And now Prof. Youmans makes the following curious argument:
“It is surprising that they (the theologians) cannot see that in arraigning scientific thinkers for atheism they are simply doing what stupid fanatics the world over are always doing when ideas of the Deity different from their own are maintained. And it is the more surprising that Christian teachers should indulge in this intolerant practice when it is remembered that their own faith was blackened with this opprobrium at its first promulgation.”
Here a long passage is quoted from The Contest of Heathenism with Christianity, by Prof. Zeller, of Berlin, in which we are reminded that the primitive Christians were reproached with atheism because they “did not agree with the prevailing conceptions of the Deity,” and that “Down with the atheists” was the war-cry of the heathen mob against the Christians. This suggests to Mr. Youmans the following remarks:
“It would be well if our theologians would remember these things when tempted to deal out their maledictions upon scientific men as propagators of atheism. For the history of their own faith attests that religious ideas are a growth, and that they pass from lower states to higher unfoldings through processes of inevitable suffering. It was undoubtedly a great step of progress from polytheism to monotheism, ... but this was neither the final step in the advancement of the human mind toward the highest conception of the Deity, nor the last experience of disquiet and grief at sundering the ties of old religious associations. But if this be a great normal process in the development of the religious feeling and aspiration of humanity, why should the Christians of to-day adopt the bigoted tactics of heathenism, first applied to themselves, to use against those who would still further ennoble and purify the ideal of the Divinity?”
Thus, according to the professor, as the pagans were wrong and stupid in denouncing the Christians as atheists, so are the Christians both wrong and stupid in denouncing the atheistic tendency of “advanced” science; and the reason alleged is that as the pagans did not recognize the superiority of monotheism to polytheism, so the Christian theologians fail to see the superiority of the “scientific” Unknowable to the God of Christianity. Need we answer this? Why, if anything were wanting to prove that Prof. Youmans is laboring for the cause of atheism, his very manner of arguing may be regarded as a convincing proof of the fact. For, if his reasoning has any meaning, it means that as the Christians rejected the gods of the pagans, so Prof. Youmans rejects the God of the Christians; and this is quite enough to show his atheism, as he neither recognizes our God, nor has he found, nor will he ever find, another God worthy of his recognition; for, surely, the “Unthinkable” of which he speaks is not an object of recognition.
On the other hand, is it true that the history of Christianity “attests that religious ideas are a growth, and that they pass from lower states to higher unfoldings”? Does the history of Christianity attest, for instance, that our conception of God has passed from a lower to a higher state? But, waiving this, it requires great audacity to contend that the theory of the “Unknowable” and of the “Unthinkable” is an unfolding of the conception of God. We appeal to Prof. Youmans himself. A theory of natural science which would lay down as the ultimate result of human progress that what we call chemistry, geology, astronomy, mechanics, electricity, optics, magnetism, is something “unknowable” and “unthinkable,” would scarcely be considered by him an “unfolding” of science. For how could he “unfold” his thoughts in the Popular Science Monthly, if the subject of his thought were “unthinkable”? But, then, how can he assume that his theory of the “unthinkable” is an “unfolding” of the conception of God? God cannot be conceived, if he is unthinkable. We conceive God as an eternal, immense, omnipotent, personal Being. These and other attributes of Divinity, as conceived by us, constitute our notion of God; and this notion is as unfolded as is consistent with the limits of the human mind. But to “unfold” the conception of Divinity by suppressing omnipotence, wisdom, eternity, goodness, and all other perfections of the divine nature, so as to leave nothing “thinkable” in it, is not to unfold our conception, but to suppress it altogether.
As to the flippant assertion that the Christian conception of Divinity is not “the final step in the advancement of the human mind toward the highest conception of the Deity,” we might say much. But what is the use of refuting what every Christian child knows to be false? We conceive God as the supreme truth, the supreme good, and the supreme Lord of whatever exists; and he who pretends that there is or can be a “higher conception of the Deity” has himself to thank if men call him a fool.
We shall say nothing of “intolerant practices,” “stupid fanaticism,” or “bigoted tactics.” These are mere words. As to “the aspiration of humanity,” it may be noticed that there is a secret society that considers its aspirations as the aspirations of “humanity,” and, when it speaks of “humanity,” it usually means nothing more and nothing better than its “free and accepted” members. This “humanity” has doubtless some curious aspirations; but mankind does not aspire to dethrone God or to pervert the notion of Divinity.
Prof. Youmans accounts for “the aspiration of humanity” in the following manner:
“It cannot be rationally questioned that the world has come to another important stage in this line of its progression. The knowledge of the universe, its action, its harmony, its unity, its boundlessness and grandeur, is comparatively a recent thing; and is it to be for a moment supposed that so vast a revolution as this is to be without effect upon our conception of its divine control?”