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FROM THE LIBRARY OF THE
REVEREND CHARLES ROSENBURY ERDMAN
D.D., LL.D.
BL 2775 .A549 1909
Anderson, Robert, 1841-1918
A doubter's doubts about
science and religion
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Copyright, 1909, by
The Gospel Publishing House
Printing by
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prpfarp
A DOUBTER'S Doubts about Science and Relig-
^^ ion was first published anonymously, at a
time when the author was Assistant Commissioner
of Police and Head of the Criminal Investigation
Department, at Scotland Yard (London). In the
original edition a brief prefatory chapter explained
the plan and purpose of the book; and the follow-
ing extract from it may opportunely be quoted
here :
"We have all heard of 'the confidence trick.'
With unfailing certainty it comes up again and
again in our police reports, and we always read
the story with mingled feelings of wonder, amuse-
ment and pity. Nor is it merely the rustic and the
tourist in the streets of London who fall victims
to such frauds. By an artifice quite as silly and
transparent one of our greatest city houses was not
long ago defrauded of £20,000 in gold. The details
of the swindle would be delightful reading, but to
divulge them would be a breach of faith; for the
merchants preferred to bear their loss, rather than
incur the ridicule which publicity would have
brought on them. But there are developments of
5
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
the 'confidence trick' of which the police court takes
no cognizance, and where the victim's loss cannot
be estimated at a money value. Simple folk are
every day imposed upon by deceptions just as
shameless, palmed off upon them in the name of
religion. And not of religion only, but of science
also. And may not a sceptic do good service here?
Is not this work for a high-class detective? It
cannot be, surely, but that some at least will be
found to appreciate an honest effort to expose such
frauds."
Of the present volume the latter half is entirely
new. And some of the earlier chapters have been
revised ; but those which deal with the philosophical
systems of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer
remain unchanged. It may be thought, perhaps,
that the criticisms they contain are out of date,
now that Spencerism is dead, and Darwinism dis-
credited. But though biological theories which
reigned supreme a few years ago have been aban-
doned or modified by "men of light and leading,"
their influence still prevails with the general
public and in response to appeals from several
quarters the chapters in question are here repro-
duced.
As the book is addressed to men of the world,
it speaks from the standpoint of scepticism — the
true scepticism which tests everything, not the
6
Preface
sham sort which credulously accepts anything that
seems to discredit the Bible. If, for example, the
Bible taught evolution, it may be averred that
evolution would be scoffed by many who now cling
to it with a childlike faith worthy of the infant
class in the Sunday School. With the true sceptic
it is merely a philosophic theory.
The reader will thus be prepared to find that
destructive criticism is in the main the author's
method. To some the book will seem unsatis-
factory on this account, and yet they must
recognise the importance of thus refuting the
claims which infidelity makes to superior enlight-
enment.
Others may think that in these pages the diffi-
culties which perplex the Bible student are
dismissed too lightly. Here the author must either
accept the criticism, or risk a charge of egotism if
he appeals to his other books in proof that he
neither ignores difficulties nor attempts to mini-
mise them.
Were it not for encouragement received from
one of the author's most valued American friends,
this re-issue of A Doubter's Doubts might never
have appeared ; and at his request it is that this
American edition preserves the old title.
R. A.
* The corresponding English Edition (published by Hodder and
Stoughton, London) is entitled In Defence: A Plea for the Faith.
7
CHontPttta
CHAPTER I
PAGE
HOW DID LIFE BEGIN ?..... 13
Creation or evolution? Method of the inquiry. The
evidence for evolution. Abiogenesis. Huxley, Tyn-
dall and Lord Kelvin quoted. Herbert Spencer
cited in refutation of it. The original life-germ :
its infinite capacities. Science leads to the acknowl-
edgment of God. The alternative.
CHAPTER n
THE DARWINIAN THEORY . . ... 22
Mark Twain quoted. "Who made God?" Lord
Kelvin's dictum — "Science affirms creative power."
What kind of God then shall we own? Darwin's
hypothesis. His statement of it. Degeneration as
an alternative hypothesis. Evolution fails to account
for the moral and spiritual nature of man. Herbert
Spencer cited against it. A practical test. Karl von
Hartmann on Darwinism.
CHAPTER HI
HERBERT SPENCER's SCHEME . ... 34
Special creation versii'S evolution. Spencer quoted
and answered. His mistakes as to theological
difficulties. The biblical scheme for the restoration
of creation. "No one ever saw a special creation."
Spencer's theme atheistical.
CHAPTER IV
HAVE WE A REVELATION? ..... 43
The function of true scepticism. The existence of
God creates a presumption in favour of a revela-
tion. But we must guard against fraud and super-
stition. Is Christianity a Divine revelation? The
question discussed. The claims of Rome and sacer-
dotalism. (Concluding note on Article XXVIII.
and the meaning of a "sacrament"),
9
A Doubter'' s Doubts about Science and Religion
IS CHRISTIANITY DIVINE,
CHAPTER V
PAGE
51
59
68
Goldwin Smith on the Reformation and the Bible.
Notice of the theological school which ignores the
connection between Christianity and Judaism. The
testimony of Christ to the Old Testament. The
Kenosis theology discussed.
CHAPTER VI
MR. A. J. Balfour's scheme ....
The theses of A Defence of Philosophic Doubt.
Discussion of the scheme. Tyndall on "religious
feeling." The argument against miracles. The
question discussed. The testimony of Scripture.
Settling the issues. The conflict is between Scripture
and scientific theories, not facts.
CHAPTER VII
THE COSMOGONY OF GENESIS ....
The controversy on the subject. Mr, Gladstone's
Dawn of Creation and Worship. The failure of
Mr. Huxley's attack upon it. Their reference to
Prof. Dana, and his decision. The author's chal-
lenge to Mr. Huxley in The Times. Mr. Glad-
stone's thesis holds the field. The materialistic
scientists. Herbert Spencer's statement of evolu-
tion. The teaching of Genesis i.
CHAPTER VIII
"an agnostic's apology" .... 80
Sir Leslie Stephen's treatise. The fallacy of his
scheme exposed. His method of discussion. Refer-
ence to Newman. His position is infidel. His chal-
lenge stated and answered by the Resurrection.
The evidence for the Resurrection. Dr. Harnack's
view. The universality of superstition a proof of
the truth of Genesis.
10
Contents
CHAPTER IX
PAGE
THE IRRATIONALISM OF INFIDELITY ... 91
Mill's testimony to Christ. The untenableness of
the infidel position. It is refuted by their own testi-
mony to the New Testament writers. The miracle
of feeding the 5,000. The evidence for such miracles
is complete. Voltaire's infidelity explained. The
honest sceptic entitled to respect, especially in view
of the religious apostasy of the day. Dean Alford
on the Christian Church.
CHAPTER X
A sceptic's plea for faith .... 100
Lord Kelvin's testimony and advice. Chrysostom's
testimony to the Scriptures. The "Catholic Church"
and Pascal. What God demands of those who come
to Him. The question discussed. The facts of
Christianity attested by evidence. The crucifixion
a proof that Christ claimed to be Divine. And
this creates a presumption that we have authentic
records of His ministry.
CHAPTER XI
HOW TO READ THE BIBLE ..... 109
Prof. Max Miiller's testimony to the New Testa-
ment. Dr. Harnack's testimony to its genuineness.
How to begin Bible study. Lord Cairn's words
spoken to working men. "What if/, it aoout?"
Prevailing errors about the Bible, "[.k'"^- '^ha^1cter
and purpose of the Jewish dispensatio',^ "^.^^^ Ser-
mon on the Mount. The Lord's testii. A ' o the
Hebrew Scriptures. Dean Alford quote '^ lack
to Christ."
11
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
CHAPTER XII
PAGE
THE "higher criticism" ..... 120
The false distinguished from the true. The false
a rationalistic crusade against the Bible. Eich-
horn's scheme. Astruc's discovery. The German
attack on the Pentateuch. The mistake made
by English critics. The art of writing in the
Mosaic Age. The Hammurabi code. Dr. Driver's
statement of the case against the Pentateuch.
Disproved by the Samaritan Bible. Robertson
Smith and Prof. Konig quoted. The problem
one of evidence. The ''two Isaiahs" hypothesis.
Jonah and the whale. The Kenosis figment ex-
plained and refuted. Dr. Driver's position. The
"New Theology." Bishop of Durham quoted.
APPENDIX 137
Note I. The Creation.
Note II. The Book of Daniel.
, Note III. The Old Testament and the Critics.
J2
CHAPTER I
HOW DID LIFE BEGIN f
THERE is one fact which not even the
dreamiest of egotists can doubt, and that is,
his own existence. Here at least knowledge is
absolute. That I exist is certain; but how did I
come to exist? I live; but how did life begin?
The question is one to which every man is bound
to find a reasonable answer. To say I am descended
through generations numbered or innumerable
from a first man, is merely to put the difficulty back.
Where did the first man come from? Religion
answers in one word — Creation. But this is to cut
the knot, as it were, without even an attempt to
untie it. It must not be taken for granted that
man is incapable of reasoning out the problem of
his own existence.
Between the higher organisms and the lowest
there is a gulf which might well be regarded as
impassable. But closer observation and fuller
knowledge will disclose the fact that between these
extremes there are unnumbered gradations of
development, and that the distance between the
several steps in the series is such as, in theory at
least, might be passed by the operation of known
laws. The problem, therefore, which religion
would solve by the one word " creation," science
answers by the one word ''evolution." And science
claims priority of audience.
13
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
But here let us take the place of sceptics. There
are no sceptics in the old scholastic sense. The
most ardent Pyrrhonist, if robbed of his purse, or
struck over the head by a burglar, promptly for-
gets his theories, and gives proof of his belief in
the certainty of objective knowledge. Philosophic
scepticism, so called, is merely a conceit of sham
philosophers; it never invades the sphere in which
a man's interests require that he should believe
and know. And, as Kant has aptly said, it is
" not a permanent resting-place for human reason."
But scepticism is not necessarily Pyrrhonism.
Pyrrho did not invent the word; he only perverted
and degraded it. The 6tiETcriitb<i considers, reflects,
hesitates, doubts. An admirable habit, surely, if
kept within due limits, but proof of moral deteri-
oration if abnormally developed.
Let us not forget then, as we proceed, to reflect,
hesitate, doubt; and, above all, let us cast away
prejudice. Let us take the place of free thinkers
and real sceptics, not shams. Many people reserve
their scepticism for the sphere in which religion
is the teacher, while in the presence of science they
are as innocent and simple in their receptivity as
the infant class in a Sunday-School. We shall only
deceive ourselves if we begin by over-stating the
evidence on which the doctrine of evolution rests.
It- must be conceded that its foundation largely
depends on the researches of the Paleontologist.
And here we demand some direct proof that the
fossil remains belong to the same economy or
system as the living organisms we compare them
14
How Did Life Begin f
with. But there is no such proof, and it is a ques-
tion whether the presumption be not the other
way.
Let that pass, however, for a more serious ques-
tion claims attention. It may be admitted that the
development of plants and animals from their
simplest to their most complicated forms may be
explained by natural causes. But this is only
theory. What direct evidence is there that the
phenomena have, in fact, been thus produced? The
horse may have been developed from a pig-like
animal, and man may be "descended from a hairy
quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears." ^
But what direct proof is there that either the horse
or the man was, in fact, developed or evolved in
this way? The answer must be, Absolutely none.
It is a matter of inference only.^
The prisoner in the dock may have committed
the murder we are investigating. The theory of
his guilt will account for all the facts. Therefore
let him be convicted and hanged. This sort of
argument would not pass at the Old Bailey. Men
are sceptics there, and free thinkers. Proof that
the prisoner may have committed the crime is
worthless, unless we go on to prove that it could
not have been committed by any one else. But
with that further proof the case is clear, and the
accused goes to the gallows. And so here. If the
facts of biology can in no other way be accounted
for, evolution holds the field.
^ Descent of Man, pt. ii. chap. xxi.
2 Marvellous results are produced by culture, but they are subject to
the seemingly inexorable laws of degeneracy and the sterility of hybrids.
15
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
But are we not forgetting the nature of the prob-
lem to be solved? The first and greatest question
relates, not to the phenomena of life, but to its
origin. How did life begin? That was the ques-
tion we set out with. And here evolution affords
no answer, and must stand aside. Let the existence
of life be taken for granted, and evolution may
explain the rest. But the sceptic takes nothing
for granted. How did life begin? Science ans-
wers ! In presence of a question which lies
across the threshold of knowledge, science, the
very personification of knowledge, turns agnostic
and is dumb. '' Creation " is the answer religion
gives. The rejoinder which science ought to make
is that life first sprang out of death, out of nothing;
in a word, abiogenesis.
And this is, in fact, the answer which science
would formerly have given. But the experiments
which at one time seemed to establish the principle
of spontaneous generation, have proved worthless
when subjected to severer tests. Huxley admits
that '' the present state of knowledge furnishes us
with no link between the living and the not living."
With still greater candour, Tyndall declares that
" every attempt made in our day to generate life
independently of antecedent life has utterly broken
down." Or, if we turn to a teacher, whose dictum will
carry still greater weight, Lord Kelvin will tell us
that "inanimate matter cannot become living except
under the influence of matter already living. This
is a fact in science which seems to me," he de-
clares, "as well ascertained as the law of gravitation."
16
How Did Life Begin f
And he goes on to say, "I am ready to accept as an
article of faith in science, vaUd for all time and in all
space, that life is produced by life, and only by life."^
Abiogenesis is merely a philosophic theory,
unsupported by even the faintest shadow of evi-
dence. But more than this, it is practically
incapable of proof, for the problem implies the
proof of a negative in circumstances which render
the difficulties of such proof overwhelming. To
establish the fact of spontaneous generation in a
world teeming with life, would be as hopeless as
the attempt to prove that the displacement of a
table in a dark room crowded with people was
caused without interference on their part.^
But, we are told, the fact that we know absolutely
nothing of the origin of life, and that there is not
a shadow of direct evidence that abiogenesis has
ever taken place, does not interfere with the con-
clusion *' that at some time or other abiogenesis
must have taken place. If the hypothesis of
evolution be true, living matter must have arisen
from not-living matter."^ Therefore life did orig-
inate thus, and the truth of evolution is established.
Thus argue the professors and scientists. But the
man who considers, reflects, hesitates, doubts, will
call for the evidence ; and, finding there is none,
he will reject the conclusion, and also, if necessary,
the dependent hypothesis.
1 Brit. Assoc, Edinburgh, 1871.
2 And if the proof were given, it would be more reasonable, more
philosophical, to assume the presence of some unseen agency — i.e., to fall
back upon spiritualism — than to suppose the furniture capable of
spontaneous motion.
' Professor Huxley, Encyc. Brit., "Biology.
