St. John speaks of its great purpose as being a revelation of the moral character of God in the person of Jesus Christ. According to its theology God has already manifested himself in creation; in the Gospel He makes a still higher and nobler manifestation of His moral character in the person of our Lord. The author of the first Epistle ascribed to St. John, whom I must assume to have been the author of the Gospel, makes the following direct affirmation on the subject. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life; for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us; that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” In these words it is evidently the intention of the writer to set forth the divine purpose of the Incarnation. It is true that in other passages he assumes the existence of evil in the universe, and declares it to be the work of the devil, and that one of the purposes of this divine manifestation was its destruction. Still he drops no hint of any failure in the Creation, or that it was the purpose of the Incarnation to mend a marred scheme. On the contrary, the great truth set forth in the Epistle and in the Gospel is that Creation and Redemption form portions of one great whole; and that the latter is a manifestation of the divine glories beyond God’s previous manifestations of himself, whether in creation or in history.
Similar are the views of the Apostle Paul. According to him, while many other purposes were effected by the Incarnation, there is one great purpose running through all divine revelation. In several passages he affirms that its influence extends far beyond that which it exerts on the race of man. He again and again asserts that it was the gradual unfolding of an idea or purpose which existed from eternity in the divine mind. Thus he writes: “And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God who created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Eph. iii. and ix.) “Having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and in earth, even in Him.” (Eph. i. 9, 10.) “And having made peace by the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself: by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.” (Col. i. 20.) I fully admit that the Apostle affirms that the design of bringing man into union with God was a portion of this purpose. Nothing however is more foreign to the ideas of St. Paul than that revelation is an afterthought adopted as a remedy for a marred plan.
Nor are the views of the other writers of the New Testament different. St. Peter tells us that the angels desire to look into the redemption wrought by Christ. St. James assures us that, “known unto God are all His works from the foundation of the world.” The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks to the same effect: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers in (by) the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us in His Son.” So far from its being the idea of the sacred writers that redemption is an afterthought designed to remedy the failure of the original purpose of creation, that both of them are viewed as parts of the same whole; both are purposes which have existed in the divine mind during the eternal ages, and have been gradually evolved in time. Nothing is further from their mind than that the divine mode of working is by fits or starts, or sudden interventions. Man was the last form of life which God has introduced into the world, and in that sense He is said to have rested from His creative work. But God is no less distinctly affirmed to be always working in nature and in providence, so that Sabbath days form no exception: “My Father worketh hitherto and I work.”
Such being the views of the writers of the New Testament on this subject, the whole of those objections, as far as they are founded on the assertion that revelation is intended to remedy the failure of God’s creative purpose, fall to the ground. My present supposition is that I am reasoning with believers in theism. If God has gradually evolved creation, each successive stage of the evolution forms a part of one great and comprehensive whole. At each stage the work is incomplete, but its incompleteness is no proof of failure. A period has existed when the only beings in the world were devoid of rationality. If an objector could have contemplated it in this stage, he might have urged that the plan of creation was a failure, while in reality it was only incomplete. Man came in at the next stage of the great design. The next stage, according to the New Testament, is the Incarnation of the Son of God, intended as a higher manifestation of the moral glories of the Creator for the purpose of raising man to a higher moral and spiritual elevation. To the attainment of this purpose all the previous events in man’s history have been made subservient. Surely those persons with whom I am reasoning ought to be the last to object that there is anything inconsistent with the divine character in such a gradual unfolding of the divine purposes. We might as well object that every advancing stage of the great design of Creation was introduced to remedy a preceding defect as assert that Christianity originated in this cause. The world was in a most unfinished state when it was only tenanted by the lower forms of life, and great fault might have been found with its construction. But a higher came, and a higher, then man, then Christ our Lord, the second Adam, as St. Paul designates him, “from heaven heavenly.” Whatever may have been the assertions of certain classes of theologians who have attempted to fathom the divine mind by their own short sounding line, the sacred writers take no narrow view of the purposes of the Incarnation. It is declared that they will be realized in the yet distant future, towards which consummation they are gradually being carried out in time.
