The Next Step in Religion: An Essay toward the Coming Renaissance

by Roy Wood Sellars

The logic of evidence concerns itself with the tests applied to statements which purport to be facts. What reason have we to believe in those stories which have been handed down to us from the past, or in the tales of marvelous cures and visions spread abroad in certain circles to-day? Is it not evident that we must apply to them the same stringent tests that the scientist employs? All the canons of evidence, external and internal, must be brought to bear upon them. Accounts of cures in connection with the shrines of saints and the descriptions of cases of healing among Christian Scientists should be subjected to rigorous, yet equitable, examination. The nature of the sickness or injury should be diagnosed, and the after-history kept under observation. And, unless these religious bodies wish to incur the suspicion of abetting fraud, they should welcome thorough inquiry. Until something of this kind is done, the evidential value of the accounts is weaker than it must be to reach proof. The more the adduced narratives conflict with the usual course of experience, the more does this lack of ventilation weaken their evidential worth. From the standpoint of logic, this attitude is incontestable. Either we must maintain it or we must give up all serious attempt to sift testimony.

The advances made by history and psychology during the nineteenth century have put us in a far better position to handle the question of past marvels than Hume was in. Yet this more concrete outlook has simply reënforced Hume's method of criticism. Hume was, perhaps, a little too generous. The burden of proof rests upon the believer in marvels, rather than upon the critic, because the regularity of experience has been increasingly established. Hence, the historical evidence must be very strong, stronger than it has turned out to be.

When the canons of historical evidence are applied to the accounts of marvelous events, it is surprising how quickly they lose their impressiveness. Let us take, for example, the astounding series of incidents told in Exodus. Were this book written by Moses, an actual eye-witness and chief actor on the human side, we would be forced to assert that he was self-deceived, or intended to deceive, or that the events actually did happen in some strange sort of way. But when we discover that the Pentateuch was not written until long after the establishment of the Kingdom, and that it contains various strands of popular tradition and priestly construction, we realize that the logical situation is very different. The eye-witness has disappeared. In other words, we have to deal with legends instead of with history. We are no longer reduced to the dilemma of either calling Moses a liar or accepting events which strike us as mythical. We are not even called upon to rationalize these legends and to appeal, say, to the influence of a high wind, long continued, upon some shallow branch of the Red Sea. Such ingenuity is now seen to be misplaced.

When we pass from past to present, we must keep to the same logical methods. In fact, we must often pass from the present to the past. It was Lyell, the famous geologist, who established the scientific canon that the same forces that are working to-day must be used to explain what occurred in other ages. And this canon was of immense value, for it prevented scientists from dreaming of catastrophes and forgetting to study the detailed working of common forces. How far faith in Jesus as a religious healer, a powerful prophet sent by God, led to what are called faith-cures can be answered only by analogy from the present. The nature and reach of mental cures must be studied with the same care that is given to other fields. Only lately is this being done. Physicians did not do justice to the nervous system. Their materialism was too naïve, too mechanical. The individual is an organic whole, and the mind cannot be severed from this whole without falsity. Put in physiological terms, the nervous system controls the expenditure of energy of the organism, and, if it is wasteful, can soon exhaust the supply. The resistance offered by the organism to disease is, then, likely to vary with the mental and nervous balance of the individual. How effective an abnormal direction of nervous energy toward certain parts of the organism may be cannot be told beforehand. Probably, experimental work with hypnosis and psychoanalysis will throw light upon these internal adjustments. The historian of religious history should keep his eye upon the recent developments of psychiatry. He should, moreover, learn his psychology from experts and not be satisfied with the jargon of spiritualists.

But logic alone will never be able to disprove theological miracles. I cannot prove that there are no fairies, although I can show that there is no good evidence for belief in their existence. The rationalist who undertakes to demonstrate the impossibility of miracles forgets that his thinking works within a set of postulates and principles which his adversary will not accept. All he can really show is that his postulates and principles fit in better with experience than do those of his adversary. The final conflict is that between the primitive view of the world and the scientific view. The best that can be done is to stress the logical side and then make the contrast between the two views of the world as distinct as possible. Whether an individual will, or will not, believe in religious miracles depends ultimately upon the view of the world which grows up in his mind. And this mental outlook is a function of his training and his psychological make-up.