17
A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion
We set out to solve the mystery of life. Science
claimed to possess the clew, and offered to be our
guide. And now, having been led back to the
identical point from which we started, we are told
we must shut our eyes and take a leap in the dark.
It is a bad case of the '' confidence trick."
'' Besides being absolutely without evidence to
give it external support, this hypothesis cannot
support itself internally — cannot be framed into a
coherent thought. It is one of those illegitimate
symbolic conceptions so continually mistaken for
legitimate symbolic conceptions, because they
remain untested. Immediately an attempt is made
to elaborate the idea into anything like a definite
shape, it proves to be a pseud-idea, admitting of
no definite shape." It " implies the establishment
of a relation in thought between nothing and some-
thing — a relation of which one term is absent —
an impossible relation." '' The case is one of those
where men do not really believe, but rather believe
they believe. For belief, properly so called, implies
a mental representation of the thing believed ; and
no such mental representation Is here possible." ^
Evolution assumes the existence of life; postu-
lates it, as the scientists would say. No more is
needed than one solitary germ of living matter.
Indeed, to seek for more would be unphilosophical.^
But this primeval germ must be taken for granted.
1 The words are Herbert Spencer's (Principles of Biology, § 112);
tne application of them is entirely my own.
2 "1
.r .-^^. ^" living beings have been evolved from pre-existing forms of
life, it is enough that a single particle of living protoplasm should have
once appeared on the globe, as the result of no matter what agency. In
the eyes of a consistent evolutionist anv further independent formation
2LP''°*"r'^^-'^"^ would be sheer waste." — Professor Huxley, Encxc. Brit.
Biology."
18
How Did Life Begin f
The sceptic will refuse to assign to it an origin
which contradicts all our experience and surpasses
our knowledge. The only hypothesis he can accept
is that life has existed without any limitation of
time ; that the original life-germ was eternal and
practically self-existent.
And of course nothing could be evolved from it
which was not inherent. It must have been preg-
nant with all the forms and developments of life
with which the world is full. Moreover it is only
ignorant conceit to maintain that evolution has
reached its limits. If man has sprung from such
an origin, we must suppose that, in the far-distant
future, beings will be developed as superior to
mankind as we ourselves are superior to the insects
crawling on the earth. According to the hypothesis
the latent capacities of the first life-germ were
infinite. " Capabilities," remember, not tendencies.
Unknowable force may account for tendencies, but
it cannot create capacities.
Not that this distinction will save us from the
pillory. The philosopher will condepm the statement
as unphilosophical — "a shaping of ignorance into
the semblance of knowledge" and I know not what
besides.^ But these brave words can be tested at
once by assuming the contrary to what is here
"^Principles of Biology, § 144. I have no wish to shelter myself be-
hind Professor Huxley, hnt I c'aim his companionship and sympathy in
the pijlory. He says, "Of the causes which have led to the origination
of living matter, then, it may be said that we know absolutely nothing.
But postulating the existence of living matter endowed with that
power of hereditary transmission and with that tendency to vary which
is found in all such matter. Mr. Darwin has shown good reasons for
believing," etc. (Encyc. Brit.. "Biology"). The primordial germ,
mark, is "endowed" with a "power" and a "tendency." What had Mr.
Spencer to say to this? All that I assert here is the "power"; to predi-
cate the "tendency" is unnecessary and therefore unphilosophical.
19
A Doubter' s Doubts about Science and Religion
asserted. Let us take it, then, that the primordial
germ had no latent capacities whatever. And yet
we are to accept it as the origin of all the amazing
forms and phenomena of life in the world. If we
may not suppose such an aptitude naturally pos-
sessed by organisms, we must assume an f/iaptitude ;
and the question is no longer whether the cause
be adequate to the effects, but whether effects are
to be ascribed to what is no cause at all. May we
not retort that this is indeed ''a cause unpre-
sentable in thought " — one of those illegitimate
symbolic conceptions which cannot by any mental
process be elaborated into a real conception?^ In
the spirit of a true philosopher, Charles Darwin
declared that " the birth both of the species and of
the individual are equally parts of that grand
sequence of events which our minds refuse to accept
as the result of blind chance." -
By what word, then, shall this " particle of
living protoplasm " be called ; this great First
Cause ; this Life-germ, eternal, self-existent, infinite
in essential capacities? There is but one word
known to human language adequate to designate
it, and that word is GOD.
Evolution — that is, Science — thus leads us to a
point at which either we must blindly and with
boundless credulity accept as fact something which
is not only destitute of proof, but which is positively
disproved by every test we are at present able to
apply to it ; or else we must recognise an existence
^Descent of Man. pt. ii. chap. xxi.
"^Principles of Biology, § 144.
20
How Did Life Begin .^
which, disguise it as we may, means nothing less
than God.
There is no escape from this dilemma. Our
choice lies between these alternatives. The sceptic
will at once reject the first; his acceptance of the
second is, therefore, a necessity. Men whose minds
are enslaved by a preconceived determination to
refuse belief in God must be content here to stand
like fools, owning their impotency to solve the
elementary problem of existence, and, as humble
disciples in the school of one Topsy, a negro slave-
girl, dismissing the matter by the profound and
sapient formula, *' I 'spect I grow'd " ! But tlie free
thinker, unblinded by prejudice, will reject an
alternative belief which is sheer credulity, and,
unmoved by the sneers of pseudo-scientists and
sham-philosophers, will honestly and fearlessly
accept the goal to which his reason points, and
there set up an altar to an unknown God.
21
A Doubter's Doubts about Sciejice and Religion
CHAPTER II
THE DARWINIAN THEORY
4;^ T T'S lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky
* up there all speckled with stars, and v^e
used to lay on our backs and look up at them and
discuss about whether they were made, or only
just happened. Jim he allowed they was made, but
I allowed they happened; I judged it would have
took too long to make so many. Jim said the
moon could 'a laid them ; well, that looked kind
of reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it,
because I've seen a frog lay most as many, so of
course it could be done. We used to watch the
stars that fell, too, and see them struck down. Jim
allowed they'd got spoiled and was hove out of
the nest."
In this charming piece of fooling, Mark Twain
states the problem admirably. The question is
whether things were made, or ''only just happened."
But Jim, being a philosopher, suggested evolution
as a compromise, and Huck Finn's deism was not
intelligent enough or vigorous enough to resist it.
'' Only just happened " — that supreme folly of
nineteenth-century philosophy, is as really a posi-
tive creed as the Mosaic cosmogony. And surely
a venerable faith of any sort is preferable to a
new-fangled superstition which has no rational
22
The Darwinian Theory
sanction and is devoid even of that kind of respect-
ability which antiquity can sometimes impart.
In our search after the origin of life reason guides
us in a path which leads direct to God. Nor let
any one here object that this is but a veiled appeal
to revelation. Unless reason points to the existence
of a God, the question of a revelation cannot even
arise. And if any one should raise the difficulty
which robbed Professor Tyndall of his sleep in
childhood, ''Who made. God ?"^ the solution is to
be found, not in attempting to answer the question,
but in exposing its absurdity. " Science," Lord
Kelvin declares, '' positively affirms creative
power. "2 And it is because science leads us back
to an existence which never had a beginning that,
for want of any other term by which to designate
it, we call it God.
But here we must turn back upon the ground
already traversed. We have been dealing hitherto
with evolution, not as an hypothesis to account for
the origin of species, but merely as a pretended
explanation of the origin of life ; and we have
found that, thus regarded, it is but a blind lane
which leads nowhere. The inquiry suggests itself,
therefore, whether the conception of God be a true
one which we have thus reached by escape from a
wrong path. The question whether there be a God
^ "Athwart all play and amusement a thread of seriousness ran
through my character; and many a sleepless night of my childhood has
been passed fretted by the question, 'Who made God?'" — Professor FiV-
chow and Evolution. Was the elder Mill the author of this absurd
problem? See J. S. Mill's Autobiography, p. 43.
^Christian Apologetics (Murray), p. 25. The book is a republica-
tion of lectures delivered in University College in 1903, at one of which
Lord Kelvin was present and spoke.
23
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
is no longer open. \Miat concerns us now is merely
to decide what kind of God we shall acknowledge.
Shall we be content with the mystic Pantheism
which a false system of biology would offer us, or
shall we adore an intelligent ruler of the universe?
The man who can give no account of his own
existence is a fool ; and he who denies a God can
give no account of his existence. In the old time
men whispered their folly within their own hearts ;
nowadays they proclaim it on the housetops, or,
to translate the Oriental figure into its Western
correlative, they publish it in printed books. But
philosophy is not folly, and folly has no right to
call itself wisdom. There is a God — that is certain ;
what then can reason tell us of Ilim?
As heathen poets wrote two thousand years ago,
"We are also His offspring."^ It behooves us,
therefore, to ascribe to Him the highest qualities
which His creatures are endowed with. To admit,
under pressure of facts which we can neither deny
nor ignore, the conception of a God, and then to
minimise that conception so that it becomes inade-
quate to account for the facts — this is neither
reason nor philosophy, but crass folly. Since reason
shuts us up to belief in God, let us have the courage
of free thought, and instead of taking refuge in
a vague theism, let us acknowledge a real God —
not the great "primordial germ," but the Creator
of the heavens and the earth.
Regarded as a theory to account for life, evolution
^ rov yap nal ytvo^ IdMer (Aratus, Phoen.); and Kleanthes
writes, ^fi dov ydip yevo^ idjuav.
24
The Darwinian Theory
is the wildest folly ; but as an hypothesis to account
for the varied forms of life, it claims a hearing on
its merits. And viewed in this light, no one need
denounce it as necessarily irreligious. As the
apostle of evolution with fairness urges, he Avho
thus denounces it " is bound to show why it is
more irreligious to explain the origin of man as a
distinct species by descent from some lower form,
through the laws of variation and natural selection,
than to explain the birth of the individual through
laws of ordinary reproduction. The birth both of
the species and of the individual are equally parts
of that grand sequence of events which our minds
refuse to accept as the result of blind chance. The
understanding revolts at such a conclusion." ^
Darwan might, indeed, have stated the matter
much more strongly. To call into existence a lowly
organised form of life, endowed with latent capaci-
ties so wonderful, and so exquisitely adjusted that
only when a certain stage of development is reached,
the moral qualities spring into exercise, immortality
is attained, and there arises in the mind *' the idea
of a universal and beneficent Creator of the uni-
verse"- — this is a far more amazing act of creative
power than the Mosaic account of the genesis of
man supposes. But, on the other hand, this very
admission suggests a question the importance of
which none but the superficial and the ignorant
will doubt, Is not the Mosaic account, for that
very reason, the more philosophical hypothesis?
^ The Descent of Man, pt. ii. chap. xxi.
2 The Descent of Man, pt. ii, chap, xxi,
25
A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion
It is obvious that if we acknowledge *' a benefi-
cent Creator of the universe," the existence of man
is explained by the necessary admission that he is
a creature; and no theory of development from a
lower form of life would be tenable for a moment,
were it not for reasons which lie hidden, and do not
appear upon the surface. Of that very character,
however, are the grounds upon which the hypoth-
esis of evolution rests. These may be summarised
in a single sentence, as '' the close similarity
between man and the lower animals in embryonic
development, as well as in innumerable points of
structure and constitution, both of high and of the
most trifling importance — the rudiments which he
retains, and the abnormal reversions to which he
is occasionally liable." ^
But these facts, indisputable and striking though
they be, may one and all be accounted for by an
hypothesis of an exactly opposite character. Instead
of assuming that the protoplastic organism was of
the humblest form, but endowed with capacities of
development, why should we not suppose that man
himself was the primordial creature, and that he
came from the Creator's hand stamped with char-
acteristics '' in innumerable points of structure and
constitution," to warn him that he was made liable
to a law of degeneration and decay, and that the
neglect or perversion of his noble powers would
degrade him indefinitely in the scale of life? It is
certain that this hypothesis is more in accordance
with the traditional beliefs of the heathen world
^ The Descent of Man.
26
The Darwinian Theory
than that of evolution, and it would be easy to
maintain that it is more philosophical/
We shall gain nothing by misrepresenting facts,
and no fair person will pretend that experience
warrants the hypothesis that any race of men, that
any individual even, ever advanced in the scale
of life save under the constant pressure of favouring
circumstances. But while culture alone will, so
far as our experience teaches us, account for an
advance, the tendency to degenerate seems univer-
sal. "In . the Australian bush," for example, "and
in the backwoods of America, the Anglo-Saxon
race, in which civilisation has developed to a con-
siderable degree, rapidly lapses into comparative
barbarism, adopting the moral code, and sometimes
the habits, of savages. "-
And evolution, while, in theory at least, account-
ing for the physical fact it appeals to, makes no
reasonable attempt to explain the moral phenomena
which claim our attention, though these are far
more significant and important. We know what it
is to meet with people over whose origin or career
some mystery evidently hangs. A bar sinister has
crossed their pedigree, or their life is darkened by
some strange secret. And is there not something
akin to this in the history of our race? Can any
intelligent observer look back upon the history of
^ Paleontology will here be appealed to in opposition to my sugp-'^?-
tion, but the answer is obvious. From an age when the earth was
thinly populated, and extreme respect was shown to the dead, we could
not expect to find fossil human remains unless we suppose that the
geological strata in which the fossils are found were form.ed in sudden
convulsions of nature, and this supposition would put Paleontology out
of court altogether.
2 Principles of Biology, § 67.
27
A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion
the world, or honestly face the dismal facts of life
around us — " the turbid ebb and flow of human
misery " — and fail to find traces of some mysterious
disaster in primeval times, which still disturbs the
moral sphere?
According: to the evolutionist, man is but an
upstart, a biological parvenu, ever in danger of
betraying his humble origin, and occasionally show-
ing a tendency to revert to his former state. But
surely it is only a base materialism which would
assign to the phenomena on which this theory rests
the same importance as that which we ascribe to
the mysteries of man's inner being. The presence
in embryo of organs properly belonging to the
brute, or such "reversions" as *'the occasional
appearance of canine teeth " — what are these in
comparison with the fact that life from the cradle
to the grave is marked by baffled aspirations after
an unattainable ideal, and unsatisfied cravings for
the infinite? Are we to believe that these cravings
and aspirations are derived from the " hairy quad-
ruped with a tail and pointed ears " ?
