An analysis of religious belief

by viscount John Russell Amberley

Yet the cases are in their natures identical. We see a table, and because we see it we infer the existence of a real thing external to ourselves. The presence of the sensations is conceived to be an adequate warrant for asserting the presence of their cause. Precisely in the same way, we feel the Unknowable Being, and because we feel it we infer the existence of a real object both external to ourselves and within ourselves. The presence of the emotion is conceived to be an adequate warrant for asserting the presence of its cause. Undoubtedly, the supposed object of the sensations and the supposed object of the emotion might be both of them illusory. This is conceivable in logic, though not in fact. But there can be no reason for maintaining the unreality of the emotional, and the reality of the sensible object. Existence is believed in both instances on the strength of an immediate, intuitional inference. The mental processes are exactly parallel. And if it be contended that sensible perception carries with it a stronger warrant for our belief in the existence of its objects than internal feeling, the reasons for this contention must be exhibited before we can be asked to accept it; otherwise, it will again turn out to be a pure assumption, constituting, not a reason for the rejection of religion by those who now accept it, but a mere explanation of the conduct of those who do not.

In fact, however, the denial of the truth of religion is no less emotional than its affirmation. It is not denied because those who disbelieve in it have anything to produce against it, but because the inner sense which results in religion is either absent in them, or too faint to produce its usual consequences. For this of course they are not to blame, and nothing can be more irrational than to charge them with moral delinquency or culpable blindness. If the Unknown Cause is not perceptible to them, that surely is not a deficiency to be laid to their charge. But when they quit the emotional stronghold wherein they are safe to speak of those to whom that Unknown Cause is perceptible as the victims of delusion, these latter may confidently meet them on the field which they themselves have chosen.

First, then, it is at least a rather startling supposition that their fellow creatures have always been, and are still, the victims of a universal delusion, from which they alone enjoy the privilege of exemption. Presumption, at all events, is against a man who asserts that everybody but himself sees wrongly. He may be the only person whose eyes have not deceived him, but we should require him to give the strongest proof of so extraordinary an assertion. And in all cases which are in the least degree similar, this condition is complied with without the smallest hesitation. There are, so far as I am aware, no instances of proved universal delusions, save those arising from the misleading suggestions of the senses. That the earth is a flat surface, that the sun moves round it, that the sun and moon are larger than the stars, that the blue sky begins at a fixed place, are inferences which the uninstructed observer cannot fail to draw from the most obvious appearances. But those who have combated these errors have not done so by merely telling the world at large that it was mistaken; they have pointed out the phenomena from which the erroneous inferences were drawn, and have shown at the same time that other phenomena, no less evident to the senses than these, were inconsistent with the explanation given. They have then substituted an explanation which accounted for all the phenomena alike, both the more obvious phenomena and the less so. Precisely similar is the method of procedure in history and philosophy, though the methods of proof in these sciences are not equally rigorous. Great historical delusions—such as the Popish plot—are put to rest by showing the misinterpreted facts out of which they have grown, exposing the misinterpretation, and substituting true interpretation. Imperfect psychological analysis, say of an emotion, is superseded by showing from what facts this analysis has been obtained, and what other facts it fails to account for.

Observe, then, that in all these cases the appeal is made from the first impressions of the mistaken person to his own impressions on further examination; not to those of another. Considerations are laid before him which it is supposed will cause him to change his mind, and in all that class of cases where strict demonstration is possible actually do so. To a man who believes the earth to be a flat extended surface we point out the fact that the top of a ship's mast is the first part of it to appear, and that this and other kindred phenomena imply sphericity. Our appeal is from the senses to the senses better informed; not from another man's senses to our own. And we justly assume that were all the world in possession of the facts we have before us, all the world would be of our opinion.

What, then, is the conclusion from these analogies? It surely is, that those who would deny the reality of the object of religious emotion must show from what appearances, misunderstood, the belief in that object has arisen, and must point out other appearances leading to other emotions which are in conflict with it. As the astronomer appeals from sensible perception to sensible perception, so they must appeal from emotion to emotion. But it must not be their own emotions to which they go as forming a standard for ours. They can demand no hearing at all until they attempt to influence the emotions of those whom they address.

Generality of belief need not, for the purposes of this argument, be taken as even a presumption of truth. We can grant our adversaries this advantage which, in the parallel cases of the illusions of the senses, was neither asked nor given. But we must ask them in return to concede to us that, if the generality of a belief entitles it to no weight in philosophic estimation, the singularity of a belief entitles it to none either. All mankind may be deluded: well and good: a fortiori a few individuals among mankind may be deluded too. Grant that the human faculties at large are subject to error and deception, it follows from this that the faculties of individuals lie under the same disability. No word can be said as to the general liability to false beliefs, which does not carry with it the liability to false beliefs of the very persons who are seeking to convince us.

By whom, in fact, are we asked to admit, in the interests of their peculiar theory, the prevalence of a universal deception, and a deception embracing in its grasp not only the ignorant multitude, but men of science, thinkers and philosophers of the very highest altitude of culture? By whom is it that the great mass of humankind is charged with baseless thoughts, illusory emotions, and untenable ideas? By those who, in thus denying the capacity of the whole human race to perceive the truth, nevertheless maintain their own capacity to see over the heads of their fellow men so far as to assert that they are all the victims of an error. By those who, while bidding us distrust the strongest feelings, nevertheless require us to trust them so far as to banish, at their bidding, those feelings from our hearts. Not from our reason to our more instructed reason do they appeal, only from our reason to their own. But I deny the competence of the tribunal; and I maintain that until not merely disbelief, but disproof, of the position of Religion can be offered, Religion must remain in possession of the field.

