To what class of truths is the word “faith” properly applied? I answer to those which we accept on testimony. It has been asserted that some of the first principles of our rational convictions, such as our belief in the existence of an external world, or in the truth of experience, is an act of faith. This, however, is to introduce a confusion of thought. Such convictions can be only acts of faith as far as we believe in ourselves.
Viewing faith as the acceptance of truth on adequate testimony, it follows that all our knowledge of things, whether natural or supernatural, that is not the result of the action of our own minds, but which we accept on the testimony of others, is an act of faith. Our acceptance of them depends on the validity of the testimony that can be adduced for them. The important question for determination is, is the subject on which it is given within the knowledge of the informant? If it respects a fact, has he witnessed it, or received it from others who have? Are his powers of observation good and his judgment sound? Is he worthy of credit? The determination of these and similar points is the proper office of our rational powers, yet the acceptance of the fact is an act of faith. When our reason is satisfied on all these points, faith becomes an act of reason. To assert that the acceptance of supernatural facts belongs to a faculty of our minds which we designate faith, and that our acceptance of others is the result of the action of our reason, is to lay down a distinction entirely of our own creation. In both cases the evidences must form the subject of [pg 092] rational investigation, and they must be accepted or rejected as they approve themselves to our reason.
It will perhaps be urged, that the acceptance of propositions, such as the doctrinal statements of the New Testament, is an act of faith which stands out in manifest contra-distinction to an act of reason. It would be so unquestionably, if we accepted them on insufficient evidence; but when we do so with the knowledge that others have a full acquaintance with the subject on which they speak, it is in the highest degree rational to accept and to act on their testimony. A large portion of the business of life is conducted on this principle. A man is ignorant on some subject, or he distrusts his own judgment respecting it: he consults one who knows, or on whose judgment he relies. For example: let us suppose that I have a bottle full of a certain substance; I do not know whether it is a medicine that I am in need of, or a deadly poison. I consult my chemist, and without hesitation I act on his opinion. In all such cases (and they are spread over the entire sphere of life) we act on faith; but it is a faith which is in conformity with the dictates of reason. The function of the latter is to ascertain the adequate knowledge and the veracity of the person whose assurance we accept. If it is a rational act thus to receive truths on the testimony of man, whose knowledge must be imperfect, it must be still more so to accept them on the authority of him who knows all things, i.e. God.
I am aware that certain writers have given such a representation of faith as to produce the impression that it is one of its special functions to accept certain dogmas, the terms of which are extremely obscure, or absolutely incomprehensible. But no rational evidence can be adduced in support of this position. To exert [pg 093] actual belief in a proposition the terms of which are incomprehensible, is an impossibility, and we only deceive ourselves when we imagine that we can. All that we can do in such cases is to repeat words, but if they have no definite meaning we cannot believe them: for the act of faith or conviction is founded on the affirmation that the two terms of a particular proposition agree. It is quite true that the facts and statements of the New Testament run up into principles which transcend our limited power of reason; but this is common to it, and every system of science or philosophy; and forms no peculiarity of religion. I am far from wishing to affirm that theologians have not fallen into this practice; but my concern is not with them, but with the statements of the New Testament. One of the most important acquisitions made to our mental science in the present day is that we have ascertained that there are limits to our mental powers beyond which we cannot penetrate. This was imperfectly realized by many of the reasoners of earlier times, and the result has been that they have fallen into a hazy mysticism, or logomachy.
Equally pernicious is the view that there is something particularly meritorious in accepting truth on little or no evidence, and that to do so is a high act of faith. Not only is this founded on no rational principle, but it is entirely unsupported by any account of faith as given in the New Testament, which again and again assumes the contrary position. Faith is the acceptance of truths which lie beyond the sphere of our personal knowledge on an adequate attestation. If an astronomer should happen to be ignorant of chemistry, and accept its truths on the testimony of one who was an eminent master of it, this would constitute [pg 094] an act of faith. Surely such an act is one which is highly rational.
It follows, therefore, that although our belief in miracles being founded, as it now must be, on testimony, is an act of faith, yet it is also an act of our reason. It is, therefore, by no means absurd to speak of miracles as objects of faith, and at the same time as possessing an evidential value. We accept them as we do all other adequately attested facts, and reason on them in the same manner as we do on other facts. This is the precise course which will be pursued by the overwhelming majority of astronomers who will be unable to witness the coming transit of Venus. They will accept the facts on adequate testimony, and afterwards use them as media of proof.
Chapter V. The Antecedent Improbability of Miracles.—The Unknown and Unknowable God.
The proof on à priori grounds that an event is either possible or probable, cannot establish that it has actually occurred. This must rest on its own particular evidence. To prove that a revelation is both possible and probable, and that it ought to be evidenced by miracles, may form an essential portion of our general argument, because the degree of probability of the occurrence of a particular fact affects the amount of positive evidence necessary to establish its truth. But the proof that a revelation has actually been given, or a miracle wrought, can only be effected through the same media as those through which other facts are established. To prove that a revelation is probable will not be of the smallest avail to prove that one has been actually given, without adequate proof of the fact itself.