The Churches and Modern Thought

(h) IS A NEW RELIGION365 REQUIRED?

If the latter be a correct estimate of the place religion occupies in man’s nature, it furnishes a reply to one of the objections to Agnostic propaganda—the objection that, before we discard an existing belief, we must be prepared to substitute a new belief in its place. It is this objection that has given rise to those speculative philosophies which the common sense of the vast majority has rightly decided are unsatisfactory; a decision that the Church has not unnaturally seized upon as a triumphant vindication of the truth of Christianity.

Against this objection to militant Rationalism, this plea for silence, I may be permitted to enter my protest in the weighty words of a well-known writer. “It is alleged,” says the author of Supernatural Religion, “that, before existing belief is disturbed, the iconoclast is bound to provide a substitute for the shattered idol. To this we may reply that speech or silence does not alter the reality of things. The recognition of truth cannot be made dependent on consequences, or be trammelled by considerations of spurious expediency. Its declaration in a serious and suitable manner to those who are capable of judging can never be premature. Its suppression cannot be effectual, and is only a humiliating compromise with conscious imposture. In so far as morality is concerned, belief in a system of future rewards and punishments, although of an intensely degraded character, may, to a certain extent, have promoted observance of the letter of the law in darker ages, and even in our own times; but it may, we think, be shown that education and civilisation have done infinitely more to enforce its spirit. How far Christianity has promoted education and civilisation we shall not here venture adequately to discuss. We may emphatically assert, however, that whatever beneficial effect Christianity has produced has been due, not to its supernatural dogmas, but to its simple morality. Dogmatic theology, on the contrary, has retarded education and impeded science.... Even now the friction of theological resistance is a constant waste of intellectual power.... The choice of a noble life is no longer a theological question, and ecclesiastical patents of truth and uprightness have finally expired. Morality, which has ever changed its complexion and modified its injunctions according to social requirements, will necessarily be enforced as part of human evolution, and is not dependent on religious terrorism or superstitious persuasion. If we are disposed to say: Cui bono? and only practise morality, or be ruled by right principles, to gain a heaven or escape a hell, there is nothing lost, for such a grudging and calculated morality is merely a spurious imitation which can as well be produced by social compulsion.”366 “If,” as George Eliot once pithily remarked, “you feel no motive to common morality but a criminal bar in heaven, you are decidedly a man for the police on earth to keep their eye upon.”

(i) WHY BE SO IMPATIENT OF ERROR?

There is one more argument against militant Rationalism which demands our attention. “Why should we be so impatient of error?” asks Sir Leslie Stephen. “The enormous majority of the race has, on any hypothesis, been plunged in superstitions of various kinds, and, on the whole, it has found that it could thrive and be decently happy and contented in its ignorance. Science declines to accept catastrophes; and no catastrophe would be more startling than a sudden dispersal of the mists that have obscured the human intelligence for so many ages. If they grow a little thinner in our time, we may well be content; but is it not childish to be impatient about the rate of development of these vast secular [age-long] processes? Why be in such a hurry to ‘change the errors of the Church of Rome for those of the Church of the Future’?”367 I hope I have already answered this question to the satisfaction of some at least of my readers. I have shown that there is a very real danger in further concealment—in keeping up the farce. But let this pass. The reason why we should be impatient of error—why the truth should be told—is that the elimination of error will usher in an era of greater happiness.

In order that we may the more clearly perceive this, I shall now conclude this book with a rapid survey of the arguments for Rationalism.

§ 4. The Outlook

When Rationalism reigns supreme,—

1. Morality will be founded on a firm basis. Its origin and necessity being better understood, it will also be better practised, whether in commerce, in politics, or in our social relations—i.e., both in our public and in our private conduct. Also the present atmosphere of religious insincerity will be cleared. Relieved of this temptation to deceive our neighbour and even ourselves, our moral fibre will be strengthened, and we shall be far less likely to be hypocrites in other matters.

