We have very grave doubts about putting the Bible into the hands of children. They are, through it, made familiar with much that is demoralizing. We have many reasons for rejecting the dogma of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures and of their infallibility. These fragmentary writings must be judged by their merits—by what they are. It has been shown by the author of Supernatural Religion that we gain more than we lose by taking this rational view of the Bible. An illusion is lost, but a reality is gained which is full of hope and peace. The unknown men who mostly wrote the little pamphlets which make up the Bible probably did the best they knew—that is, they wrote according to the degree of their development—but some of the writers were on a very low plane. We should read these books and all other sacred writings of all nations just as we study geology—as showing what was in the mind of man when the books were written, ‘just as we learn from the earth’s strata the history and order of the various periodic formations. The bibles of the ages are accessible to every man who can read. All of them contain much that is valuable, with much that is frivolous, superstitious, and false. But these books belong to our race, and happy is the man who knows how to use them wisely. He who rejects all makes as great a mistake as he who accepts all. The true position is that the Bible contains the best thoughts of many of the best men that have lived in the ages of the past, expressed according to their light; and, while their obvious errors should be rejected, whatever commends itself to our reason, according to the best light of to-day, and to which each man’s own inspiration and spiritual discernment responds, should be reverently studied and highly esteemed. Religion is not a product of the Bible, but the Bible is a product of religion—natural religion—though often misunderstood and perverted. We do not throw aside the bibles, but accept them for just what we find them to be worth. We eat the kernel and throw away the shell.
- Our most Implicit Faith in the Continuity of Life remains.—We have no more confidence in Materialism than we have in Atheism. We believe that some men at least are immortal—that the intellectual and moral giants should be blotted out at death is unthinkable. We find in this doctrine of a future state much that has a moral tendency. It inspires self-respect and esteem. It leads to a proper appreciation of humanity. It inspires hope for the future. It affords comfort in bereavement. It furnishes a proper motive for aspiration and progress.
When we consider the millions of years that have been employed in bringing man to his present high estate, it is rational to assume that a capacity for such immense progress is good ground for faith in still greater progress, so that there shall be no end to the advancement and attainments of humanity. If primitive man was not immortal, there may have been a time when he became immortal, just as there is a time when the embryo becomes a conscious, breathing babe, and when the undeveloped child begins to exercise the functions of rationality and becomes an accountable being. It is not true that even the extreme Darwinian doctrine is necessarily opposed to the doctrine of a future life for man. On the contrary, its fundamental principles suggest the hypothesis of immortality.
If the “conservation of energy” is a true principle of science, it favors the faith of man in the doctrine of a future life. Greatness and goodness developed in man must be “conserved,” and how can it be done if death is a destroyer? The “persistency of force” in the human personality must at least be equal to the primary elements which environ that personality. Is it rational to suppose that the sweep of evolution which has brought man from such unfathomable depths will not carry him up to still more illimitable heights? Are these vast achievements of Nature to be so un-thriftily wasted? Do not the products of a past eternity point unmistakably to still greater things in an eternity to come?
And, then, does not the scientific doctrine of the “indestructibility of matter” favor the belief in life after death?
The theory of “natural selection” also favors the doctrine of a future life, and never appears so real and so beautiful as when we realize that as man progresses in everything that is grand and good he voluntarily falls in with this natural law, and of choice not only selects that which is most to be desired, but by self-denial and almost superhuman exertions strives to attain the highest ideal of his heavenly aspirations. The unwearied effort of the most highly-developed men to reach a higher perfection and a more exalted excellence is evidence that Nature is true to herself, and that man will not be blotted out of conscious existence just as he first clearly perceives the essential difference between good and evil. Having tasted the fruit of the tree of life, he is destined to live for ever.
It is certainly a significant fact that the faith of man in, and a desire for, a future life are strongest in his moments of greatest mental and spiritual exaltation. If this is an illusion, it is strange that it should be particularly vivid when he is in his most god-like moods and when he is most in love with the beautiful, the true, and the good. Is it possible for Nature to thus trifle with and deceive and disappoint man when he is most serious and truthful, and when all the elements of his better nature are in the ascendant and predominate over everything that is gross and perishable?
A future life and an immortal one must exist to enable man to reach that perfection to which he aspires, and feels himself bound to attain as the only end worthy of his being, and which, during the brief span of mortal life, is never reached even by the most virtuous. Nature cannot be so blind, so stupidly improvident, as to throw away her most precious treasures, gathered by so much labor and suffering, and not permit man to carry forward the great work, in which he has just began to succeed, to that perfection to which all his aspirations unmistakably converge.
Then every cultivated man realizes as age increases that his attainments and successes in this ephemeral life fall far short of, and are absolutely inadequate and disproportionate to, his inherent powers; and it is irrational to conclude that his very existence is to be blotted out and life itself become utterly extinct just as he has learned how to live, and what life is, and what is his " being’s end and aim." We do not desire to argue this question here: we only make a profession of our faith.
- Our Faith in the Doctrine of Present and Future Rewards and Punishments remains.—While it is irrational to accept the horrible dogmas of sacerdotalism as to the eternal torments of the wicked, it is equally unreasonable to believe that all men enter upon a state of perfect happiness without regard to moral character.