Here the author points out the fact that there is something in the researches of modern science, at least in certain conditions of the intellectual atmosphere, not apparently favorable to the growth of piety and the cultivation of religious reverence. In not a few modern books of physical science we find nothing but “a curious fingering of wretched dumb details utterly destitute of soul. Whatever is in the book, depend upon it, God is not there. You will hear no end of talk about laws and forces, developments and evolutions, metamorphic forms, transmuted energies, and what not; but it is all dead—at least all blind. For seeing intellect and shaping reason there is no place in such systems.” The author strongly condemns this godless science, and shows at length its fickleness and unwisdom; and we might almost mistake him for a Catholic apologist, were it not that he ventures to speak of “non-sense” in connection with the Council of Trent, at which he irreverently sneers.
In the next chapter he treats of polytheism, whose origin he traces to misdirected reverence towards the powers of nature. He shows that polytheism was not atheism, and that polytheistic society could reach a certain degree of morality not to be found among atheists. To our mind, this chapter, though learned, is nearly superfluous; for it has scarcely any bearing on the history of atheism. In like manner we think that the chapter on Buddhism, which comes immediately after, and which fills seventy pages, was uncalled for. The author says that the British atheism of Bradlaugh, John Stuart Mill, Miss Martineau, Tyndall, and others called his attention to the assertion that in the far East atheism had been publicly professed for more than two thousand years, and was at present the corner-stone of the faith of more than four hundred millions of the human race. Could such an assertion be true? He could not believe it. To talk of a religion without God was, to his mind, “as to talk of the propositions in Euclid without the postulates on which they depend.” He therefore determined to get at the root of the matter, and thus he discovered that Buddhism was not atheism. It is to show this that he gives an elaborate explanation of the Buddhistic system. We need not discuss it, though we believe that some Buddhistic errors which he points out are somewhat exaggerated. We only repeat that the natural history of atheism would have lost nothing, and perhaps gained something, if this long digression on Buddhism had been omitted.
And now we have reached the last chapter of the work, where the author endeavors to make theologians responsible for a kind of modern atheism which he calls “atheism of reaction,” and where he makes his strange and foolish profession of pantheism. It is with this chapter alone that we shall be concerned in the following pages; for it is the evil doctrine contained in this objectionable chapter that spoils the whole work and gives it a totally anti-Christian character. Is the author a Freemason? Is he the mouth-piece of the Scotch and English lodges, whose members are anxious not to be ranked among atheists, though they have no definite creed? We do not care to know. But we may well affirm that his book is full of the Masonic spirit, and answers so well the present needs of British Freemasonry that we cannot be much mistaken if we call it a Masonic work. It is well known that the English Freemasonry, either because less advanced or because more prudent than the Masonry of France, thought it necessary to protest against a suicidal resolution lately passed by the latter, which permits the admission of candidates to membership irrespective of their belief or disbelief in the Great Architect of the universe. This resolution was strongly condemned by the English lodges, which lost no time in sending out a public official declaration that, so far as the English fraternity was concerned, no member would be recognized who did not profess to believe in the Great Architect, according to the old Masonic constitution. The wisdom of this measure cannot be doubted; for the English Masonry enjoys still a certain degree of respectability, which must not be compromised by a low sympathy with the desperate atheism of the French communists. Nevertheless, so long as they talk of a “Great Architect of the universe” without explaining more particularly what they mean by these words, there is reason to fear that their protest against the French infidels is a deceit. The pantheist, the Buddhist, and the agnostic, and even the materialist and the fatalist, can admit an Architect of the universe, provided they are allowed to put upon these words a free construction. One will identify him with Law, another with Nature, a third with Force, a fourth with Matter, and perhaps a fifth with Satan himself; for, as the old Manichæans held that this material world was the work of a bad principle, so there are now men (not unknown to Freemasonry) who consider Satan as their friend, their master, and their god. There are lodges where the “Great Leonard,” a satanic apparition, is an object of worship. No doubt these lodges recognize him as the “Great Architect of the universe.” And Proudhon was so bold as to publish that he was in love with Satan: “Viens, Satan; viens, que je t’embrasse!”
At any rate, if the book we are criticising has been written in the interest of the British Freemasons, it fails to show that they are more orthodox than their French brothers whom they have excommunicated. The pantheism professed in the book is just as worthless as the French atheism; for pantheism, just as much as atheism, makes all religion impossible. Hence a book which refutes atheism in order to establish pantheism, however filled with Scriptural quotations to make it look religious, is an anti-Christian book.
