The right to believe

Contents

Introduction ix

I. The Necessity for a Belief ... 1

IL Does God Exist ? 16

Introduction

In these days of many books, the appearance of a new volume seems to demand from its author a justification of his right to foist more print on an already over-burdened public. This explanation is the more necessary, if his book treats of subjects in a field which is not his own ; for specialized knowledge has come to be the one requisite of all serious authorship; and in order to put some brakes on too ready pens, we demand that every man shall stick to his trade. Yet with all this, there exists a certain reverence for facts, whether their exploiter has run across them by chance or by intention. An astronomer has the right to make by-observations on the flights of birds, even though his telescope be pointed at the moon ; nothing need prevent a man from observing plant heredity even though his profession be that of a cloistered monk ; and if a teacher of psychology has happened upon some religious facts may he not express them, granted that they are facts ?

My profession is one that naturally gives

X INTRODUCTION

rise to questions, and its members are expected to give answers on subjects and in terms that scarcely lie within the field of their special knowledge. It is also true, that among the thinking public of America, philosophical problems present themselves, as a rule, in a religious guise, and that, when any one asks of a philosophically minded person the solution of such a problem, he wants an answer in his own terms, not in a vocabulary to which he is not used, and which either confuses or chills him by its strangeness.

The facts, then, are these. I have happened to engage in discussion with some twenty persons, whose minds were more or less at sea in religious matters ; and while their starting-points were different, their difficulties fell into somewhat well-defined types. The method which I suggested for answering certain of these questions was an apparent help in enough cases to justify me in thinking it could stand the test of a wider audience. To any criticism of the book (and there may be many) I can always reply : It has answered the questions of a dozen people. I claim for it nothing more.

There are four types of doubter to which

INTRODUCTION xi

I am accustomed. The first is the ordinary student of college grade who wishes to believe in religious truth^ but is troubled by the necessary readjustment of his old beliefs. The second is the professional thinker who is especially trained in philosophical thought and language, and who, if he has any prejudice, is likely to have it rather against the ordinary formulas of religion than for them. These two classes share, however, certain respect for authority, the one for the orthodox religion, the other for recognized philosophical systems ; and they have a background of acquaintance with standard questions and answers. The third type is the business man, who is untrained in school thinking, but who possesses a large share of the logic of commerce, and who recognizes the social and civic importance of religious institutions. He is apt to feel an interest in religious matters, if for no other reason, because of his church-going friends, and because as a citizen he is called upon to support parish expenses. He sees that religion is a powerful motive with many people, and would like to know what it is all about. He is curious and conscientious, but he feels that the time for any emotional expresxii INTRODUCTION

sion is past for him, and since sermons do not appeal to his common sense, he leaves them to his family, and only airs his doubts and opinions when he is sure that he can do so without hurting feelings which he respects but does not understand. Lastly, there is the man I class broadly as ^^ heathen," because he frankly considers himself in that light! So far as knowledge of creeds, respect for authority, reverence for any conceivable thing, or care for his own or other souls is concerned, he can be classed under no other head. Without prejudice for or against any belief, but taking a lively interest in the discussion of all of them, he is ready to embrace brahminism or faithhealing with equal blitheness. In a certain sense he is the most impartial thinker of any, being equally disposed toward any creed or none ; and he possesses a certain honesty and good nature, which represent practically the only virtues for which he has a shadow of respect.

While I am more familiar with the first two classes in point of numbers, my discussions with a few of the latter were so much more thorough (since they took nothing for granted), that I feel that as examples they

INTRODUCTION xiii

have a value in intensiveness which they lack in extent.

That there are many other classes of people who grope for religious light, and demand it in a more emotional form, is doubtless true. They would be untouched by this sort of discussion. But I can only repeat that, with a certain number of people in private conversation, the same questions and the same answers have developed naturally. Their questions all imply an initial interest in religion from whatever motive, and a demand for a rational belief, and for fearlessness in its statement, which to others might be disconcerting.

