History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion

by Adam Storey Farrar

We can select illustrations of this view of the subtlety of the operation of prejudice from instances of a kind unlike the one previously named; in which it will be seen that the disinclination of the inquirer to accept Christianity has not arisen primarily from the obstacle caused by the enmity of his own carnal heart, but from antipathy toward the moral character of those who have professed the Christian faith.

Who can doubt, that the corrupt lives of Christians in the later centuries of the middle ages, the avarice of the Avignon popes, the selfishness shown in the great schism, the simony and nepotism of the Roman court of the fifteenth century, excited disgust and hatred toward Christianity in the hearts of the literary men of the Renaissance, which disqualified them for the reception of the Christian evidences; or that the social disaffection in the last century in France incensed the mind against the Church that supported alleged public abuses,[78] until it blinded a Voltaire from seeing any goodness in Christianity; or that the religious intolerance shown within the present century by the ecclesiastical [pg 016] power in Italy drove a Leopardi[79] and a Bini[80] into doubt; or that the sense of supposed personal wrong and social isolation deepened the unbelief of Shelley[81] and of Heinrich Heine?[82] Whatever other motives may have operated in these respective cases, the prejudices which arose from the causes just named, doubtless created an antecedent impression against religion, which impeded the lending an unbiassed ear to its evidence.

The subtlety of the influence in these instances makes them the more instructive. If, as we contemplate them, our sympathies are so far enlisted on the side of the doubters that it becomes necessary to check ourselves in exculpating them, by the consideration that they were responsible for failing to separate the essential truth of Christianity from the accidental abuse of [pg 017] it shown in the lives of its professors, we can imagine so much the more clearly, how great was the danger to these doubters themselves of omitting the introspection of their own characters necessary for detecting the prejudice which actually seemed to have conscience on its side; and can realize more vividly from these instances the secrecy and intense subtlety of the influence of the feelings in the formation of doubt, and infer the necessity of most careful attention for its discovery in others, and watchfulness in detecting it in our own hearts.

There are other cases of doubt, however, where the influence of the emotional element, if it operates at all, is reduced to a minimum, and the cause accordingly seems wholly intellectual. This may happen when the previous convictions of the mind are shaken by the knowledge of some fact newly brought before its notice; such as the apparent conflict between the Hebrew record of a universal deluge[83] and the negative evidence of geology as to its non-occurrence; or the historical discrepancies between the books of Kings and Chronicles,[84] or the varying accounts of the genealogy and resurrection of Christ. A doubt purely intellectual in its origin might also arise, as we know was the case with the pious Bengel,[85] in consequence of perceiving the variety [pg 018] of readings in the sacred text; or, as in many of the German critics, from the difficulty created by the long habit of examining the classical legends and myths, in satisfying themselves about the reasons why similar criticism should not be extended to the early national literature of the Hebrews. Causes of doubt like these, which spring from the advance of knowledge, necessarily belong primarily to the intellectual region. The intellect is the cause and not merely the condition of them. But there is room even here for an emotional element; and the state of heart may be tested by noticing whether the mind gladly and proudly grasps at them or thoughtfully weighs them with serious effort to discover the truth. The moral causes may reinforce or may check the intellectual: but the distinctness of the two classes is apparent. Though co-existing and interlocked, they may be made subjects of independent study.

The preceding analysis of the relations of the moral and intellectual facilities in the formation of religious opinions might enable us to criticise the ethical inferences drawn in reference to man's responsibility for his belief. Those who think that our characters, moral and intellectual, are formed for us by circumstances, are consistent in denying or depreciating responsibility.[86] There is a danger however among Christian writers of falling into the opposite error, of dwelling so entirely on the moral causes, in forgetfulness of the intellectual, as to teach not only that unbelief of the Christian religion is sin, (which few would dispute,) but that even [pg 019] transient doubt of it is sinful; and thus to repel unbelievers by imputing to them motives of which their consciences acquit them.

