Again, there is the religious feeling evoked by that strongest emotion of all—sexual love; the one excites the other, and the effect produced may be beneficial or may be mischievous. But sexual love appears to me a strange aid to the worship of God; and persons who really imagine they are nearer Him when in this state of emotion most certainly deceive themselves. The ascetic who is debarred from this particular “religious” experience should agree with me.
REVIVALISM.
An examination of religious experiences, however brief, cannot well omit all mention of the question of revivalism. Has it an ethical value? Has it a spiritual meaning? To the latter question the answer of the Church is for the most part in the affirmative. In his Pentecostal message for Whitsuntide, 1905, the Archbishop of Canterbury refers, without directly naming them, to the extraordinary movement of which the young Evan Roberts has been the leader, and to the preaching of Messrs. Torrey and Alexander in London. “To whatever cause or combination of causes we may attribute it,” he says, “the fact appears to be certain that expression has this year been given in an unusual degree to a desire for increased spiritual earnestness in the Christian life.” I shall not embark upon the question of the spiritual signification of revivalism. My remarks on other religious experiences may be taken to apply here also. Regarding its ethical value, I fancy most thoughtful onlookers will be with me when I say that it is unadvisable to stir up hysteria in hysterical people just for the sake of effects, the usefulness of which is extremely problematical—effects which, if they benefit a few, are harmful to the majority, and, in any case, are unlikely to be of a permanent nature. We have it on excellent authority that “emotional appeals and revivals do not destroy carnal sin in schools, and it is well known how often they seem to stimulate, to increase, immorality.”[51]
§ 6. The Inevitable Conclusion.
A candid and unbiassed examination of the so-called theistic proofs can but lead to the one conclusion: they are worthless. Even if the cosmological and teleological arguments were satisfactory, and even if “religious” experiences proved the existence of a spirit world, the ethical argument undoubtedly breaks down, carrying along with it all that fragile structure of which the theist’s theories are composed. Yes, the problem of evil is insoluble. “We have not,” says John Stuart Mill,[52] “to attempt the impossible problem of reconciling infinite benevolence and justice with infinite power in the Creator of such a world as this. To attempt to do so not only involves absolute contradiction in an intellectual point of view, but exhibits to excess the revolting spectacle of a Jesuitical defence of moral enormities.” The latest defence by an approved apologist of the Church of England will be found in chap. xiv. of Pro Fide. It has been conducted with conspicuous candour, and such harsh terms as “Jesuitical” and “revolting” are no longer applicable. Whether, however, this is likely to prove any more successful than previous attempts, and to serve as an antidote to scepticism, may be seen by a glance at the following summary of the line of argument. The author relies, to begin with, upon the theological assumption that moral evil arises from the abuse of God’s gift to man of a free will. He also argues that the transmission of a tendency to sin is not unjust, because a remedy for it has been provided. As for physical evil, this, he maintains, subserves important moral purposes in the case of man, and in the case of animals it is more than compensated for by physical good. In the end, however, he is forced, as we have seen, to fall back upon the hypothesis of a personal devil. In other words, he presents us with those sophistical arguments of theistic apologists which we have been investigating, and then, finding, as a perfectly honest mind must find, that these are inadequate, he has, after all, to rely upon those ancient theological dogmas which owe their origin to the insolubility of the problem. Let those accept his special pleading who can. There are many who read an apologetic work with minds already made up to be persuaded by it, and where there is this bias there cannot be straight thinking. For those who keep an open mind the conclusion is inevitable: apart from the revelation which has been called in question there is no proof, there never can be any proof, of the existence of the God of the Christian. If there be a First Cause, if there be a Supreme Intelligence, if there be a Deity at all, we know nothing of His nature and nothing of His intentions with regard to us.
NOTE ON RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY.
An examination of the development of philosophy leads to conclusions of considerable import. Our present inquiry can be only an exceedingly rapid one; but anyone wishing to study the subject a little more fully will find it concisely treated in a book called Science and Faith, by Dr. Paul Topinard, late General Secretary of the Anthropological Society of Paris. From Chapter VIII. I cull the following:—
“Animals, in the presence of phenomena which they do not understand, retire confounded. Savage man does the same. But he, at least, hazards the attempt of an explanation by investing the objects or phenomena in question with life and sentiments similar to his own. Later this same savage, discovering or believing to discover in himself a double being, the one corporeal and the other spiritual, transfers the new notions regarding himself to objects without himself, to stones, plants, animals, or stars.... Religions, at first more or less elementary, with their founders and priests, do not appear until later.... For a long time the sorcerer—that is to say, a man less credulous than the rest, and adroit in the sense of knowing how to reap personal advantage from the beliefs of his fellows—stood alone in his class. Sorcerer and medicine man at once, he distributed amulets, drove out spirits from the bodies of the deceased, and caused the rains to fall.... The sacerdotal caste arose, at times recruiting itself from the outside and at times hereditary. More intelligent than the others, more disposed to reflect, the priests were naturally inclined to seek more satisfactory explanations from the phenomena of nature, to distinguish general causes from particular causes, to reduce the number of the spirits, to champion the most important of these, and even to symbolise many of them. The cult of heroes, of personages in the tribe who had rendered it valuable services, and of ancestors, was mingled with the preceding beliefs. Having to speak to simple people, for whom it was necessary to materialise things, they were obliged to recast their ideas and to expound them by the help of fables and myths, which soon essayed to explain in a tangible form the origin of things, the existing phenomena of nature, and often to guide the conduct of men. These were the first attempts of philosophy, already as utilitarian as they were mystical.”
“Religions consecrated a multitude of usages and ceremonies from which the sacerdotal class lived, and which greatly augmented its power; and they also exerted a strong political influence. Again, they led up to genuine moral codes, such as those of Brahma and Buddha in India, and Confucius in China.... The utilitarian idea appears to have dominated among the Phœnician and Canaanite peoples. It gave rise to the doctrine of a personal national God, who had created man and the people whom he had chosen and whose destinies he directed. He exacted from them blind and exclusive worship and obedience to the laws which he promulgated. In return he protected them, reserving his right of terrestrial punishment.... The Egyptians are related to the Hindus by their belief in metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls from animal to animal.... The conception of a judgment after death passed through these peoples [the Egyptians] to the polytheism of Greece and Rome.... Greek philosophy rose audaciously to the loftiest and boldest conceptions, not conceptions crowning an intellectual edifice, but conceptions which dominate it in imaginary realms of space. Aristotle belongs apart. He is at once scientist and philosopher. He observes nature. He is the founder of natural history, of anthropology, of political science, and of political economy. According to Graef, he is also the founder of political philosophy, because he was the first to introduce positive facts into philosophy.... In the general run, they [the Greek philosophers] were dialecticians, sophists, and intellectual gymnasts only. But, such as they were, they founded free inquiry, disintegrated the national polytheistic beliefs, and prepared the way for the revolution which was on the verge of accomplishment.”