It has seemed to me that religion, to be of real use in a modern world, should be capable of experimental treatment, and of unfettered discussion, which for the sake of a more complete final belief takes for the time being nothing for granted, and holds nothing sacred. The reverential attitude which is natural and proper for certain types of believers is unnatural and artificial for a large majority of the world, and this other class demands a meeting on its own ground, and a calm reason given in its own terms, before it will listen further.

xiv INTRODUCTION

This is said to forestall the possible comment^ that great truths are handled in the following pages with a briskness that is not in harmony with their significance. But it has always been my observation, that a great truth, like a great man, cannot be made mean by the cut of its clothes. The atmosphere of these discussions is the one in which my questioners found it easiest to move; I give it as they gave it to me, and hasten to assure my reader that their attitude, while always critical and often humorous, was never flippant, and was prompted always by an honest desire for the truth.

There will probably be some in my audience who will recognize in the following discussions recastings of old arguments, which would seem to demand some mention of their original voicer. The book, in fact, shows the influence of so many thinkers, past and present, that any indication of sources would be impossible. The author often does not know whether she is plagiarizing or not, so entirely have certain habits of thought become her own, and she acknowledges herself a debtor to any thinking person who has crossed her path !

INTRODUCTION xv

Any to whom these discussions seem unnecessary must not read the book. Those to whom no questions occur can afford to leave them unanswered ; but those minds haunted by an unresting criticism of the world they live in have no choice but to question.

E. H. R.

September, 1909.

There must always be a common starting-point for fellow travelers, no matter how far afield their several journeys may end, some mutual solid spot of ground, however airy the subsequent flight; and on this meeting-place we must agree, if we are to understand one another.

To be as thorough as possible, then, let us begin by doubting every shred of religious belief. Some of us, perhaps, do not really find ourselves in such an extremity; on the other hand, many of us do, and in order to start together we must try to strip ourselves of every creed, and face the situation of one who not only doubts, but sincerely disbelieves every religious tenet with which he is acquainted.

If we have found difiiculties with religion, if we can live easily without it, why not throw it overboard at once, and live a quiet life without ? This is the method we employ with other outgrown ideas. We believed in Santa Claus, we had difficulties in making him square with the rest of experience, so we abandoned him altogether. We had primitive notions of various sciences, which we outgrew without a pang, and have not felt the slightest responsibility toward them since. Why, then, should we not take the same attitude toward religious truth? If we find a belief in God, in immortality, in Christ, in prayer, difficult and irrational, what possible compunction need we have in dropping the subject forever?

Surely this question cannot be answered by saying that we owe it to God to believe in Him, because as yet we do not believe that He exists. The commands of the Bible are without weight, since we have no belief in its authority; and that we are adjured to believe by certain devotees need have no more weight than any other unjustified demand. Why, then, do we concern ourselves at all in the matter? If there were not some vitality in these questions, they would have died a natural death long ago ; and while we maintain our right not to be interested in the subject, the fact remains that we are interesting ourselves with it, at this very moment ; and why are we doing it ?

Probably the reasons why we have not dropped our belief in religion without a struggle, or the reasons why, though we are without belief, religion still possesses a certain interest for us in spite of its irrationality, are somewhat similar. One reason is that, in spite of individual differences in our training and temperament, religious questions are so interwoven with our whole social life that an absolute ignoring of them is impossible. Every Sunday we see the astonishing spectacle of crowds of people going to church, addressing prayers to an unseen Presence, and taking upon themselves the expounding of his character. Public ceremonies are opened with prayer, it is considered fitting to christen children with prayer, and we feel a poetry in this exercise for the old, as well. Moreover, since constant decisions must be made between two courses, one of which we call right, the other wrong, we are obliged to ask ourselves whether the distinction is a valid one, and whether we are not fools for our pains, if we sacrifice an advantage to an ideal which we cannot defend. Or if we call ourselves outside the pale of all this religious and moral activity, the very fact that we do so constantly drives home the fact that we are in some important respect different from the rest of the world, and we wonder if they can explain their position as well as we explain ours. Further than all this, when we outgrow the Santa Glaus superstition and childish scientific notions, we feel no regrets, because we have replaced them by something broader and more satisfying, and we can afford to smile at them in the light of a more extensive knowledge. But if we have lost our religious beKef, nothing entirely takes its place. Philosophy is frankly unable to supply a substitute. Like science it simply leaves the way open for a man to accept certain views if he chooses, and does not pretend to supply the vigorous belief in unseen things that religion holds as its special trust. If this indifferent state of mind is wholly satisfying to a man in regard to the matter; if he is content to be out of it and allow these religious questions to remain unanswered, what shall we say? As a free being, he has the right to choose what he will accept and what he will ignore, but as a thinking being he must do it with his eyes open. He must not suppose that his ignoring a religious belief is a proof of its falsity, any more than the reiterations of a believer are proofs of its truth. There were three