2. Social evils will stand a better chance of being redressed.

3. All religious intolerance will disappear once and for all.

4. An era of peace and happiness may at last be realised, because the methods of its attainment will be scientific and rational. We shall have recognised the fact that a gospel which proclaims a sword and eternal damnation cannot at the same time be a gospel of good tidings, cannot bring “Peace on earth, goodwill towards men.”

It may be said that such optimism is absurd, but is it really so?

Morality.—Have we not seen368 that morality can be taught apart from belief, and, indeed, that it is better so taught? May we not reasonably expect, therefore, that morality will advance side by side with Rationalism? In the famous words of Kant, “The death of dogma is the birth of morals.” Our moral progress has not been checked by the machinations of devils, but rather by our belief in such personages. Also by our ignorance—ignorance of the origin and purpose of morality, ignorance of the true causes of immorality, ignorance of the laws of heredity and environment. Science is the good fairy who will assist moral weaklings, and reduce their numbers in succeeding generations. Supernatural religion was perhaps a phase through which humanity had to grope towards the light of reason and knowledge. “But we are now facing the dawn of that better and happier day when piety shall be confined within the sphere of the natural, when morals shall be looked upon and cultivated as essential conditions of a truly blessed social life, and when all mankind shall aim, not at imaginary happiness in a purely imaginary realm, but at real prosperity in a profoundly real world. This would be the exaltation, not destruction, of morality; the glorification, not annihilation, of the sense of responsibility; the enthronement, not repudiation, of the joy of altruistic service.”369

Social Problems.—Broad-minded divines are now exalting the service of man as it has never before been exalted. “Serve men,” they say, “and you will find God. Help men, and Christ is here.”370 “The test of Christianity is,” Canon Wilson informs us, “the resolve and the power of Christians to solve social problems. If the Bible inspires Christians with the zeal and the wisdom and the love needed for this task, no one will dispute its claims to be verily ‘the Word of God.’”371 This inspiration to improve the lot of our fellow-creatures furnishes, we are told, the final test of the Bible’s truth. We are entitled to ask, therefore, How comes it that the inspiration has hitherto so signally failed to manifest itself, and that it only appears now when the aspirations of the democracy can no longer be disregarded? To give an example from history, did not slavery flourish side by side with the Christian Church?372 Was it not abolished only when the further development of humanitarian principles caused men’s hearts to rebel against its cruelty and injustice?

The Church is at last devoting more attention to social evils and to the removal of their causes. What has taught her this duty if it be not the growing spirit of nationalism?373 The Church has been forced, as it were, to keep pace with the rise of Rationalism. It is her only chance of prolonging her existence. Her new attitude in this respect will undoubtedly be the means of confusing the issue—the truth of Christianity—for some years to come. Therefore it is that, while thankful for the improvement, it is our bounden duty to expose the real truth of the matter—to see that Rationalism is not robbed of its due meed of praise, that the merit of the improvement is ascribed to its proper source.

Also we are to see that the process of improvement is not delayed. Undoubtedly the progress of Rationalism will ultimately involve important changes in political institutions and philosophic theories; but it is the cure of social evils which cannot be wrought too soon. In proportion as we accept the natural and reject the supernatural diagnosis of social diseases so shall we alleviate and possibly cure them.

Religious Tolerance.—Have we not seen that religious intolerance has been the evil genius which throughout the history of Christianity has been an enemy of progress and a lively cause of strife and misery? “The Christian Church has been more cruel and shed more human blood than any other Church or institution in the world. Let the Jew alone bear witness among the crowd of victims.”374 Also, Christians, in the course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on each other than they have ever experienced from the zeal of infidels.375

Christians have burnt each other, quite persuadedThat all the Apostles would have done as they did.

To-day, despite the rise and influence of Rationalism in Europe, “racial and religious prejudice are certainly present among us, and they form a latent source of cruelty and injustice which can at any time, if we are weak enough or wicked enough to give it free play, stain the land with the most amazing oppressions.”376 Religious animus, even in a country priding itself on its tolerant spirit, has by no means burnt itself out. Do we not see it flaring up again in the “War of the Kirks,” the Education controversy, and the arguments for the retention of the Athanasian Creed?

