Aspects of Scepticism: With Special Reference to the Present Time

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Preface

That the following chapters are but fragments, no one can be more conscious than their author. He offers them to the public, nevertheless, hoping that they may be found helpful by those who are * perplexed in faith,' but who do not feel able to study more elaborate and more exhaustive treatises. The writer has for years taken a deep interest in the * conflict ' with which he is here concerned, and has read whatever works came in his way. He has also endeavoured in different ways, by voice and by pen, by private conversations, by letters, and by public lectures, to guide those who were willing to accept his aid. The kindly interest taken in these well-meant efforts, both by seekers after light and by friends in whose judgment he had confidence, is his only apology for now seeking a larger audience. May the Master, who dealt so tenderly and so lovingly with His doubting disciple, and who is the *same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever,' graciously accept this humble attempt to lead doubters to Himself, and may He be pleased to forgive its unworthiness !

Belfast, June, 1883.

SCEPTICISM.

Chapter I

* It is no secret that among the educated men of France and Italy, with the exception of a few individuals, the Christian dogma has ceased to hold any authoritative sway over either intellect or life.' — W. E. Gladstone.

' An awful darkness, spite of optimist assertion to the contrary, is slowly settling upon the most interesting part of European society.' — Edward White.

• Never since the suppression of Pagan Philosophy was Christianity more attacked than now.'— Professor Bain.

In the following chapters the word Scepticism is used in its popular, rather than in its strictly technical sense. Properly speaking, as a recent . writer suggests, the word denotes (i) * continuous sescdb^ (2) suspense, or so much of it as is needful as an incentive to search,' but amongst both friends and foes of Christianity it is now used in a very diflferent way. * No one,' says Dr. Draper,^ * acquainted with the mental condition of the intelligent classes in Europe and America, can doubt that there is a great and rapidly increasing departure from the public religious faith.' He also reminds us that behind this open and formally avowed unbelief, there is a far more extensive, and far more dangerous, private and unacknowledged dissatisfaction

^ ' Conflict between Religion and Science.'

with religious beliefs. This 'departure,' whether open and avowed, or private and concealed, whether contained in anti-theistic theories and formal treatises, or in secretly cherished convictions, is what, in the following pages, is meant by Scepticism or Unbelie£ In the use of such words to cover ideas often very widely unlike, there may be some danger of mixing * things by speech which are divided by nature ;' this danger we must seek to avoid by suitable discrimination and explanation, where these are necessary. There is a doubt which is * devil born ;' there is also a doubt which is with a view to faith, and through which we may reach a faith at once stronger and more intelligent — the outcome not of tradition, however true, but of a conscious experience of the power of truth to enlighten the understanding and purify the heart

That there is in these days, among all classes of the community, a tendency to depart from the Christian faith, there can be no room for reasonable doubt ; as to the character and extent of this departure, as to the causes and occasions thereof, there may be great diversity of opinion and judgment The wits of Bishop Butler's day considered religion an exploded Superstition, and the sceptics to whom the Apologists of the past century addressed their arguments, probably believed that another hundred years would be sufficient to sweep away the last remnants of the Christian belief; and yet, no period in the history of Christianity has been more * fruitful in good works ' than the closing years of the eighteenth century. In the same way the unbelief of our age may over-rate its own importance, and the Christian thinker may mistake noisy and oft-repeated assertion for real strength of conviction ; in this way, both opposers and defenders may undervalue the power of the truth about which they are contending. There is in every really active mind a tendency to exaggerate the importance of the questions with which it deals; specially is this tendency characteristic of the aggressive Scepticism of any age.

* For we throw out acclamations of self-thanking, self-admiring, With, at every mile, run faster, O the wondrous, wondrous age ! Little thinking if we work our souls as nobly as our iron. Or if angels will commend us at the goal of pilgrimage !' ^

After making large deductions from the evidence adduced both by friends and foes of Christianity, after allowing for the natural disposition to exaggerate the importance of a period in which so many traditional opinions have been abandoned, and so many beliefs modified before the advancing tide of more correct knowledge, we are compelled to believe that there is a great, and apparently growing, amount of Scepticism amongst us in relation to the teachings of the Bible, and the more distinctive affirmations of the Christian Creed. Testimony to this efifect comes from quarters so unlike, and from men who usually have so little in common, that its effect on any candid mind must be very powerful True, this evidence has been challenged, and its force somewhat broken by counter-testimony. Dr. Rigg^ declares, that at the present time the 'relations of Christian faith to philosophy and science are better settled, and, at the same time, more satisfactory, than for some years past' His appeal is to the calm judgment of history, to the I)ositive proofs and * fruitful energy ' of Christian faith, as proved by its works, to the ethical standards of our time, and to the actual state of our moral life. Such an appeal, supported by such evidence, demands and will receive the respecthil attention of all Christian thinkers ; his estimate is in many respects both true and important, but, as he himself remarks, * false security would be a mistake.' Mr. Joseph Cook tells us that, in Germany, the day of Rationalism is nearly over in the Universities, and that now students are everywhere flocking to professors who are loyal to the evangelical creed. * Professor Calderwood thinks we shall by-and-by hear much less of

