The Eclipse of Faith; Or, A Visit to a Religious Sceptic

by Henry Rogers

"I do not conceive that I do, in declaring abhorrence and contempt of such perversions of 'sentiment,' however 'holy' you may call them. Hideous as they are, however, they are less hideous than the half-length apologies for them on the part of cultivated and civilized human beings, like our 'spiritual' infidels. Your tenderness is ludicrously misplaced. I wonder whether the same apology would extend to those exercises of simple-minded 'faith' in which it is said that the Spanish and Portuguese pirates sometimes indulged, when they implored the benediction of their saints on their predatory expeditions! And yet I see not how it could be avoided; for the exorbitancies of these pirates were not more hateful to humanity than are the rites practices, and the duties enjoined, by many forms of religion. What delightful, ingenuous 'faith' and genuine 'simplicity' of mind did these pirates manifest!"

"How can you talk so, when we make it a mark of a false revelation, that it contradicts any intuition of our moral nature?"

"Then cease to talk of your 'absolute religion,' as capable in any way of consecrating the hateful forms of false and cruel superstition for which you and Mr. Parker condescend to be the apologists. The fanaticism of such pious and devout beasts as those saint-loving pirates is not a more flagrant violation of the principle of morality, than the acts which flow directly as the immediate and natural expression of the infinitely varied but all-polluting forms of idolatry with which you are pleased to identify your 'absolute religion,' and in all of which you suppose an acceptable 'faith' to be very possible. You see how Mr. Parker extends the apology to the foulest sets of his Tartar and Calmuck scoundrels; acts called murders in the codes of Christendom and civilization, but varnished over by the beautiful 'faith' which somehow still lurks under the most frightful practices of a simple-minded barbarian. If this faith will shelter the abominations of a gross idolatry, I see not what else it may not sanctify.—But, in fact, neither in the case of idolaters, nor any other religionists, is it true that 'faith' is independent of 'belief'; in the case of your Calmuck, for example, the 'belief' is vile, and therefore the 'faith' vile too; faith practical enough, certainly, but one that as certainly does not 'work by love'; and which, I think, would be well exchanged for a dead orthodoxy, or any thing else."

It is not difficult to see the source of the fallacy into which Mr. Fellowes had fallen. It lies in the attempt to make a distinction in fact, as well as in theory, between the "intellectual" and "emotional" parts of our nature. It is very well for the spiritual and mental analyst to consider separately the several principles which constitute humanity, and which act, and react, and interact, in endless involution. That there may be acts of belief that terminate chiefly in the intellect, and may be wholly worthless, who denies? The drunkard, for example, may admit that sobriety is a duty; but yet, if he gets drunk every night of his life, we shall, of course, think little of that act of belief,—of his daily repetition of moral orthodoxy. In the same manner, a man may admit that it is his duty to exercise implicit love, gratitude, and obedience towards the great object of worship; but if his habitual conduct shows that he has no thought of acting in accordance with this maxim, he must be regarded, in spite of the orthodoxy of his speculative creed, as no better than a heathen; or worse.

But though it is very possible that a true belief may not involve true faith, does the converse follow,—that therefore true faith is essentially different from it, and independent of it? All history shows, that when religion is practical at all,—that is, issues in faith,—such faith is as the truth or falsehood believed; the emotional and active conditions of the soul are colored, as usual, by knowledge and intellect. These, again, are not independent of the will and the affections, as we all familiarly know. And hence the fallacy of supposing that no man is to be thought better or worse for his "intellectual creed." His "creed" may be his "crime"; and surely none ought to see this more clearly than the writers who deny it; for why their eternal invectives against "dogmas,"—and especially the tolerably universal dogmas that men are responsible for the formation of their opinions,—except upon the supposition that men are responsible for framing and maintaining them? If they are not, men should be left alone; if they are, they are to be thought of as "worse and better" for their "intellectual creed."

Before the conclusion of the conversation, Mr. Fellowes asked me for my opinion.

"If," said I, "faith be defined independent of an act of intellect, then I think, with our sceptical friend here, there can be no such thing at all. For I neither know nor can conceive of any such unreasonable exercise of the emotions or affections. If it be meant, on the other hand, that, though some act of the intellect be indeed uniformly involved, yet that it matters not what it is, and that faith does not take its complexion, as of moral value, from it, then I also think, with Harrington, that it is impossible to deny that such a doctrine will sanctify any sort of worship, and any sort of deity, provided men be sincere; are you prepared to contend for much?"

Mr. Fellowes put an adroit objection here. "Why," said he, "you will not deny, surely, that even Scripture often commends, as good, a faith which is founded on a very imperfect conception of the spiritual realities to which it is directed?"

"It is ingeniously put, I admit. I grant that there are here, as in so many other cases, limits which, though it may not be very easy to assign them, as plainly exist. But that does not answer my question. I want to know whether the principle is to be applied without limits at all, as your speculative theory demands? In other words, will it or not sanctify acts of the most degrading and pernicious idolatry, of the most debasing superstition, because allied to that state of the affections in which you make the essence of faith consist? If it will not, then your objection to me is nothing; it merely asks me to assign limits within which the exercise of the affection in question may be acceptable, or almost equally acceptable, in cases of a partially enlightened understanding. If it will, then it leaves you open, as I conceive, and fairly open, to all the objections which have been so brusquely urged against you by your friend, in whose indignant protest against the detestable apologies for the lowest forms of religious degradation, in which so many 'spiritual' writers indulge, I for one heartily sympathize."

I ventured to add, that the account of "faith" as a state of the emotions exclusively, given by some of his favorite writers, is perfectly arbitrary. "Belief," say they, "is wholly intellectual: faith is wholly moral." Now it would be of very little consequence, if the terms be generally so understood, whether they be so used or not; men would, in that case, suppose that faith, thus restricted, implies a previous process of mind which is to be called exclusively belief. I added, however, that I did not believe that the word faith was ever thus understood in popular use; but that, on the contrary, it was employed to imply belief founded on knowledge, or supposed knowledge, and, where the belief was, in its very nature, practical, or involved emotion, a conduct and a state of the affections corresponding thereto. "But this," said I, "merely respects the Popular use of the words, and if is hardly worth while to prolong discussion on it. As to the reasoning which would show that belief does not properly exist at all, because it may be all resolved into reason, founded on the preponderance of evidence, where it does not matter whether that preponderance be a ton or a scruple,—surely it is over-refined. Men will always feel that there is a marked difference between the states of mind in which they assent to a proposition of which they have no more doubt than they have of their own existence, or to a proposition in the mathematics, and to one in which they feel that only a few grains turn the scale. To this conscious difference in the condition of mind, they have given (and I suppose will not give) very different names; and though they will continue to say that they believe that two and two make four, but that they know it, they will say that they believe that they will die before the end of the century, though they will not say that they know that. The distinction between the certain and the probable is felt to be far too important not to be marked by corresponding varieties of speech; and speech has made them according."