Lux Mundi: A Series of Studies in the Religion of the Incarnation, / 10th Edition, 1890

by Unknown

But even if it may be shewn that there is not quite so essential a contrast as there seemed to be, between the character of theological and scientific dogmas, by reason of the proofs which are offered, along with his principles, to the student of any science; yet still it will be felt that they differ essentially in the tone and manner with which they respectively speak to intellect. The truths of the one claim at once to possess an intellectual finality, and to command a moral allegiance, which the truths of the other do not.

It may be worth while to say in reply, first of all, that there cannot be a real contrast of finality between them, so far as they are both really true. What is really true is really true. Neither 'absolutely,' 'finally,' nor any other adverb in the language will make the statement a stronger one. What we call scientific truths are not in fact liable to correction, except in so far as they may perhaps, after all, not be quite scientific truths, except (that is) in respect of such admixture of erroneous supposition, as still has clung to them after general acceptance. And on the other hand, so far as any mistaken assumptions are mixed up with our apprehension of religious truths, so far these too are liable to receive, and in the history of Church doctrine are continually receiving, correction. It is, after all, a truism. In either sphere the truths, so far as they really are truths, are true absolutely: but are corrigible in so far as our statement of them still contains anything that is other than truth. We may put it, perhaps, in another way still. If, to assume an impossible hypothesis, any one could really prove, not merely that there were some exaggerations or misconceptions in the traditional mode of statement of some doctrinal truths, but that our really essential Faith was wrong, we may grant hypothetically (seeing that truth is supreme) that he would do us all a mighty service, at however tremendous a cost. Similarly of course it must be owned, that if any one could prove the earth to be flat and stationary, and the law of gravitation to be the precise contradictory of truth, he would do immense service to science. But none the less, the scientific certainty on these points is so complete, that if anyone seriously assailed them, it would be felt that he could only be dealing with the evidence in a way which tended to compromise the credit of his own reason; and he would therefore be reasonably held to be, as it is roughly phrased, a fool or a madman. And we must claim that for us the certainty of some theological propositions is so complete, that when anyone assails them, we are no less reasonable in regarding him with concern, rather for his own truth's sake than for the truth of our religion; and that, if miracles or 'an angel from heaven' should seem to bear witness for him, it would still be no bigotry, but in the strictest sense our reasonable course, to refuse the witness, and to treat it as merely an attempt to ensnare us into falsehood to the real requirements of our reason and conscience.

Is the conclusion, then, that there is after all no difference at all between the truths of Theology and of Science, in respect of their claim to authority? On the contrary, there remains a perfectly real contrast of authority between them; only it is to be looked for elsewhere than among the conditions upon which our belief in them respectively is based.

There are two distinct senses in which the doctrines of the Creed may be said to be authoritative. It may be meant that the authoritativeness is in the manner in which they are presented to us; that is to say, that (whatever their content may be) they are statements which we believe, and are to believe, on the sole ground that we are told to do so, without any appeal to reason of our own; or it may be meant that they are statements whose content is of such nature and inherent importance, that we cannot, in fact, believe them, without thereby necessarily being involved in a train of consequential obligations of thought and life. In this latter case the authoritativeness lies not in the manner of their presentation to us or our acceptance of them, but in that which is involved in the nature of the truths themselves, if and when they are believed.

