Part 39

Of course, these views were all ignorant and barbaric; but in that blessed day their geology and astronomy were on a par with their theology. There was a harmony in all departments of knowledge, or rather of ignorance. Since that time there has been a great advance made in the idea of government--the old idea being that the right to govern came from God to the king, and from the king to his people. Now intelligent people believe that the source of authority has been changed, and that all just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed. So there has been a great advance in the philosophy of punishment--in the treatment of criminals. So, too, in all the sciences. The earth is no longer flat; heaven is not immediately above us; the universe has been infinitely enlarged, and we have at last found that our earth is but a grain of sand, a speck on the great shore of the infinite. Consequently there is a discrepancy, a discord, a contradiction between our theology and the other sciences. Men of intelligence feel this. Dr. Briggs concluded that a perfectly good and intelligent God could not have created billions of sentient beings, knowing that they were to be eternally miserable. No man could do such a thing, had he the power, without being infinitely malicious. Dr. Briggs began to have a little hope for the human race--began to think that maybe God is better than the creed describes him.

And right here it may be well enough to remark that no one has ever been declared a heretic for thinking God bad. Heresy has consisted in thinking God better than the church said he was. The man who said God will damn nearly everybody, was orthodox. The man who said God will save everybody, was denounced as a blaspheming wretch, as one who assailed and maligned the character of God. I can remember when the Universalists were denounced as vehemently and maliciously as the Atheists are to-day.

Now, Dr. Briggs is undoubtedly an intelligent man. He knows that nobody on earth knows who wrote the five books of Moses. He knows that they were not written until hundreds of years after Moses was dead. He knows that two or more persons were the authors of Isaiah. He knows that David did not write to exceed three or four of the Psalms. He knows that the Book of Job is not a Jewish book. He knows that the Songs of Solomon were not written by Solomon. He knows that the Book of Ecclesiastes was written by a Freethinker. He also knows that there is not in existence to-day--so far as anybody knows--any of the manuscripts of the Old or New Testaments.

So about the New Testament, Dr. Briggs knows that nobody lives who has ever seen an original manuscript, or who ever saw anybody that did see one, or that claims to have seen one. He knows that nobody knows who wrote Matthew or Mark or Luke or John. He knows that John did not write John, and that that gospel was not written until long after John was dead. He knows that no one knows who wrote the Hebrews. He also knows that the Book of Revelation is an insane production. Dr. Briggs also knows the way in which these books came to be canonical, and he knows that the way was no more binding than a resolution passed by a political convention. He also knows that many books were left out that had for centuries equal authority with those that were put in. He also knows that many passages-- and the very passages upon which many churches are founded--are interpolations. He knows that the last chapter of Mark, beginning with the sixteenth verse to the end, is an interpolation; and he also knows that neither Matthew nor Mark nor Luke ever said one word about the necessity of believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, or of believing anything--not one word about believing the Bible or joining the church, or doing any particular thing in the way of ceremony to insure salvation. He knows that according to Matthew, God agreed to forgive us when we would forgive others. Consequently he knows that there is not one particle of what is called modern theology in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. He knows that the trouble commenced in John, and that John was not written until probably one hundred and fifty years--possibly two hundred years--after Christ was dead. So he also knows that the sin against the Holy Ghost is an interpolation; that "I came not to bring peace but a sword," if not an interpolation, is an absolute contradiction. So, too, he knows that the promise to forgive in heaven what the disciples should forgive on earth, is an interpolation; and that if its not an interpolation, it is without the slightest sense in fact.

Knowing these things, and knowing, in addition to what I have stated, that there are thirty thousand or forty thousand mistakes in the Old Testament, that there are a great many contradictions and absurdities, than many of the laws are cruel and infamous, and could have been made only by a barbarous people, Dr. Briggs has concluded that, after all, the torch that sheds the serenest and divinest light is the human reason, and that we must investigate the Bible as we do other books. At least, I suppose he has reached some such conclusion. He may imagine that the pure gold of inspiration still runs through the quartz and porphyry of ignorance and mistake, and that all we have to do is to extract the shining metal by some process that may be called theological smelting; and if so I have no fault to find. Dr. Briggs has taken a step in advance--that is to say, the tree is growing, and when the tree grows, the bark splits; when the new leaves come the old leaves are rotting on the ground.

The Presbyterian creed is a very bad creed. It has been the stumbling-block, not only of the head, but of the heart for many generations. I do not know that it is, in fact, worse than any other orthodox creed; but the bad features are stated with an explicitness and emphasized with a candor that render the creed absolutely appalling. It is amazing to me that any man ever wrote it, or that any set of men ever produced it. It is more amazing to me that any human being ever believed in it. It is still more amazing that any human being ever thought it wicked not to believe it. It is more amazing still, than all the others combined, that any human being ever wanted it to be true.

