Infidels Live In Doubting Castle.
Having shown that no man in his senses can be an atheist, unless he assume that he comprehends the universe in his mind, with all its abstract essences and principles, which assumption would be to make himself omnipresent and eternal, a god in fact; and having seen that the proposition of the divine existence and perfections is demonstrable from the universe, as far as it is known in all its general laws and in all its parts, we proceed from these prefatory considerations to other matters still more intimately introductory to our design.
It is essentially preliminary to a clear and forcible display of the reasonableness and certainty of our faith in Jesus Christ as the author of immortality to man, that we ascertain the proper ground on which the modern skeptic, of whatever creed, stands when he avows his opposition to the gospel. That we may duly estimate the strength of his opposition, we must not only enumerate his objections or arguments, but we must exactly ascertain the exact position which he occupies. Does he stand within a fortified castle, or in the open field? Presents he himself to our view in a stronghold, well garrisoned with the invincible forces of logic, of science, [pg 175] and of fact? or defies he armies and the artillery of light, relying wholly upon himself, his own experience, without a shield, without an ally, without science, without history, and consequently a single fact to oppose?
That we may, then, truly and certainly ascertain his precise attitude, before we directly address him, we shall accurately survey his whole premises. Does he say that he knows the gospel to be false? No, he can not; for he was not in Judea in the days of the evangelical drama. He, therefore, could not test the miracles, or sensible demonstrations, by any of his senses; nor prove to himself that Jesus rose not from the dead. Speaking in accordance with the evidence of sense, of consciousness, and of experience, he can not say that he knows the gospel to be a cunningly devised fable. He has not, then, in all his premises knowledge, in its true and proper meaning, to oppose to the Christian's faith or hope. What remains?
Can he say, in truth, that he believes the gospel to be false? He can not; because belief without testimony is impossible; and testimony that the gospel facts did not occur is not found extant on earth in any language or nation under heaven. No contemporaneous opposing testimony has ever been heard of, except in one instance, the sleeping and incredible testimony of the Roman guard, which has a lie stamped indelibly on its forehead: “His disciples stole his dead body while we were asleep.” He that can believe this is not to be reasoned with. We repeat it with emphasis, that no living man can say, according to the English Dictionary, that he believes the gospel to be false.
Alike destitute of knowledge and of faith to oppose to the testimony of apostles, prophets, and myriads of contemporaneous witnesses, what has the skeptic to present against the numerous and diversified evidences of the gospel? Nothing in the universe but his doubts. He can, in strict conformity to language and fact, only say, he doubts whether it be true. He is, then, legitimately no more than an inmate of Doubting Castle. His fortification is built up of doubts and misgivings, [pg 176] cemented by antipathy. Farther than this the powers of nature and of reason can not go.
How far these doubts are rational, scientific, and modest, may yet appear in the sequel; meanwhile, we only survey the premises which the infidel occupies, and the forces he has to bring into the action. These, may we not say, are already logically ascertained to be an army of doubts only.
Some talk of the immodesty, others of the folly, others of the maliciousness of the unbeliever; but not to deal in harsh or uncourteous epithets, may we not say, that it is most unphilosophic to dogmatize against the gospel on the slender grounds of sheer dubiety. No man, deserving the name of a philosopher, can ever appear among the crusading forces of pamphleteers and declaimers against the faith of Christians, for two of the best reasons in the world; he has nothing better to substitute for the motives, the restraining fears to the wicked, and the animating hopes to the righteous, which the gospel tenders; and he has nothing to oppose to its claims but the weakness and uncertainty of his doubts. Franklin was a philosopher, but Paine was a madman. The former doubted, but never dogmatized—never opposed the gospel, but always discountenanced and discouraged the infidel; the latter gave to his doubts the authority of oracles, and madly attempted to silence the Christian's artillery by the licentious scoffings of the most extravagant and unreasonable skepticism.
Modesty is the legitimate daughter of true philosophy; but dogmatism, unless the offspring of infallible authority, is the ill-bred child of ignorance and arrogance. Every man, then, who seeks to make proselytes to his skepticism by converting his doubts into arguments, is anything but a philosopher or a philanthropist.
One of the most alarming signs of this age is the ignorance and recklessness of the youthful assailants of the Bible. Our cities, villages and public places of resort are thronged with swarms of these Lilliputian volunteers in the cause of skepticism. Apprenticed striplings, and sprigs of law and physic, whose whole reading of standard authors on general [pg 177] science, religion, or morality, in ordinary duodecimo, equals not the years of their unfinished, or just completed minority, imagine that they have got far in advance of the vulgar herd, and are both philosophers and gentlemen if they have learned at second hand, a few scoffs and sneers at the Bible, from Paine, Voltaire, Bolingbroke, or Hume. One would think, could he listen to their impudence, that Bacon, Newton, Locke, and all the great masters of science, were very pigmies, and that they themselves were sturdy giants of extraordinary stature in all that is intellectual, philosophic and learned. These would-be baby demagogues are a public nuisance to society, whose atheistic breath not unfrequently pollutes the whole atmosphere around them, and issues in a moral pestilence among that class who regard a fine hat and a cigar as the infallible criteria of a gentleman and scholar.
These creatures have not sense enough to doubt, nor to think sedately on any subject; and therefore, we only notice them while defining the ground occupied by the unbelievers of this generation. They prudently call themselves skeptics, but imprudently carry their opposition to the Bible, beyond all the bounds embraced in their own definitions of skepticism. A skeptic can only doubt, never oppugn the gospel. He becomes an atheist, or an infidel, bold and dogmatic, as soon as he opens his mouth against the Bible.
Were we philosophically to class society as it now exists in this country in reference to the gospel, we should have believers, unbelievers, and skeptics. We would find some who have voluntarily received the apostolic testimony as true; others who have rejected it as false; and a third class who simply doubt, and neither receive nor reject it as a communication from heaven. But, though, unbelievers, while they call themselves skeptics, often wage actual war against the faith and hope of Christians, still their actual rejection of the gospel has no other foundation than pure aversion to its restraints and some doubts as to its authenticity. The quagmire of their own doubts, be it distinctly remembered, is the sole ground occupied by all the opponents of the gospel, whether they style themselves antitheists, atheists, theists, unbelievers, or skeptics.—Alexander Campbell, in 1835.