Simple and apparently obvious Laws o£ Thought expounded by Aristotle, the third of which is called the " Law of Excluded Middle." The substance of this axiom is " A thing must either be or not be "; and while its statement seems obvious to the point of flatness, we ignore its truth during a large part of our lives. This rule means simply that in the case of two contradictory statements, one or the other must be true. There are but two alternatives to face, with any belief — religious or otherwise: — either it is true, or it is not true; there is no middle ground.

Therefore a logical man who abandons one side of the controversy because it is not supported by facts, must not remain on the other unless that is adequately proved ; but at the same time he cannot avoid being on one side or the other. The difficulty here arises, that the contradictory proposition may be as unproved as the first, and yet logically one or the other must be true, — a third possibility is excluded.

In any such situation as this, if the second proposition can be satisfactorily proved, the doubter finds rest and goes no further; but the fact of the matter is, that belief in unbelief is as difficult to support as belief in religious truths, and the logical man, who demands a reason, is thereby tossed back and forth on the horns of the dilemma until he lands in the annihilation of utter skepticism toward both sides. If it were possible, one might leave him here in peace. But these questions as a rule only stay in the dark for a season, to return again ; while if they are dulled forever, the resulting calm is as irrational and as unjustified by logic as the wildest superstition. It is, indeed, the superstition of unproved disbelief.

We will count out of our audience, then, the religious enthusiast and the unbelieving enthusiast, who demand no reasons, and will consider the case of those who are still asking for proof of either position. In my experience, both sides are usually in a similarly weak situation logically. The ordinary man is not comprehensively logical, be he religious or otherwise ; most of us are subject to fallacy, and if our destiny depended on our ability to give an accurate statement of our views about it, a large majority of us would be in a sad case. But granting this human tendency to error, which side can give the most convincing argument ? If neither side is convincing, what is the next thing to be done ?

The obvious answer seems to be, — i£ neither belief nor unbelief can support itself by proof, hold your judgment in suspense, and do not act in the matter until you get more light. This is our way of treating other rival theories. Two or more hypotheses may be stated in a text-book, and the student is advised not to commit himself absolutely to either. This is quite admissible in the case of theories of geological formation, of color vision, or of social questions where one is not required to act on the matter immediately. But the peculiarity of religious beliefs is that they demand action at once, one way or the other. While you are waiting for further proof in this debate, either you are praying, or you are not ; you are accepting a responsibility to a Higher Being, or you are not ; you are teaching your children religious truth, or you are not. In other words, the Law of Excluded Middle seems to hold as well in action as in thought, and however long a time you may take to make up your rational conclusions, your active life waits not for an answer, but is proceeding on one hypothesis or the other. It is, then, quite obvious that however the cautious thinker may hope to hold suspended judgment in his life of reason, his life of action in the mean time is proceeding as if he beHeved one way or the other.

Perhaps this last statement is not strictly true in life as we find it. The usual life of a man in this position is apt to be colored by both beliefs. At one moment he acts as if he believed, and is perhaps shamefaced, knowing that he cannot justify it; while again he restores the balance by actions proceeding from the opposite conviction. But this shifting of motive power is as illogical as any, and is a damper to any sort of vigorous output. The situation is like that of a child who cannot decide whether he wants to go walking with his father or with his mother, and runs back and forth from one to the other, until at last he falls to crying halfway between them. He may not really love his father better than his mother, but for the time being he must prefer one of them, if he wants to go walking ! Now we, as living human beings, are obliged "to go walking " somewhere, and the question is whether it is not better to walk in a given direction with one opinion or the other, than to take our promenade between them, turning our back one moment on what we had embraced the moment previous. Granting, then, that we want to commit ourselves to one or the other side entirely, and not halt between two opinions, which is the safer side to use as an acting hypothesis until we have proved our position ? It will take most of us some time to answer the difficulties on either side ; and since we must act in the mean time, which is more likely to give us satisfaction and least likely to get us into trouble ? " If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to battle ?'' A divided mind is a weariness, a hindrance to action, and at the same time it is wholly illogical. A single purpose is at least rational itself, and since we must take our chances on the result in either case, which is the safer road to travel ?