Is it true to say of the Creeds that they are 'authoritative' in the former sense? that is to say that they challenge our allegiance, and we are bound to believe them, because we are told that they are true, without examination on our part, and without reason? It has indeed been stated already that, as between pupils and teachers, there is in religious learning, as there is in all human learning whatever, scientific or otherwise, a certain legitimate and important field for authority reasonably accepted as authority, that is, the authority of men more learned and experienced than ourselves. Even this, of course, means that the pupil believes the things taught to be strictly rational to the teacher, though they be not so, as yet, to himself. But is it true, in speaking of religion, to carry this one step further; and to say that in this sphere our whole belief, and duty of belief, rests upon authority as its ultimate foundation, the authority not of man's experience, but of God's command? It must, no doubt, be freely owned on all sides, that if there be a creed commanded of God, we certainly are bound to believe it. But is there? or when, or how, was it commanded? Does anyone answer, through our Lord Jesus Christ? or through His Church? or through the Bible? But who is He? or what is the Bible? or how do we know? To accept doctrines, which we otherwise should not accept, because we are told to do so, without knowing first who told us, or why we should believe him, is simply not a reasonable possibility. But to ask these questions and to have answers to them, and believe because we are satisfied in some way as to the answers to them, is certainly not to rest the act of believing on a foundation of mere authority: essentially rather it is, to go over part of the ground of the Creed first, and be satisfied as to the correctness of its main substance, and therefore to believe it. A Christian will not deny that the doctrines of the Creed are entitled in fact to be held as authoritative, in both of the senses distinguished above. But we cannot believe them on God's authority till we have first believed in the authority of God. And, therefore, their authoritativeness in what we have called the first sense is not really the ultimate ground of our accepting them: for it is not itself accepted and apprehended by us, except as a consequence of our first believing that which is the main substance of the Creed. It may be the warrant to us of this or that detail considered apart: but it is not, and cannot ever be, the original and sufficient cause of our believing the whole. Credo ut intelligam may be the most true and most reasonable motto of the large part of Christian faith and life: but it is not inconsistent with—it is founded upon—an ultimate underlying intellexi ut crederem. There is, then, a real and abiding difference between theological and scientific dogmas, in respect of the authority with which they speak to us. But the difference is one which does not affect at all the method or grounds of our original belief in them respectively: it is to be found exclusively in the different subject-matter of the two when believed.

And herein, also, it is that we find the real answer to the other form of question, viz., why should Theology claim to be so much more final than science? Much as science has conquered of the realm of truth, it does not profess to have conquered more than a little. Of the vast residuum it says nothing. It has no idea how small a proportion its present knowledge may bear to that which will one day be known. Nay, the further it advances in knowledge of truth, so much the smaller a proportion does its realized truth seem to it to bear to that which remains unexplored. Why should the theologian be less patient of additions to theological knowledge, such as may some day throw all his present creeds into comparative obscurity? Why should the Christian Creed be fixed and inexpansive? The question is formidable only in an abstract form. The reasonable answer to it confronts us the moment we consider what is the subject-matter of the Creed. Scientific principles are in their very nature fragments of a truth which is practically infinite. But the Christian Creed, if true at all, cannot possibly be a fragment of truth. For the Christian Creed does not simply enunciate so many abstract principles of natural or supernatural life or governance. It introduces us straight to a supreme Person, Himself the beginning and end, the author and upholder of all. Such a doctrine may be false; but it cannot be a fragment. The child who believes in God, believes in everything, though he knows hardly anything. He has infinitely more yet to learn, as to what his own belief means. But he has nothing to add to it. The perfect knowledge of the universe would not add to it, but would only explain it. It is, then, by virtue of his personal relation to a Personality which is Itself supreme and all inclusive, that he is guilty of no presumption, even though in the face of the modest disavowals of scientific men, he must maintain that his own creed is, in its proper nature, even when all admissions have been made, rather a complete and conclusive, than a partial or a tentative, statement of truth. But this difference between him and them is the result neither of any arrogance in his temper, nor any lack in his logic, but it follows necessarily from the nature of the subject-matter of his creed, if and when it is believed.

But still this fact that, if true, they are truths which by the obvious necessity of their subject-matter speak to our intellects and consciences with a tone of such Divinely commanding authority, ought not to make me or anyone accept them as true, unless the evidence for them is adequate. The question is not how authoritative they would be, if true; nor how important or inclusive they would be, if true; nor is any amount of contingent importance or authority adequate evidence for their truth, but only a motive for inquiring into its evidence. The question is, are they true? or are they not true? and the question is a question of evidence.

