History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion

by Adam Storey Farrar

A history of free thought seems to point especially to the study of the latter class. A biographical history of free thinkers [pg viii] would imply the former; the investigation of the moral history of the individuals, the play of their will and feelings and character; but the history of free thought points to that which has been the product of their characters, the doctrines which they have taught. Science however no less than piety would decline entirely to separate the two;[14] piety, because, though admitting the possibility that a judgment may be formed in the abstract on free thought, it would feel itself constantly drawn into the inquiry of the moral responsibility of the freethinker in judging of the concrete cases;—science, because, even in an intellectual point of view, the analysis of a work of art is defective if it be studied apart from the personality of the mental and moral character of the artist who produces it. If even the inquiry be restricted to the analysis of intellectual causes, a biographic treatment of the subject, which would allow for the existence of the emotional, would be requisite.[15]

The province of the following work accordingly is, the examination of this neglected branch in the analysis of unbelief. While admitting most fully and unhesitatingly the operation of emotional causes, and the absolute necessity, scientific as well as practical, of allowing for their operation, it is proposed to analyse the forms of doubt or unbelief in reference mainly to the intellectual element which has entered into them, and the discovery of the intellectual causes which have produced or modified them. Thus the history, while not ceasing to belong to church history, becomes also a chapter in the history of philosophy, a page in the history of the human mind.

The enumeration of the causes into which the intellectual elements of doubt are resolvable, is furnished in the text of the first Lecture.[16] If the nature of some of them be obscure, and the reader be unaccustomed to the philosophical study necessary for fully understanding them; information must be sought in the books to which references are elsewhere given, as the subject is too large to be developed in the limited space of this Preface.

The work however professes to be not merely a narrative, but a “critical history.” The idea of criticism in a history imparts to it an ethical aspect. For criticism does not rest content with [pg ix] ideas, viewed as facts, but as realities. It seeks to pass above the relative, and attain the absolute; to determine either what is right or what is true. It may make this determination by means of two different standards. It may be either independent or dogmatic;—independent if it enters upon a new field candidly and without prepossessions, and rests content with the inferences which the study suggests;—dogmatic, when it approaches a subject with views derived from other sources, and pronounces on right or wrong, truth or falsehood, by reference to them.

It is hoped that the reader will not be unduly prejudiced, if the confession be frankly made, that the criticism in these Lectures is of the latter kind. This indeed might be expected from their very character. The Bampton Lecture is an establishment for producing apologetic treatises. The authors are supposed to assume the truth of Christianity, and to seek to repel attacks upon it. They are defenders, not investigators. The reader has a right to demand fairness, but not independence; truth in the facts, but not hesitation in the inferences. While however the writer of these Lectures takes a definite line in the controversy, and one not adopted professionally, but with cordial assent and heartfelt conviction, he has nevertheless considered that it is due to the cause of scientific truth to intermingle his own opinions as little as possible with the facts of the history. A history without inferences is ethically and religiously worthless: it is a chronicle, not a philosophical narrative. But a history distorted to suit the inferences is not only worthless, but harmful. It is for the reader to judge how far the author has succeeded in the result: but his aim has been not to allow his opinions to warp his view of the facts. History ought to be written with the same spirit of cold analysis which belongs to science. Caricature must not be substituted for portrait, nor vituperation for description.[17]

