Part 8 (1/2)
Observe, when we become honestly pure agnostics the whole scene changes by the change in our point of view. We may then read the records impartially, or on their own merits, without any antecedent conviction that they must be false. It is then an open question whether they are not true as history.
There is so much to be said in objective evidence for Christianity that were the central doctrines thus testified to anything short of miraculous, no one would doubt. But we are not competent judges _a priori_ of what a revelation should be. If our agnosticism be _pure_, we have no right to pre-judge the case on _prima facie_ grounds.
One of the strongest pieces of objective evidence in favour of Christianity is not sufficiently enforced by apologists. Indeed, I am not aware that I have ever seen it mentioned. It is the absence from the biography of Christ of any doctrines which the subsequent growth of human knowledge--whether in natural science, ethics, political economy, or elsewhere--has had to discount. This negative argument is really almost as strong as is the positive one from what Christ did teach. For when we consider what a large number of sayings are recorded of--or at least attributed to--Him, it becomes most remarkable that in literal truth there is no reason why any of His words should ever pa.s.s away in the sense of becoming obsolete. 'Not even now could it be easy,' says John Stuart Mill, 'even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, than to endeavour so to live that Christ would approve our life[63].' Contrast Jesus Christ in this respect with other thinkers of like antiquity. Even Plato, who, though some 400 years B.C. in point of time, was greatly in advance of Him in respect of philosophic thought--not only because Athens then presented the extraordinary phenomenon which it did of genius in all directions never since equalled, but also because he, following Socrates, was, so to speak, the greatest representative of human reason in the direction of spirituality--even Plato, I say, is nowhere in this respect as compared with Christ. Read the dialogues, and see how enormous is the contrast with the Gospels in respect of errors of all kinds--reaching even to absurdity in respect of reason, and to sayings shocking to the moral sense. Yet this is confessedly the highest level of human reason on the lines of spirituality, when unaided by alleged revelation.
Two things may be said in reply. First, that the Jews (Rabbis) of Christ's period had enunciated most of Christ's ethical sayings. But, even so far as this is true, the sayings were confessedly extracted or deduced from the Old Testament, and so _ex hypothesi_ due to original inspiration. Again, it is not very far true, because, as _Ecce h.o.m.o_ says, the ethical sayings of Christ, even when antic.i.p.ated by Rabbis and the Old Testament, were _selected_ by Him.
It is a general, if not a universal, rule that those who reject Christianity with contempt are those who care not for religion of any kind. 'Depart from us' has always been the sentiment of such. On the other hand, those in whom the religious sentiment is intact, but who have rejected Christianity on intellectual grounds, still almost deify Christ. These facts are remarkable.
If we estimate the greatness of a man by the influence which he has exerted on mankind, there can be no question, even from the secular point of view, that Christ is much the greatest man who has ever lived.
It is on all sides worth considering (blatant ignorance or base vulgarity alone excepted) that the revolution effected by Christianity in human life is immeasurable and unparalleled by any other movement in history; though most nearly approached by that of the Jewish religion, of which, however, it is a development, so that it may be regarded as of a piece with it. If thus regarded, this whole system of religion is so immeasurably in advance of all others, that it may fairly be said, if it had not been for the Jews, the human race would not have had any religion worth our serious attention as such. The whole of that side of human nature would never have been developed in civilized life. And although there are numberless individuals who are not conscious of its development in themselves, yet even these have been influenced to an enormous extent by the atmosphere of religion around them.
But not only is Christianity thus so immeasurably in advance of all other religions. It is no less so of every other system of thought that has ever been promulgated in regard to all that is moral and spiritual.
Whether it be true or false, it is certain that neither philosophy, science, nor poetry has ever produced results in thought, conduct, or beauty in any degree to be compared with it. This I think will be on all hands allowed as regards conduct. As regards thought and beauty it may be disputed. But, consider, what has all the science or all the philosophy of the world done for the thought of mankind to be compared with the one doctrine, 'G.o.d is love'? Whether or not true, conceive what belief in it has been to thousands of millions of our race--i.e. its influence on human thought, and thence on human conduct. Thus to admit its incomparable influence in conduct is indirectly to admit it as regards thought. Again, as regards beauty, the man who fails to see its incomparable excellence in this respect merely shows his own deficiency in the appreciation of all that is n.o.blest in man. True or not true, the entire Story of the Cross, from its commencement in prophetic aspiration to its culmination in the Gospel, is by far the most magnificent [presentation] in literature. And surely the fact of its having all been lived does not detract from its poetic value. Nor does the fact of its being capable of appropriation by the individual Christian of to-day as still a vital religion detract from its sublimity. Only to a man wholly dest.i.tute of spiritual perception can it be that Christianity should fail to appear the greatest exhibition of the beautiful, the sublime, and of all else that appeals to our spiritual nature, which has ever been known upon our earth.