^ Mrs. Browning.

s ( Discourses and Addresses on Religion and Philosophy,' by Rev. James H. Rigg, D.D. * Cook's * Monday Lectures.'

'conflict' between science and religion, and that there has been on ' both sides needless planting of batteries and pouring forth of shot/ 1

All this may be true ; certainly it is not all the truth that Christian people in these days need to know and to lay to heart. After the conflict has ceased in the Universities, it must rage elsewhere : in the periodical press, even in the workshops, and among those who are far removed from the centres of intellectual life and thought, there may be much unbelief. Moreover, to those whose minds are but little familiar with the history of the past, and whose intellects have not been sharpened by the higher culture of the schools, the cessation of strife may often appear to be but the triumph of the sceptical view of life. It is certain that at the present time the acceptance, even provisionally, by Christian thinkers of the theories and hypotheses of scientific men, only adds to the difficulty of belief, and is an additional stumbling-block to the faith of many. All this may, and much of it certainly does, arise from misconception ; nevertheless, there is conflict, and some of the * reconciliations ' offered only add to the confusion.

Nor is this tendency to unbelief confined to any one country, or to any special class of men. It has spread all over Europe ; it has manifested itself in America \ it is not seen only among professors of the * higher culture,' or among thinkers who have leisure and who are familiar with the thoughts of many ages — it may be found in the sick-room from which all sceptical literature has been excluded, in the workshop, where busy toilers are familiar with the more practical side of life ; even in the market-place, where eager men transact business, these doubts and questionings are not seldom heard.

Some years ago a gifted man, no longer amongst us, wrote a series of articles in one of our leading Reviews, under the title of * Rocks Ahead, or the Warnings of Cassandra.' At that time England was prosperous, and her leading men were unwilling to believe that dark days were at hand. Hence Mr. Greg's

1 Professor Calderwood's * Science and Religion.'

warnings hardly received the attention to which they were entitled ; when trouble came, many confessed that Cassandra had spoken wisely, and, looking back, they saw that the nation had not been * sailing free,' as some of her pilots believed. Mr. Greg's * third rock ' was the one with which we are now dealing — the alleged divorce between the highest intelligence and religion of the country. According to this keen observer, there is such a divorce not only in England, but all over Europe. In Germany, a very large portion of the intelligent classes has changed its ideas about the very nature of Christianity; in Italy, men, and even women, scornfully reject the Gospel ; in France, there is a large amount of infidelity and religious indifference among all classes ; in Belgium, there is a wide-spread scepticism ; and in Holland, where the faith of Calvin once ruled so supremely, yea, even in Geneva, the very seat of the all-powerful Reformer, we have Rationalism in thought, and growing laxity in moral life. In our own country, Mr. Greg holds that the working-classes, or at least the more intelligent of them, are turning their backs on Christianity, and many of the leaders of thought have publicly avowed their hostility to the old faith. ^ No friend of the evangelical faith can afford to ignore such solemn warnings ; Mr. Greg is no timid believer, shrinking with alarm before the advance of the new order of things. His * Creed of Christendom * must appear to evangelical Christians meagre and Rationalistic, and if he complains of the loss of faith, how much more must those who demand firmer foundations for their creed ! Professor Christlieb, of Bonn, whose work on ' Modem doubt and Christian belief ' is so well knbwn, fully confirms the estimate of * Cassandra,' so far as Germany is concerned. And, strangely enough, Lange, himself a free-thinker, in his * History of Materialism,' a work much lauded by the free-thinkers of England, seems to be afiraid of the progress of that very theory of life whose triumphs he chronicles ; Lange heralds the dawn of a new era, but in

I

1 See Contemporary Review for May, June, and August, 1874.

order to make its ideals morally safe, he stipulates for a strong admixture of the older faith !