" As soon as man grew distinct from the animal
he became religious." A sense of humour would
have saved Renan from offering a suggestion so
grotesque as this. We might admit for the sake of
argument that the descendant of an ape might be-
come philosophical and mathematical and musical ;
but how and why should he become religious? "To
call the spiritual nature of man a ' by-product ' is
a jest too big for this little world." ^ " Man," the
1 These words are attributed to Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace.
28
The Darzuinian Theory
evolutionist declares, '' still bears in his bodily
frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin."^
His inner being, we may with greater truth reply,
gives unmistakable proof that his origin was a high
and noble one. Evolution, remember, is not fact,
but only theory. The facts are the pearls ; evolution
is but the string on which we are asked to hang
them. And we shall seek in vain for a single shred
of direct evidence in support of it.-
It is significant that naturalists who suppose new
species to be originated by evolution " habitually
suppose the origination to occur in some region
remote from human observation."^ These results
are supposed to have been produced during " those
immeasurable epochs," " untold millions of years "
before " beings endowed with capacity for wide
thought" existed on the earth."* To which the
sceptic will make answer : First, that there is no
proof that this earth has so long existed in a
habitable state ; it is a mere inference based upon
a certain geological theory which is wholly
unproved and by no means universally accepted.
And, secondly, that as neither the course of nature
Vv'ithin known periods, nor the skill of man, has ever
produced a species, we may be merely stultifying
our minds b}^ dismissing the difficulty to a m3^thical
^ These are the closing words of The Descent of Man.
2 I am aware that Herbert Spencer asserts that the hypothesis "has
the support of direct evidence" {Principles of Biology. % 121). But
this extraordinary statement can be accounted for only by supposing that
he uses words in a loose and popular way which cannot be permitted
here.
* The lanpuaec, but not the application of it, is Herbert Spencer's
{Principles of Biology. § 112).
* Principles of Biology, §§ 114, 120.
29
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religioyi
past about which we may conjecture and romance,
but concerning which we know absolutely nothing.
But let us for the moment assume these '' untold
millions of years," these " immeasurable epochs " of
an "abysmal past," during which the evolutionary
process has been developing. Further, let us con-
cede that the supposed process is so slow that no
appreciable change may be looked for within the
period of historic time. In fact, let us, for the sake
of argument, admit everything assumed by the
evolutionist, excepting only the hypothesis of evolu-
tion itself, and we can at once subject that
hypothesis to a practical test of the simplest kind,
which will either establish its truth or demonstrate
its falseness.
Suppose our world were visited by a being of
intelligence, able to converse with men, but wholly
ignorant of an existence like ours, marked by devel-
opment and decay. Brought face to face with
puling infancy, vigorous manhood, and the senile
decrepitude of extreme old age, such a being might
express incredulous wonder on hearing that these
were but successive stages in human life. And he
might answer fairly and with shrewdness, " If such
a statement be true, then there must l)e individuals
in the world of every possible age, from a minute to
a hundred years, and manifesting every imaginnble
degree of growth and decline." To which the
unequivocal reply we should of course be able to
offer would put an end to his scepticism.
But suppose we were to make some such answer
as this : " True it is that never a moment passes
30
The Darwinian Theory
but that some new life enters the world, and some
blighted or withered life disappears from it ; the
processes of generation and growth and decay are
all unceasing and constant; but yet we cannot sat-
isfy the test you put to us. We can show you large
children and small adults, smooth-faced boys and
full-bearded men, types of failing manhood and of
hale old age, but there are ' missing links ' which
we cannot supply. Of some of these we have
' archeological evidence,' there are fossil specimens
in our museums ; and the learned tell us that others
no doubt exist and will yet be found ; but of living
specimens there are none, though all the resources
of nature and of science have been appealed to in
the effort to produce them." With such an answer
our ephemeral visitor might well return to his
celestial home perplexed with grave misgivings
respecting our honesty or our intelligence.
And so here. The cases are entirely parallel. If
the processes of evolution have been in operation
during infinite aeons of time, and be still at work,
" missing links " are out of the question. The nat-
uralist will, of course, be able to point to types of
every imaginable stage of development, from the
simplest and humblest to the most exquisitely
complex and perfect. But the naturalist can do
no such thing. There are almost innumerable gaps
in the chain, which could only be accounted for by
the supposition that evolution has again and again
been interrupted during intervals so prolonged,
that in comparison with them the entire period of
historic time is but as a tick of the clock. There-
•31
A Doubter'' s Doubts about S device and Religion
fore it is that at every step the naturalist has to
appeal to the Paleontologist. As Huxley will tell
us, '' The only perfectly safe foundation for the
doctrine of evolution lies in the historical, or rather
archeological evidence, that particular organisms
have arisen by the gradual modification of their
predecessors, which is furnished by fossil remains."
The evolutionist professes to account for the
oiigin of species, but, finding as he proceeds that,
under his hypothesis, the problem remains inexpli-
cable, he strives to conceal its real character.
Whence the distinctions which he thus classifies?
How can he account for species itself? He strug-
gles to escape from the difficulty by representing
all such distinctions as being purely arbitrary. But
such a piece of " special pleading " only betrays the
weakness of his position. The lines which separate
one species from another are clearly marked, as is
evidenced by the undoubted fact that the effects
of both culture and neglect are strictly limited by
them. The reality of the difficulty, moreover, the
evolutionist himself acknowledges by the recog-
nition of missing links, and by his appeal to the
fossils to supply them. The necessity for the
admission and the appeal are a conclusive proof
that his hypotliiesis is untenable.
Let us then keep clearly in view, first, that
evolution is merely a philosophic theory; second,
that it is unproA^ed ; third, that it is inadequate ;
and fourth, that (as will appear more plainly in
the sequel) it is unnecessary, except of course with
those scientists who cling to any plank that will
32
The Darwinian Theory
save them from having to acknowledge God. And,
it may be added, there is a fashion in science as
well as in dress, and the fashion changes almost
as rapidly in the one sphere as in the other. And
so, as Karl von Hartmann wrote :
'' In the sixties of the past century the opposition
of the older group of savants to the Darwinian
hypothesis was still supreme. In the seventies the
new idea began to gain ground rapidly in all cul-
tured countries. In the eighties Darwin's influence
was at its height, and exercised an almost absolute
control over technical research. In the nineties, for
the first time, a few timid expressions of doubt and
opposition were heard ; and these gradually swelled
into a great chorus of voices, aiming at the over-
throw of the Darwinian theory. In the first decade
of the twentieth century it has become apparent
that the days of Darwinism are numbered." ^
^ Taken from a translation given in The Pall Mall Magazine for
September, 1904. As a commentary upon it I may add the following
extract from an article entitled "The Riddle of Evolution," which ap-
peared in The Times Literary Supplement of June 9, 1905:
"No one possessed of a sense of humour can contemplate without
amusement the battle of evolution, encrimsoned (dialecticaliy speaking)
with the gore of innumerable combatants, encumbered with the corpses
of the (dialecticaliy) slain, and resounding with the cries of the living,
as they hustle together in the fray. [Here follows a lengthy list of the
various schools and sects of Evolutionists.] Never was seen such a
melee. The humour of it is that they all claim to represent 'Science,'
the serene, the majestic, the absolutely sure, the undivided and im-
mutable, the one and only vicegerent of Truth, her other self. Not
theirs the weakness of the theologians or the metaphysicians, who stum-
ble about in uncertainty, obscurity, and ignorance with their baseless
assumptions, flimsy hypotheses, logical fallacies, interminable dissen-
sions, and all the other marks of inferiority on which the votaries of
Science pour ceaseless scorn. Yet it would puzzle them to point to a
theological battlefield exhibiting more uncertainty, obscurity, dissension,
assumption, and fallacy than their own. _ For the plain truth is that,
though some agree in 'this or that, there is not a single point in which
all agree; battling for evolution they have torn it to pieces; nothing is
left, nothing at all on their own showing, save a few fragments strewn
about the arena. ..."
33
A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion
CHAPTER III
HERBERT SPENCER's SCHEME
THE hypothesis of degeneration has been here
suggested as a rival to that of evolution. It
equally accounts for the facts, and is less beset
with difficulties. Are we then to accept it? By
no means. Both alike are mere theories, wholly
unsupported by direct evidence; and therefore the
sceptic will reject both, unless they be alternatives,
and he is thus compelled to make choice between
them. But they are not alternatives. The facts
submitted to our notice by the naturalist would
be still more fully accounted for by the assumption
that every kind of creature sprang from the same
Creator's hand.
And this is, in fact, the only alternative which
the evolutionist admits. " We have to choose
between two hypotheses," he tells us — "the hypoth-
esis of special creations, and the hypothesis of
evolution." The necessity for this admission, be
it observed, is by implication a conclusive proof
that evolution is unproved.^
Let us, then, consider the suggested alternative.
Herbert Spencer will tell us that, '' however
regarded, the hypothesis of special creations turns
out to be worthless — worthless by its derivation ;
worthless in its intrinsic incoherence ; worthless as
* It is only where there is no direct proof that a result has been
caused in one way that we need to show it could not have occurred in
any other way (see p. 15 ante).
34
Herbert Spencer'' s Scheme
absolutely without evidence ; worthless as not sup-
plying an intellectual need; worthless as not satis-
fying a moral want. We must, therefore,' he con-
cludes, ''consider it as counting for nothing in
opposition to any other hypothesis respecting the
origin of organic being."^
Upon the legal mind the efifect of this sort of
onslaught is merely to excite suspicion that some
weak point in the case requires to be concealed.
Such dogmatism of assertion must only serve to
encourage us in our investigation of the argument.
First, then, we are told that the notion of a
creation is a primitive one, and "early ideas are
not usually true ideas." ^ But this is a very trans-
parent petitio principii; for unless we assume that
evolution is true, which is precisely what has to
be proved, the statement is of no force whatever.
Herbert Spencer proceeds to urge that a belief
in creation is discredited by ''association with a
special class of mistaken beliefs." ^ Now this, of
course, is a reference to the Mosaic account of the
creation,^ and it is sufficiently answered by the fact
that that account is accepted by many men of com-
petent attainments and of the highest intellectual
capacity.*
Again, we are told that not only is this hypo-
* Principles of Biology, % 115.
^Principles of Biology, § 110. 2 Ibid.. § 111.
' For there is no other record of primitive beliefs in question here.
Spencer, it is true, seeks to create a prejudice by bracketing it with
"the cosmogony of the Indians or the Greeks." At the Bar this would
be characterized as a nisi prius trick.
* They are careful, no doubt, to distinguish between what the Patri-
arch actually taught, and what, as they maintain, a crude misapprehen-
sion of his teaching attributes to him. But this does not affect my
argument.
35
A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion
thesis " not countenanced by a single fact," but
further, that it " cannot be framed into a coherent
thought," ^ and is merely a formula for our igno-
rance." ^ " No one ever saw a special creation." ^
True: but a similar objection may be made to the
hypothesis of evolution; and it has, in fact, been
urged in these pages in the very words here used
by Herbert Spencer. ^ It is admitted that no new
species has ever been evolved within human
experience, and the supposed origination is referred
to " an abysmal past," which may, for aught we
know, be purely fabulous. The objection, if of
force at all, is equally valid against both hypotheses.
For let us keep clearly in view what our author
studiously conceals, that at this point the real
question is not the origin of species, but the origin
of life. Until he can give us some reasonable
account of the existence of life, we shall continue to
believe in ''a beneficent Creator of the universe" ;
and though Herbert Spencer will deplore our
" ignorance " and despise our '' pseud-ideas," we
shall console ourselves by the companionship of a
long line of illustrious men, whose names per-
chance will be increasingly venerated in the world
of philosophy and letters when some new generation
of scientists shall have arisen to regard with patron-
ising pity the popular theories of to-day.
*'No one ever saw a special creation," and the
hypothesis " cannot be framed into a coherent
thought." This implies, first, an admission that if
^Principles of Biology, § 112.
"Thid., § 113. ' Ibid., § 112.
^ See p. 29 ante.
36
Herbert Spencerh Scheme
we were permitted to see a special creation we
could frame the coherent thought; and, secondly,
an assertion that our ability to frame ideas is limited
by our experience. The admission is fatal, and the
assertion is obviously false.
Herbert Spencer's remaining objections to special
creations are an enumeration of certain theological
difficulties, in which those who espouse the hypo-
thesis are supposed to entangle themselves. ^ These
might be dismissed with the remark that a mere
ad homhiem argument is of no importance here.
If valid, it could only serve to discredit theology,
without strengthening the author's position. But
let us examine it.
The objections are briefly these. Theology is
supposed to teach that special creations were
designed to demonstrate to mankind the power of
the Creator : " would it not have been still better
demonstrated by the separate creation of each indi-
vidual?" It is quite unnecessary to discuss this,
for there is not a suggestion in the Bible from
cover to cover that creation had any such purpose.^
AVhat evolution assumes,^ the Bible asserts, namely,
that man did not appear in the world until after
every other organised form was already in
existence.
But the next and final difficulty appears at first
"^Principles of Biology, § 114.
* When a writer speaks of tiieology in general terms, without indi-
cating any particular author or school, it must be assumed that he refers
to the Bible, which is, of course, the only religious book that all edu-
cated readers are supposed to be familiar with.
« I do not assert that all evolutionists admit this, but I maintain that
it is implied in the hypothesis of evolution.
37
A Doubter'' s Doubts about Science and Religion
sight to be more serious. " Omitting the human
race, for whose defects and miseries the current
theology professes to account, and limiting our-
selves to the lower creation, what must we think of
the countless different pain-inflicting appliances and
instincts with which animals are endowed, " ^
" Whoever contends that each kind of animal was
specially designed, must assert either that there
was a deliberate intention on the part of the Crea-
tor to produce these results, or that there was an
inability to prevent them." This difficulty, more-
over, is greatly intensified by the fact that " of the
animal kingdom as a whole, more than half the
species are parasites, and thus we are brought to
the contemplation of innumerable cases in which
the suffering inflicted brings no compensating
benefit."
Now, in the first place, these objections are
applicable as really, though, possibly, not to the
same extent, to the hypothesis of creation in gen-
eral. And that hypothesis is no longer in question ;
for, as we have seen, " scientific thought is com-
pelled to accept the idea of creative power."^ And,
in the second place, we must remember that these
difficulties are purely theological. They have no
force save against those of us who believe the
Bible. Such people, according to the argument,
must abandon either the Biblical account of crea-
tion or the Biblical representation of God. They
must assert either that the Creator intended to
^ Principles of Biology, § 1 14.
2 See p. 23 ante.
38
Herbert Spencer'' s Scheme
produce the results here under observation, or that
there was an inability to prevent them. In other
words, God is deficient either in goodness or in
power.
This introduces a question which hitherto has
been avoided in these pages. Nor shall it here
receive more than the briefest notice ; for even a
conventional acquaintance with the Biblical scheme
will enable us to find the solution of Herbert Spen-
cer's difficulties. The validity of his dilemma
depends upon ignoring one of the fundamental
dogmas of theology. The teaching of the Bible is
unmistakable, that Adam in his fall dragged down
with him the entire creation of which he was the
federal head; that the suffering under which the
creature groans is not the result of design, but of a
tremendous catastrophe which has brought ruin and
misery in its train ; that not only is the Creator not
wanting in power to restore creation to its pristine
perfectness, but that He has pledged Himself to
accomplish this very result, and that the restora-
tion will be so complete that even the destructive
propensities of the brute will cease.