The theological miracle is more deductive than inductive. I mean that it is a consequence of a dogma rather than an independently given fact. The religious outlook comes first in order and dominates the fact. Just the opposite is the case in science. There the fact comes first and the theory afterwards. As I have written in my Logic: "Mere speculation uncontrolled by fact is almost certain to lose touch with reality. It may lead to the construction of beautiful systems, but these systems, for all their splendor and subtlety, are sure to lack value as means of interpreting the world in which we actually live." But is not the theological miracle an instance of just such uncontrolled speculation? An omnipotent God could do anything to, or in, his footstool. Of course he could. You are only developing the implications of your hypothesis. The test questions are, first, Is it his nature to want to do these abrupt things? second, Is this conception of an omnipotent God the most satisfactory hypothesis? Does it help us to meet the facts and events of human life? We know how the idea arose, and we know that it was based on interpretations of nature that seem to us now essentially illusory. The rub of the matter is, that it is of no assistance to science and creates hosts of artificial difficulties. We have been discussing one of these artificial problems in the present chapter and shall be engaged in the discussion of others in the next two chapters. A naturalistic metaphysics and ethics is far easier to formulate than a theological system free from contradiction.

But suppose that certain marvels which would not fit into the natural course of things were established. How could it be shown that these peculiar events were the acts of a supernatural agent? Strictly speaking, only revelation could accomplish this feat. But revelation is, itself, a miracle which needs accrediting. And so you are, once more, in a vicious circle. Revelation might be a well-accredited mode of proof if it had an organ of a public character—a voice from heaven, for instance. But such a voice would become a part of nature for us; in other words, its assumption implies another sort of world from the one we are in. But, until this organ is established, we have good right to doubt the ipse dixit of self-appointed oracles.

When we examine the whole question of miracles inductively and deductively, I think that we must acknowledge that their basis is exceedingly weak. Already, the educated world is in a fair way to outgrow them; and this tendency will undoubtedly increase as science continues to explore the world we live in.

In conclusion, it seems worth while to call attention to the fact that very few people realize what they are really believing when they accept miracles. They do not know enough about nature to grasp the real content of their beliefs; and, until they do, their belief represents simply a point of view which has not been confronted with its implications. It expresses innocence rather than virtue. Let us glance at a couple of the biblical miracles to show what they involve.

Tyndall has brought out, very strikingly, the difference between the miracle supposed to have aided Joshua in his battle with the Amorites, as this appeared in the eyes of an Israelite of old, and as it appears to a man of science. For the one the miracle probably consisted in the stoppage of a fiery ball less than a yard in diameter, while to the other it would be the stoppage of an orb fourteen thousand times the earth in size. "There is," he writes, "a scientific as well as a historic imagination; and when, by the exercise of the former, the stoppage of the earth's rotation is clearly realized, the event assumes proportions so vast, in comparison with the result to be obtained by it, that belief reels under the reflection. The energy here involved is equal to that of six trillion of horses working for the whole of the time employed by Joshua in the destruction of his foes." If we pass from the great to the small, from the employment of tremendous forces to the reconstruction of endless, minute relations, the same divergence between superficial appearance and the reality stares us in the face. Let us consider the raising of Lazarus from the dead. It is a well-known fact that the nervous system begins to disintegrate very quickly after death. Now research has shown that there are nearly a billion of cells in the brain alone. Think of the disorganization which would ensue in such a complicated system after a period of four days. Those who are acquainted with the delicacy of organic compounds can realize the condition of the brain when the body was already beginning to stink. But the ancients did not even know that the brain was closely connected with consciousness, let alone its structure. Of the character of the economy of the body, they knew practically nothing; they dealt with wholes, not with parts. How different this miracle appears from these two stand-points! It is the same only in name. It may be of interest to note that this miracle, characteristic of John, is very evidently related to illustrate the principle that Jesus as the Logos is the resurrection and the life. It is a demonstration miracle.