I do not pretend, of course, that I have not a conviction toward one opinion or the other, but I am trying to answer this difficulty as an outsider, simply on the testimony of the different people who have raised the question with me. Certainly the most obvious conclusion I draw from them is that religious belief is more satisfactory than religious unbelief to the person concerned. My interlocutors, if not always worried, were usually at least pensive about what they had ceased to believe, and envied the situation o£ one who could believe and yet keep his countenance. Some of them had no regrets for what they did not believe, but were equally apathetic about their skepticism. In fact, the phrase I have used above, of "unbelieving enthusiast/' while logically correct, fits no person of my acquaintance. The nearest approach to enthusiasm in these unbelievers was a certain warmth in pointing out the weakness of the other side ; but in no case was their own situation described in glowing terms. On the other hand, I have never met any one with regrets over his beliefs. Since the religious situation of every thinking man varies with his training and the progress of his development, each man as a rule has varied shreds of belief clinging to him, even though in the main he is an unbeliever. Apparently these shreds do not worry him, but, on the contrary, give him a certain satisfaction, so that he is not trying to shake them off as he is his doubts. If religious belief is more satisfactory than unbelief, it has then one important fact in its favor as a working hypothesis. That religious faith, if acted upon, often leads to tremendous sacrifice and hardship, I do not deny. But I am not following all possible resultant actions to their end. Both belief and unbelief have had their martyrs, as any extremes may have them ; but that a certian profound satisfaction and enthusiasm, even in misfortune, pervade the religious man, and are absent in the unbeliever, seems undeniably true in all history.

I have spoken of religious belief in a general way, as if it needed no definition ; but I must indicate a little more fully what we shall mean by the term. I do not mean all the possible beliefs that one finds stated in orthodox creeds, as if they were of equal importance. Some standard church beliefs can apparently be shaken off with no feeling of loss to the doubter, while others seem most essential. It is these more important conceptions which give life and meaning to the whole, that I have in mind when I use the term " belief." I have arbitrarily selected what beliefs in my observation cannot be lost without a wrench, and shall not consider those which have apparently caused no especial anxiety to my questioners. I mean then by Religion, a belief in the existence of God, the authority of Christ as exponent of God's nature, the responsibility of man, the value of prayer, and the immortality of the soul. Perhaps the inspiration of the Bible^ especially with regard to miracles, is a source of difficulty to all, although a lif e-anddeath interest in this question is not so common. I think it is not a perverted optimism in even a religious person to consider a certain honest doubt a healthy sign in society. So long as a man vigorously doubts, he is alive, and in a much more hopeful state than a careless assenter or a rigid unbeliever. Doubt at least implies a leaning of the mind in two directions; and while more illogical than a thoroughgoing belief in either side, it at least is better for life-purposes than complete unbelief. No one bothers to doubt the authorship of newspaper poetry, because no one cares who wrote it ; while the authorship of the Iliad, of Shakespeare's plays, and of the Fourth Gospel excites endless discussion, because we care very much who wrote them.

So it is with religious creeds. If society were willing to dismiss them to historians, and remark, " Oh yes, I dare say this is all true," it would be in a more serious state than when it finds them so important that honest criticism compels it to doubt them. In my opinion, there is no duty imposed on any man to accept anything against which his reason rebels. The first virtue for thought is absolute honesty, and the cloaking of irrationality in virtuous garb is entirely uncalled for. Religious faith needs no crutch, and a rational man should accept it with his eyes and intellect open. He must demand proof in such cases as those in which he demands proof in the rest of his rational life; he must not demand it where he does not demand it in his other rational life. To sum up our position as far as we have gone: granting that we have lost religious faith because of honest doubt and perhaps positive disbelief, we cannot go from one unproved position to another : we must prove our disbelief as well. In other words, we must be on the defensive and prove that there is no God, that Christ has no authority, that the soul is not immortal, and that man is not a free agent. Let there be no misunderstanding. Eventually, as rational beings, we must accept one position or the other. These religious statements are true or they are false. But in the mean time, we must doubt and criticise both sides impartially. We must hold both opinions as real possibilities, in order to discuss them. Logically we are not yet ready to make up our minds, but actively we are as if we had decided one way or the other.