Such is the teaching of the Bible, unfolded not
merely in the poetry of the Hebrew prophets, but
in the dogmatic prose of the Apostle of the Gen-
tiles. The question here is not whether it be
reasonable, whether it be true. All that concerns
us is the fact that it forms an essential part of the
Biblical scheme, and thus affords a complete refu-
tation of an ad hominem argument which depends
for its validity upon misrepresenting or ignoring it.
39
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
Herbert Spencer's indictment against belief in
special creations thus begins and ends by disin-
genuous attempts to prejudice the issue. And in
asserting that the hypothesis is incapable of being
" framed into a coherent thought," he urges an
objection which from its very nature admits of
no other answer than that which has been already
given to it. If we call for a poll upon the question,
we shall find on one side a crowd of illustrious men
of unquestionable fame, and of the very highest
rank as philosophers and thinkers ; and on the other,
Herbert Spencer and a few more besides, all of whom
must await the verdict of posterity before they can
be permanently assigned the place which some of
their contemporaries claim for them. An assertion
which thus brands the entire bead-roll of philoso-
phers, from Bacon to Charles Darwin, as the dupes
of a " pseud-idea," a *' formula for ignorance," is
worthless save as affording matter for a psycho-
logical study of a most interesting kind.
The alleged absence of evidence of a special crea-
tion has been already met by pointing out that the
objection equally applies to the hypothesis of
evolution. But perhaps it deserves a fuller notice.
'' No one ever saw a special creation," we are told.
The author might have added that if the entire
Royal Society in council were permitted to '' see a
special creation," the sceptic would reject their
testimony unless there were indirect evidence to
confirm it. He would maintain that in the sphere
of the miraculous, direct evidence, unless thus
confirmed, is of no value at second hand. His
40
Herbert Spencer'' s Scheme
language would be, " Produce for our inspection
the organism alleged to have been created, and
satisfy us, first, that it had no existence prior to
the moment assigned for its creation, and, secondly,
that it could not have originated in some way
known to our experience, and then, indeed, we
shall give up our scepticism and accept the testi-
mony offered us."
But Herbert Spencer goes on to aver that " no
one ever found proof of an indirect kind that a
special creation had taken place." This is a choice
example of the nisi priiis artifice at which our
author is such an adept. The existence of a world
teeming with life has been accepted by the greatest
and wisest men of every age as a conclusive proof
that a special creation has taken place. But this is
boldly met by sheer weight of unsupported denial.
If we approach the subject, not as special pleaders
or partisans, but in a philosophic spirit, we shall
state the argument thus: — The admitted facts give
proof that species originated either by special crea-
tions or by evolution. If either hypothesis can be
established by independent evidence, the other is
thereby discredited. But, in the one case as in the
other, positive proof is wholly wanting. We must,
therefore, rely upon general considerations. On
the evolution theory, proof is confessedly wanting
that the alleged cause is adequate to account for
the admitted facts. ^ Not so on the creation hypoth-
^ I do not say there is no ei'idence. But all admit that that evidence
does not amount to proof, unless, indeed, the alternative hypothesis
can be disproved; and to disprove it is the whole point and purpose of
Herbert Spencer's chapter on the subject.
41
A Doubter'' s Doubts about Science and Religion
esis, for as we admit that life originated by
creation/ there can be no difficulty in assigning a
similar origin to species. In a word, as we side
with Darwin in believing in ''a beneficent Creator
of the universe,"- the evolution hypothesis is
unnecessary and therefore unphilosophical.
But, further, the concealed consequences of the
argument under review must not be overlooked.
If it be valid for any purpose at all, it disproves not
only the fact of a creation, but the existence of a
Creator. *' No one ever saw a special creation " ;
neither did any one ever see the Deity. If, as
alleged, we have no evidence of His handiwork,
neither have w^e proof of His existence. At a single
plunge we have thus reached the level of blank
atheism, which is the extreme depth of moral and
intellectual degradation. " The birth both of the
species and the individual " must equally be
ascribed to '' blind chance," '' coercion " being
appealed to, I suppose, to quell the inevitable
" revolt of the understanding."^ And the strange
religious propensities common to the race, whether
civilised or savage, must also be suppressed; or at
all events, our Penates must be strictly limited to
an effigy of our hairy quadrumanous ancestor with
pointed ears, supplemented possibly by some *' sym-
bolic conception " of the primordial life-germ
wrapped in a cloud, and a copy of Herbert Spencer's
System of Philosophy to guide and regulate the cult.
1 See pp. 23, 24 ante.
2 But see p. 73 post (footnote).
3 See p. 25 ante.
42
CHAPTER IV
HAVE WE A REVELATION
SCEPTICISM is ''not a permanent resting-place
for human reason." The knowledge that
there is bad money in circulation does not make
us fling our purse into the gutter, or refuse to
replenish it when empty. The sceptic tries a coin
before accepting it, but when once he puts it in his
pocket, his appreciation of it is, for that very rea-
son, all the more intelligent and full. A convinced
doubter makes the best believer.
As Lord Kelvin declares, '' Scientific thought is
compelled to accept the idea of creative power."
With an open mind, therefore, and unwavering con-
fidence the true sceptic acknowledges '' the
beneficent Creator of the universe." And in no
grudging spirit, but honestly and fully, he will own
the obligations and relationships which this
involves. Religion is implied in the acknowledg-
ment of God. And further, this acknowledgment
removes every a priori objection to the idea of a
revelation. It creates indeed a positive presumption
in its favour. For if we are the offspring of a
"beneficent Creator," it is improbable that, in a
world so darkened by sorrow and doubt, He would
leave us without guidance, and without light as to
our destiny.
43
A Doubter'' s Doubts about Science and Religion
At all events, our belief in God makes it incum-
bent on us to examine any alleged revelation which
is presented to us with reasonable credentials. If
some one brings me what purports to be a message
or letter from my brother, I may dispose of the
matter by answering, '' I have no brother " ; but if
I possess an unknown lost brother, I cannot refuse
to receive the communication and to test its claims
on my attention.
But here we must keep our heads. There is no
sphere in which the functions of the constable are
more needed. The existence of a lost brother is no
reason for sheltering impostors. Our belief in God
is no reason for abandoning ourselves to supersti-
tion, or submitting to be duped by foolish or
designing men.
Yet another caution is needed here. We have
now reached ground where the judgment of men
of science is of no special value whatever. So long
as it is a question of investigating and describing
the facts and phenomena of nature, we sit at their
feet with unfeigned admiration of their genius and
industry; but when it becomes a question of
adjudicating upon the evidence with which they
furnish us, they must give way to those whose
training and habits of mind make them better fitted
for the task. We place the very highest value upon
their testimony as experts in all matters within
their own province, but Ave cannot consent to their
passing from the witness-box to the judicial bench ;
least of all can we consent to their occupying such
a position where the subject-matter is one of which
44
Have We a Revelation ?
they have no special cognisance.^ In such a case
a dozen city merchants, with a trained lawyer to
guide their deliberations, would make a better trib-
unal than the Royal Society could supply.
The extreme point to which reason leads us is
the recognition of an unknown God. What now
concerns us is the inquiry whether He has revealed
Himself to men. Have we a revelation? A dis-
cussion of this question on a priori lines would
have many advantages. But, on the whole, the
practical view of it is the best. And it would be
mere pedantry to ignore the peculiar claims which
Christianity has upon our notice. In fact, the
question narrows itself at once to this plain issue,
Is Christianity a Divine revelation? If this ques-
tion be answered in the negative, it is really useless
to discuss the merits of Islam ; and as for Buddha,
his popularity in certain quarters in England as a
rival to Christ is proof only of the depth of Saxon
silliness. There is a sense, of course, in which all
enthusiasm is inspiration, but for our present pur-
pose this is a mere fencing with words. The
question is perfectly definite and clear to every one
who wishes to understand it. Is Christianity a reve-
lation from God? Let us examine the witnesses.
If we ask in what form this alleged revelation
comes to us, all Christians are agreed in placing in
our hands a Book ; in a word, they point us to the
Bible. But here, at the very threshold, their unanim-
1 The childlike faith of those who so recently bowed before that
false god Bathybius Haeckeli, puts to blush the sweet simplicity of the
Sundav-school. It may seem ungenerous to remind "philosophers of
their folly, but we cannot ignore it when considering their claims to
guide our judgment.
45
A Doubter'' s Doubts about Science a7id Religwft
ity ceases. While some would insist that this is
the only revelation, the majority of Christendom
would point us also to a certain class of men so
supernaturally gifted and accredited that they are
themselves a revelation. This system, which is
popularly associated with Rome, deserves priority
of consideration because of the prestige it enjoys
by reason of the antiquity of its origin, and the
influence and number of its disciples. Moreover,
if its claims be accepted, the truth of Christianity
is established ; and if on examination they be re-
jected, the ground is cleared for the consideration
of the main question on its merits.
The founders of Christianity, we are told, in ad-
dition to their ability to work miracles such as the
senses could take notice of, possessed also super-
natural powers of a mystic kind. By certain mystic
rites, for instance, they were able to work such a
transformation in common bread and ordinary wine,
that, although no available test could detect the
change, the bread really became flesh, and the wine
blood. Further still, we are assured that these
powers have been transmitted from generation to
generation, and are now possessed by the succes-
sors .of the men who first received them direct from
Heaven. And more than this, we are asked to be-
lieve that these miracles are actually performed in
our own day, not in isolated and remote places far
removed from observation, but in our midst and
everywhere; and that, too, in the most public and
open manner.
If this be true, it is obvious that not only the
46
Have We a Revelation f
miracles which are thus wrought in our presence,
but the very men themselves who cause them, are
a Divine revelation. We are no longer left to
reach out toward the Supreme Being by the light
of reason; we are thus brought face to face with
God.
Indifiference is impossible in the presence of
such demands on our faith. If these men in fact
possess such powers, it is difficult to set a limit
to the respect and veneration due to them. But
if their pretensions be false, it is monstrous that
they should be permitted to trade upon the credul-
ity of mankind. Suppose we admit for the sake of
argument that the apostles possessed these powers,
the question remains, Are these same powers in
fact possessed by the men who now claim to exer-
cise them?
It is not easy to decide what amount of evidence
ought to be deemed sufficient in such a case. But
is there any evidence at all? These powers are not
supposed to be conferred immediately from Heaven,
but immediately through other men, who in turn
had received them from their predecessors, and so on
in an unbroken line extending back to the days of
the Apostles. No man who is satisfied with the evi-
dence upon which evolution rests can fairly dispute
the proofs of an apostolic succession. Let us,
therefore, go so far in our admissions as even to
accept this also; and that, too, without stopping
to investigate the lives of those through whom the
''succession" flowed. Some of them were famous
for their piety, others were infamous for their
47
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religio7t
crimes. But passing all this by, let us get face to
face with the living men who make these amazing
demands upon our faith.
Some of these men were our playmates in child-
hood, and our class-fellows and companions in
school and college days. We recall their friendly
rivalry in our studies and our sports, and their
share in many a debauch that now we no longer
speak of when we meet. Some of them are the
firm and valued friends of our manhood. We re-
spect them for their learning, and still more for
their piet}^ and their self-denying efforts for the
good of their fellow-men. Others, again, have fallen
from our acquaintance. Although, ex hypothesi,
equally endowed with supernatural gifts which
should make us value their presence at our death-
bed, they are exceptionally addicted to natural vices
which lead us to shun them in our lifetime.
And this disposes of one ground on which pos-
sibly a prima facie case might be set up. If all
those who are supposed to possess these extraordi-
nary powers were distinguished from their fellow-
men by high and noble qualities, their pretensions
would at least deserve our respect. But we fail to
find any special marks of character or conduct,
which even the most partial judge could point to for
such a purpose.
On what other ground then can these claims be
maintained? It is idle to beat about the bush.
The fact is clear as light that there is not a shadow
of evidence of any description whatsoever to sup-
port them. This being so, we must at once recall
48
Have We a Revelation ?
one of the admissions already made, lest these men
should take refuge in an appeal to the New Testa-
ment as establishing their position. The enlight-
ened Christianity of the Reformation emphatically
denies that even the Apostles themselves possessed
such powers, or that the Bible gives any counten-
ance wdiatever to the assumption of them. In a
word, Christians who are the very elite of Christen-
dom maintain that such pretensions have no Scrip-
tural foundation Avhatever,
If Christianity be true, we need not hesitate to
believe that certain men are divinely called and
qualified as religious teachers. But this position is
separated by an impassable gulf from the mystic
pretensions of priestcraft. In truth, sacerdotalism
presents extraordinary problems for the considera-
tion of the thoughtful. If it prevailed only among
the ignorant and degraded, it would deserve no at-
tention. But the fact is beyond question that its
champions and votaries include men of the highest
intellectual eminence and moral worth. The integ-
rity of such men is irreproachable. They are not
accomplices in a wilful fraud upon their fellows;
they are true and honest in their convictions. How,
then, are we to account for the fact that many who
hold such high rank as scholars and thinkers are thus
the dupes of such a delusion? How is it to be
explained that here in England, while w^e boast of
increasing enlightenment, this delusion is regaining
its hold upon the religious life of the nation? The
national Church, Avhich half a century ago was com-
paratively free from the evil, is now hopelessly
49
A Doubter'^s Doubts about Science and Religion
leavened with it. The more this matter is studied
the more inexplicable it seems, unless we are pre-
pared to believe in the existence of spiritual influ-
ences of a sinister kind, by which in the religious
sphere the minds even of men of intellect and cul-
ture are liable to be warped and blinded/
1 To discuss the legality of such views and practices in the Church
of England would be foreign to my argument, and outside the scope of
my book; and moreover, having regard to Articles XXVIII. and XXXI.,
I cannot see that the question is open. Here is one clause of Article
XXVIII.:—
"Transsubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and
Wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by holy Writ; but
is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature
of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions."
It niay be interesting to notice here that this vetoes the superstitious
meaning which almost universally attaches to the word "sacrament."
It is the equivalent of the Greek fivovrf piOV, which is used by the
LXX in Daniel ii. 18, 19, 27, 28, 29, 30, 47, and iv. 9, and is always
rendered secret in our English version. This moreover is its ordinary
meaning in the New Testament. But the word was even then acquir-
ing the meaning usually given to it in the Greek Fathers, viz., a sym-
bol or secret sign. See, e.g.. Rev. i. 20, and xvii. 5, 7. And this is
the significance of the English word "sacrament." It connotes some-
thing which represents something else; and so we find that in old
writers X^oah's rainbow, the brazen serpent, etc., are called "sacra-
ments." _ And in this sense it is that the bread and wine in the
"Eucharist" are a "sacrament"; they represent the body and blood of
Christ. Therefore to hold that they are in fact His body and blood is
to "overthrow the nature of a sacrament."