Yet this side of its adaptation is turned only towards men of highest culture. The most remarkable thing about Christianity is its adaptation to all sorts and conditions of men. Are you highly intellectual? There is in its problems, historical and philosophical, such worlds of material as you may spend your life upon with the same interminable interest as is open to the students of natural science. Or are you but a peasant in your parish church, with knowledge of little else than your Bible? Still are you ...[64]
_Regeneration_.
How remarkable is the doctrine of Regeneration _per se_, as it is stated in the New Testament[65], and how completely it fits in with the non-demonstrative character of Revelation to reason alone, with the hypothesis of moral probation, &c. Now this doctrine is one of the distinctive notes of Christianity. That is, Christ foretold repeatedly and distinctly--as did also His apostles after Him--that while those who received the Holy Ghost, who came to the Father through faith in the Son, who were born again of the Spirit, (and many other synonymous phrases,) would be absolutely certain of Christian truth as it were by direct vision or intuition, the carnally minded on the other hand would not be affected by any amount of direct evidence, even though one rose from the dead--as indeed Christ shortly afterwards did, with fulfilment of this prediction. Thus scepticism may be taken by Christians as corroborating Christianity.
By all means let us retain our independence of judgement; but this is pre-eminently a matter in which pure agnostics must abstain from arrogance and consider the facts impartially as unquestionable phenomena of experience.
Shortly after the death of Christ, this phenomenon which had been foretold by Him occurred, and appears to have done so for the first time. It has certainly continued to manifest itself ever since, and has been attributed by professed historians to that particular moment in time called Pentecost, producing much popular excitement and a large number of Christian believers.
But, whether or not we accept this account, it is unquestionable that the apostles were filled with faith in the person and office of their Master, which is enough to justify His doctrine of regeneration.
_Conversions._
St. Augustine after thirty years of age, and other Fathers, bear testimony to a sudden, enduring and extraordinary change in themselves, called _conversion_[66].
Now this experience has been repeated and testified to by countless millions of civilized men and women in all nations and all degrees of culture. It signifies not whether the conversion be sudden or gradual, though, as a psychological phenomenon, it is more remarkable when sudden and there is no symptom of mental aberration otherwise. But even as a gradual growth in mature age, its evidential value is not less. (Cf.
Bunyan, &c.)
In all cases it is not a mere change of belief or opinion; this is by no means the point; the point is that it is a modification of character, more or less profound.
Seeing what a complex thing is character, this change therefore cannot be simple. That it may all be due to so-called natural causes is no evidence against its so-called supernatural source, unless we beg the whole question of the Divine in Nature. To pure agnostics the evidence from conversions and regeneration lies in the bulk of these psychological phenomena, shortly after the death of Christ, with their continuance ever since, their general similarity all over the world, &c., &c.
_Christianity and Pain_.
Christianity, from its foundation in Judaism, has throughout been a religion of sacrifice and sorrow. It has been a religion of blood and tears, and yet of profoundest happiness to its votaries. The apparent paradox is due to its depth, and to the union of these seemingly diverse roots in Love. It has been throughout and growingly a religion--or rather let us say _the_ religion--of Love, with these apparently opposite qualities. Probably it is only those whose characters have been deepened by experiences gained in this religion itself who are so much as capable of intelligently resolving this paradox.
Fakirs hang on hooks, Pagans cut themselves and even their children, sacrifice captives, &c., for the sake of propitiating diabolical deities. The Jewish and Christian idea of sacrifice is doubtless a survival of this idea of G.o.d by way of natural causation, yet this is no evidence against the completed idea of the G.o.dhead being [such as the Christian belief represents it], for supposing the completed idea to be true, the earlier ideals would have been due to the earlier inspirations, in accordance with the developmental method of Revelation hereafter to be discussed[67].