History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion

by Adam Storey Farrar

Preface.

The object of this Preface is to explain the design of the following Lectures, and to enumerate the sources on which they are founded.

What is the province and mode of inquiry intended in a “Critical History of Free Thought”?[1] What are the causes which led the author into this line of study?[2] What the object proposed by the work?[3] What the sources from which it is drawn?[4]—these probably are the questions which will at once suggest themselves to the reader. The answers to most of them are so fully given in the work,[5] that it will only be necessary here to touch upon them briefly.

The word “free thought” is now commonly used, at least in foreign literature[6], to express the result of the revolt of the mind against the pressure of external authority in any department of life or speculation. Information concerning the history of the term is given elsewhere.[7] It will be sufficient now to state, that the cognate term, free thinking, was appropriated by Collins early in the last century[8] to express Deism. It differs from the modern term free thought, both in being restricted to religion, and in conveying the idea rather of the method than of its result, the freedom of the mode of inquiry rather than the character of the conclusions attained; but the same fundamental idea of independence and freedom from authority is implied in the modern term.

Within the sphere of its application to the Christian religion, free thought is generally used to denote three different systems; viz. Protestantism, scepticism, and unbelief. Its application to the first of these is unfair.[9] It is true that all three agree in resisting the dogmatism of any earthly authority; but Protestantism reposes implicitly on what it believes to be the divine authority of the inspired writers of the books of holy scripture; whereas the other two forms acknowledge no authority external to the mind, no communication superior to reason and science. Thus, though Protestantism by its attitude of independence seems similar to the other two systems, it is really separated by a difference of kind, and not merely of degree.[10] The present history is restricted accordingly to the treatment of the two latter species of free thought,—the resistance of the human mind to the Christian religion as communicated through revelation, either in part or in whole, neither the scepticism which disintegrates it, or the unbelief which rejects it: the former directing itself especially against Christianity, the latter against the idea of revelation, or even of the supernatural generally.

An analogous reason to that which excludes the history of Protestantism, excludes also that of the opposition made to Christianity by heresy, and by rival religions:[11] inasmuch as they repose on authorities, however false, and do not profess to resort to an unassisted study of nature and truth.

This account of the province included under free thought will prepare the way for the explanation of the mode in which the subject is treated.

It is clear that the history, in order to rise above a chronicle, must inquire into the causes which have made freedom of inquiry develop into unbelief. The causes have usually been regarded by theologians to be of two kinds, viz. either superhuman or human; and, if of the latter kind, to be either moral or intellectual. Bishop Van Mildert, in his History of Infidelity, restricted himself entirely to the former.[12] Holding strongly that the existence of evil in the world was attributable, not only indirectly and originally, but directly and perpetually, to the [pg vii] operation of the evil spirit, he regarded every form of heresy and unbelief to be the attempt of an invisible evil agent to thwart the truth of God; and viewed the history of infidelity as the study of the results of the operation of this cause in destroying the kingdom of righteousness. Such a view invests human life and history with a very solemn character, and is not without practical value; but it will be obvious that an analysis of this kind must be strictly theological, and removes the inquiry from the province of human science. Even when completed, it leaves unexplored the whole field in which such an evil principle operates, and the agencies which he employs as his instruments.

The majority of writers on unbelief accordingly have treated the subject from a less elevated point of view, and have limited their inquiry to the sphere of the operation of human causes, the media axiomata as it were,[13] which express the motives and agencies which have been manifested on the theatre of the world, and visible in actual history. It will be clear that within this sphere the causes are specially of two kinds; viz. those which have their source in the will, and arise from the antagonism of feeling, which wishes revelation untrue, and those which manifest themselves in the intellect, and are exhibited under the form of difficulties which beset the mind, or doubts which mislead it, in respect to the evidence on which revelation reposes. The former, it may be feared, are generally the ground of unbelief; the latter the basis of doubt. Christian writers, in the wish to refer unbelief to the source of efficient causation in the human will, with a view of enforcing on the doubter the moral lesson of responsibility, have generally restricted themselves to the former of these two classes; and by doing so have omitted to explore the interesting field of inquiry presented in the natural history of the variety of forms assumed by scepticism, and their relation to the general causes which have operated in particular ages:—a subject most important, if the intellectual antecedents thus discovered be regarded as causes of doubt; and not less interesting, if, instead of being causes, they are merely considered to be instruments and conditions made use of by the emotional powers.