This creed is a relic of the Middle Ages. It has in it the malice, the malicious logic, the total depravity, the utter heartlessness of John Calvin, and it gives me great pleasure to say that no Presbyterian was ever as bad as his creed. And here let me say, as I have said many times, that I do not hate Presbyterians--because among them I count some of my best friends--but I hate Presbyterianism. And I cannot illustrate this any better than by saying, I do not hate a man because he has the rheumatism, but I hate the rheumatism because it has a man.

The Presbyterian Church is growing, and is growing because, as I said at first, there is a universal tendency in the mind of man to harmonize all that he knows or thinks he knows. This growth may be delayed. The buds of heresy may be kept back by the north wind of Princeton and by the early frost called Patton. In spite of these souvenirs of the Dark Ages, the church must continue to grow. The theologians who regard theology as something higher than a trade, tend toward Liberalism. Those who regard preaching as a business, and the inculcation of sentiment as a trade, will stand by the lowest possible views. They will cling to the letter and throw away the spirit. They prefer the dead limb to a new bud or to a new leaf. They want no more sap. They delight in the dead tree, in its unbending nature, and they mistake the stiffness of death for the vigor and resistance of life.

Now, as with Dr. Briggs, so with Dr. Bridgman, although it seems to me that he has simply jumped from the frying-pan into the fire; and why he should prefer the Episcopal creed to the Baptist, is more than I can imagine. The Episcopal creed is, in fact, just as bad as the Presbyterian. It calmly and with unruffled brow, utters the sentence of eternal punishment on the majority of the human race, and the Episcopalian expects to be happy in heaven, with his son or daughter or his mother or wife in hell.

Dr. Bridgman will find himself exactly in the position of the Rev. Mr. Newton, provided he expresses his thought. But I account for the Bridgmans and for the Newtons by the fact that there is still sympathy in the human heart, and that there is still intelligence in the human brain. For my part, I am glad to see this growth in the orthodox churches, and the quicker they revise their creeds the better.

I oppose nothing that is good in any creed--I attack only that which is ignorant, cruel and absurd, and I make the attack in the interest of human liberty, and for the sake of human happiness.

_Question_. What do you think of the action of the Presbyterian General Assembly at Detroit, and what effect do you think it will have on religious growth?

_Answer_. That General Assembly was controlled by the orthodox within the church, by the strict constructionists and by the Calvinists; by gentlemen who not only believe the creed, not only believe that a vast majority of people are going to hell, but are really glad of it; by gentlemen who, when they feel a little blue, read about total depravity to cheer up, and when they think of the mercy of God as exhibited in their salvation, and the justice of God as illustrated by the damnation of others, their hearts burst into a kind of efflorescence of joy.

These gentlemen are opposed to all kinds of amusements except reading the Bible, the Confession of Faith, and the creed, and listening to Presbyterian sermons and prayers. All these things they regard as the food of cheerfulness. They warn the elect against theatres and operas, dancing and games of chance.

Well, if their doctrine is true, there ought to be no theatres, except exhibitions of hell; there ought to be no operas, except where the music is a succession of wails for the misfortunes of man. If their doctrine is true, I do not see how any human being could ever smile again--I do not see how a mother could welcome her babe; everything in nature would become hateful; flowers and sunshine would simply tell us of our fate.

My doctrine is exactly the opposite of this. Let us enjoy ourselves every moment that we can. The love of the dramatic is universal. The stage has not simply amused, but it has elevated mankind. The greatest genius of our world poured the treasures of his soul into the drama. I do not believe that any girl can be corrupted, or that any man can be injured, by becoming acquainted with Isabella or Miranda or Juliet or Imogen, or any of the great heroines of Shakespeare.

So I regard the opera as one of the great civilizers. No one can listen to the symphonies of Beethoven, or the music of Schubert, without receiving a benefit. And no one can hear the operas of Wagner without feeling that he has been ennobled and refined.

Why is it the Presbyterians are so opposed to music in the world, and yet expect to have so much in heaven? Is not music just as demoralizing in the sky as on the earth, and does anybody believe that Abraham or Isaac or Jacob, ever played any music comparable to Wagner?

Why should we postpone our joy to another world? Thousands of people take great pleasure in dancing, and I say let them dance. Dancing is better than weeping and wailing over a theology born of ignorance and superstition.