Our practice of kissing the book in taking a judicial oath is in
this sense a "sacrament." And there can be no doubt that it was
owing to some symbolic act of this kind that the Latin word sacrameru-
turn came to mean a soldier's oath.
50
CHAPTER V
IS CHRISTIANITY DIVINE.^
IS Christianity a Divine revelation ? This ques-
tion must not be settled by the result of the
preliminary inquiry here proposed. In rejecting
sacredotalism, we merely clear the ground for a dis-
cussion of the main question upon its merits. "The
Reformation," says Mr. Goldwin Smith, "was a
tremendous earthquake" which "shook down the
fabric of medieval religion." "But," he goes on to
say, "it left the authority of the Bible unshaken,
and men might feel that the destructive process had
its limit, and that adamant was still beneath their
feet."
To the Bible, then, we turn. But how is such an
inquiry to be conducted? The unfairness of en-
trusting the defence of Christianity to any who are
themselves the rejecters of Christianity will be pal-
pable to every one. Here the right of audience is
only to the Christian. But, in making this conces-
sion, the sceptic may fairly insist on maintaining
the place of critic, if not of censor. Until convinced,
he will continue to consider, reflect, hesitate, doubt.
And it is a suspicious circumstance that so many
who claim to be leaders of religious thought, and
who are profesional exponents of the Christian faith,
seem eager not only to eliminate from Christianity
everything that is distinctive, but also to divorce it
SI
A Doubter'' s Doubts about Science and Religion
from much with which, in its origin, it was insep-
arably associated. They are strangely anxious to
separate it from the Judaism which it succeeded,
and upon which it is so indisputably founded. As
a corollary upon this, they struggle to separate the
New Testament from the Old, treating the Hebrew
Scriptures, and especially the Pentateuch, as per-
sons who have risen in the world are prone to treat
the quondam acquaintances of humbler days. As a
further step, they betray unmistakable uneasiness,
when confronted with the miraculous in the Bible ;
and "the old evangelical doctrine" of inspiration
they regard with undisguised dislike, if not con-
tempt.
No well-informed person will dispute that this is
a fair statement of the position assumed by a school
of religious thought which is in its own sphere both
influential and popular. But it needs no more than
a conventional knowledge of the New Testament to
enable us to assert that the Christianity of Christ
and His apostles was not a new religion, but rather
an unfolding and fulfilment of the Judaism which
preceded it. The Christ of Christendom was a
crucified Jew — crucified because He declared Him-
self to l:)e the Jews' Messiah ; and His claims upon
our homage and our faith are inseparably connected
with that Messiahship.
And what were the credentials of His Messiah-
ship? To some extent the miracles which He
wrought, but mainJy the Hebrew Scriptures. And
in His appeal to those Scriptures He implicitly as-
serted that they were in the strictest sense inspired.
52
Is Christianity Divine f
Ten times are those Scriptures quoted in the first
four chapters of the new Testament as being the
ipsissima verba of the Deity/ and three of these
quotations are from the Book of Deuteronomy, the
very book which these theologians are most decided
in rejecting.
The language of the "Sermon on the Mount" is, if
possible, more emphatic still. To understand its
full significance we must bear in mind what Jose-
phus asserts, that by all Jews the Scriptures "were
justly believed to be Divine, so that, rather than
speak against them, they were ready to suffer tor-
ture or even death. "^ It was to a people saturated
with this belief that such words as the following
were spoken : "Think not that I am come to destroy
the law, or the prophets : I am not come to destroy,
but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you. Till heaven
and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no
wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." "The
*jot' (we are told) is the Greek iota, the Hebrew yod,
the smallest of all the letters of the alphabet. The
'tittle' was one of the smallest strokes or twists of
other letters." What language, then, could possi-
bly assert more plainly that, so far from coming to
set up a new religion, as these Christian teachers
would tell us, the Nazarene declared His mission to
be the recognition and fulfilment of the old Hebrew
Scriptures in every part, even to the minutest detail?
And much that is distinctly miraculous in those
■* The Revised Version emphasises the force of Sia in such passages
as Matt. i. 22: "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
Lord through the prophet."
2 Josephus, Contra Apion, i. 8.
53
A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religioit
Scriptures was specially adopted in His teaching;
as, for example, Noah's deluge; the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah ; Jonah and the fish ; Aloses
and the burning bush ; the heaven-sent manna in
the wilderness; Elijah and his mission to the widow
of Sarepta; Elisha and the cure of Naaman's lep-
rosy by bathing in the Jordan.
But, we are told, though Christ was essentially
Divine, he laid aside His Divinity with a view to
His mediatorial work. And His ministry was
marked by the imperfections of human knowledge.
In proof of this, appeal is made to the Apostolic
statement that He "emptied Himself." Strange it
is that men who hold "verbal inspiration" in such
contempt should lay such stress upon the words of
Scripture! But let that pass. The subject will come
up again : suffice it here to say that the Apostle's
language will not support the heresy that is based
upon it. True it is that no stronger term could be
found to describe the great Renunciation by which
the Son of God stripped Himself of all the insignia
of Deity. But this involved no change of personal-
ity. When King Alfred became a drudge in the
swineherd's cottasfe, he divested himself of all the
externals of royalty, but he did not cease to be
King Alfred. And the story of the burnt cakes loses
its significance and charm if we forget that it was
with full consciousness of who and what he v/as
that he bore the peasant's reprimands. And the
words of Christ give overwhelming proof that
throughout His earthly ministry He bore His suf-
ferings with full knowledge of His origin and glory,
54
is Christiaiiiiy Divine ?
and that His teaching was not characterised by
human ignorance, but by Divine authority.
If this be forgotten, moreover, the Apostolic ex-
hortation loses all its meaning. For it is based on
this, that with full knowledge of His riches the Son
of God came down to poverty ; that with the fullest
consciousness of His Deity ''He emptied Himself
and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was
made in the likeness of men."^
The dilemma in which this places the Christian
is inexorable. If Christ was Divine, the truth of
everything adopted and accredited by His teaching
is placed beyond question. To plead that, with a
view to advance His Messianic claims, He pandered
to Jewish ignorance and prejudice, is not only to
admit that He was merely human, but to endanger
our respect for Him even as a Rabbi. And yet
Christian teachers have the temerity to suggest
such an explanation of His words. Such a position
is utterly untenable. The Christian is, to borrow
a legal term, estopped from questioning the inspira-
tion of the Old Testament, or the reality of the
miracles recorded in it ; and when teachers who pro-
fess to be Christians question both, they cannot be
surprised if they are charged with being either dis-
honest or credulous.
"But," it may be urged, ''It is not the teaching of
Christ which is disparaged, but only the record of
1 Phil. n. 5-8; cf. 2 Cor. viii. 9. T cannot turn aside here to discuss
further the Kenosis theory of the Critics (see Chap. XII. post). Every
free and fearless thinker will recognize that if it be valid, it destroys
the Christian revelation. I have dealt with the subject in other books —
Pseudo-criticism, or the Higher Criticism and its Counterfeit; The
Bible and Modern Criticism, etc.
55
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science mid Religion
that teaching. It Is here that allowance must be
made for Jewish ignorance and prejudice. That
the Jews believed their Scriptures to be inspired is
admitted, and therefore it was that those who chron-
icled the words, of Christ gave that colour to His
doctrine. The New Testament is marked by the
same imperfections as the Old. It is of priceless
value as the record of Divine facts, but it is upon
those facts themselves, and not upon the record of
them, that Christianity is founded."
This answer is plausible, but upon examination it
will prove to be absolutely fatal. When we turn to
the Gospels, we find that of necessity the whole
fabric of Christianity stands or falls with our accept-
ance or rejection of their claims to be, in the strict-
est and fullest sense, authentic. Most true it is
that the system rests on facts, and not on writings
merely; and this it is, indeed, which distinguishes
it from all other religions. But such is the character
of the facts on which it is based, that if the record
of them be disparaged, belief in these facts is sheer
credulity. The public facts of the ministry and
death of Christ are as well authenticated as any
other events of ancient history. No one questions
them. But the entire significance of those facts
depends upon their relation to other facts behind
them — facts of a transcendental character, and such
as no amount of discredited or doubtful testimony
would warrant our accepting.
"But," It may perhaps be answered, ''though the
record was human, the Person of whom it speaks
was more than human ; the whole argument de-
56
Is Christianity Divine ?
pends upon ignoring the great fundamental fact of
Christianity, that Christ was Himself Divine." But
what is the basis of our belief in the Deity of Christ?
The founder of Rome was said to be the divinely
begotten child of a vestal virgin. -And in the old
Babylonian mysteries a similar parentage was as-
cribed to the martyred son of Semiramis, gazetted
Queen of Heaven. What grounds have we then for
distinguishing the miraculous birth at Bethlehem
from these and other kindred legends of the ancient
world?
At this point we are face to face with that to
which, I repeat, no consensus of untrustworthy
testimony could lend even an a priori probability. If,
therefore, the Gospels be not authentic and authorita-
tive records of the mission and teaching of Christ, we
must admit that Christianity is founded on a Gali-
Isean legend. And if we accept the New Testament
we are excluded from rejecting the earlier Scrip-
tures which were so unequivocally accredited by
Christ Himself. If His authority as a teacher be
rejected, or the authenticity of the records of His
ministry be denied, there is no longer any foothold
for faith, for the foundations of Christianity are
thus destroyed. And while the superstitious may
cling to an edifice built upon the sand, clear-headed
and thoughtful men will take refuge in natural re-
ligion.
Whatever may be said, therefore, of the theo-
logical school here under review, their religion is
not Christianity, and their testimony must be re-
jected as of less value even than that of the sacredo-
57
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
talists. Nor can any one justly take exception to
the fairness of this argument. If we be urged to
embark in a gold-mine, we naturally ask whether
those who commend it to our confidence have them-
selves put their money in it. Nor will this avail
to satisfy us if we find that they have also invested
in other undertakings which we know to be worth-
less. And so here : we are entitled to put men upon
proof, not only of the sincerity and consistency of
their faith, but also of its reasonableness. And we
find that the faith of Christians of the one school
includes tenets the belief in which implies the degra-
dation of reason, and that the unfaith of Christians
of the other school undermines Christianity alto-
gether. The one school believes too much, the
other believes too little. With the one, faith degen-
erates into superstititon ; with the other, it merges
in a scepticism which is as real, though not as ra-
tional or consistent, as is that of many who are com-
monly branded as infidels.
58
CHAPTER VI
MR. A. J. Balfour's scheme
i^TyTE are without any rational ground for be-
" lieving in science" ; "We are without any
rational ground for determining the logical rela-
tion which ought to subsist between science and
religion." Such are among the startling theses
maintained by the author of A Defence of Philosophic
Doubt. And one of the main results of his argu-
ment is stated thus: ''In the absence, then, of rea-
son, to the contrary, I am content to regard the two
great creeds by which we attempt to regulate our
lives as resting in the main upon separate bases."
A protest this against ''the existence of a whole
class of 'apologists' the end of whose labours ap-
pears to be to explain, or to explain away, every
appearance of contradiction between the two."
But here Mr. Balfour fails of his usual precision.
A definition of religion is wanting. He seems some-
times to use the word in its first and widest sense,
and at other times as equivalent to a particular sys-
tem of belief, and, by implication, to Christianity.
A consciousness of our own existence is the founda-
tion of all knowledge. And that elementary fact is
the first stepping-stone toward an apprehension of
the existence of God. It might be fairly argued
that our knowledge of the existence of God rests
upon a surer basis than our knowledge of the ex-
59
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
ternal world, and therefore that religion in that
sense takes precedence of science. But such a plea
is unnecessary, because our knowledge of the exter-
nal world is, for the practical purposes of life, abso-
lute and unquestioned. We may be content, there-
fore, to assert that the two creeds stand upon a per-
fect equality.^
And, speaking generally, belief in both is univer-
sal. There are exceptions, doubtless — as, for ex-
ample, "street arabs and advanced thinkers" f but
this does not af¥ect the argument. Science depends
on our belief in the external world ; religion on our
belief in God. Religious feeling springs from the
felt relation in which we stand to a supreme Power ;
and, as Tyndall justly says, "religious feeling is as
much a verity as any other part of human con-
sciousness, and against it, on its subjective side, the
waves of science beat in vain."^
But this relates to what is called natural religion,
and it is not until we pass into the sphere of re-
vealed religion that the seeming conflict with science
arises. The difficulties of practical men, rhoreover,
are of a wholly different order from those which
perplex the philosophers. Take, for example, the
argument against miracles. An intelligent school-
boy can see that the solution of the problem de-
pends on the answer we make to the question
whether there be a God. Even John Stuart Mill
admits this. To acknowledge the existence of a
^ "My complaint rather is that of the two creeds which, from a philo-
sophical point of view, stand, so far as I can judge, upon a perfect
equality, one should be set up as a standard to which the other must
necessarily conform."—^ Defense of Philosophic Doubt, p. 303.
2^ Defense of Philosophic Doubt, p. 319.
3 Virchow and Evolution.
60
Mr, A, J. Balfour^ s Sclieme
God possessed of power infinitely greater than that
of man, and yet to insist that He must necessarily
be a cipher in the world — this may pass for philoso-
phy, but a different sort of word would describe it
better.
And as with the so-called ''laws" of science, so
also is it with its theories. Excepting only the evo-
lution hypothesis, which enjoys a certain amount
of popularity, common men care nothing- for them.
What weighs with earnest thinkers who are real
truth-lovers is that ascertained facts appear to dis-
prove the truth of what has been received as a Di-
vine revelation.
But treatises such as those of which A Defence of
Philosophic Doubt is a most striking example, are
further defective in that they defend religion upon
a ground which leaves the apologist equally free to
fall back upon superstition, as to vindicate the
claims of the Bible to be a revelation. And as a
result of this, in discussing the foundations of be-
lief they ignore the doctrine of transcendental faith,
which is characteristic of Christianity.
The theological argument from miracles has, at
least in its common form, no scientific or Biblical
sanction. The fact of a miracle is a proof merely
of the presence of some power greater than man's.
That such a power is necessarily Divine is an in-
ference which reason refuses to accept, and Chris-
tianity very emphatically denies.^
^ I have dealt with this subject in discussing Paley's are:ument, in
The Silence of God. Scripture is explicit that miracles have been,
and may be, the result of demoniacal or Satanic agency. The Jews ac-
counted thus for the miracles of Christ, and His answer was an appeal
to the moral character of His works.
01
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
Every one who believes in a God must be pre-
pared to admit that there may be creatures in the
universe far superior to a man in intelligence and
power; and even an atheistic evolutionist would as
freely admit this, if he were honest and fearless in
his philosophy.^ It is entirely a question of evi-
dence.