It is necessary, as Buckle observes,377 that men should learn to doubt, before they begin to tolerate; and that they should recognise the fallibility of their own opinions, before they respect the opinions of their opponents. We may never entirely agree on questions that are for the present at least shrouded in mystery; but, though the old adage, “Quot homines, tot sententiæ,” may remain true for all time, wide differences of opinion will disappear, and with them the odium theologicum. There can only be intolerance where belief is dogmatic, and that the religion of the future will never be. The uncertainty, the reasons why others may not be able to accept this or that philosophic speculation, will be recognised.

If any discoveries await us, we are sure, at all events, that they will not confirm a dogma that would consign the greater portion of the human race to unspeakable and eternal torment; they will not confirm Christ’s description of the Last Judgment, when the Son of Man is to say: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels.” It is the fashion nowadays for Latitudinarians to explain away everything that appears too incongruous or vindictive, and the word “everlasting” is said to be a mistranslation; but the meaning of one at least of the sayings attributed to Jesus is only too clear: “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt. xxii. 14.) What, then, is to become of the many? If we are to believe the “Word of God,” their awful fate, temporary or otherwise, is certain—“Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Rev. xx. 15); or again, “And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. xiii. 42). It is cruel doctrines of this kind that have arrested the growth of love and pity, and Rationalism is therefore the sworn enemy of such doctrines, as well as of the religious intolerance which springs from them.

Peace. 378—In an address by the late Archbishop of Canterbury, when Bishop of London, delivered at the Polytechnic, Regent Street,379 we are presented with an argument of Christian apologetics, the weight of which rests upon the presumption that Christ did not wish the Church to begin with any bloodshed! “It is sometimes questioned,” said Dr. Temple, “by those who would throw discredit upon the narrative, that our Lord tells them [the disciples] to go into Galilee, and yet He intended to see them that evening. But the whole thing is perfectly clear to those who consider the circumstances. Our Lord appeared to them in the evening, and there can be no doubt that He intended to do so even when He told these women that they were to desire all the disciples to go down into Galilee. But it was of great importance that there should be no gathering of the disciples in Jerusalem, because the inevitable result would have been an alarm on the part of the Jews, and Pontius Pilate would have been compelled, in order to keep the city perfectly quiet, to disperse such an assembly by force; and it is likely enough that the Church would have begun with bloodshed. But our Lord did not choose to have any such beginning. He told them all to go into Galilee.” Are there any grounds for this presumption, any grounds for presuming that God ever wishes to prevent bloodshed? None whatever from a study of history. None whatever from a study of the Bible. None whatever from a study of Christ’s own words: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword.”

Look at the present day! “We live in a time,” exclaims the Kaiser,380 “in which every young German capable of bearing arms must be ready to step forward for his Fatherland.” “The signs of the times make it the duty of the nation to strengthen its defences against unrighteous attacks.”381 “History, viewed as a whole,” says Major Stewart Murray,382 warningly, “is nothing but a succession of struggles for existence among rival nations, in which, in the long run, only the strong armed survive.” Similar notes of warning are echoing and re-echoing through the length and breadth of Christendom. Is this no reflection upon Christianity’s power for good? Look at the picture! Christian nations all armed to the teeth, with their “powder dry” and their “swords keen,” each distrustful of the other, each ready to spring at the other’s throat.

What has the Rationalist to say to this state of things? What remedy does he propose to apply? The prophets foretell that we can look forward to the abolition of war only when the engines of destruction—flying ships armed with weapons of death, for example—are of so fearful a nature that it will at last be brought home to mortals that this clumsy and barbarous machine for settling disputes is too absurd, too suicidal for further employment. But need we wait long weary years, burdened with the thousand and one curses of war and militarism,383 till this supreme horror has been invented?