The atheism of reaction, of which the author speaks in the first part of this chapter, is, according to him, “a recoil” from the exaggerations and dictatorial imperiousness of theological orthodoxy. “Even theism,” he remarks, “the only reasonable theory of the universe, in the blundering fashion in which you state it, may possibly produce atheism, the most unreasonable of all theories.” The Reformation “was unquestionably a reaction from the excess of sacerdotal assertiveness, and the abuse of ecclesiastical power in the latter centuries of the middle ages.” This excess “gave sharp offence to the delicate conscience of Martin Luther, and roused his sleeping wrath into a thunder-storm of holy indignation.” How? “By parading the public places, and marching through the highways of Christendom with a sacerdotal gospel of salvation by works—by conventional and arbitrary works, penances, and payments of various kinds imposed by authority of the all-powerful clergy, and having little or nothing in common with the morality of a pure life and a noble character.” “Against this abuse Luther protested exactly in the same way, and with similar effect, as St. Paul protested against the ritualism of the Jews.” “The just liveth by faith. This great doctrine has saved the world twice, once from the cumbrous and narrow-minded ceremonialism of the Jews, and again from the despotic and soul-stupefying sacerdotalism of the Romanists.”
All this trash is beneath discussion; it only shows that the author is little acquainted with the men and the doctrines to which he refers. He seems never to have reflected that such “delicate consciences” as that of Martin Luther had as little scruple about falsifying history as they had about marrying nuns, rebelling against authority, or shedding blood. Even Protestants would now smile at the “thunder-storm of holy indignation” roused in the good soul of Luther at the thought of a gospel of salvation by works of penance. Well might even Lucifer’s “delicate conscience” have burst into a storm of “holy indignation,” as he could not work out his salvation without controlling his pride; and he might have protested against God’s orders, just as Luther did, by alleging that “the just liveth by faith.” How the reformers succeeded in “saving the world” by this doctrine of salvation without works, can be argued from the fact, attested by our author himself, that “anarchy and confusion, with the braying of a theological ass here, the cackling of a clerical goose there, and the raving of a sectarian madman in a third quarter, began to show face to such a degree that sensible and quietly-disposed men, like Erasmus, became seriously alarmed before the spirits they had conjured up, and retreated, with a devout timidity, into the sacred ark of the old Catholic Church.” This confession speaks volumes.
The author describes a sort of rampant orthodoxy which delights in doctrinal exaggeration of mysteries, and which is never so happy as when it can plant itself behind the broad shield of unintelligible formulas and traditionary shibboleths, to pluck Reason by the beard, and bid open defiance to the grand principle of the Scottish philosophy called common sense. And this, he says, excites an atheistical reaction. We really do not know of any orthodoxy which delights in “plucking Reason by the beard.” The Scotch Presbyterians may have done something of the kind, but they have no claim to orthodoxy. True orthodoxy is nowhere but in the church whose centre is Rome. But the Roman Church never used unintelligible formulas, never had shibboleths, and never plucked Reason by the beard, but on the contrary made use of the plainest language and the best cultivated reason to teach the revealed truth, and to defend it against heretics and unbelievers. Had the Protestant sects as much regard for Reason, and for the great principle of the Scottish philosophy called common sense, they would soon perceive that their claim to orthodoxy is nonsensical and their Christianity a delusion. And if they were logical, they would not, when their ministers pluck Reason by the beard, feel inclined to an “atheistical reaction,” but would only conclude that their ministers do not belong to God’s church, and have neither grace nor mission to teach Christianity.
The author admits the necessity of faith; but he scouts the doctrine that whoso believes not every dogma about the divine nature shall be eternally damned.
“The spirit,” he says, “from which damnatory declarations of this kind proceed is a mingled spirit of ignorance, conceit, presumption, insolence, and pedantry, and has more to answer for in the way of creating atheism than any other fault of Christian preachers that has come under my observation. Against declarations of this kind, however solemnly made, and however traditionally hallowed, the moral and intellectual nature of the most soundly-constituted minds rises up in instinctive rebellion: the intellectual nature, because the propounding of dogmas in a scholastic form about the nature of the Supreme Being shows an utter ignorance of the proper functions and limits of the human intellect; and the moral nature even more emphatically, because to make fellowship in any religion conditional on the merely intellectual acceptance of an abstract proposition addressed to the understanding, is to remove religion altogether out of its own region, where it can bear fruit, and to transplant it into a soil where it can show only prickles that fret the skin, and thorns that go deeply into the flesh.”
This is wisdom! Therefore, according to this writer, to believe in three divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is unnecessary for salvation, and to say the contrary is conceit, insolence, and pedantry. It is difficult to conceive how a Christian could fall into such absurdity. The mystery of the Holy Trinity is the very base of Christianity. It is in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost that we are baptized; it is by the Son of God that we are redeemed; it is by the Holy Spirit that we are sanctified. Without this faith there is no Christianity, and without Christianity there is no salvation. We need not be afraid that “the moral and intellectual nature of the most soundly-constituted minds should rise up in instinctive rebellion” against this doctrine; for the history of eighteen centuries proves very conclusively that soundly-constituted minds have never rebelled against dogma. Nor do we see why the intellectual nature should denounce the use of the scholastic form in the propounding of dogmas. Such a form is clear, precise, and full of meaning; it is therefore the best intellectual form. And as to the moral nature, we can only say that nowhere is it more cultivated than in the Catholic Church—a truth which no one disputes—whilst the assumption that “the merely intellectual acceptance of an abstract proposition” suffices to qualify a man for religious fellowship, is a clear proof that the author has never read our Christian catechism.