But this we need not discuss. As regards the
theologian the matter stands thus. He tells us that
evil beings exist, endowed with powers adequate to
the accomplishment of miracles on earth, and at the
same time he maintains that the fact of a miracle is
a proof of Divine intervention. But in the New
Testament the miracles are never appealed to as an
''evidence," save in connection with the preceding
revelation to which they are referred. They accred-
ited the Nazarene as being the promised Messiah.
And "the fact is allowed," not, as Bishop Butler
avers, "that Christianity was professed to be re-
ceived into the world upon the belief of miracles,"
but that the claimant to Messiahship was rejected
as a profane deceiver by the very people in whose
midst the miracles were wrousfht.
And it is a further fact that no one of the writers
of the New Testament accounts thus for his own
faith, or for the faith of his converts. That their
faith was an inference from their observation of
miracles — that it was due to natural causes at all —
is negatived in the plainest terms, and its super-
natural origin and character are explicitly asserted.
1 The atheist, of course, would substitute "'organism" or some kindred
word for "creature,"
62
Mr. A. J. Balfour^ s Scheme
So long as the testimony was to the Jew, miracles
abounded; but if the Apostle Paul's ministry at
Corinth and Thessalonica may be accepted as typi-
cal of his work among Gentiles, his Epistles to the
Corinthians and Thessalonians emphatically dis-
prove the idea that miracles were made the basis
of his preaching.
A single quotation from each will suffice. "The
Jews require a sign" (he says ; that is, they claimed
that the preaching should be accredited by miracles),
''and the Greeks seek after wisdom" (that is, they
posed as rationalists and philosophers) : "but" (he
declares, in contrast with both) "we preach Christ
crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto
the Greeks foolishness ; but unto them which are
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the Power of
God, and the Wisdom of God." And to the Thes-
salonians he writes, "When ye received the Word of
God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the
word of men, but as it is in truth the Word of God."
Now, no one who will examine these statements
fairly can fail to recognise their force and meaning.
They do not indicate a belief resulting from the
examination of miracles performed by the Apostles,
but a faith of an altogether different character. We
need to protest against the folly and dishonesty of
adapting the teaching of Christ and His apostles to
modern views, and calling the name of Christian
over the hybrid system thus formed. Such a sys-
tem may be admirable, but it is not Christianity.
For the Christian is supposed to have a faith which
is produced and sustained by his being brought
63
A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion
into immediate relations with God. No one, of
course, will deny that the God whose creatures we
are can so speak to us that His Word shall carry
with it the conviction that it is Divine. And if it be
demanded why it is that all do not accept it, the
Christian will answer that man's spiritual depravity
renders a special intervention of the Divine Spirit
necessary.
No one, again, will deny that formerly this part
of the Christian system was generally accepted by
professed Christians. But it has been given up,
of course, by all who have ceased to regard the Bible
as a Divine revelation. Naturally so, for the one
part of the system depends on the other. None but
the superstitious suppose that God speaks to us
save through the Scriptures, and once we give up
the old belief of Christendom, that the Scriptures
are what they claim to be, the Christian theory of
faith becomes untenable.
Christianity stands or falls according to the con-
clusion we arrive at here.^ Hence the special diffi-
culty which embarrasses the consideration of the
question. In litigation, a case can never come be-
fore a jury until some definite propositions are
ascertained, which the one side maintains and the
1 It will not avail to urge the undoubted fact that some of the strong-
est and most cultured and most subtle intellects of our own age and of
preceding ages have accepted the Bible as beine; strictly and altogether
God-breathed. The fact is a sufficient proof that there is nothing
intrinsically absurd in such a belief, or in the Christian system which
depends upon it. Rut if its truth could be tlius established, we must
be prepared to accept also whatever is believed by men of equal calibre
and fame. But some such believe in transubstantiation, some in evolu-
tion, some even in atheism — for atheism is as much a positive faith as
theism.
64
Mr, A. J. Balfour^ s Scheme
other side denies. But in this controversy "the
issues" are never settled. The Hues of attack and
defence never meet. The assailant ignores the
strength of the Christian position ; and the Chris-
tian, entrenched in that position, is wholly un-
reached by the objections and difficulties of the
assailant.
A Defence of Philosophic Doubt — to revert to
that treatise again for a moment — is an attempt to
arbitrate between the two without joining hands
Avith either. Its author is liable to be challenged
thus : 'Tf your treatise be intended as a defence of
natural religion, it is unnecessary ; for there is clear-
ly no conflict between science and natural religion.
But if it be a defence of revealed religion, that is, of
Christianity, it is inadequate; for you must fall back
upon the Bible, and if you do so we will undermine
your whole position by proving that essential parts
of it are inconsistent with" — ''the doctrines of
science," the scientist is sure to say, thus destroy-
ing his entire argument, and leaving himself help-
lessly at the mercy of INIr. Balfour's pitiless logic.
But if he were not misled through mistaking his
hobby for a real horse, he would say, ''inconsistent
with ascertained facts"; and this position, if proved,
would refute Christianity.
For example : the miraculous destruction of the
cities of the plain is one of the seemingly incredi-
ble things in Scripture. The scientist rejects the
narrative as being opposed to science, just as, on
the same ground, the African rejected the statement
that water became so solid that men could walk
65
A Doubter* s Doubts about Science and Religion
upon it. But if the scientist could fix the site of
Sodom and Gomorrah, and point to the condition of
the soil as proof that no such phenomenon as is de-
tailed in Genesis could have occurred there, the fact
would be fatal not only to the authority of the Pen-
tateuch, but to the Messianic claims of the Nazar-
ene, who identified himself with it. But the scientist
can do nothing of the kind. On the contrary, the
admitted facts confirm the truth of the Mosaic nar-
rative, and those who regard that narrative as a
legend would urge that an ignorant and supersti-
tious age sought thus to account for the extraordi-
nary phenomena of the Dead Sea and the district
surrounding it.
The narrative of the Jewish captivity in Babylon,
again, was formerly a favourite battle-ground in this
way; and in view of the deciphered cuneiform in-
scriptions, and other discoveries of recent years, it
is an interesting question whether the Christians or
the sceptics displayed the greatest unwisdom in the
controversy.
The fight at this moment wages chiefly round the
Mosaic account of the creation. And here it must
be admitted that while in theolof^^ical circles no
one need hesitate to declare his doubts upon this
subject, a man must indeed have the courage of his
opinions to own himself a believer in Moses when
among the Professors. Intolerance of this kind
savours of persecution, and persecution generally
secures a temporary success. It Is only the few
who ever set themselves to make headway against
the prevailing current. If the shout, "Great is
66
Mr. A. J. Balfaur^s Scheme
Diana of the Epheslans!" be kept up "by the space
of two hours," even staid municipal officials will
yield to it; and a two hours' seance of the Profes-
sors will silence the doubts of ordinary folk as to
the infallible wisdom of science.
Upon any one in whom polemical instincts are
strong, the effect is wholly different, and in all
seriousness it may be averred that if Moses had
written as a heathen philosopher, his cosmogony
would now be held up to the admiration of mankind,
and his name would be venerated in all the learned
societies of the world. But his writings claim to be
a Divine revelation : hence the contempt which they
excite in the minds of the baser sort of men, who
regard everything which savours of religion as a
fraud, and the impatience shown, even by "men of
light and leading," toward any one who wishes to
keep an open mind upon the subject.
The Mosaic cosmogony has been called "the
proem to Genesis." But more than this, it is an
integral part of the proem to the Bible as a whole.
And having regard to the importance of the subject,
and to the interest which- it excites, a chapter shall
be devoted to the consideration of it.
67
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
CHAPTER VII
THE COSMOGONY OF GENESIS
1AVOW myself a believer in the Scriptures,
and if a personal reference may be pardoned,
I would say that my faith is not to be accounted
for either by want of thought, or by ignorance of
the objections and difficulties which have been
urged by scientists and sceptics. But just as the
studies which charm the naturalist are an unknown
world to those who are ignorant of the book of
nature, so also the elements which make the Bible
a fascinating volume to the believer do not exist
for those who fail to possess the clew to its mys-
teries. "Truth brings out the hidden harmony,
where unbelief can only with a dull dogmatism
deny.''
These words are Pusey's. And in the same
connection he says in effect that the Bible is its
own defence, the part of the apologist being merely
to beat oft* attacks.
And it is in the spirit of these words that I
would deal with the present question. Nor will it
be difficult to show that wdiile among scientists
generally the cosmogony of Genesis is ''a principal
subject of ridicule," their laughter may not, after
all, be the outcome of superior wisdom.
It would be interesting and instructive to recapit-
ulate the controvers}' on this subject, and to mark
68
The Cosmogony of Genesis
the various positions which have been successively
occupied or abandoned by the disputants, as one
or another of the fluctuating theories of science has
gained prominence, or newly found fossils have
added to "the testimony of the rocks." But I will
content myself with recalling the main incidents
of the last great tournament upon "the proem to
Genesis." I allude to the discussion between Mr.
Gladstone and Professor Huxley in the pages of
the Xineteenth Century some twenty years ago.
In The Dazvn of Creation and Worship Mr. Glad-
stone sought to establish the claims of the Book
of Genesis to be a Divine revelation, by showing
that the order- of creation as there recorded has
been "so afifirmed in our time by natural science
that it may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion
and established fact." Mr. Huxley's main assault
upon this position was apparently successful. His
main assault, I say, because his collateral argu-
ments were not always worthy of him. His
contention, for example, that the creation of the
''air population" was contemporaneous with that
of the "water population" depends upon the quibble
that both took place within four and twenty hours.
i\Ir. Gladstone proclaimed that science and Gene-
sis w^ere perfectly in accord as regards the order
of life which appeared upon our globe. To which
Mr. Huxley replied as follows : —
"It is agreed on all hands that terrestrial lizards
and other reptiles allied to lizards occur in the Per-
mian strata. It is further agreed that the Triassic
strata were deposited after these. ^loreover, it is
well known that, even if certain footprints are to be
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
taken as unquestionable evidence of the existence of
birds, they are not known to occur in rocks earHer
than the Trias, while indubitable remains of birds
are to be met with only much later. Hence it fol-
lows that natural science does not 'affirm' the state-
ment that birds were made on the fifth day, and
'everything that creepeth on the ground' on the
sixth, on which Mr. Gladstone rests his order; for,
as is shown by Leviticus, the 'Mosaic writer' in-
cludes lizards among his 'creeping things.' "
The following is the quotation from. Leviticus
above referred to : —
''And these are they which are unclean unto you
among the creeping things that creep upon the
earth; the weasel, and the mouse, and the great
lizard after its kind, and the gecko, and the land-
crocodile, and the lizard, and the sand-lizard, and
the chamelon. These are they wdiich are unclean
unto 3-0U among all that creep." ^
"The merest Sunday-school exegesis, therefore"
(Mr. Huxley urged) "suffices to prove that when
the Mosaic writer in Gen. i. 24 speaks of creeping
things he means to Include lizards among them."
A charming specimen this certainly Is of "the
merest Sunday-school exegesis." The argument
which so completely satisfied its author and
embarrassed his opponent is nothing but an
ad captandum appeal to the chance rendering of our
English Bible. If the disputants had referred the
question to some more erudite authority than the
Sunday-school, they would have discovered that
the word translated "creeping thing" in the eleventh
chapter of Leviticus has no affinity whatever with
1 Lev. xi. 29-31, R.V.
70
The Cosmogony of Genesis
the word so rendered in the twenty-fourth verse
of the first chapter of Genesis, whereas it is the
identical word which our translators have rendered
"moving creature" in the twentieth verse which
records the first appearance of animal life.^
Science proclaims the seniority of land reptiles
in the genesis of life on earth, and the despised
Book of Genesis records that ''creeping things,"
which, as Huxley insisted, must include land rep-
tiles, were the. first "moving creatures" which the
Creator's Hat called into existence.
"Hoist with his own petard" may therefore
tersely describe the result of Huxley's attack.
With his old-world courtesy Mr. Gladstone pro-
posed a reference to a distinguished American
scientist. "There is no one," Mr. Huxley replied,
"to whose authority I am more readily disposed
to bow than that of my eminent friend Professor
Dana's decision, in the following words, was
published in the Nineteenth Century for August,
1886. "I agree in all essential points with Mr. Glad-
stone, and I believe that the first chapter of Genesis
and science are in accord."^
But this is not all. Six years later I challenged
Mr. Huxley on this subject in the columns of the
Times newspaper. He sought to evade the issue
by pleading that the real question involved was that
^ The word in ver. 24 is reJimes; but in ver. 20 it is shehretz, which
occurs ten times in Lev. xi.
It was left to me to bring this to light, and I received Mr. Glad-
stone's cordial acknowledgments for calling his attention to it.
^ The Gladstone and Huxley articles appeared in the Nineteenth Cen-
tury in the later months of 1885 and in January and February, 1886.
And Mr. Gladstone's articles were in part reproduced in his Impreg-
nable Rock of Holy Scripture.
71
A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion
of the supernatural versus evolution. This evoked
a powerful letter from the late Duke of Argyll,
denouncing the reference to the supernatural as
savouring of ''bad science and worse philosophy,"
and warning Mr. Huxley that in the new position
in w^iich he sought to take refuge "he would not
have the support of the most eminent men of
science of the United Kingdom." In a final letter
I restated the question, and again challenged Mr.
Huxley either to establish or to abandon his
contention that Genesis and science were in antag-
onism. His only reply was a letter suggesting, in
his grandest style, that the public w^ere tired of
the controversy. But it was not the public that
were tired of it.^
The fact remains that Mr. Gladstone's position
stands unshaken. The fact remains that one Avho
has had no equal in this age as a scientific contro-
versialist entered the lists to attack it, and retired
discomfited and discredited. Mr. Gladstone's thesis,
therefore holds the field. "The order of creation
as recorded in Genesis has been so affirmed in our
time by natural science that it may be taken as a
demonstrated conclusion and established fact."
Are we then to conclude that when Genesis was
written biological science was as enlightened and
as far advanced as it is to-day? Or shall we adopt
the more reasonable alternative, that "the Mosaic
narrative" is a Divine revelation P^
Ji The correspondence above referred to will be found in the Times
of January 23 and 26 and February 1, 3, 4, 8, and 11 (1892).
2 The "mere coincidence" theory is unworthy of notice, for the
matheniatician will tell us that the order of any seven events may be
<jiven in more than five thousand ways.
I cannot refrain from adding the following extract from a letter
72
The Cosmogony of Genesis
All this of course will weigh nothing with men
who have prejudged the question. First, there are
the religious teachers of that school whose role it
appears to be to import the raw material of German
rationalism and to retail it with a veneer of British
piety to suit the British market. And, secondly,
there are the scientists of the materialistic school,
to whom the very name of God is intolerable.