It follows, therefore, that the New Testament affirms that a purpose is consistently carried out in the history of redemption far different from that which has been here placed before us as the assumptions of Ecclesiastical Christianity. The author has placed these in their most objectionable form; and if Christian apologists have affirmed on such premises as those above stated that a divine interposition was rendered probable, I shall not attempt to defend them. To establish the probability of a revelation additional to that afforded by creation we have no occasion to appeal to theories, but to facts.
The existing moral and spiritual condition of mankind is universally admitted to be imperfect. Both believers and unbelievers in revelation alike acknowledge that the attempt to improve it is desirable. No less certain is it that man possesses faculties which can only receive their perfect development in a higher condition of things than the present. These as much point to a higher development of man as the organization of the lower forms of animal life points to the higher and more perfect ones. If, therefore, God be the Creator and moral Governor of the world, a further manifestation of Him is rendered highly probable.
This probability may be reasoned out by analogies in the history of the past. Higher developments from lower forms have been the rule. Are they then to cease with man in his present state of imperfection? How man came to be thus imperfect, how his moral degradation has originated, is a question which does not fall within the present argument. It is a fact, by whatever theory it may be attempted to be accounted for. If a rational being had existed in those ages during which there was manifested nothing but the lower forms of life, and had come to the conclusion that the world as it then existed was the work of an intelligent Creator, he would have pronounced it highly probable that the resources of creative power would yet receive a more glorious manifestation. When vertebrate life was first introduced into the world, a careful examination of the state of things would have led to a similar conclusion. But the lower forms of vertebrate life are typical of the higher, and the higher point to man. Before man entered the world a being capable of comprehending the condition of things as then existing would have pronounced it highly probable that there would be yet a further manifestation of creative energy, and that the work required for its consummation the production of rationality.
Such and far more numerous have been the actual stages of creative action. Are we entitled to call them a failure because they were relatively imperfect, or any fresh intervention of divine power an interference to remedy a previous failure? On the contrary, these so‐called interventions are the persistent carrying out of a determined purpose. The acts of Deity are inaccurately designated interventions. He is always working with the most perfect knowledge of the means which He employs, and the most perfect controul over them. Failure with Him is impossible. The word “intervention” as applied to the operations of God conveys the idea of a machine which He originally constructed, and then left to its own operations. Such a machine will in course of time get out of order, or perform its work imperfectly, and require to be supplemented by additional contrivances. Thus when the clock ceases to go there arises a necessity for the intervention of the clockmaker. He constructs his clock and leaves it to itself. But creation is no mere machine; the Divine worker is always present in His works. The last idea which would have occurred to the authors of the Bible was that God was obliged to be making a number of special interventions to cure defects in the results of His operations. As the Bible cannot help using the language of man, expressions derived from the defects of human language are at times used in it, but the one prevalent idea is that God is always present working in the kingdoms of nature and of grace, that all His actions are the constant carrying out of a predetermined purpose, and that with Him is no variableness neither shadow of turning.
If the possibility of the introduction of moral evil into the universe is a necessary condition of the creation of a free moral agent, or in other words, if the contrary supposition involves a contradiction, the Creator must have viewed the production of such a free agent as so desirable, that it formed a part of His purpose to create him notwithstanding this possibility. If then moral evil became a fact, it involved no failure in the purposes of God. He must have viewed the existence of such beings as desirable, even if this contingency became a fact. Why, I ask, may not a further manifestation of Himself, by means of which moral evil might be reduced to the smallest dimensions, or even ultimately removed, while freedom is still preserved, form a portion of the same great purpose of the divine mind? If this be possible, the assertion that Redemption is a special intervention of God for the purpose of remedying the breaking down of his creative plan, is disproved, and with it all the other inferences of the numerous writers whose views I am considering.
In affirming the probability of a revelation, the Christian apologist need not go beyond the region of actual facts. He has no occasion to rest his proof on any statement made by a supposed revelation the truth of which is the point at issue. To do so would be to assume the thing which requires to be proved. But facts as they exist, independently of any statements in the Bible, are quite sufficient. Man exists. He is possessed of powers and aspirations which this state of things does not gratify. He is capable of moral action, and there is something within him which affirms that he ought to obey the moral law. Yet its realization by him is of the most imperfect character. Does the actual condition of man afford satisfaction even to the unbeliever, account for it as he may? Is there not a great amount of moral evil in the world? Do not considerable numbers of men, instead of progressing to higher degrees of moral perfection degenerate through various stages of moral corruption? Does not moral evil cause a great amount of physical suffering? Are not vast numbers of men the prey of ignorance and superstition—great evils doubtless, and of which unbelievers heavily complain? In one word, when we contemplate the present condition of mankind, does not the sternest reason affirm that it is inconceivable that this can be the final condition of God’s creative work? Yet these things are no theories but obvious facts, and on the supposition on which we are reasoning, facts in the universe of God.