Professor Bain, of Aberdeen, himself a leader of philosophical Scepticism, declares that since the suppression of the Pagan Philosophy, Christianity has never been more attacked than now, and he pretty broadly hints that these modern attacks are not calling forth anything like the ancient Christian vindication. Professor Flint is very familiar with anti-theistic theories, familiar also with the best thought of Europe, present and past, is neither an alarmist nor a gloomy pessimist, yet he tells us that * no man who examines the signs of the times can fail to see much tending to show that Atheism may possibly come to have its day of fatal supremacy. What chiefly threatens us is Atheism in the form of Agnosticism, Positivism, Secularism, Materialism, etc, and it does so directly and seriously. The most influential authorities in Science and Philosophy, and a host of the most popular representatives of literature, are strenuously propagating it It has, in our large centres of population, missionaries, who, I fear, are better qualified for their work than many of those whom our Churches send forth to advocate to the same classes the cause of Christianity.'^

We might appeal to other leading thinkers — men who have recently given their estimate of the state of this question. Bishop EUicott, in an Episcopal charge, in his * Introduction to the New Testament Commentary,' still more recently in his introduction to the *01d Testament Commentary/ Mr. Row in his very able Bampton Lecture ; Professor Wace in his Boyle and Bampton Lectures 3 Dr. Conder in his * Basis of Faith,' a work now within the reach of all, and one full of helpful suggestion; Canon Farrar in his recent writings ; Mr. Edward White in his * Life of Christ,' and a host of writers, all take the same view.

Reference may also be made to Mr. Holt Hutton, who, from his connection with the press,^ is well acquainted with the

1 Dr. Flint's * Anti-Theistic Theories,' p. 37. See also the articles by Mr. Gladstone in Contemporary Review^ June, 1876.

2 Editor of Spectator, streams and tendencies of modem thought ; speaking, in the preface to the last edition of his 'Theological and Literary Essays/ of the growth of Scepticism among the leaders of thought, he declares that, so far as there have been changes in the * temper of English thought ' in recent times, they have been in the * direction of shaking men^s faith in the deepest assumptions both of the Theistic and Christian Creed,^ Lest anyone should reply that, even since Mr. Button's essays were published, vast changes have taken place in an opposite direction, we may suggest a perusal of such works as Cheyne's * Isaiah,' Professor Robertson Smith's * Lectures on the Old Testament,' and Dr. Wright's * Donellan Lecture,' etc ; or take the following from Principal Fairbaim's recent work, the * City of God' * The conflict of Faith in our day is most arduous and fell It lies surrounded by real or potential enemies. Science cannot publish her discoveries without letting us hear the shock of their collision with the ancient Faith. The political philosopher seeks to show how the State can live and prosper without religion ; the ethical thinker, how right can exist and law govern without God. A philosophy that denies the surest and most necessary religious truths, works in harmony with a criticism that resolves into mythologies the holiest religious histories. A large section of our literature, including some of the finest creations of living imagination, interpret Nature and man, exhibit life and destiny, from the standpoint of those who have consciously renounced belief in God, and can find on earth nothing Divine but humanity. Our working men listen to theories of life that leave around them only blank material walls, within them no spiritual reality, before them no higher and larger hope.'^

There are other indications pointing in the same direction, and which, so far as they can be trusted, confirm the accuracy of these and such-like testimonies. For many years complaints have been made by religious men of the alarming extent to which public worship is being neglected. Recent statistics in

^ * The City of God : a Series of Discussions on Religion,* by A. M. Fairbairn, D.D.

various parts of the kingdom show that these complaints have been only too well founded Not only are there large numbers of people that habitually neglect public worship, not only is there among the working classes, so-called, wide-spread neglect, (not specially confined to these, be it remembered, for, being the largest class in thq community, they must necessarily furnish the largest per-centage of non-church-goers), but it would appear that in many places the proportion of church-goers to the population is not so great as in 1851 ! Hence, when optimists point us to the thousands of pounds annually spent on churchbuildings, and to the great activity among all Christian workers, as a proof that Scepticism is not on the increase, we can only reply that there are more and grander buildings for worship than at any former period of our history, but that these costly temples are often not half-filled, and outside all Churches we find the largest part of the population. It would be very unwise to make non-church-going the test of Scepticism in the community ; rough and ready methods like these deceive those who make them, irritate outsiders, and, moreover, they are essentially false. Many of those who attend public worship are greater Sceptics than some who stay away; yea, under the cloak of even zeal for'orthodoxy, we may find not a little genuine unbelief. At the same time it is but fair to see in the non-church-goers of all ranks, materials out of which Sceptics are readily manufactured. Religious indifference, as well as the study of Sceptical literature, tends to unbelief; those familiar with non-church-goers are well aware, too, that many of these are Sceptical They are not to any great extent Atheistic — the genuine Atheists are ever few. They may not hold any decided or dogmatic form of unbelief; they may, and generally do, believe in an overruling Providence, often also in a future state, and in human freedom, but they do not accept, even passively, many of the most distinctive teachings of the Evangelical Creed.