A few years since, Lord Kelvin's dictum, already
quoted,^ gave these men an opportunity of "glory-
ing in their shame"; and they eagerly availed
themselves of it. His assertion that "scientific
thought" compelled belief in God set the whole
pack in full cry. The acknowledgment even of "a
directive force," they declared, "in efifect wipes
out the whole position won for us by Darwin."
This clearly indicates that the only value they
put upon their hypothesis is that it enables them to
get rid of God; and if it fails of this it is, in their
estimation, worthless. What must be the moral, or
indeed the intellectual condition of men who regard
the negation of God as "a position won for them" !^
I received from Mr. Gladstone after the Times correspondence closed: —
"As to the chapter itself" (Gen. i.), "I do not regard it merely as
a defensible point in a circle of fortifications, but as a grand founda-
tion of the entire fabric of the Holy Scriptures."
1 See p. 23, anie. The Times report of Lord Kelvin's words led to
his repeating them in a letter to that journal (May 4, 1903), and this
gave rise to the correspondence above referred to. There was a "lead-
ing article" upon it on May 13th.
~ This is a libel upon Darwin. And in saying this I do not forget
his letter of March 29, 1863. to Sir Joseph Hooker. But if that let-
ter bears the meaning these men put upon it his words quoted on
pe. 25, ante, prove that he is wholly unworthy of respect. My
lingering belief in human nature leads me to account for that letter as
I would wish to account for Lord Tennyson's avowal of infidelity
(^NineteentJi Century, June, 1903, p. 1070). Great men are very human,
and when in bad company they sometimes behave like schoolboys and
are tempted to say things which in their better moments they would
deplore.
1 may add that a friend of mine who was much with Darwin during
73
A Doubter s Doubts about Science and Religion
But, it may be asked, whar about evolution ? The
materialistic evolution of Herbert Spencer is as
dead as its author. And even Darwin's more en-
lightened biological scheme is now discredited. For
it is recognised that something more than Darwin-
ism offers is needed to account for the phenomena
of life. The evolution h%*pothesis is thoroughly
philosophical : and that is all that can be said for it.
for it is unproved and seemingly incapable of proof.
That "creative power" may have worked in this
way may be conceded. But if so, the process must
have been divinely controlled and strictly limited.
This much is made clear both by the facts of Na-
ture and the statements of Scripture; but beyond
this we cannot go.
''Evolution is an integration of matter and con-
comitant dissipation of motion, during which the
matter passes from an indefinite incoherent homo-
geneity* tc ; ^::ite coherent heterogeneity', and
during whicl: :lic retained motion undergoes a paral-
lel transformation/' If this cacophonous sentence
be translated into English, it will be found to con-
tain some element of truth. Herbert Spencer does
not here pretend, as the careless reader of his phil-
osophy might suppose, that matter itself is capable
of producing any such results. Every change is
due to motion, and behind motion is the power
which causes it. What and where that power 15.
Herbert Spencer cannot tell. He calls it Force, but
he might just as well term it Jupiter or Baal. Were
he to assert that it is unknown, no one could object,
bis bst ilhiess asares me that be expressed the greatest reverence for
res and boce tcsdmooj to their Talnc
74
The Cosmogony of Genesis
however much he differed from him. But with the
aggressive insolence of unbelief he declares it to be
"unknowable," thus shutting the door f:r ever
against all religion.
The Christian reccrrizts the force, and the effects
it has produced. '_r I - reftrs all to God. He al-
lows a pristine c: :' r '-::er described by the
philosopher as ' ar. :. .r.:.::- incoherent homogen-
eity''; but as an aiterr.ative formula for expressing
this he confidently offers both to the simple and the
learned the well-known words. "The earth was
waste and void." As he goes en to consider the
^'integration of matter and concomitant dissipation
of motion." 'And God said" is his method of ac-
counting for the phenomena. The philosopher ad-
mits that not even the slightest change can have
taken place save as a result of some new impulse
imparted by Inscrutable Force. The Christian, in a
spirit of still higher philosophy, accounts for every
change by Divine inter\-ention. It is thus that he
explains the "coherent heterogeneity-" — or, to trans-
late these words into the vernacular, the exquisite
order and variety of nature.
Here I turn to the narrative. The earth existed.
but it was "desolate and empty." a mere waste of
waters, wrapped in impenetrable darkness. The
changes recorded are, first, the dawn of light, and
then the formation of an atmosphere, followed by
the retreat of the waters to their ocean bed: then
the dry land" became clothed with verdure, and
sun and moon and stars appeared. The lausrhter
formerly excited by the idea of light apart from
"5
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
the sun has died away with increasing knowledge ;
and, in our ignorance of the characteristics of that
primeval light, it is idle to discuss the third-day
vegetation. It may possibly have been the "rank
and luxuriant herbage" of which our coal-beds have
been formed; for one statement in the narrative
seems strongly to favour the suggestion that our
present vegetation dates only from the fifth or
sixth day.^
But this brings up the question. What was the
creation da^^? No problem connected with the
cosmogony has greater interest and importance;
none is beset with greater difficulties. The passage
itself seems clearly to indicate that the word is
used in a symbolic sense. When dealing with a
period before man existed to mark the shadow on
the dial, and before the sun could have cast that
shadow, it is not easy to appreciate the reason, or
indeed the meaning, of such a division of time as
our natural day. ''Days and years and seasons"
seem plainly to belong to our present solar sys-
tem, and this is the express teaching of the four-
teenth verse. -
The problem may be stated thus: As man is to
God, so his day of four and twenty hours is to the
Divine day of creation. Possibly indeed the ''eve-
ning and morning" represent the interval of cessa-
tion from work, which succeeds and completes the
day. The words are, "And there was evening, and
there was morning, one day."
1 Gen. ii. 5, R.V.
2 That the earth is older than the sun may at one time have ap-
peared impossihle, if not ridiculous. I'-ut it seems to be involved in
the meteoric hypothesis.
1^
The Cos7nogony of Genesis
The symbolism is maintained throughout. As
man's working day is brought to a close by eve-
ning, which ushers in a period of repose, lasting till
morning calls him back to his daily toil, so the
great Artificer is represented as turning aside from
His work at the end of each *'day" of creation, and
again resuming it when another morning dawned.
Is not this entirely in keeping with the mode in
which Scripture speaks of God? It tells us of His
mouth and eyes and nostrils. His hand and arm.
It speaks of His sitting in the heavens, and bowing
Himself to hear the prayer ascending from the
earth. It talks of His repenting and being angry.
And if any one cavils at this he may fairly be asked,
In what other language could God speak to men?
Nor let any one fall back on the figment that
a Divine day is a period of a thousand years. With
God, we are told, a day is as a thousand years, and
a thousand years as one day. In a word, the seem-
ing paradox of the transcendental philosophy is en-
dorsed by the express teaching of Scripture that
time is a law of human thought. When, therefore,
God speaks of working for six days and resting on
the seventh, we must understand the words in the
same symbolic sense as when He declares that His
hand has made all these things.^
But the mention of the creation sabbath is the
crowning proof of the symbolic character of the
creation "day." God "rested on the seventh day
from all His work which He had made." Are we,
then, to suppose that He resumed the work when four
1 Isa. Ixvi. 2.
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
and twenty hours had passed? Here, at least, reve-
lation and science are at one : the creation sabbath
has continued during all the ages of historic time.
God is active in His universe, pace the atheist and
the infidel, but the Creator rests. Having regard
then to the admitted fact that the creation sabbath
is a vast period of time, surely the working days of
creation must be estimated on the same system.
My object here, however, is not to frame a sys-
tem of interpretation, but rather to enter a protest
against confounding the express teaching of Scrip-
ture with any system of interpretation whatever.
Nor am I attempting to prove the inspiration, or
even the truth of Scripture. My aim is merely to
*'beat off attacks." I hold myself clear of the sin
of Uzzah. I am not putting my hand upon the ark :
as Dante pleaded, I am dealing with the oxen that
are shaking the ark — unintelligent creatures who
have no sense of its sanctity, or even of its worth.
And here I am reminded of Huxley's words, "that
it is vain to discuss a supposed coincidence be-
tween Genesis and science unless we have first
settled, on the one hand, what Genesis says and,
on the other, what science says." This is admirable.
Let us distinguish, therefore, between ''what Gene-
sis says" and what men say about Genesis. And
let us not be either misled or alarmed by attacks
upon the Mosaic cosmogony, based on *'the merest
Sunday-school exegesis" on the one hand, or on the
theories of science on the other. The facts of
science in no way clash Avith Scripture. And as the
prince of living scientists declares — I quote Lord
78
The Cosmogony of Genesis
Kelvin's words again — "scientific thought is com-
pelled to accept the idea of creative power."
Of the origin of our world the first chapter of
Genesis tells us nothing save that *'in the begin-
ning," whenever that was, God "created" it. It
may be, as Tyndall said in his Belfast address, that
"for aeons embracing untold millions of years, this
earth has been the theatre of life and death." But
as to this the "Mosaic narrative" is silent. It deals
merely with the renewing and refurnishing of our
planet as a home for man. And this, moreover, to
prepare the foundation for the supreme revelation
of redemption. Let the authority of Scripture be
undermined, and the whole fabric of the Christian
system is destroyed. But in these easy-going days
the majority of "those who profess and call them-
selves Christians," being wholly destitute of the en-
thusiasm of faith, are helpless when confronted by
the dogmatism of unbelief. It is a day of opinions,
not of faith, and widespread apostasy is the natural
result.^
■^ While correcting the proofs of these pages I have received a news-
paper report of a sermon preached by the Bishop of Manchester in his
Cathedral, in which he justifies the rejection of Gen. i., because "it
seems to be an intellectual impossibility that God should reveal to man
an exact account of the creation of the universe." _ But there is not a
word in Gen. i. about "the creation of the universe," save in the
opening sentence. The word "create" is not used again till we come
to the work of the fifth and sixth "days" (verses 21 and 27). And
when it is said that God "made" the two great lights and the stars,
the word is the same as that used elsewhere of "making" a feast. And
when it is said that He "set" them in the heavens, it is the same word
as is used of "appointing" cities of refuge. (See Appendix, Note I.)
The inferences to be drawn from this I cannot discuss here. But
it shows that Huxley was right: "What Genesis says" is but little
understood.
A Doubterh Doubts about Science and Religion
CHAPTER VIII
'"an agnostic's apology''
THE natural attitude of a thinking mind to-
ward the supernatural is that of scepticism."
Scepticism, not agnosticism. The sceptic halts
at the cross-roads to take his bearings; but at
sight of a cross-road the agnostic gives up his jour-
ney altogether. True scepticism connotes intellec-
tual caution, but agnosticism is intellectual suicide.
Not so, it will be said, for agnosticism merely be-
tokens the prudence that refuses to proceed if no
plain signpost marks the way. But in this life it is
not by plain signposts that we have to direct our
steps. The meaning of a word moreover must be
settled by use, and not by etymology; and this
word was coined to express something quite dififer-
ent from scepticism. It is the watchword of a
special school. And no one will dispute that the
late Sir Leslie Stephen may be accepted as an au-
thoritative exponent of the teaching of that school.
Let us then turn to his treatise entitled An Agnostic's
Apology.
A book about dress would not ofifend us by ridi-
culing and denouncing our conventional clothing as
uncomfortable, unhealthy, and inartistic. But if
the writer went on to urge that we should discard
all covering, and go about in our native nakedness,
his lucubrations would only excite amusement or
80
^^An Agnostic's Apology''^
disgust. And no one who sympathises with the
main argument of the preceding chapters would find
much fault with Leslie Stephen's treatise if it were
merely an exposure of the superstitions and errors
and follies that have corrupted "the Christian re-
ligion" and discredited theological controversy.
But when he goes on to preach agnosticism as a
positive *'faith," and to formulate it as an ideal
''creed/' he stands upon the same level as the
preacher of nakedness.
His Apology opens with a definition of agnosti-
cism. "That there are limits to the sphere of human
intelligence," no one of course denies. But the
agnostic further asserts "that those limits are such
as to exclude at least what Lewes called *metem-
pirical' knowledge," and "that theology lies within
this forbidden sphere." And the meaning of this is
emphasised by his statement of the alternative posi-
tion — a position which he rejects with scorn — "that
our reason can in some sense transcend the narrow
limits of experience."
Now there is a grotesquely transparent fallacy in
this ; and I will illustrate it by a grotesquely child-
ish parable. As regards what is happening next
door at this moment my condition is that of blank
agnosticism. My reason can tell me nothing, and
happily the partition wall is thick enough to prevent
my senses from enlightening me. But if my neigh-
bour comes in to see me, my ignorance may be at
once dispelled, and my reason "transcends the nar-
row limits of my experience." And so here. Every-
body admits that in the spiritual sphere reason can
81
A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion
tell us nothing. Therefore, our author Insists, we
are of necessity agnostics. Not so, the Christian
replies, for God has given us a revelation.
The agnostic's rejoinder will be to reject my
implied definition of ''experience," and to deny the
possibility of a revelation. And if he were an
atheist his denial would be reasonable and consis-
tent. But Leslie Stephen's repudiation of atheism
undermines his whole position. To acknowledge
the existence of a God whose creatures we are, and
at the same time to deny on a priori grounds that
He can reveal Himself to men — this savours of
neither logic nor philosophy.
If some one came to my house purporting to be
the bearer of a letter from my brother, the fact of
my having no brother would be a sufficient reason
for refusing to receive him. But if I had a brother
I should be bound to admit the visitor and read the
letter. My having a brother would not prove the
genuineness of the letter, but it would make it in-
cumbent on me to examine it. And while the fact
that there is a God does not establish the truth of
Christianity, it creates an obligation to investigate
its truth. But the agnostic shuts the door against
all inquiry. His agnosticism is positive and dog-
matic. It is based on a deliberate refusal to con-
sider the matter at all.
This being so his 'Apology is merely a psean in
praise of ignorance, and a sustained appeal to preju-
dice. And he makes free use of the well-known
nisi prills trick of diverting attention from the real
issue by heaping ridicule upon his opponents. His
82
^^An Agnostic's Apology "
dialectical juggling about the free-will controversy
is a notable instance of this. For as he does not
pretend to deny that will is free, his fireworks,
effective though they be, all end in smoke. A like
remark applies to his discussion about virtue and
vice. And his reference to Cardinal Newman is a
still more flagrant example of his method. For if
Newman is responsible for the statement that "the
Catholic Church affords the only refuge from the
alternatives of atheism or agnosticism," it merely
exemplifies the fact that very great men may say
very foolish things. In view of the faith of the
Jew, and the facts of Judaism, such a dictum is
quite as silly as it is false.
But even if, for the sake of argument, we should
admit everything by which this apostle of agnosti-
cism attempts to establish his opening theses, the
great problem which he ignores would remain, like
some giant tree round which a brushwood fire has
spent itself. For the real question' at issue is not
whether, as he seems to think, theologians are fools,
nor even whether Christianity is true, but whether
a Divine revelation is possible. And by his refusal
on a priori grounds to accord to Christianity a
hearing, he puts himself out of court altogether.