As a practical position, then, at the start, it would seem as if, since religion gives more satisfaction than the lack of it, since it lends more significance to life to conceive our existence as immortal, and since there is at least an equal chance that a prayer to an Unseen Being is heard and meets with some kind of response, belief is the safer principle to adopt. A positive exercise of this sort can be dropped if we change our minds, but is not so easily learned by a mind unused to it. It is almost always easier to forget a technique than to acquire it; and since nothing in unbelief has been lost in the mean time (that is, no exercise the opposite of prayer, no action we must hasten to perform in case we are not to live eternally), surely nothing has been lost, and half a chance of something has been gained.

I cannot see how a perfectly candid, logical soul could argue otherwise. The reason why we do not act on this simple basis of accepting for the time being the richer of two unproved possibilities is that we are not so calmly rational as we think. The fear of being ridiculous, a certain indolence, a timidity, a pride in spiritual poor health, if not a sin of graver character, makes us rather, as before indicated, half -choose the possibilities on both sides, and, having exerted enough energy to think ourselves into trouble, decline to think ourselves out again. Since, as assumed at the outset, it was a rational difficulty that shook our faith, certainly this abandonment of reason is the most contradictory and vicious proceeding. If we can leave logic alone, and emotionally accept the larger and more significant life with the rest of the world, well and good. If, on the other hand, we have chosen rigid thinking as our guide, let us stick to it, whichever way it leads us, acting in the mean time on the larger chance, as we would do in any less important matter, where there was everything to gain and nothing to lose. The third course, that of accepting a thorough unbelief, emotionally and enthusiastically, is possible in theory, but you have not done it, or you would not be reading this.

II Does God Exist?

We have agreed on our first proposition, that a thinking man must believe in somethingj since every statement must be true or false, and it remains for us to marshal our doubted beliefs, our faiths that have ceased to deserve the name, and investigate the grounds on which they rest.

We will begin with the most fundamental question of all religions, — does God exist or does He not ? — because on its answer depends all that is to follow. If there is no God, ethical questions may still remain, but religion strictly speaking has ceased to exist, and religious observance is a meaningless ceremony. We may approach this question directly or by a more roundabout road, and in such a discussion as this, the latter is the more obvious way. That is, instead of considering first the proof of His existence, we will criticise the evidence usually advanced for His non-existence, and later can judge on which side we have more convincing data.

We must place ourselves at the outset in a state of impartial doubt, that is, we must admit the possibility that He is, or that He is not, or, in other words, doubt His non-existence as well as the opposite.

The first reason usually given for disbelief in a God is, that we must accept the evidence of the senses, and since we do not see, feel, or hear God, why should we assume that there is one? It is an unwarrantable superstition, with no experimental basis. A second reason is that the qualities that inhere in the concept of Godhead are so incomprehensible that the mind reels before them, and that anything which is so confessedly beyond being understood, becomes a meaningless string of phrases with no savor of reality. The moment God becomes a clearly explained credible being, there is no use for Him in the world. As incomprehensible He does not exist, as comprehended He is not a God ; hence the concept is a contradiction, and the economy of thought demands that we shall not introduce Him into a world that is more easily explained without Him. A third reason against belief in Him is that the characteristic of goodness is always attached to God, and since evil is so universal in the world, no good being could have created it.

It will be seen that only the first two types of objectors strike a direct blow at God's existence. These disbelievers pin their faith to scientific proof, or to logical statement, and they therefore choose to accept only that which of its nature admits of experimental or logical handling. Since the Deity cannot be expounded in this way, the question lies outside the pale of science, and what lies outside the range of science or of logic is untrue.

These classes have valid enough reasons for objection, if they carry them to their conclusion, and will agree to disbelieve anything which does not admit of scientific proof or of logical definition. If, on the other hand, they do not demand the same grounds for belief in other accepted truths, they must not do so here.