In the resolution adopted at the Fourteenth Peace Congress384 we find the following stirring appeal: “We are beginning to understand that the rights of the citizen within the State can only be fully respected when, by the establishment of international juridical order, absolute security shall be obtained for all nations. The demand for this international security is becoming daily more urgent, on the one hand because modern progress binds together millions of the most diverse interests, on the other hand because the stream of democracy, or what it would be more proper to call the aspirations of the masses of the people after happiness, is rising continually in an immense and irresistible flood. International security can only be assured by federation; so federation will come about, for it is indispensable as liberty to the citizen, as air to the lungs. But it behoves us to see that it comes before we are laid in the tomb. What we ought to labour for with an unresting ardour is that federation should be accomplished while we are yet alive, so that we may not be thwarted of the legitimate share of happiness that belongs to us here below.” Yes, this strikes the right chord; but before the hopes of these peace enthusiasts can be fulfilled Rationalism must have advanced considerably further than it has up to the present. At the third National Peace Congress held at Birmingham on June 13th and 14th, 1906, the opinion was expressed that the King and the working classes were already on the side of peace, and it only remained, therefore, to convert the Church and the middle classes. How are we to set about their conversion? Even if we could persuade the Church that war was not an essential to the welfare of nations, we could hardly expect her to agree with us at present either as to the cause or the cure of the evil. The prime cause of war is Nature’s cruel law, the “struggle for existence”; and the Rationalist’s proposals for its alleviation run counter to the teachings of the Church. For this among other cogent reasons, I conceive that it behoves us to see that the truth about Christianity be known “before we are laid in the tomb,” and that “what we ought to labour for with an unresting ardour” is that this “should be accomplished while we are yet alive, so that we may not be thwarted of the legitimate share of happiness that belongs to us here below.”

The close association of war and religion has never ceased to act for the injury of mankind. The “Lord of Hosts,” the “Lord mighty in battle,” is expected to take interest in bloodshed rather than in the pursuits of peace, and to be always ready to join in the fray—to fight for His People; both sides, be it remembered, claiming His assistance. True Christianity owns as its Master a Prince of Peace; but in no particular has its failure in practice been more marked than in its impotency to carry out this, one of its chief missions. Why? Apart from religion being frequently the actual occasion of the strife,385 is it not because it has always meddled in politics, always supported rulers in their ambitions, in their land-hunger? Is it not because religion has too often submitted to be “a ‘kept’ priest to bless or ban as the passion or self-interest of its employer dictated?”386

It is as futile as it is insincere for a Tsar387 to preach peace, when he, or rather his counsellors, are imbued with a hunger for other people’s property, and, hypocrites that they are, hide their real motives under the cloak of religion, calling it, forsooth, the spreading of a Christian civilisation. Every Rationalist, every Freethinker, is an honest advocate of peace.388 He is not so irrational, so immoral I might say, as to propose the settlement of disputes by arbitration, and at the same time to entertain nefarious projects calculated to render this method impracticable. So long as Christian nations remain unmindful of the Tenth Commandment, he acknowledges with sorrow that we must continue armed and ready to do battle; but he looks forward with confidence to the day when there will be such an overwhelming body of men earnestly and sincerely desirous of peace that war will be impossible, simply because the preponderating voice of each and every nation will be against it—will “seek peace and ensue it.” He anticipates a time when men will realise that they are not only citizens of this or that country, but fellow citizens also on the same planet.

§ 5. Concluding Remarks

An eminent theologian tells us: “Reason is the only faculty we have wherewith to judge concerning anything, even Revelation itself.”389 How is it, then, that Religionist and Rationalist arrive at such contrary conclusions? The explanation is simple enough: the Religionist trusts, the Rationalist distrusts, his emotions. Which is in the right? The survival of religious belief will largely depend upon the view men may ultimately take upon this question. Whether religion be no more than “morality touched by emotion,” as Matthew Arnold defines it,390 or whether all religions are only different ways of expressing a reality which transcends experience and correct expression, we cannot, on that account, accept dogmas that are untrue; we cannot pretend that a supernatural revelation has been vouchsafed to us. We may surmise, as Sir Henry Thompson supposed, that the “eternal and infinite energy behind phenomena” is what we call “God”; but we have to admit that this God is an unknown God, and that all attempts to unravel the mystery that surrounds our own fate are the merest guesses in the dark. Does a surmise—a belief if you will have it so—of this kind afford any religious satisfaction? If this Eternal Energy possesses what we should call a mind, can we worship a Supreme Intelligence

“Which stoops not either to bless or ban,Weaving the woof of an endless plan”?