One of the burning political questions of the time is whether an Atheist is to be permitted to enter Parliament or not ; into this subject we do not here enter. Whether the Christian faith is really helped by so-called religious tests, whether National Religion can be helped by certain clauses in oaths of allegiance, are matters about which we have decided opinions, but they are not relevant to the question now under discussion : what seems to us, from our point of view, the point of deepest interest is, that there are to he found constituencies willing to he represented in Parliament hy men openly avowing themselves Atheists, Not that we believe any considerable numbers of our people are really Atheistic ; elections are determined by many side issues, and no man has yet appealed to electors on the simple ground that he is an Atheist. But that constituencies should be willing to overlook such considerations, because of their general sympathy with the political creed of any candidate, should be willing to have laws made for them by men who have no faith in God, in immortality, or in human freedom, indicates an immense change in the thought and feeling of our people. This aspect of the * Oaths Question' has not received from Christians the attention it deserves. Other aspects of the controversy have only a temporary and very secondary importance. That party leaders should be eager to make political capital out of the difficulties of opponents is natural enough, but the deeper questions and issues involved cannot be decided by majorities in the House of Commons.

We have to face the fact that vast masses of our people are utterly indifferent to the faith of the men who made this country what it is, and that these multitudes are directly and immediately exposed to the influences that make for unbelief, rather than faith in the Unseen and Eternal. Time was when doubts about revealed religion were discussed only by scholars, and when attacks on Christianity appeared in what was practically an unknown tongue. In our age, everything, whether the music of the grand old masters, or the latest theories of some Darwinian speculator, must be popularized.

Strauss addressed his first * Life of Jesus ' to the theologians of Europe ; for them it was written, by them only could it be appreciated In the closing years of his life he issued a * Life of Jesus ' for the German people, one intended to be read in the cottage and discussed in the workshops of the Fatherland. This is a simple illustration of the change that has taken, place in modern life, and the influence of such changes on the growth of Scepticism must he manifest to all. Leading thinkers who wish to leaven the mind of Europe by their Agnostic theories appeal now to the people. Reviews, magazines, periodicals, and newspapers, sow the seeds of unbelief broadcast over the land. Novelists and poets assist in this work. We have a * religion of humanity,' which makes use of old phrases, and appeals to old instincts, and by which many are deceived. After the death of 'George Eliot,* for instance, letters and articles appeared in the public press, attempting to demonstrate that the thought of this gifted thinker was essentially Christian, and the immortality she proclaimed that of the New Testament One leading organ of public opinion took comfort from the alleged fact that * George Eliot ' had never spoken against the teachings of the Church of England ! It need hardly be said that such writers are thankful for small mercies. The immortality brought to light by this writer is the influence exerted upon the lives of others; the 'immortal dead' are to 'live again in minds made better by their presence ;' is it necessary to say that this is not the ' life to come ' taught by Christ and His Apostles ? We do not undervalue the spiritual influence of the deeds that live after us — we may at times feel ambitious to be remembered by what we have said and done ; alas ! those to whom life is most real, are too conscious of frailty, imperfection, and sin, not to see that expectations from this quarter are of doubtful value. They desire an immortality of another kind altogether, and hence they find the * Gospel of the Resurrection ' the only good news for them. We mention this simply as an instance of how gifted writers have helped, perhaps without meaning it, to swell the tide of Sceptical thought, and to suggest doubts to humble seekers after light Poetry, too, has been enlisted in the service of Scepticism, and has at times hindered

INTROD UCTOR K 1 1

the faith of the people. Too often, instead of fighting their doubts, and so gathering strength for the battle of life, instead of wrestling with their spiritual foes in the solitude of their own heart and life, poets have set their dark problems to music, and have sung in captivating strains the praises of doubt and mental unrest. And these utterances of theirs — ^themselves the product of a time-spirit anything but trustful, have fallen on sympathetic ears, and have been welcomed as a veritable gospel by many unbelieving hearts. Many have considered unbelief more manly, and more expressive of intellectual freedom, than faith, forgetful of the fact that man grows, intellectually and spiritually, not by negation, but by a spirit of hope, and trust, and love.