And so with games of chance. There is a certain pleasure in playing games, and the pleasure is of the most innocent character. Let all these games be played at home and children will not prefer the saloon to the society of their parents. I believe in cards and billiards, and would believe in progressive euchre, were it more of a game--the great objection to it is its lack of complexity. My idea is to get what little happiness you can out of this life, and to enjoy all sunshine that breaks through the clouds of misfortune. Life is poor enough at best. No one should fail to pick up every jewel of joy that can be found in his path. Every one should be as happy as he can, provided he is not happy at the expense of another, and no person rightly constituted can be happy at the expense of another.

So let us get all we can of good between the cradle and the grave; all that we can of the truly dramatic; all that we can of music; all that we can of art; all that we can of enjoyment; and if, when death comes, that is the end, we have at least made the best of this life; and if there be another life, let us make the best of that.

I am doing what little I can to hasten the coming of the day when the human race will enjoy liberty--not simply of body, but liberty of mind. And by liberty of mind I mean freedom from superstition, and added to that, the intelligence to find out the conditions of happiness; and added to that, the wisdom to live in accordance with those conditions.

--_The Morning Advertiser_, New York, June 12, 1891.

THE TENDENCY OF MODERN THOUGHT.

_Question_. Do you regard the Briggs trial as any evidence of the growth of Liberalism in the church itself?

_Answer_. When men get together, and make what they call a creed, the supposition is that they then say as nearly as possible what they mean and what they believe. A written creed, of necessity, remains substantially the same. In a few years this creed ceases to give exactly the new shade of thought. Then begin two processes, one of destruction and the other of preservation. In every church, as in every party, and as you may say in every corporation, there are two wings--one progressive, the other conservative. In the church there will be a few, and they will represent the real intelligence of the church, who become dissatisfied with the creed, and who at first satisfy themselves by giving new meanings to old words. On the other hand, the conservative party appeals to emotions, to memories, and to the experiences of their fellow- members, for the purpose of upholding the old dogmas and the old ideas; so that each creed is like a crumbling castle. The conservatives plant ivy and other vines, hoping that their leaves will hide the cracks and erosions of time; but the thoughtful see beyond these leaves and are satisfied that the structure itself is in the process of decay, and that no amount of ivy can restore the crumbling stones.

The old Presbyterian creed, when it was first formulated, satisfied a certain religious intellect. At that time people were not very merciful. They had no clear conceptions of justice. Their lives were for the most part hard; most of them suffered the pains and pangs of poverty; nearly all lived in tyrannical governments and were the sport of nobles and kings. Their idea of God was born of their surroundings. God, to them, was an infinite king who delighted in exhibitions of power. At any rate, their minds were so constructed that they conceived of an infinite being who, billions of years before the world was, made up his mind as to whom he would save and whom he would damn. He not only made up his mind as to the number he would save, and the number that should be lost, but he saved and damned without the slightest reference to the character of the individual. They believed then, and some pretend to believe still, that God damns a man not because he is bad, and that he saves a man not because he is good, but simply for the purpose of self-glorification as an exhibition of his eternal justice. It would be impossible to conceive of any creed more horrible than that of the Presbyterians. Although I admit--and I not only admit but I assert--that the creeds of all orthodox Christians are substantially the same, the Presbyterian creed says plainly what it means. There is no hesitation, no evasion. The horrible truth, so-called, is stated in the clearest possible language. One would think after reading this creed, that the men who wrote it not only believed it, but were really glad it was true.

Ideas of justice, of the use of power, of the use of mercy, have greatly changed in the last century. We are beginning dimly to see that each man is the result of an infinite number of conditions, of an infinite number of facts, most of which existed before he was born. We are beginning dimly to see that while reason is a pilot, each soul navigates the mysterious sea filled with tides and unknown currents set in motion by ancestors long since dust. We are beginning to see that defects of mind are transmitted precisely the same as defects of body, and in my judgment the time is coming when we shall not more think of punishing a man for larceny than for having the consumption. We shall know that the thief is a necessary and natural result of conditions, preparing, you may say, the field of the world for the growth of man. We shall no longer depend upon accident and ignorance and providence. We shall depend upon intelligence and science.

The Presbyterian creed is no longer in harmony with the average sense of man. It shocks the average mind. It seems too monstrous to be true; too horrible to find a lodgment in the mind of the civilized man. The Presbyterian minister who thinks, is giving new meanings to the old words. The Presbyterian minister who feels, also gives new meanings to the old words. Only those who neither think nor feel remain orthodox.

