Part 7 (2/2)
But let us return to the story of the fall of man; G.o.d decides to save a part of his ruined perfect world by the sacrifice of his son. The latter is supposed to have said to his father: ”Punish me, kill me, accept my blood, and let it pay for the sins of man.” He thus interceded for the _elect_, and the deity was mollified. As Jesus is also G.o.d, it follows that one G.o.d tried to pacify another, which is pure myth. Some theologians have another theory--there is room here for many theories. According to these, G.o.d gave up his son as a ransom, not to himself, but to the devil, who now claimed the world as his own. I heard a distinguished minister explain this in the following manner: A poor man whose house is mortgaged hears that some philanthropist has redeemed the property by paying off the mortgage.
The soul of man was by the fall of Adam mortgaged to the devil. G.o.d has raised the mortgage by abandoning his son to be killed to satisfy the devil who held the mortgage. The debt which we owed has been paid by Jesus. By this arrangement the devil loses his legal right to our souls and we are saved. All we need to do is to believe in this story and we'll be sure to go to heaven. And to think that intelligent Americans not only accept all this as inspired, but denounce the man who ventures to intimate modestly that it might be a myth, as a blasphemer! ”O, judgment!” cries Shakespeare, ”thou hast fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason.”
The morality which the Christian church teaches is of as mythical a nature as the story of the fall, and the blood-atonement. It is not natural morality, but something quite unintelligible and fict.i.tious.
For instance, we are told that we cannot of ourselves be righteous. We must first have the grace of G.o.d. Then we are told that we cannot have the grace of G.o.d unless he gives it to us. And he will not give it to us unless we ask for it. But we cannot ask for it, unless he moves us to ask for it. And there we are. We shall be d.a.m.ned if we do not come to G.o.d, and we cannot come to G.o.d unless he calls us. Besides, could anything be more mythical than a righteousness which can only be imputed to us,--any righteousness of our own being but ”filthy rags?”
The Christian religion has the appearance of being one great myth, constructed out of many minor myths. It is the same with Mohammedanism, or Judaism, which latter is the mischievous parent of both the Mohammedan and the Christian faiths. It is the same with all supernatural creeds. Myth is the dominating element in them all.
Compared with these Asiatic religions how glorious is science! How wholesome, helpful, and luminous, are her commandments!
If I were to command you to believe that Mount Olympus was once tenanted by blue-eyed G.o.ds and their consorts,--sipping nectar and ambrosia the live-long day,--you will answer, ”Oh, that is only mythology.” If I were to tell you that you cannot be saved unless you believe that Minerva was born full-fledged from the brain of Jupiter, you will laugh at me. If I were to tell you that you must punish your innocent sons for the guilt of their brothers and sisters, you will answer that I insult your moral sense. And yet, every Sunday, the preacher repeats the myth of Adam and Eve, and how G.o.d killed his innocent son to please himself, or to satisfy the devil, and with bated breath, and on your knees, you whisper, _Amen._
How is it that when you read the literature of the Greeks, the literature of the Persians, the literature of Hindoostan, or of the Mohammedan world, you discriminate between fact and fiction, between history and myth, but when it comes to the literature of the Jews, you stammer, you stutter, you bite your lips, you turn pale, and fall upon your face before it as the savage before his fetish? You would consider it unreasonable to believe that everything a Greek, or a Roman, or an Arab ever said was inspired. And yet, men have been hounded to death for not believing that everything that a Jew ever said in olden times was inspired.
I do not have to use arguments, I hope, to prove to an intelligent public that an infallible book is as much a myth as the Garden of Eden, or the Star of Bethlehem.
A mythical Savior, a mythical Bible, a mythical plan of salvation!
When we subject what are called religious truths to the same tests by which we determine scientific or historical truths, we discover that they are not truths at all; they are only opinions. Any statement which snaps under the strain of reason is unworthy of credence. But it is claimed that religious truth is discovered by intuition and not by investigation. The believer, it is claimed, feels in his own soul--he has the witness of the spirit, that the Bible is infallible, and that Jesus is the Savior of man. The Christian does not have to look into the arguments for or against his religion, it is said, before he makes up his mind; he knows by an inward a.s.surance; he has proved it to his own deepermost being that Jesus is real and that he is the only Savior. But what is that but another kind of argument? The argument is quite inadequate to inspire a.s.surance, as you will presently see, but it is an argument nevertheless. To say that we must believe and not reason is a kind of reasoning, This device of reasoning against reasoning is resorted to by people who have been compelled by modern thought to give up, one after another, the strongholds of their position. They run under shelter of what they call faith, or the ”inward witness of the spirit,” or the intuitive argument, hoping thereby to escape the enemy's fire, if I may use so objectionable a phrase.
What is called faith, then, or an intuitive spiritual a.s.surance, is a species of reasoning; let its worth be tested honestly.