It follows therefore, that facts such as these, when contemplated by reason, establish the probability, nay almost the certainty of a further divine action. Of course this is based on the assumption that there is a wise and holy God who is the author of the universe, but both the opponents and believers in revelation can only argue this subject at all on the supposition that God exists. Any fresh mode of divine action will probably differ from the preceding ones, because man exists as a moral and spiritual being. It is therefore probable that such divine action will be moral rather than physical; or, in other words, the divine purpose of creation includes within it a yet further manifestation of the divine character and perfections. This is what the New Testament affirms to have taken place in the Incarnation. This is my position.
I shall only add one or two more brief remarks. Those who charge theologians with making unfounded assumptions should be guiltless of making them themselves. The warning against falling into this error may be profitably taken to heart by both parties to this controversy. It is affirmed that the constitution of nature bears everywhere the indications of systematic upward progression. I ask, is this systematic upward progression everywhere true of man? Are there no where indications of retrogression? Europeans generally during the last two thousand years have progressed, although even this is not universally true, for some of the fine arts attained to greater perfection in the ancient than in the modern world. But has the Hindoo race progressed during the last three thousand years? Have the Chinese? Is it not true that the progress of these two races has been one of considerable retrogression? Where is the progress made by the Negro races from the first dawnings of their history? Yet these three races form more than half of the human family. Again, have the Arab races progressed since the days of Abraham? Are the Mahommedan races in a state of gradual improvement? These are questions to which a definite answer must be returned before the proposition above referred to can be esteemed a solution of all the problems of human history.
It will perhaps be replied that nature is gradually extinguishing these unprogressive races, under the pressure of her inexorable laws. Yet they constitute an overwhelming majority of the human race, and it is strange to talk of this progressive improvement of the human race as a great law of nature, if the mode of improvement be the extinction of the great majority of mankind. But are the Hindoo, Chinese, Negro, and other unprogressive races less numerous than they were three thousand years ago? The evidence is all the other way. We want present facts and not theories of the future. It has been affirmed, that “The survival of the fittest is the stern law of nature. The invariable action of law of itself eliminates the unfit. Progress is necessary to existence. Extinction is the doom of Retrogression.” These assertions may receive their fulfilment in some period of the distant future, but they certainly do not agree with the past history of man. Whatever progress the European races may be capable of, certain conditions of climate form an inexorable barrier to their supplanting the Negro, the Hindoo, or the Chinese, and we know that European blood in certain climates has actually degenerated.
Again, it is stated “that the highest effect contemplated by the supposed revelation is to bring man into harmony with law; and this is insured by law acting on intelligence, and even on instinct.” Where, I ask, is the proof of this derived from the history of man? Is the moral condition of the races above referred to higher than it was three thousand years ago? Did the moral condition of the Greek race progress or retrograde during the four centuries which preceded the Advent? Which was the more elevated condition of Roman morality, that of the century which preceded and followed the conquest of Italy, or that of the empire and its crumbling institutions?
Again, we are told that “there is not in reality a gradation of breach of law that is not followed by an equivalent gradation of punishment.” This may be the case in some Utopia in which the author lives, but it certainly neither is nor ever has been the condition of this world. Does villany, I ask, always receive adequate punishment in this world? It has been the all but universal opinion of mankind that it does not. Did not Fouché die quietly in his bed, possessed of wealth and honours, and a darkened conscience? Did not Philip II. of Spain, after all his crimes, die under the delusions of self‐approbation? In a controversy like this the most confident assertions will not supply the want of facts on which to ground our reasonings.
It follows, therefore, that the assertion that the Christian argument involves reasoning in a circle, or else that it assumes the point at issue, is disproved.