For many years the Christian world has been engaged in examining the religions of other peoples, and the Christian scholars have had but little trouble in demonstrating the origin of Mohammedanism and Buddhism and all other isms except ours. After having examined other religions in the light of science, it occurred to some of our theologians to examine their own doctrine in the same way, and the result has been exactly the same in both cases. Dr. Briggs, as I believe, is a man of education. He is undoubtedly familiar with other religions, and has, to some extent at least, made himself familiar with the sacred books of other people. Dr. Briggs knows that no human being knows who wrote a line of the Old Testament. He knows as well as he can know anything, for instance, that Moses never wrote one word of the books attributed to him. He knows that the book of Genesis was made by putting two or three stories together. He also knows that it is not the oldest story, but was borrowed. He knows that in this book of Genesis there is not one word adapted to make a human being better, or to shed the slightest light on human conduct. He knows, if he knows anything, that the Mosaic Code, so-called, was, and is, exceedingly barbarous and not adapted to do justice between man and man, or between nation and nation. He knows that the Jewish people pursued a course adapted to destroy themselves; that they refused to make friends with their neighbors; that they had not the slightest idea of the rights of other people; that they really supposed that the earth was theirs, and that their God was the greatest God in the heavens. He also knows that there are many thousands of mistakes in the Old Testament as translated. He knows that the book of Isaiah is made up of several books. He knows the same thing in regard to the New Testament. He also knows that there were many other books that were once considered sacred that have been thrown away, and that nobody knows who wrote a solitary line of the New Testament.

Besides all this, Dr. Briggs knows that the Old and New Testaments are filled with interpolations, and he knows that the passages of Scripture which have been taken as the foundation stones for creeds, were written hundreds of years after the death of Christ. He knows well enough that Christ never said: "I came not to bring peace, but a sword." He knows that the same being never said: "Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I build my church." He knows, too, that Christ never said: "Whosoever believes shall be saved, and whosoever believes not shall be damned." He knows that these were interpolations. He knows that the sin against the Holy Ghost is another interpolation. He knows, if he knows anything, that the gospel according to John was written long after the rest, and that nearly all of the poison and superstition of orthodoxy is in that book. He knows also, if he knows anything, that St. Paul never read one of the four gospels.

Knowing all these things, Dr. Briggs has had the honesty to say that there was some trouble about taking the Bible as absolutely inspired in word and punctuation. I do not think, however, that he can maintain his own position and still remain a Presbyterian or anything like a Presbyterian. He takes the ground, I believe, that there are three sources of knowledge: First, the Bible; second, the church; third, reason. It seems to me that reason should come first, because if you say the Bible is a source of authority, why do you say it? Do you say this because your reason is convinced that it is? If so, then reason is the foundation of that belief. If, again, you say the church is a source of authority, why do you say so? It must be because its history convinces your reason that it is. Consequently, the foundation of that idea is reason. At the bottom of this pyramid must be reason, and no man is under any obligation to believe that which is unreasonable to him. He may believe things that he cannot prove, but he does not believe them because they are unreasonable. He believes them because he thinks they are not unreasonable, not impossible, not improbable. But, after all, reason is the crucible in which every fact must be placed, and the result fixes the belief of the intelligent man.

It seems to me that the whole Presbyterian creed must come down together. It is a scheme based upon certain facts, so-called. There is in it the fall of man. There is in it the scheme of the atonement, and there is the idea of hell, eternal punishment, and the idea of heaven, eternal reward; and yet, according to their creed, hell is not a punishment and heaven is not a reward. Now, if we do away with the fall of man we do away with the atonement; then we do away with all supernatural religion. Then we come back to human reason. Personally, I hope that the Presbyterian Church will be advanced enough and splendid enough to be honest, and if it is honest, all the gentlemen who amount to anything, who assist in the trial of Dr. Briggs, will in all probability agree with him, and he will be acquitted. But if they throw aside their reason, and remain blindly orthodox, then he will be convicted. To me it is simply miraculous that any man should imagine that the Bible is the source of truth. There was a time when all scientific facts were measured by the Bible. That time is past, and now the believers in the Bible are doing their best to convince us that it is in harmony with science. In other words, I have lived to see a change of standards. When I was a boy, science was measured by the Bible. Now the Bible is measured by science. This is an immense step. So it is impossible for me to conceive what kind of a mind a man has, who finds in the history of the church the fact that it has been a source of truth. How can any one come to the conclusion that the Catholic Church has been a source of truth, a source of intellectual light? How can anyone believe that the church of John Calvin has been a source of truth? If its creed is not true, if its doctrines are mistakes, if its dogmas are monstrous delusions, how can it be said to have been a source of truth?