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

by Francis William Newman

Are these the only things which he ridiculed?

I quoted in my reply to him enough to show what was the class of "things pertaining to God" to which I referred. He forces me to requote some of the passages. "Eclipse," p. 82 [1st ed.] "You shall be permitted to say (what I will not contradict), that though Mr. Newman may be inspired for aught I know … inspired as much as (say) the inventor of Lucifer matches—yet that his book is not divine,—that it is purely human."

Again: p. 126 [1st ed.] "Mr. Newman says to those who say they are unconscious of these facts of spiritual pathology, that the consciousness of the spiritual man is not the less true, that [though?] the unspiritual man is not privy to it; and this most devout gentleman quotes with unction the words: For the spiritual man judgeth all things, but himself is judged of no man."

P. 41, [1st ed.], "I have rejected creeds, and I have found what the Scripture calls, that peace which passeth all understanding." "I am sure it passes mine, (says Harrington) if you have really found it, and I should be much obliged to you, if you would let me participate in the discovery." "Yes, says Fellowes:… 'I have escaped from the bondage of the letter and have been introduced into the liberty of the Spirit…. The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. The fruit of the Spirit is joy, peace, not—'" "Upon my word (said Harrington, laughing), I shall presently begin to fancy that Douce Davie Deans has turned infidel."

I have quoted enough to show the nature of my complaints. I charge the satirist with profanity, for ridiculing sentiments which he himself avows to be holy, ridiculing them for no other reason but that with me also they are holy and revered. He justifies himself in p. 5 of his "Defence," as above, by denying my facts. He afterwards, in Section XII. p. 147, admits and defends them; to which I shall return.

I beg my reader to observe how cleverly Mr. Rogers slanders me in the quotation already made, from p. 5, by insinuating, first, that it is my doctrine, "that man is most likely born for a dog's life, and there an end;" next, that I have taken under my patronage the propositions, that "the miracles of Christ might be real, because Christ was a clairvoyant and mesmerist, and that God is not a Person but a Personality." I cannot but be reminded of what the "Prospective" reviewer says of Zeuxis and the grapes, when I observe the delicate skill of touch by which the critic puts on just enough colour to affect the reader's mind, but not so much as to draw him to closer examination. I am at a loss to believe that he supposes me to think that a theory of mesmeric wonders (as the complement of an atheistic creed?) is "a question pertaining to God," or that my rebuke bore the slightest reference to such a matter. As to Person and Personality, it is a subtle distinction which I have often met from Trinitarians; who, when they are pressed with the argument that three divine Persons are nothing but three Gods, reply that Person is not the correct translation of the mystical Hypostasis of the Greeks, and Personality is perhaps a truer rendering. If I were to answer with the jocosity in which my critic indulges, I certainly doubt whether he would justify me. So too, when a Pantheist objects (erringly, as I hold) that a Person is necessarily something finite, so that God cannot be a Person; if, against this, a Theist contend that God is at once a Person and a Principle, and invent a use of the word Personality to overlap both ideas; we may reject his nomenclature as too arbitrary, but what rightful place ridicule has here, I do not see. Nevertheless, it had wholly escaped my notice that the satirist had ridiculed it, as I now infer that he did.

He tells me he was not aware that the holding that there are great defects in the morality of the New Testament, and much imperfection in the character of its Founder, was a question pertaining to God. Nor indeed was I aware of it.

I regard questions concerning a book and a human being to be purely secular, and desire to discuss them, not indeed with ridicule but with freedom. When I discuss them, he treats my act as intolerably offensive, as though the subject were sacred; yet he now pretends that I think such topics "pertain to God," and he was not aware of it until I told him so! Thus he turns away the eyes of his readers from my true charge of profanity, and fixes them upon a fictitious charge so as to win a temporary victory. At the same time, since Christians believe the morality of the Old Testament to have great defects, and that there was much imperfection in the character of its eminent saints, prophets, and sages; I cannot understand how my holding the very same opinion concerning the New Testament should be a peculiarly appropriate ground of banter and merriment; nor make me more justly offensive to Christians, than the Pauline doctrine is to Jews.

In more than one place of this "Defence" he misrepresents what I have written on Immortality, in words similar to those here used, though here he does not[15] expressly add my name. In p. 59, he says, that "according to Mr. Newman's theology, it is most probable (in italics) that the successive generations of men, with perfect indifference to their relative moral conditions, their crimes or wrongs, are all knocked on the head together; and that future adjustment and retribution is a dream." (So p. 72.) In a note to the next page, he informs his readers that if I say that I have left the question of immortality doubtful, it does not affect the argument; for I have admitted "the probability" of there being no future life.

This topic was specially discussed by me in a short chapter of my treatise on the "Soul," to which alone it is possible for my critic to refer. In that chapter assuredly I do not say what he pretends; what I do say is, (after rejecting, as unsatisfactory to me, the popular arguments from metaphysics, and from the supposed need of a future state to redress the inequalities of this life;) p. 232: "But do I then deny a future life, or seek to undermine a belief of it? Most assuredly not; but I would put the belief (whether it is to be weaker or firmer) on a spiritual basis, and on none other."