The results of this ferment of opinion have been most disastrous to many, specially to younger inquirers and thinkers. They have been diverted from the true path, both of intellectual and moral progress, by these tendencies and influences, and have often lost their way amid the mazes of conflicting opinion and daring conjecture. Goethe, himself, we fear, not always on the side of faith, reminds us that only epochs of faith are epochs of fruitfulness. This is true of the intellectual no less than the moral life ; it is pre-eminently true of man's spiritual progress. Doubt, suspense, and anxious inquiry are necessary; we may even affirm with one that the man who never doubted never really believed; we may assert with Dr. Fairbaim that it is not * always the men that love truth best that find her most easily.' No less is it true that faith is essential to a healthy moral life, and the tendency of much of the literature of our time is to doubts and questionings. In very much of it there is no faith, and therefore we cannot expect it either to help unbelief or create trust ; not that our best writers have given themselves up to Scepticism, but there are writings where faith, even in the human, seems to have died out, and where everything that men ought to revere — God, conscience, womanhood, manhood — is treated with but slightly veiled contempt Pressensfe, in his * Early Years of Christianity/ suggests that * there is one thing more deplorable than believing in error, and that is to believe in nothing ; this is the essential error, the fundamental aberration of the soul, the invincible obstacle to truth.' We have not yet reached this stage in the progress of our Scepticism, but it is to be feared that many are on the way to it, and that with the loss of any hold on the great verities of the Christian Creed, they are in danger of losing hold of the natural pieties of the human heart Those familiar with city-life, tell us that the numbers both of men and women who have reached this stage are much' larger than many* think.

In the following pages, we address another, and a very different, class of people ; not those who have been fully drawn into the vortex of blank and hopeless unbelief in all that is Divine and Sacred, but a far wider circle, still hovering round the central faiths of their earlier days. They have not all broken with Christianity — ^they simply doubt many things they once believed, and they hesitate where before they accepted with unquestioning faith. The criticism, the discussions and conflicts, and still more that out of which these have arisen — the spirit of the age and the tendencies of the time — ^have affected much their relation to the Bible and its view of life. They may not actually accept, may not even pretend to understand, the new theories of life propounded by distinguished teachers. But they have an uneasy kind of feeling that there are other views of life than those they were taught to accept ; they know that these new theories are put forward by able men, not as a cloak for laxity of moral life, but as an intellectual solution of the problems with which all are confronted. Far more than many are willing to allow, such thoughts and feelings are in the minds of large classes of men. The quiet Sunday-school teacher, who is known only as a consistent Christian worker, the regular attendant at the Bible-class, the young man who seldom is absent from the house of God, as well as the more self-assertive and so-called free-thinkers, who attend Secularist gatherings and listen to lectures in * Halls of

Science,' may have but little in common, so far as belief goes, with those who accept fully and heartily the Christian Creed.

To men with such doubts and suspicions, the Bible is no longer the same book, and Bible-study is not what it used to be. The most distinctive teachings of the Holy Record appear before the eye as if marked by notes of interrogation. Prayer is impossible, for what if God does not hear prayer ? What if the very conception of a * prayer-hearing God,' be but a survival from an age of credulity ? How can we pray to a Being whose existence is so out of relation to our lives ? The only acceptable prayer must be humble submission to the order of events, and an earnest desire to become more fully acquainted with the world in which we live, move, and have our being.

Need we suggest that all who are in anything like this state of mind, are exposed to peculiar dangers, both intellectual and moral ? Our * advanced thinkers ' are fond of speaking of the paralyzing influence upon the soul of the religious creed of our forefathers. They look down, with feelings more akin to contempt than pity, upon * the early heaven and happy views ' of many of their brothers and sisters ; we would not venture to say that this early heaven and these happy views of life have been all they might have been. There may be not a little sheer credulity in what passes for simple faith ; there may be beliefs no longer tenable by intelligent minds, and that have been abandoned by all who know anything of science. Is there not equal danger on the other side, a danger hinted at by the poet, when he forbids the confusing of a ' life that leads melodious days'?^ Many who have appeared, in their own eyes, to have reached the pure air of a higher intellectual and spiritual life, have yet failed in this world of sin ; nor can we doubt that the origin of their moral failures is to be sought, in what they have considered their freedom of thought in relation to Divine Revelation.

Even where this Sceptical attitude does not lead to moral failure, there may be exerted on the whole mental and moral

1 In Memoriam^ xxxiii.

life a withering and blighting influence. The heroes of the past, the men who have subdued kingdoms and wrought righteousness, have all been men of faith ; their faith may not have been as pure as it might have been had their knowledge been wider, their religious creeds may have contained propositions that are no longer accepted (not because of such creeds, but in spite of them did they accomplish great things), but they were strong because of their heroic faith in God and in His moral government. * The man,' says Professor Blackie, * who will succeed must seek, and he must see, and he must strike, and above all things he must believe. Nature does nothing for doubters.'^