I have seen a clergyman cheat at croquet. He was the by-word of the neighbourhood for that curious little weakness; but I assure you that the spectacle of that reverend gentleman surreptitiously pushing his ball into better position with his foot instead of depending upon the legitimate use of his mallet, was no more ignoble a spectacle than that which I am asked to contemplate by believers in miracle when they present to my eyes a Deity who (upon their assertion) does similar things.
Test upon this basis of morality the most crucial of all events in Christian theology.
The idea of the Incarnation of God in human form as the final and logical fulfilment of the Creative purpose and process—the manifestation of the Creator in the created—has had for many great thinkers a very deep attraction. But if the process which brings Him into material being—the so-called Virgin-Birth—is not a process implicit in Nature itself and one that only depends for its realisation on man’s grasp of the higher law which shall make it natural and normal to the human race—if the Virgin-Birth is miracle instead of perfectly conditioned law revealing itself, then, surely, such a device for bringing about the desired end is “discreditable conduct”—because it discredits that vast system of evolution through cause and effect which we call “life.” From such an Incarnation I am repulsed as from something monstrous and against nature; and the doings and sayings of a being so brought into the world are discredited by the fact of a half-parentage not in conformity with creative law.
Now when one ventures to question the moral integrity of so fundamental a religious doctrine, and to give definite grounds as to why adverse judgment should be passed on it, there will not be lacking theologians ready to turn swiftly and rend one something after this manner: “Who are you, worm of a man, to question the operations of the Eternal mind, or dare to sit in judgment on what God your maker thinks good?”
The answer is “I don’t. It is only your interpretation of those operations that I question.” But on that head there is this further to say: “By the Creative process God has given to man a reasoning mind; and it is only by the use of the reason so given him that man can worship his Maker.” To give man the gift of reason and then to take from him the right fully to exercise it, is discreditable conduct.
That tendency I attribute not to the Deity but to the theologian—more especially as I read in the Scriptures that where God had a special revelation to make to a certain prophet who thought a prostrate attitude the right one to assume under such circumstances, divine correction came in these words, “Stand upon thy feet, and I will speak to thee.” Some people seem to think that the right attitude is to stand upon their heads.
It is told in some Early Victorian memoirs that a group of Oxford dons were discussing together the relations of mortal man to his God, and one postulated that the only possible attitude for man to assume in such a connection was that of “abject submission and surrender.” But even in that dark epoch such a doctrine was not allowed to go unquestioned. “No, no,” protested another, “deference, not abject submission.” And though it is a quaint example of the Oxford manner, surely one must agree with it. Reason being man’s birthright, “Stand upon thy feet and I will speak to thee,” is the necessary corollary. Even if there be such a thing as divine revelation—the revelation must be convincing to man’s reason, and not merely an attack upon his nerves, or an appeal to his physical fears.
Similarly any form of government or of society which does not allow reason to stand upon its feet and utter itself unashamed is a discreditable form of discipline to impose, if reason is to be man’s guide.
Now I do not know whether, by characterising the device of a “miraculous” birth as discreditable to its author, I am not incurring the penalty of imprisonment in a country which says that it permits free thought and free speech (at all events in peace-time). A few years ago a man was sent to prison—I think it was for three months—for saying similar things: a man who was a professed unbeliever in Divinity. And quite obviously the discreditable conduct in that case was not of the man who acted honestly up to his professions, but of this country which, professing one thing, does another. And the most discreditable figure in the case was the Home Secretary who, though entirely disapproving of this legal survival of religious persecution, and with full power to exercise the royal prerogative of mercy which has now become his perquisite, refused to move in the matter, and said he saw no reason for doing so. His discredit was, of course, shared by the Cabinet, by Parliament and by the Country—which (without protest except from a few distinguished men of letters and leaders of religious thought) allowed that savage sentence to stand on grounds so antiquated and so inconsistent with our present national professions.
Nationally we are guilty of a good deal of discreditable conduct on similar lines. We profess one thing, and we do another.