Such a mode of treatment in the present instance was the more possible, from the circumstance that the writer, when studying the subject for his private information, without any design to write upon it, had endeavoured to bring his own principles and views perpetually to the test; and to reconsider them candidly by the light of the new suggestions which were brought before him. Instead of approaching the inquiry with a spirit of hostility, [pg x] he had investigated it as a student, not as a partisan. It may perhaps be permitted him without egotism to explain the causes which led him to the study. He had taken holy orders, cordially and heartily believing the truths taught by the church of which he is privileged to be an humble minister. Before doing so, he had read thoughtfully the great works of evidences of the last century, and knew directly or indirectly the character of the deist doubts against which they were directed. His own faith was one of the head as well as the heart; founded on the study of the evidences, as well as on the religious training of early years. But he perceived in the English church earnest men who held a different view; and, on becoming acquainted with contemporary theology, he found the theological literature of a whole people, the Germans, constructed on another basis; a literature which was acknowledged to be so full of learning, that contemporary English writers of theology not only perpetually referred to it, but largely borrowed their materials from German sources. He wished therefore fully to understand the character of these new forms of doubt, and the causes which had produced them. He may confess that, reposing on the affirmative verities of the Christian faith, as gathered from the scriptures and embodied in the immemorial teaching of Christ's church, he did not anticipate that he should discover that which would overthrow or even materially modify his own faith; but he wished, while exploring this field, and gratifying intellectual curiosity, to re-examine his opinions at each point by the light of those with which he might meet in the inquiry. The serious wish also to fulfill his duty in the sphere in which he might move, made him desire to understand these new views; that if false, he might know how to refute them when they came before him, and not be first made aware of their existence from the harsh satire of sceptical critics. His own studies were accordingly conducted in a spirit of fairness—the fairness of the inquirer, not of the doubter; and a habit of mind formed by the study of the history of philosophy, was brought to bear upon the investigation of this chapter in church history: first, of modern forms of doubt, and afterwards the consecutive history of unbelief generally. Accordingly, while he hopes that he has taken care to leave the student in no case unguided, who may accompany him in these [pg xi] pages through the history, he has wished to place him, as he strove to place himself, in the position to see the subject in its true light before drawing the inferences; to understand each topic to a certain extent, as it appears when seen from the opposite point of view, as well as when seen from the Christian. And when this has been effected, he has criticised each by a comparison with those principles which form his standard for testing them, the truth of which the study has confirmed to the writer's own mind. The criticism therefore does not profess to be independent, but dogmatic; but it is hoped that the definite character of the results will not be found to have prevented fairness in the method of inquiry. If the student has the facts correctly, he can form his own judgment on the inferences.

The standard of truth here adopted, as the point of view in criticism, is the teaching of Scripture as expressed in the dogmatic teaching of the creeds of the church; or, if it will facilitate clearness to be more definite, three great truths may be specified, which present themselves to the writer's mind as the very foundation of the Christian religion: (1) the doctrine of the reality of the vicarious atonement provided by the passion of our blessed Lord; (2) the supernatural and miraculous character of the religious revelation in the book of God; and (3) the direct operation of the Holy Ghost in converting and communing with the human soul. Lacking the first of these, Christianity appears to him to be a religion without a system of redemption; lacking the second, a doctrine without authority; lacking the third, a system of ethics without spiritual power. These three principles accordingly are the measure, by agreement with which the truth and falsehood of systems of free thought are ultimately tested.[18]

The above remarks, together with those which occur in the text, where fuller explanation is afforded, will illustrate the province of the inquiry, and the spirit in which it is conducted.[19]

The explanation also of the further question concerning the object which the writer proposed to effect, by the treatment of such a subject in a course of Bampton Lectures, is given so fully elsewhere, that a few words may here suffice in reference to it.[20] [pg xii] Experience of the wants of students in this time of doubt and transition, which those who are practically acquainted with the subject will best understand, as well as observation of the tone of thought expressed in our sceptical literature, led him to believe that a history, natural as well as literary, of doubt; an analysis of the forms and a statement of the intellectual causes of it, would have a value, direct and indirect, in many ways. His desire, he is willing to confess, was to guide the student, rather than to refute the unbeliever. He did not expect to furnish the combatant with ready-made weapons, which would make him omnipotent in conflict; but he hoped to give him some suggestions in reference to the tactics for conducting the contest. The Lectures have a polemical aspect, but they seek to obtain their end by means of the educational. The writer has aimed at assisting the student, in the struggle with his doubts, in the inquiry for truth, in the quiet meditative search for light and knowledge, preparatory to ministering to others. The survey of a new region, which ordinary works on the history of infidelity rarely touch, may lay bare unsuspected or undetected causes of unbelief; and thus indirectly offer a refutation of it; for intellectual error is refuted, when the origin of it is referred to false systems of thought. The anatomy of error is the first step to its cure.

In another point of view, independently of the value of the line of inquiry generally, and the special suitability of it to individual minds, there is a further use, which in the present day belongs to it in common with all inquiries into the history of thought.