Is Life Worth Living?

by W. H. Mallock

CHAPTER XII.

UNIVERSAL HISTORY AND THE CLAIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

Oh the little more, and how much it is, And the little less, and what worlds away!—Robert Browning.

And now we come to the last objections left us, of those which modern thought has arrayed against the Christian Revelation; and these to many minds are the most conclusive and overwhelming of all—the objections raised against it by a critical study of history. Hitherto we have been considering the Church only with reference to our general sense of the fitness and the rational probability of things. We have now to consider her with reference to special facts. Her claims and her character, as she exists at present, may make perhaps appeal overpoweringly to us; but she cannot be judged only by these. For these are closely bound up with a long earthly history, which the Church herself has written in one way, binding herself to stand or fall by the truth of it; and this all the secular wisdom of the world seems to be re-writing in quite another. This subject is so vast and intricate that even to approach the details of it would require volumes, not a single chapter. But room in a chapter may be found for one thing, of prior importance to any mass of detail; and that is a simple statement of the principles—unknown to, or forgotten by external critics—by which all this mass of detail is to be interpreted.

Let us remember first, then, to take a general view of the matter, that history as cited in witness against the Christian Revelation, divides itself into two main branches. The one is a critical examination of Christianity, taken by itself—the authorship, and the authenticity of its sacred books, and the origin and growth of its doctrines. The other is a critical examination of Christianity as compared with other religions. And the result of both these lines of study is, to those brought up in the old faith, to the last degree startling, and in appearance at least altogether disastrous. Let us sum up briefly the general results of them; and first of these the historical.

We shall begin naturally with the Bible, as giving us the earliest historical point at which Christianity is assailable. What then has modern criticism accomplished on the Bible? The Biblical account of the creation it has shown to be, in its literal sense, an impossible fable. To passages thought mystical and prophetic it has assigned the homeliest, and often retrospective meanings. Everywhere at its touch what seemed supernatural has been humanized, and the divinity that hedged the records has rapidly abandoned them. And now looked at in the common daylight their whole aspect changes for us; and stories that we once accepted with a solemn reverence seem childish, ridiculous, grotesque, and not unfrequently barbarous. Or if we are hardly prepared to admit so much as this, this much at least has been established firmly—that the Bible, if it does not give the lie itself to the astonishing claims that have been made for it, contains nothing in itself, at any rate, that can of itself be sufficient to support them. This applies to the New Testament just as much as to the Old; and the consequences here are even more momentous. Weighed as mere human testimony, the value of the Gospels becomes doubtful or insignificant. For the miracles of Christ, and for his superhuman nature, they contain little evidence, that even tends to be satisfactory; and even his daily words and actions it seems probable may have been inaccurately reported, in some cases perhaps invented, and in others supplied by a deceiving memory. When we pass from the Gospels to the Epistles, a kindred sight presents itself. We discern in them the writings of men not inspired from above; but, with many disagreements amongst themselves, struggling upwards from below, influenced by a variety of existing views, and doubtful which of them to assimilate. We discern in them, as we do in other writers, the products of their age and of their circumstances. The materials out of which they formed their doctrines we can find in the lay world around them. And as we follow the Church's history farther, and examine the appearance and the growth of her great subsequent dogmas, we can trace all of them to a natural and a non-Christian origin. We can see, for instance, how in part, at least, men conceived the idea of the Trinity from the teachings of Greek Mysticism; and how the theory of the Atonement was shaped by the ideas of Roman Jurisprudence. Everywhere, in fact, in the holy building supposed to have come down from God, we detect fragments of older structures, confessedly of earthly workmanship.