Yet there is one mistake which, as it may tend to obscure the issue, it will be desirable to clear away. It is often contended, oftener perhaps tacitly assumed, that the burden of proof must rest on those who in any case maintain the affirmative side of a belief, while the negative on its side requires no proof, but can simply claim reception until the affirmative is established. Now this principle is true, where the negative is simply a suspension of judgment; the mere non-acceptance of a fact asserted, without a counter-assertion of its opposite. To understand the true application of the rule we must distinguish between what I will term substantial affirmations or negations, and affirmations or negations in form. Thus, to assert that A. B. is six feet tall, is a substantial affirmation. Out of many possible alternatives it selects one, and postulates that one as true, while all the rest it discards as false. Since, however, there are numerous possibilities besides this one with regard to A. B.'s height—since he may be either taller or shorter by various degrees—the negative, in the absence of all knowledge on the subject, is inherently more probable, for it covers a larger ground. It is a substantial negation. That is, it affirms nothing at all, but simply questions the fact affirmed, leaving the field open to countless other substantial affirmations. So, in law, it is the prosecution which is required to prove its case; for the prosecution affirms that this man was at a given place at a given time and did the criminal action. The opposite hypothesis of this covers innumerable alternatives: not this man but another, may have been at that place, or he may have been there and not done the action charged, or some other man may have done it, or the crime may have not been committed at all, and so forth. These are cases of substantial affirmations; asserting one alone out of many conceivable possibilities, and therefore needing proof. And their opposites are substantial negations; questioning only the one fact affirmed, and even with reference to that merely maintaining that in the absence of proof there is an inherent probability in favor of the negative side.

Widely different is the case before us. Here the affirmation and negation are affirmative and negative in form alone. The assertions, "An Unknowable Being exists," and "An Unknowable Being does not exist," are not opposed to one another as the affirmative and the negative sides were opposed in the previous cases. The latter proposition does not cover a number of possible alternatives whereof the former selects and affirms a single one. Both propositions are true and substantial affirmations. Both assert a supposed actual fact. And the latter does not, as the previous negative propositions did, leave the judgment in simple suspense. It requires assent to a given doctrine. That the one cast is in a negative form is the mere accident of expression, and without in any way affecting their substance, their positions in this respect may be reversed. Thus, we may say for the first, "The universe cannot exist without an Unknowable Being;" and for the second, "The universe can exist without an Unknowable Being." There are not here a multitude of alternatives, but two only, and of these each side affirms one. Each proposition is equally the assertion of a positive belief. Thus, the reason which, in general, causes the greater antecedent probability of a denial as against a positive assertion, in no way applies to the denial of the fundamental postulate of Religion. The statement that there is nobody in a certain room is not in itself more probable than the statement that there is somebody. And the proposition: "all men are not mortal," though negative in form, is truly as affirmative as the counter-proposition: "all men are mortal."

But this argument, inasmuch as it places the denial of all truth in the religious emotion on a level with its affirmation, fails to do justice to the real strength of the case. There are not here two contending beliefs, of which the one is as probable as the other. In conceding so much to the skeptical party we have given them a far greater advantage than they are entitled to demand. Generality of belief is, in the absence of evidence or argument to the contrary, a presumption of truth; for, unless its origin from some kind of fallacy can be shown, its generality is in itself a proof that it persists in virtue of the general laws of mind which forbid the separation of its subject from its predicate. And it is not only that we have here a general belief, or, more correctly speaking, a general emotion, but we have categories in the human mind which are not filled up or capable of being filled up by the objective element in the religious idea. There is, for example, the category of Cause; Nature presents us not with Cause, but with causes; and these causes are mere antecedents, physical causation in general being nothing whatever but invariable antecedents and invariable sequence. But this analysis of the facts of nature by no means satisfies the conception of causation which is rooted in the human mind. That conception imperiously demands a cause which is not a mere antecedent, but a Power. Without that, the idea would remain as a blank form, having no reality to fill it. And how do we come to be in the firm possession of this idea if there be nothing in nature corresponding to it? From what phenomena could it be derived? Akin to our notion of Cause is our notion of Force. When the scientific man speaks of a Force, he merely means an unknown something which effects certain movements. And Science cannot possibly dispense with the metaphysical idea of Force. Yet Force is not only unknowable; but it is the Unknowable manifested in certain modes. Again, therefore, I ask, whence do we derive ineradicable feeling of the manifestation of Force, if that feeling be a mere illusion? Similar remarks apply to other categories which, like these, have no objects in actual existence in the conformity of the religious sentiment to truth be denied. Such is the category of Reality. Imagination cannot picture the world save as containing, though in its essence unknown to us, some real and permanent being. We know it only as a compound of phenomena, all of them fleeting, variable, and unsubstantial. There is nothing in the phenomena which can satisfy our mental demand for absolute being. As being transient, and as being relative, the phenomena in fact are nothing. But our intellectual, our emotional, and our moral natures demand the τό ὃντως ὄν—that which really is, as the necessary completion of
τὰ φαινόμεα—that which only appears. And it is precisely the unshakeable belief in an unchangeable, though unknowable Reality; an everlasting Truth amid shifting forms, a Substance among shadows, which forms the universal foundation of religious faith.