In the first place, faith or the intuitive argument would prove too much. If Jesus is real, notwithstanding that there is no reliable historical data to warrant the belief, because the believer feels in his own soul that He is real and divine, I answer that, the same mode of reasoning--and let us not forget, it is a kind of _reasoning_--would prove Mohammed a divine savior, and the wooden idol of the savage a G.o.d.
The African Bushman trembles before an image, because he feels in his own soul that the thing is real. Does that make it real? The Moslem cries unto Mohammed, because he believes in his innermost heart that Mohammed is near and can hear him. He will risk his life on that a.s.surance.
To quote to him history and science to prove that Mohammed is dead and unable to save, would be of no avail, for he has the witness of the spirit in him, an intuitive a.s.surance, that the great prophet sits on the right hand of Allah. An argument which proves too much, proves nothing.
In the second place, an intuition is not communicable. I may have an intuition that I see spirits all about me this morning. They come, they go, they nod, they brush my forehead with their wings. But do _you_ see them, too, because I see them? There is the difference between a scientific demonstration and a purely metaphysical a.s.sumption. I could go to the blackboard and a.s.sure you, as I am myself a.s.sured, that two parallel lines running in the same direction will not and cannot meet. That is demonstration. A fever patient when in a state of delirium, and a frightened child in the dark, see things. We do not deny that they do, but their testimony does not prove that the things they see are real.
”What is this I see before me?” cries Macbeth, the murderer, and he shrieks and shakes from head to foot--he draws his sword and rushes upon Banquo's ghost, which he sees coldly staring at him. But is that any proof that what he saw we could see also? Yes, we could, if we were in the same frenzy! And it is the revivalist's aim, by creating a general excitement, to make everybody _see things_. ”Doctor, Doctor, help! they are coming to kill me; there they are--the a.s.sa.s.sins,--one, two, three--oh, help,” and the patient jumps out of bed to escape the banditti crowding in upon him. But is that any reason why the attending physician, his pulse normal and his brow cool, should believe that the room is filling up with a.s.sa.s.sins? I observe people jump up and down, as they do in holiness meetings; I hear them say they see angels, they see Jesus, they feel his presence. But is that any evidence for you or me? An intuitive argument is not communicable, and, therefore, it is no argument at all.
Our orthodox friends are finally driven by modern thought, which is growing bolder every day, to the only refuge left for them. It is the one already mentioned. Granted that Jesus was an imaginary character, even then, as an ideal, they argue, he is an inspiration, and the most effective moral force the world has ever known. We do not care, they say, whether the story of his birth, trial, death, and resurrection is myth or actual history; such a man as Jesus may never have existed, the things he is reported as saying may have been put in his mouth by others, but what of that--is not the picture of his character perfect?
Are not the Beat.i.tudes beautiful--no matter who said them? To strengthen this position they call our attention to Shakespeare's creations, the majority of whom--Hamlet, Oth.e.l.lo, Lear, Portia, Imogen, Desdemona, are fict.i.tious. Yet where are there grander men, or finer women? These children of Shakespeare may never have lived, but, surely, they will never die. In the same sense, Jesus may be just as ideal a character as those of Shakespeare, they say, and still be ”the light of the world.” A New York preacher is reported as saying that if Christianity is a lie, it is a ”glorious lie.”
My answer to the above is that such an argument evades instead of facing the question. It is receding from a position under cover of a rhetorical manoeuvre. It is a retreat in disguise. If Christianity is a ”glorious lie,” then call it such. The question under discussion is, Is Jesus Historical? To answer that it is immaterial whether or not he is historical, is to admit that there is no evidence that he is historical. To urge that, unhistorical though he be, he is, nevertheless, the only savior of the world, is, I regret to say, not only evasive,--not only does it beg the question, but it is also clearly dishonest. How long will the tremendous ecclesiastical machinery last, if it were candidly avowed that it is doubtful whether there ever was such a historical character as Jesus, or that in all probability he is no more real than one of Shakespeare's creations?
What! all these prayers, these churches, these denominations, these sectarian wars which have shed oceans of human blood--these unfortunate persecutions which have blackened the face of man--the fear of h.e.l.l and the devil which has blasted millions of lives--all these for a Christ who may, after all, be only a picture!
Neither is it true that this pictorial Jesus saved the world. He has had two thousand years to do it in, but as missionaries are still being sent out, it follows that the world is yet to be saved. The argument presented elsewhere in these pages may here be recapitulated.
There was war before Christianity; has Jesus abolished war?
There was poverty and misery in the world before Christianity; has Jesus removed these evils?
There was ignorance in the world before Christianity; has Jesus destroyed ignorance?
There were disease, crime, persecution, oppression, slavery, ma.s.sacres, and bloodshed in the world before Christianity; alas, are they not still with us?
_When Jesus shall succeed in pacifying his own disciples; in healing the sectarian world of its endless and bitter quarrels, then it will be time to ask what else Jesus has done for humanity._
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