But the matter does not end here. Historical science not only shows us Christianity, with its sacred history, in this new light; but it sets other religions by the side of it, and shows us that their course through the world has been strangely similar. They too have had their sacred books, and their incarnate Gods for prophets; they have had their priesthoods, their traditions, and their growing bodies of doctrine: there is nothing in Christianity that cannot find its counterpart, even to the most marked details, in the life of its founder. Two centuries, for instance, before the birth of Christ, Buddha is said to have been born without human father. Angels sang in heaven to announce his advent; an aged hermit blessed him in his mother's arms; a monarch was advised, though he refused, to destroy the child, who, it was predicted, should be a universal ruler. It is told how he was once lost, and was found again in a temple; and how his young wisdom astonished all the doctors. A woman in a crowd was rebuked by him for exclaiming, 'Blessed is the womb that bare thee.' His prophetic career began when he was about thirty years old; and one of the most solemn events of it is his temptation in solitude by the evil one. Everywhere, indeed, in other religions we are discovering things that we once thought peculiar to the Christian. And thus the fatal inference is being drawn on all sides, that they have all sprung from a common and an earthly root, and that one has no more certainty than another. And thus another blow is dealt to a faith that was already weakened. Not only, it is thought, can Christianity not prove itself in any supernatural sense to be sacred, but other religions prove that even in a natural sense it is not singular. It has not come down from heaven: it is not exceptional even in its attempt to rise to it.

Such are the broad conclusions which in these days seem to be forced upon us; and which knowledge, as it daily widens, would seem to be daily strengthening. But are these altogether so destructive as they seem? Let us enquire into this more closely. If we do this, it will be soon apparent that the so-called enlightened and critical modern judgment has been misled as to this point by an error I have already dwelt upon. It has considered Christianity solely as represented by Protestantism; or if it has glanced at Rome at all, it has ignorantly dismissed as weaknesses the doctrines which are the essence of her strength. Now, as far as Protestantism is concerned, the modern critical judgment is undoubtedly in the right. Not only, as I have pointed out already, has experience proved the practical incoherency of its superstructure, but criticism has washed away like sand every vestige of its supernatural foundation. If Christianity relies solely, in proof of its revealed message to us, on the external evidences as to its history and the source of its doctrines, it can never again hope to convince men. The supports of external evidence are quite inadequate to the weight that is put upon them. They might possibly serve as props; but they crush and crumble instantly, when they are used as pillars. And as pillars it is that Protestantism is compelled to use them. It will be quite sufficient, here, to confine our attention to the Bible, and the place which it occupies in the structure of the Protestant fabric. 'There—in that book,' says Protestantism, 'is the Word of God; there is my unerring guide; I listen to none but that. All special Churches have varied, and have therefore erred; but it is my first axiom that that book has never erred. On that book, and on that book only, do I rest myself; and out of its mouth shall you judge me.' And for a long time this language had much force in it; for the Protestant axiom was received by all parties. It is true, indeed, as we have seen already, that in the absence of an authoritative interpreter, an ambiguous testament would itself have little authority. But it took a long time for men to perceive this; and all admitted meanwhile that the testament was there, and it at any rate meant something. But now all this is changed. The great Protestant axiom is received by the world no longer. To many it seems not an axiom, but an absurdity; at best it appears but as a very doubtful fact: and if external proof is to be the thing that guides us, we shall need more proof to convince us that the Bible is the Word of God, than that Protestantism is the religion of the Bible.

We need not pursue the enquiry further, nor ask how Protestantism will fare at the hands of Comparative Mythology. The blow dealt by Biblical criticism is to all appearances mortal, and there is no need to look about for a second. But let us turn to Catholicism, and we shall see that the whole case is different. To its past history, to external evidence, and to the religions outside itself, Protestant Christianity bears one relation, and Roman Christianity quite another.

Protestantism offers itself to the world as a strange servant might, bringing with it a number of written testimonials. It asks us to examine them, and by them to judge of its merits. It expressly begs us not to trust to its own word. 'I cannot,' it says, 'rely upon my memory. It has failed me often; it may fail me again. But look at these testimonials in my favour, and judge me only by them.' And the world looks at them, examines them carefully; it at last sees that they look suspicious, and that they may, very possibly, be forgeries. It ask the Protestant Church to prove them genuine; and the Protestant Church cannot.