Phases of Faith; Or, Passages from the History of My Creed

by Francis William Newman

Here he so isolates three assertions of mine from their context, as to suggest for each of them a false meaning, and make it difficult for the reader who has not my book at hand to discover the delusion. The first is taken from a discussion of the arguments concerning the soul's immortality ("Soul," p. 223, 2nd edition), on which I wrote thus, p. 219:—that to judge of the accuracy of a metaphysical argument concerning mind and matter, requires not a pure conscience and a loving soul, but a clear and calm head; that if the doctrine of immortality be of high religious importance, we cannot believe it to rest on such a basis, that those in whom the religious faculties are most developed may be more liable to err concerning it than those who have no religious faculty in action at all. On the contrary, concerning truths which are really spiritual it is an obvious axiom,[10] that "he who is spiritual judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man." After this I proceeded to allude to the history of the doctrine among the Hebrews, and quoted some texts of the Psalms, the argument of which, I urged, is utterly inappreciable to the pure logician, "because it is spiritually discerned." I continued as follows:—

"This is as it should be. Can a mathematician understand physiology, or a physiologist questions of law? A true love of God in the soul itself, an insight into Him depending on that love, and a hope rising out of that insight, are prerequisite for contemplating this spiritual doctrine, which is a spontaneous impression of the gazing soul, powerful (perhaps) in proportion to its faith; whereas all the grounds of belief proposed to the mere understanding have nothing to do with faith at all."

I am expounding the doctrine of the great Paul of Tarsus, who indeed applies it to this very topic,—the future bliss which God has prepared for them that love him. Does Mr. Rogers attack Paul as making a fanatical divorce between faith and intellect, and say that he is compelled so to understand him, when he avows that "the natural man understandeth not the things of God; for they are foolishness unto him." "When the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." Here is a pretended champion of Evangelical truth seeking to explode as absurdities the sentiments and judgments which have ever been at the heart of Christianity, its pride and its glory!

But I justify my argument as free from fanaticism—and free from obscurity when the whole sentence is read—to a Jew or Mohammedan, quite as much as to a Christian.

My opponent innocently asks, how much I desire him to quote of me? But is innocence the right word, when he has quoted but two lines and a half, out of a sentence of seven and a half, and has not even given the clause complete? By omitting, in his usual way, the connecting particle whereas, he hides from the reader that he has given but half my thought; and this is done, after my complaint of this very proceeding. A reader who sees the whole sentence, discerns at once that I oppose "the mere understanding," to the whole soul; in short, that by the man who has mere understanding, I mean him whom Paul calls "the natural man." Such a man may have metaphysical talents and acquirements, he may be a physiologist or a great lawyer; nay, I will add, (to shock my opponent's tender nerves), even if he be an Atheist, he may be highly amiable and deserving of respect and love; but if he has no spiritual development, he cannot have insight into spiritual truth. Hence such arguments for immortality as can be appreciated by him, and cannot be appreciated by religious men as such, "have nothing to do with faith at all"

The two other passages are found thus, in p. 245 of the "Soul," 2nd edition. After naming local history, criticism of texts, history of philosophy, logic, physiology, demonology, and other important but very difficult studies, I ask:—

"Is it not extravagant to call inquiries of this sort spiritual or to expect any spiritual[11] results from them? When the spiritual man (as such) cannot judge, the question is removed into a totally different court from that of the soul, the court of the critical understanding…. How then can the state of the soul be tested by the conclusion to which the intellect is led? What means the anathematizing of those who remain unconvinced? And how can it be imagined that the Lord of the soul cares more about a historical than about a geological, metaphysical, or mathematical argument? The processes of thought have nothing to quicken the conscience or affect the soul."

From my defender in the "Prospective Review" I learn that in the first edition of the "Defence" the word thought in the last sentence above was placed in italics. He not only protested against this and other italics as misleading, but clearly explained my sense, which, as I think, needs no other interpreter than the context. In the new edition the italics are removed, but the unjust isolation of the sentences remains. "The processes of thought," of which I spoke, are not "all processes," but the processes involved in the abstruse inquiries to which I had referred. To say that no processes of thought quicken the conscience, or affect the soul, would be a gross absurdity. This, or nothing else, is what he imputes to me; and even after the protest made by the "Prospective" reviewer, my assailant not only continues to hide that I speak of certain processes of thought, not all processes, but even has the hardihood to say that he takes the passages as everybody else does, and that he is compelled so to do.

In my own original reply I appealed to places where I had fully expressed my estimate of intellectual progress, and its ultimate beneficial action. All that I gain by this, is new garblings and taunts for inconsistency. "Mr. Newman," says be, "is the last man in the world to whom I would deny the benefit of having contradicted himself." But I must confine myself to the garbling. "Defence," p. 95:—

"Mr. Newman affirms that my representations of his views on this subject are the most direct and intense reverse of all that he has most elaborately and carefully written!" He still says, "what God reveals, he reveals within and not without," and "he did say (though, it seems, he says no longer), that 'of God we know everything from within, nothing from without;' yet he says I have grossly misrepresented him."