II. And now, in recurring once more to the subject of the evidence by which the dogmas of religion are proved, from which we diverged just now, we find, in respect of it, a second reality of contrast between theological truths and the truths of material science. For whilst in both cases equally we depend upon evidence, and evidence that is adequate; it does not follow that the evidence for both is in all points similar in kind. In great part indeed it is so; but it is certainly not so altogether. For when we speak of the evidence of religious truths, it is to be remembered that the full evidence by which our consciences are wholly convinced of them, is not of one kind only, but of all kinds. The facts of religion address themselves to the whole nature of man; and it is only by the whole nature of man that they can ever be fully apprehended. Man is not a being of intellectual conceptions or faculties only. And because he is not so, therefore no set of principles which could be apprehended by the intellect alone (as the theorems of Euclid may appear to be), and which make for their acceptance no demand at all upon the qualities of his moral or spiritual being, could really present, as religion professes to present, a system of truth and life which would be adequate to the scope of his whole nature. It is undoubtedly the case that just as the truths of religion account for, and appeal to, his whole being, so the evidence for them appeals to his whole being also. For its complete appreciation there are requirements other than intellectual. There must be not only certain endowments of mind, but the life of a moral being. There must be moral affections, moral perceptions, spiritual affinities and satisfactions. Even if the primary conviction of his reason may be apart from these, yet of the fully developed evidence, which is the real possession of the Christian believer, these are a most important and necessary part. Without these, his certainty, adequate though it might be, would be far less profound than it is. These are to him essential ingredients in the richness and the fulness of the evidence which to him is everywhere. Now for this necessary width of the full confirmatory evidence of religion, it is impossible for the religious man, with the utmost desire to make every allowance and apology that is possible, to offer any apology at all. So far from being a mark of inconsistency or feebleness, it is a necessary note of the completeness of religion. Religion professes to have for its subject-matter, and in a measure incomplete, but relatively adequate, to include, to account for, and to direct, the whole range of all man's history, all man's capacities, explored or unexplored, all man's destiny now and for ever. If its truths and their evidence were found to address themselves exclusively to the intellect, in isolation from the other qualities and experiences of man's nature, it would be self-convicted of inadequacy. If men full of worldliness of heart and self-indulgence could be capable of understanding the revelation of religious truth as accurately, of embracing it as completely, of apprehending the depth and the width of the evidence for it (with which all human nature really is saturated) as thoroughly as the prayerful and the penitent, this would not mean that religion or religious evidence had been lifted up, on to a higher and more properly scientific level, but rather that it had shrunk down into correspondence merely with a part, and not the noblest part, of man's present nature.

It would be far beyond the scope of this paper to discuss kinds of evidence, or argue in defence of the position that there is real evidence for religious truth, which is none the less properly evidence, because it is different in kind from the evidence for the propositions of material science: but it may be permissible, at least, in passing to record the claim, and to insist that religious men, in confining themselves to strictly historical or logical arguments, are necessarily omitting much which is nevertheless, to them, real ground. There are evidences which can speak to the heart, the imagination, the conscience, as well as the intelligence. Or, perhaps, we shall come nearer to an exact expression of the truth, by saying that the intelligence, which can apprehend and pronounce upon the evidence of truths of spiritual consciousness, is an intelligence identical in name, but not identical in nature, with that which can well weigh and judge purely logical—or even that which can pronounce upon moral—problems. The intelligence of a moral character, or of a spiritual personality, differs not in range only, but in quality, from that of a merely 'rational animal.' If the moral and the spiritual intelligence did not contain quite other elements, drawn from quite other experiences and possibilities, they could not work upon their higher subject-matter at all. To the religious man, therefore, it must seem strictly unreasonable, in the examination of truths which professedly correspond to man's whole nature, and need his whole nature and experience for the interpretation of them, to begin by shutting out, as irrelevant, what we will modestly call the half of man's nature; and to demand that the truths shall be so stated and so proved, as that the statements and proofs shall correspond exclusively with the other half, and find in that other half their whole interpretation, and their whole evidence.

It may, indeed, be desirable to guard against a misconception, by the express admission that there is some necessary ambiguity in the terms employed. We may seem to have unduly extended both the verbal meaning, and the sphere of importance, of 'evidence' and 'proof.' Undoubtedly there is a sense in which it would be, not merely true to admit, but important to insist, that in the acceptance of religious truth, Faith neither is, nor ever can be, displaced, in order that Demonstration may be enthroned in her place. But then Demonstration is a word which belongs to strictly logical nomenclature. And the very point here insisted on is that the strictly logical presentment of religion is, in reference to the real presentment of religion, most inadequate. Undoubtedly, if everything else is shorn away, and religion remains solely and only in the form of strict logic, without sentiment, without imagination, without experience of duty, or sin, or right, or aspiration, or anything else which belongs to the spiritual consciousness of human personalities, the logic of it is, and must be, imperfectly conclusive.