History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion

by Adam Storey Farrar

Thus these two questions,—the atoning work of Christ, and the authority of the scriptures,—are the [pg 362] two forms of doubt which are most likely to meet us in the present age.

The expression of them in the clergy of any particular church may of course, if it be deemed necessary, be prevented by political means. A church, if regarded merely in a worldly point of view, is a political as well as a spiritual institution, where the members cede somewhat of individual freedom for the good of the whole; a compact where certain privileges and remunerations are granted, in return for the communication of certain kinds of instruction, and the performance of certain offices: and no one can object that the terms of a treaty be maintained; but the prevention of the expression of doubt is not the extinction of the feeling. And such acts of repression cannot reach the laity of the church, even if they touch the clergy. The inquiry accordingly here intended, as to the means for repressing such doubts, does not descend to the political question, but is a spiritual one; viz. if these doctrines are contrary to Christ, how can such thinkers be directed by moral means to the truth which we believe? or what reason can we give for the hope that is in us, which leads us to decline yielding up one iota of dogmatic Christianity to them?

The history of evidences offers a series of experiments, in which we may find an answer to these questions, by studying the different methods adopted in various centuries for spreading Christianity.

In the earliest age of the church, previous to the establishment of Christianity as the state religion, we observe the unaided appeal to argument, and especially the abundant use made of the internal evidence, or philosophical argument concerning the excellence of Christianity, as a means for arresting attention, preparatory to the presentation of the external and historic proof.[1029] In the long interval of the middle ages, the church was able to supplement or supersede argument by force; yet it must be admitted that the political and [pg 363] intellectual condition of the European mind was then, to a large extent, such as to receive benefit from the imposition of an external rule of religious authority and doctrine, in the same manner that individuals, when in a state of childhood, need a rule, not a principle; a law, not a reason.[1030] This method however was unsuited when the mind of Europe awoke, and when free thought could no longer be suppressed by force.

The history of evidences since the spread of modern unbelief exhibits not only the return to the ancient Christian weapon of argument instead of force; but not unfrequently to the ancient mode of presenting the philosophical proof prior to the historical.

An attempt of this kind was intermingled with the English school of evidences of the last century; and the argument of analogy used by Butler, if viewed as constructive, and not refutative, may be considered to have for its object to prepare the mind for accepting revealed religion, by first showing the probability of it on the ground of its similarity to nature. ([48]) And in the German movement, where the doubt thrown by criticism over the historical evidences even still more compelled the resort to the philosophical argument on the part of those who strove to defend the faith, we have seen various attempts to reconstruct Christianity from the philosophical side.[1031] Both methods, the philosophical and the historical, have had their place; but their use has varied with the wants of the age. In proportion as the pressure of doubt left less opportunity for the constraining force of the latter, the persuasiveness of the à priori moral argument has been used.

The history of the means which have been successful in removing doubts lends little support to the opinion which would save the faith by the sacrifice of the reason, or would imperil the truth of religion by throwing discredit on the immutability of moral distinctions, [pg 364] perceived by the conscience which Providence has placed in the human mind; to which the great writers on evidence have been wont to make their appeal; and which they have justly perceived must lie at the basis of the evidences themselves. “If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

The two periods in church history among those here named, which offer most instruction to us in consequence of affording examples of the same class of difficulties as those which we encounter, are, the struggle in the early centuries, and that in Germany during the present. The line of argument which was used in the former of these crises is seen in the Alexandrian school of the fathers in the third century, and that used in the latter, in the school of Schleiermacher. The study of the life and mental development of Schleiermacher's disciple, Neander, would be in this view one of the most valuable in history.[1032] He was himself led by the mercy and providence of God to the knowledge of Christ; his own spirit was rescued from doubts such as we describe; his life was spent in trying to save others from the like difficulties, and to plant their feet upon the rock upon which he himself stood: and it is only the secrets of the great day that will declare the number of the souls that were led by his teaching to find Christ and salvation.

In both these periods the method adopted for recommending Christianity was, to carry out the plan used by St. Paul at Athens,[1033] to lay a basis for the proof of it by developing the moral and philosophical argument.

In the Alexandrian period the method used was, to show that all former religions, all former philosophies, were not unmixed error, but contained the germ of truth, which Christianity gathered into itself; to exhibit Christianity as the fulfilment in the field of history of the world's yearnings, and thus to awaken the [pg 365] response of the heart to the narrative of its message.[1034] Reasons, to which allusion has before been made,[1035] may have lessened the utility at that period of the positive evidence, which proves the fact that a Redeemer had been given; but we cannot doubt that, independently of this circumstance, a deep philosophical reason suggested the stress which was laid on the moral argument, on account of its suitability for convincing the opponent;—a reason indeed to which the history of some of the fathers gave a personal force in the fact that it was by this manner that they had themselves been led to accept of Christianity.[1036]