Can we worship the Unknown? Can we, like the Athenians of old, erect altars to the Unknown God? I trow not. The age of ignorance and superstition is slowly, but none the less surely, passing away, never again to return.

Sir Oliver Lodge believes391 in “the ultimate intelligibility of the universe,” and with this opinion many of us will agree. Perhaps our present brains may require considerable improvement before we can grasp the deepest things by their aid, or perhaps they will suffice as they are, and only a further acquisition of knowledge may be required. In any case, one sees no reason why, because we have no acceptable theory of life or of death now, we must therefore be equally ignorant many centuries, or even a single century, hence. On the other hand, it is, of course, quite possible that these mysteries may remain for ever unexplained. It may transpire that Haeckel’s assumption of a monism in the physical world, and his identification of vital force with ordinary physical and chemical forces, are incorrect. It may transpire that Professor le Conte was wrong in regarding vital force as just so much withdrawn from the general fund of chemical and physical forces. Radio-activity and the cyanic theory392 may not furnish a satisfactory solution of the problem of the first appearance of life upon this globe. But one thing, at all events, our present knowledge seems clearly to indicate: the solution of the problem cannot be in accord with the Christian dogmas. Should the secrets of our existence still lie concealed in the womb of time, their birth will be the death, not the renascence, of the dying creeds of to-day.

Meanwhile our present course is clearly defined: we should search out and expose all false premises of belief. Only in this way can we hope to arrive a little nearer to the ultimate truth. Also, what is of much greater consequence, when all that is demonstrably untrue in the world’s beliefs has been pointed out and acknowledged, believers and unbelievers will be in far better accord concerning all that is vital to the well-being of the human race. “We cannot,” as Mr. Trevelyan pertinently remarks,393 “alter the nature of the Unknown by conceiving it to be other than that which it is; but we can get a wrong basis for ethics, and a false sentimental outlook on everything, by reason of false beliefs.”

By all means let those who can, continue to cherish the “larger hope”—why should they not, while all is unknown?—and let the metaphysicians continue to translate their wishes and aspirations into philosophical language; but the guiding spirit in human affairs should be, and one day will be, a scientific humanitarianism working on rational principles for the peace and happiness of all mankind.

“Ring out the grief that saps the mindFor those that here we see no more;Ring out the feud of rich and poor,Ring in redress to all mankind.Ring out a slowly dying cause,And ancient forms of party strife;Ring in the nobler modes of life,With sweeter manners, purer laws.Ring out false pride in place and blood,The civic slander and the spite;Ring in the love of truth and right,Ring in the common love of good.Ring out old shapes of foul disease,Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;Ring out the thousand wars of old,Ring in the thousand years of peace.”

APPENDIX

Chapter I

P. 5, lines 12–14.—The Copernican system was gradually accepted, and so were the discoveries which followed up to fifty years ago.

Copernicus’s book, The Revolution of the Celestial Bodies, was printed a few days before his death, in 1543. The system was condemned by a decree of Pope Paul V., in 1616, which was not revoked till 1818 by Pius VII. The great Kepler (d. 1630) was an astrologer as well as astronomer, and thought the stars were guided by angels. While his mind had a strong grasp of positive scientific truth, it also had an irresistible tendency towards mystical speculation. In those days Science and Religion were easily reconciled. It was fortunate for Newton that he made his discovery of the law of gravitation in a rather more enlightened age and country, otherwise he would inevitably have shared the terrible fate of Giordano Bruno at the hands of the Church’s emissaries.