What Is the Best Thing That Can Be Said in Favor of the Bible?
LET us put in the mouth of the defenders of the bible the strongest, the most convincing and the most plausible arguments imaginable. Nothing is gained by denying to our adversary a fair chance. Who cares to measure swords with a shadow?
I. "The bible ought to be judged by its fruits," is one of the most commended arguments in its favor. It is claimed that civilization, with all its blessings, is the gift of the bible. If this were true, it could not prove the bible inspired. The inventors of steam, the mariner's compass, and the printing-press have contributed much to human progress, but would that prove that they were inspired? The writings of Socrates and Aristotle greatly aided the development of Europe, as the wars of Alexander the Great helped to educate all Asia. But does that make Greek literature, or Alexander's wars, inspired?
But it is not true that civilization is the exclusive gift of the bible. There was a civilization, in many respects fairer than ours, in Rome and in Greece, without the bible; while in Christian Abyssinia there is no civilization to-day to speak of. If the bible is the only civilizer, the Jews should have been in advance of the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Greeks and the Romans. If the bible is the sole civilizing force, how explain the Dark Ages, when there was no other book that was even allowed to be named which did not agree with the bible?
II. The next "best" argument in favor of the bible is that it gives the world the only information on God, the soul, the origin of man, his destiny, life beyond death, and the mysteries of Revelation. But what is the information worth? Is its account of the creation of man and of the universe out of nothing, and the creation of woman out of a rib, believable? Is the portrait of God, as given in the bible, acceptable? And as to the beyond, does the bible throw any more light on the question than the older or newer theo-sophic books?
III. A third "best" argument is that the bible presents the highest morality and the noblest ideals ever known by man. What are they? Did the bible discover morality? Was selfishness, or theft, or murder, or meanness, a virtue before the bible forbade them? Was there no love of one's neighbor, love of one's country, or nobody to practice charity, or justice, in the world before Moses or Jesus? But it is not true that the bible teaches the highest morality; on the contrary, as this book undertakes to show, morality is the least of all the anxieties of the bible. According to its teaching, belief comes first; and all the morality in the world, we are told, can not save the man who will not believe.
IV. Another plea made in behalf of the bible is that it has comforted thousands and reformed some of the worst characters. "I have the witness of the spirit in me," argues the convert, "that the bible is the 'Word of God.'" And he proceeds to relate how he was downcast, or fallen in sin, and the bible made a new man of him. We rejoice whenever the disconsolate find cheer or the fallen arise. Nor is our happiness diminished in the least when we are told that it was the bible which worked the change. Whoever dries a tear upon the eyelid of sorrow, and whatever the force which lifts the fallen to their feet, deserves the gratitude of man. But if that proves the bible divine, why are there so many who are not comforted, or so many of the fallen who do not rise at all? An infallible book should save more people than the bible is claimed to do. The greater part of Christendom, not to speak of the rest of the world, is still to be saved. If the bible only saves some, so does education and other purely human agencies; and if education does not save everybody, neither does the bible. Wherein, then, is the superiority of the "divine" to the human?
Moreover, if a man is comforted by reading Shakespeare, or Goethe, or Emerson, or George Eliot, would that prove these authors inspired? Or, if a sick man is made better by exercise, or medical attention, and a bad man becomes good by a change of environment, would it follow that these agencies were divine? If the bible is not the only power that can help, then it is but one of many agencies, and why should one of the many agencies which make for improvement be labeled "divine"?