Can I possibly put the case for scepticism more strongly? I would fain put it with all the force in my power in order to convince you that I have thought often over these matters, and that, although my own life may have been happy and free from stumbling-blocks, I have at least tried to understand and sympathize with those who find it very hard to believe that there is a God. But, in the presence of such monstrous evils as these, I take refuge in a belief and in a fact; first, in the belief (which runs through almost every page of the Gospels and has received the sanction of Christ Himself) that there is an Evil Being in the world who is continually opposing the Good but will be ultimately subdued by the Good; secondly, in the fact that in one great typical conflict between Good and Evil,—where apparently God did not “shew the right,” and where, in appearance, there was consummated the most brutal triumph of Evil over Good that the world ever witnessed—there the Good in reality effected its most signal triumph. The issue of the conflict on the Cross of Christ is my great comfort and mainstay of faith, when my heart is distracted with the thought of all the spurns, buffets, and outrages, endured by much-suffering humanity. “At last, far off,” I cry, “the right will be shewn, even as it was in the contest on the Cross.”
You see then the nature of the conflict of faith. It is a struggle of hope against fear, trustfulness against trustlessness, where strict logical proof is impossible. But I do not call you to set Faith against Reason, or to make hope trample on the understanding, or to shut your eyes to the presence or absence of historical evidence. If religion comes down from the region of hope and aspiration into the region of fact and evidence, and asserts that this or that fact happened at this or that time and place, then, so far, it appeals to evidence, and by evidence it must be judged.
Half the earnest scepticism of the present day is not really spiritual scepticism but simply doubt about historical facts. Distinguish carefully and constantly between two terms entirely different but continually confused—the super-natural and the miraculous.
In the super-natural every rational man must believe, if he knows what is meant by the term; for every rational man must acknowledge that the world had either a beginning or no beginning, a First Cause or no First Cause; and either hypothesis is altogether above the level of natural phenomena, and therefore supernatural. The theist and the atheist are alike believers in the supernatural. The agnostic, poised between the two, admits that some supernatural origin of the world is necessary, but is unable to decide which of the two is the more probable. All alike therefore believe in the supernatural; but the important difference is that some take a hopeful or faithful, others a hopeless or faithless, view of the supernatural. Proof in this region is not possible, unless the testimony of the conscience may be accepted as proof. If Jesus were to appear to-morrow sitting on the clouds of heaven and testifying that there is a Father in heaven, I can imagine some men of science replying, “This is a mere phantom of the brain,” or, “This is the result of indigestion,” or “Assertion is not proof.” Mere force of logical proof or personal observation can convince no one that there is a God or that Jesus is the Eternal Son of God; such a conviction can only come from a leaping out of the human spirit to meet the Spirit of God; and hence St. Paul tells us that “no man can say”—that is, “say sincerely”—“that Jesus is the Lord save by the Spirit.” Here therefore, in this region of the indemonstrable, I can honestly use an effort of the will to ally myself with the spirit of faith. “I will pray to God; I will cling to God; will refuse to doubt of God; refuse to listen to doubts about God (except so far as may be needful to do it, in order to lighten the doubts of others, and then only as a painful duty, to be got through with all speed); I am determined (so help me God) to believe in God to the end of my days:” resolving thus I am not acting insincerely nor shutting my eyes to the truth, but taking nature’s appointed means for reaching and holding fast the highest spiritual truth.
But I do not feel justified in thus using my will to constrain myself to believe in the miraculous; for here God has given me other means—such as history, experience, and evidence—for arriving at the truth. Nor does a belief in the super-natural in the least imply a belief in the miraculous also. I may believe that God is continually supporting and impelling on its path every created thing; but I may also believe that there is no evidence to prove that His support and impulsion have ever been manifested save in accordance with that orderly sequence which we call Law. I may even believe that the Universe is double, having a spiritual and invisible counterpart corresponding to this visible and material existence, so that nothing is done in the world of flesh below which has not been first done in the world of spirit above; yet even this latitude of spiritual speculation would not in the least establish the conclusion that the observed sequence of what we call cause and effect in the material world has ever been violated. To take a particular instance, I may be convinced, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Eternal Word of God, made flesh for men; and yet I may remain unconvinced that, in thus taking flesh upon Him, He raised Himself above the physical laws of humanity. In other words I may, with the author of the Fourth Gospel, heartily believe in the supernatural Incarnation while omitting from my Gospel all mention of the Miraculous Conception. Nay, I may go still further. While cordially accepting the divine nature of Christ, I may see such clear indications and evidences of the manner in which accounts of miracles sprang up in the Church without foundation of fact, that I may be compelled not merely to omit miracles from my Gospel and to confess myself unconvinced of their truth, but even to avow my conviction of their untruth. But into this negative aspect of things I do not wish now to enter. I would rather urge on you this positive consideration, that, since our recognition of the Laws of Nature themselves, depends in a very large degree upon faith, we ought not to be surprised if our acknowledgment of the Founder of these Laws rests also on the same basis. And, if this be so, we cannot speak accurately about the “evidence” for the existence of a God, unless we include in that term the aspirations of the human conscience toward a Maker and Ruler and Father of all.
VIII
FAITH AND DEMONSTRATION
My dear ——,
I am afraid your notions about “proof” are still rather hazy; for you quote against me a stern and self-denying dictum which passes current among some of your young friends, that “it is immoral to believe what cannot be proved.”
Have you seriously asked yourself what you mean by “proved” in enunciating this proposition? Do you mean “made sufficiently probable to induce a man to act upon the probability”? Or do you mean “absolutely demonstrated”?
If you mean the former, not so many as you suppose are guilty of this “immorality.” Give me an instance, if you can, of a man who “believes what cannot be made sufficiently probable to induce him to act upon the probability.” Of course some men say they believe what they, in reality, do not believe; but you speak, not about “saying” but about “believing;” and I do not see how any man can “believe” what he does not regard as probable. I am inclined to think therefore that, in this sense of the word “prove,” your proposition is meaningless.