A truth however is contained in this opinion, though obscured by being stated with exaggeration, inasmuch as the fact is overlooked that doubts may be of many different kinds. Sinfulness cannot, for example, be imputed to the mere scepticism of inquiry, the healthy critical investigation of methods or results; nor to the scepticism of despair, which, hopeless of finding truth, takes up a reactionary and mystical attitude;[87] nor to the cases (if such can ever be,) of painful doubt, perhaps occasionally even of partial unbelief, which are produced exclusively by intellectual causes, without admixture of moral ones. This variety of form should create caution in measuring the degree of sinfulness involved in individual cases of doubt. Yet the inclination to condemn in such instances contains the fundamental truth that the moral causes are generally so intertwined with the intellectual in the assumption of data, if not in the process of inference, that there is a ground for fearing that the fault may be one of will, not of intellect, even though undetected by the sceptic himself. And a conscientious mind will learn the practical lesson of exercising the most careful self-examination in reference to its doubts, and especially will use the utmost caution not to communicate them needlessly to others. The Hebrew Psalmist, instead of telling his painful misgivings, harboured them in God's presence until he found the solution.[88] The delicacy exhibited in forbearing unnecessarily to shake the faith of others is a measure of the disinterestedness of the doubter. “If I say, I will speak thus; behold I should offend against the generation of thy children.”

These remarks will enable us to estimate the manner and degree in which the emotions may, consciously or unconsciously, influence the operations of the intellect in reference to religion; and will clear the way for the statement of that which is to form the special subject of study in these lectures, the nature and mode of operation of the intellectual causes, and the forms of free thought in religion to which they may give rise. This branch is frequently neglected, because satisfying the intellect rather than the heart, indicating tendencies rather than affording means to pronounce judgment on individuals; yet it admits of greater certainty, and will perhaps in some respects be found to be not less full of instruction, than the other.

We must distinctly apprehend what is here intended by the term “intellectual cause,” when applied to a series of phenomena like sceptical opinions. It does not merely denote the antecedent ideas which form previous links in the same chain of thought: these are sufficiently revealed by the chronicle which records the series. Nor does it mean the uniformity of method according to which the mind is observed to act at successive intervals: this is the law or formula, the existence of which has been already indicated.[89] But we intend by “cause” two things; either the sources of knowledge which have from age to age thrown their materials into the stream of thought, and compelled reason to re-investigate religion and try to harmonize the new knowledge with the old beliefs; or else the ultimate intellectual grounds or tests of truth on which the decision in such cases has been based, the most general types of thought into which the forms of doubt can be analysed. The problem is this:—Given, these two terms: on the one hand the series of opinions known as the history of free thought in religion; on the other the uniformity of mode in which reason has operated. Interpolate two steps to connect them together, which will show respectively the materials of [pg 021] knowledge which reason at successive moments brought to bear on religion, and the ultimate standards of truth which it adopted in applying this material to it. It is the attempt to supply the answer to this problem that will give organic unity to these lectures.

A few words will suffice in reference to the former of these two subjects, inasmuch as it has already been described to some extent,[90] and will be made clear in the course of the history. The branches of knowledge with which the movements of free thought in religion are connected, are chiefly literary criticism and science. The one addresses itself to the record of the revelation; the other to the matter contained in the record. Criticism, when it gains canons of evidence for examining secular literature, applies them to the sacred books; directing itself in its lower[91] form to the variations in their text; in its higher[92] to their genuineness and authenticity. Science, physical or metaphysical, addresses itself to the question of the credibility of their contents. In its physical form, when it has reduced the world to its true position in the universe of space, human history in the cycles of time, and the human race in the world of organic life, it compares these discoveries with the view of the universe and of the physical history of the planet contained in the sacred literature; or it examines the Christian doctrine of miraculous interposition and special providence by the light of its gradually increasing conviction of the uniformity of nature. In its moral and metaphysical forms, science examines such subjects as the moral history of the Hebrew theocracy; or ponders reverently over the mystery of the divine scheme of redemption, and the teaching which scripture supplies on the deepest problems of speculation, the relations of Deity to the universe, the act of creation, the nature of evil, and the administration of moral providence.

There is another mode, however, in which speculative philosophy has operated, which needs fuller explanation. It has not merely, like the other sciences, suggested results which have seemed to clash with Christianity, but has supplied the ultimate grounds of proof to which appeal has consciously been made, or which have been unconsciously assumed:—the ultimate types of thought which have manifested themselves in the struggle.[93]