We think that we have also shown that for many important reasons we cannot expect the whole truth from the professional clergy.

We have shown that the Jews are not the very ancient and numerous people that they have been supposed to have been, and that many of their claims are purely fabulous; and that this is specially true of their Pentateuch, which Moses, supposing such a man to have lived, could not have written.

We have shown how extensively symbolism anciently prevailed in sacred writings, how modern sacerdotalists have accepted as literal history and matters of fact what was at first a romance or an allegory intended to illustrate certain principles, and how the introduction of astral keys can only explain many of the Old-Testament stories, which, taken literally, are extremely absurd and foolish.

We think we have shown that the “fall” of the mythical Adam and Eve is an allegory, and not an historical fact, and that it is extremely unfortunate that the whole system of dogmatic theology is made to depend upon a mythus.

We have gone in search of the “second Adam,” and have not found him, except in the New Testament, and we have shown how utterly incomplete and unsatisfactory that account is, not rising in any degree to the character of evidence.

We have shown that the Gospels are highly dramatic; that the Christ is largely ideal; that many other persons before the Christian era claimed all that was claimed for Jesus; and that he, his conduct, and alleged sayings (he wrote nothing) are widely open to criticism.

We have shown that the distinguishing feature of the New Testament—blood-salvation—is not a special revelation, but that it has been borrowed and modified and adapted from savages and from the most ignorant and superstitious tribes; and that what is called the “redemptive scheme” is full of absurdities and contradictions, and that it is philosophically and naturally demoralizing in its tendency and influence if its logical consequences are accepted.

We now come to the practical question, What have we left? Is there anything in religion worth preserving? Indeed, is there anything condemned in this book that is essential to the purest religion and the highest morality? After doubting and throwing discredit on so much, have we anything left worth preserving? Having cast so much of the cargo overboard to lighten the ship, is the vessel worth saving? Having cast away the accretions and superstitions of religion, we are only now just prepared to defend its essential and sublime principles. Let us see what remains.

  1. Our Faith in God remains.—Not a God. The passage in the New Testament (John 4: 24) admits that “a” is an interpolation. There is no personality in God in a sense which implies limitation. God is spirit, and so spirit is God. Even Professor Hæckel, the German materialist, says: “This monistic idea of God, which belongs to the future, has already been expressed by Bruno in the following words: A spirit exists in all things, and no body is so small but contains a part of the divine substance within itself by which it is animated.” The words God and religion have been so long associated with superstition and priestcraft that many liberal thinkers have a repugnance to both. But we must not let these perversions of sacerdotalism rob us of good words. We can conceive of God as the Over-all and In-all Spirit of the Universe. That spirit is causation, and matter, its palpable form, is one of its manifestations. We know that Nature’s method of making worlds and brutes and men is by a uniform system of evolution, taking millions and billions of years to carry on the work to the present time, and that it is likely that it will take millions more to perfect it. When asked what spirit is, we answer, We do not know; neither do we know what electricity is, nor can we answer one of a thousand questions that come up regarding the subtle and occult qualities of matter. We see no difference between the Unknowable of Herbert Spencer and the Unsearchable of Zophar in the book of Job. The Unknown Power is the Noumenon, the absolute Being in itself, the inner nature of force, motion, and even of conscience.

We have said, in substance, elsewhere: It is a great mistake to think of God as outside of and distinct from the universe. If there be a God at all, he is in the universe and in every part of it. We cannot properly localize him, and say that he is present in one place and not in another, or that he is in one place more than another. He must be everywhere and in everything. Anthropomorphic (man-like) views of God are what make atheists and agnostics.