His position is not that of enlightened and honest
scepticism ; it is the blind and stupid infidelity of
Hume. It is the expression, not of an intelligent
doubt whether *'God hath spoken unto us by his
Son," but an unintelligent denial that God could
speak to men in any way. It is a deliberate and
systematic refusal to know any thing beyond what
83
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
unaided reason and the senses can discover. His
agnosticism is — to adopt his own description of it
— a "creed"; and were we to emulate his method, it
might be contemptuously designated a creed of
mathematics and mud.
As a philippic against Christianity, An Agnostic's
Apology is all the more effective because its pro-
fanities, like its fallacies, are skilfully veiled. And
yet the tone of it is deplorable. In England at least,
cultured infidels are used to speak of Christianity
with respect, remembering that it is the faith of
the apostles and the martyrs — the faith, moreover,
professed to-day by the great majority of men who
hold the highest rank in the aristocracy of learning.
But a very different spirit marks this treatise. In
the writer's estimation the great doctrines of that
faith are but ''old husks," and the profession of
them is only ''bluster." And he challenges the
Christian to "point to some [Christian] truth, how-
ever trifling," that "will stand the test of discussion
and verification."
That challenge the Christian can accept without
misgiving or reserve. And the doctrine on which
he will stake the issue is not a "trifling" one, but
the great foundation truth of the Resurrection.
In writing to the Christians of Corinth, the Apos-
tle restates the Gospel which had won them from
Paganism. And the burden of it is the Saviour's
death and resurrection. "That Christ died for our
sins" is a truth which, in the nature of things, ad-
mits of no appeal to human testimony. But though
the Resurrection is equally the subject of positive
84
An Agnostic's Apology "
revelation, the Apostle goes on to enumerate wit-
nesses of it, whose evidence would be accepted as
valid by any fair tribunal in the world. Once and
again all the Apostles saw their Lord alive on earth
after His crucifixion. And on one occasion He was
seen by a company of more than five hundred dis-
ciples, most of whom were still living when the
Apostle wrote.
The Rationalists suggest tjiat belief in the Resur-
rection was the growth of time, ''when a haze of
sentiment and mysticism had gathered around the
traditions of Calvary." But this figment is explod-
ed by the simple fact that the interval was meas-
ured by days and not by years. The disciples,
moreover, were quite as sceptical as even these
"superior persons" would themselves have been.
One of the eleven Apostles, indeed, refused to be-
lieve the united testimony of his brethren, and for a
whole week adhered to the theory that they had
seen a ghost. But the Lord's appearances were not
like fleeting visions of an "astral body" in a dark-
ened room. He met the disciples just as He had
been used to do in the past. He walked with them
on the public ways. He sat down to eat with
them. And more than all this, He resumed His
ministry among them, renewing in detail His teach-
ing about Holy Scripture, and confirming their faith
by a fuller and clearer exegesis than they had till
then been able to receive.
Such was their explicit testimony. And in view
of it the Rationalist gloss is utterly absurd. It is
sheer nonsense to talk of a haze of sentiment, or of
85
A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religiuii
Oriental superstition, or of overstrained nerves. If
the Resurrection was not a reality, the Apostles,
one and all, were guilty of a base conspiracy of
fraud and falsehood. Credulous fools they certainly
were not, but profane impostors and champion liars
— no terms of reprobation and contempt would be
too strong to heap on them. And this is what un-
belief implies, for in no other way can their testi-
mony to the Resurrection be evaded.
And in addition to this direct evidence, there is
abundant evidence of another kind. At the betrayal
all the disciples were scattered and went into hid-
ing. But at Pentecost these same men came for-
ward boldly, and preached to the Jews assembled
in Jerusalem for the festival. And Peter, who had
not only forsaken Him, but repeatedly denied with
oaths that he ever knew Him, was foremost in de-
nouncing the denial of Him by the nation. Some-
thing must have happened to account for a trans-
formation so extraordinary. And what was it?
Only one answer is possible — The Resurrection.
But further. While the three years' ministry of
Christ and his Apostles produced only about a hun-
dred and twenty disciples in the city of Jerusalem,^
this Pentecostal testimony brought in three thou-
sand converts.^ Nor was this the mere flash of a
transient success. Soon afterwards the company of
the disciples was more than trebled.^ For we read
"the number of the men came to be about five
thousand,"^ and we may assume that the women
converts were at least as numerous. A little later
Acts i. 15, 2 Ibid. ii. 41. 3 Ibid. iv. 4.
86
An Agnostic's Apology '^
again, we are told, they were further joined by
"multitudes both of men and women. "^ And later
still, the narrative records, *'the number of the dis-
ciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly ; and a great
company of the priests were obedient to the faith. "^
All this, moreover, occurred at a time when the
opposition of the Sanhedrim and the priests was
fiercer and more organised even than before the
crucifixion. How then can it be explained? Only
one answer is possible — The Resurrection.
But even this is not all. We have other indirect
evidence, still more striking and conclusive. To
suppose that the Christianity of the Pentecostal
Church was a "new religion" is an ignorant blunder.
The disciples preached to none but Jews; all the
converts without exception were Jews f and by the
religious leaders of the nation they were regarded
as an heretical Jewish sect. When the Apostle
Paul was put on his defence before Felix, the charge
against him was not apostasy but heresy. He was
a "leader of the sect of the Nazarenes." And what
was his answer to that charge? "According to the
Way (which they call a sect) so worship I the God
of our fathers, believing all things which are writ-
ten in the law and in the prophets."* His position,
he thus maintained in the most explicit terms, was
that of the orthodox Jew.
Now there was no ordinance to which the Jews
adhered more rigidly than that of the Sabbath.
How was it then that with one consent they began
to observe the first day of the week? The sceptic
1 Acts V. 14. 2 Ibid. vi. 7. » Ibid. vii. 1, cf. xi. 19.
* Acts xxiv. 5, 14.
87
A Doubter ^s Doubts about Science and Religion
may hint at parallels for their success in proselytis-
ing, but here is a fact that cannot be thus dismissed.
Something of an extraordinary kind must have hap-
pened to account for it. What was it then? Only
one answer is possible — The Resurrection.
I am not ignorant of the methods by which in-
fidelity has sought to account for the empty tomb.
The lie of the Jewish priests — that the disciples
stole the body — is too gross for modern rational-
ism ; and as an alternative explanation, we are told
that Christ had not really died ! And Dr. Harnack,
the greatest of living rationalists, disposes of the
matter by treating the Resurrection as a mere "be-
lief." "It is not our business," he says, "to defend
either the view which was taken of the death, or the
idea that He had risen again." And he adds:
''Whatever may have happened at the grave and in
the matter of the appearances, one thing is certain :
this grave was the birthplace of the indestructible
belief that death is vanquished, that there is a life
eternal." And again : "The conviction that ob-
tained in the apostolic age that the Lord had really
appeared after His death on the cross may be re-
garded as a coefficient." It is not that the fact of
the appearances was "a coefficient," but merely the
belief that there were appearances. For his mean-
ing is made clear by his going on to refer to the
"coefficient" of a mistaken expectation of Christ's
return.^ There are no facts of any kind in this
scheme, but merely "beliefs" and "views" and
"ideas." And this being so it involves the absolute
1 What is Christianity t Saunder's translation, pp. 155, 162, 173.
^^An Agnostic's Apology "
rejection of the Gospel narrative, and therefore it
destroys the only ground on which discussion is
possible.
Here then is our answer to the agnostic's chal-
lenge. There are circumstances in which it is idle
to speak of spiritual truth; but the resurrection of
Christ is a public fact accredited by evidence which
will "stand the test of discussion and verification."
And when the agnostic denies that Christianity can
supply an answer to as much as one of "the hideous
doubts that oppress us,"^ the Christian points to
that Resurrection as dispelling the most grievous
of all the doubts that darken life on earth. For the
resurrection of Christ is the earnest and pledge of
the resurrection of His people. Such then is the
Christian's hope. "A sure and certain hope" he
rightly calls it; nor will he be deterred by the
agnostic's denunciation of the words as "a cutting
piece of satire."-
Notwithstanding petulant disavowals of atheism,
the real issue here involved is not the fact of a reve-
lation, but the existence of God — a real God, not
"the primordial germ," nor even the Director-
General of evolutionary processes, but "the living
and true God." From all who acknowledge such a
God we are entitled to demand an answer to the
Apostle's challenge when he stood before Agrippa :
"Why should it be thought Incredible with you that
God should raise the dead?"^
1 Apology, p. 41. 2 Ibid., p. 4.
' Acts xxvi. 8. The Ttap I'/UiV is emphatic. It is not clear whether
in this he was addressing the Jews, or appealing from their unbelief to
the intelligence of his Roman judges.
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
And this suggests a closing word. Leslie Stephen
avers with truth that the "enormous majority of
the race has been plunged in superstitions of vari-
ous kinds." But the philosophers always omit to
tell us how this imiversal craving for a religion can
be accounted for. And while they are vainly seek-
ing for the solution of the enigma in the monkey
house of the Zoological Gardens, sane and sensible
folk who make no pretensions to be philosophers
will continue to find it in the Genesis story of the
Creation and the Fall.^
* No one surely will suppose that tlie foregoing is a full statement
of the evidence for the Resurrection. To compress such a statement
into such a compass would be a feat unparalleled in Apologetics. But
even this partial and most inadequate statement is amply sufificient as
an answer to Leslie Stephen's challenge.
What has here been urged in proof of the Resurrection is proof that
it was neither a delusion nor a fraud. For the moral and spiritual
elements involved are more significant even than the physiological. I
might_ further appeal to the baptism of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost,
the visible proofs of which are vouched for by the men who experi-
enced it. And I might appeal to the Ascension and, in connection with
it, to the Transfiguration, which I may remark, the Apostle Peter
records as matter of evidence (2 Peter i. 15-19),
90
CHAPTER IX
THE IRRATIONALISM OF INFIDELITY
CHRIST is still left" is the solace Mill would
offer us as we survey the wreck which ra-
tionalism makes of Faith. To that life he appeals
as supplying a "standard of excellence and a model
for imitation." "Who among His disciples," he
demands, "was capable of inventing the sayings
ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining the character
revealed in the Gospels?" Do not such words as
these suggest that if Christianity would waive its
transcendental claims and make terms with unbe-
lief, the record of that life might afford the basis
for a universal religion, a really "Catholic" faith?
But who and what was this "Jesus" of the Ra-
tionalist, whose life is to be our model? The
answer to this simple question will expose the fal-
lacy of the whole position. The Christ of the
Gospels was the Son of God, who worked miracles
without number, and who claimed with the utmost
definiteness and solemnity that His words were in
the strictest sense a Divine revelation. But as re-
gards His miracles, the Rationalist tells us that His
biographers were deceived ; and as for His teaching
they misunderstood and perverted it. But if they
blundered thus in matters as to which ordinary
intelligence and care would have made error or
mistake impossible, how can we repose any trust
91
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
whatever in their records? AVhat materials have
we from which to construct a Hfe of Christ at all?
And if we decide that these Scriptures are not
authentic, and that Christ was merely human, the
Sermon on the Mount sinks to the level of a homily
which Matthew framed on the traditions of his
Master's words. And as for the Fourth Gospel,
having regard to the time when it was written, and
to the fact that the Synoptics know nothing of its
distinctive teaching, vv^e must acknowledge that for
such chapters as those which purport to record ''the
most sacred of all sacred words," spoken on the
eve of the Crucifixion, we are mainly indebted to
the piety and genius of "the beloved disciple." The
modern Jew, moreover, cannot be far astray when
he insists that Paul was the real founder of the
Christian system. His was "the boldest enter-
prise" as Dr. Harnack declares, for he ventured on
it "without being able to appeal to a single word of
his Master's." If men would but use their brains,
they would see that once we drift away from the
anchorage of the old beliefs, nothing can save us
from being drawn into the rapids which end in
sheer agnosticism. This does not prove the truth
of Christianity, but it exposes the untenableness of
the infidel position.
These infidel books habitually assume that, if
we refuse their nostrums, superstition is our only
refuge. This is quite in keeping with the amazing
conceit which characterises them. AVisdom was
born with the Agnostics ! They have monopolised
the meagre stock of intelligence which the evolu-
92
The Irrationalism of Infidelity
tionary process has as yet produced for the guid-
ance of the race! But there are Christians in the
world who have quite as much sense as they have,
who detest superstition as much as they do, and
who have far more experience in detecting fallacies
and exposing frauds. And if such men are Chris-
tians it is not because they are too stupid to be-
come infidels.
For faith is not superstition ; and in presence of a
Divine revelation unbelief betokens mental obli-
quity, if not moral degradation. Thoughtless peo-
ple are betrayed into supposing that there is some-
thing very clever in ''not believing." But in this life
the formula 'T don't believe" more often betokens
dull-wittedness than shrewdness. It is the refrain
of the stupidest man upon the jury. A mere nega-
tion of belief moreover, is seldom possible; it gen-
erally implies belief in the alternative to what we
reject. The sceptic may hesitate, in order to exam-
ine the credentials of a revelation. But no one who
has a settled creed ever hesitates at all. And the
Atheist has such a creed; he believes that there is
no God. If we do not believe a man to be honest,
we usually believe him to be a fraud. If we refuse
the testimony of witnesses about matters that are
too plain and simple to allow of mere misapprehen-
sion or honest mistake, we must hold them to be
impostors and rogues. And nothing less than this
is implied in the position held by men like Her-
bert Spencer and Leslie Stephen.
But the infidel will deny that he impugns the
integrity of the Apostles and Evangelists; he only
93
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
questions their intelligence. He asks us to believe
that they were so weak and credulous that their
testimony to the miracles, for example, must be
rejected. But the miracles were not rare incidences
of dark-room seances; they were public events
which occurred day by day, and usually in the
presence of hostile critics. No person of ordinary
intelligence, therefore, could have been mistaken as
to the facts. What then do we know of the men on
whose evidence we accept them? Their writings
have been translated into every known language.
They hold a unique place in the classic literature
of the world, and the sublime morality and piety
which pervade them command universal admiration.
Certain it is therefore that if the New Testament is
to be accounted for on natural principles, its authors
must have been marvellously gifted, both intellec-
tually and morally. And yet these are the men
whose testimony is to be flung aside with contempt
when they give a detailed description of events
which happened in open day before their eyes. To
talk of offering them a fool's pardon is absurd. If
their narratives be false, we must give up all con-
fidence in human nature, and write them down as an
abnormally clever gang of abnormally profane im-
postors and hypocrites. But this alternative is
more untenable than the other. It is absolutely
certain that the men of the New Testament were
neither scoundrels nor fools.
And no more than this is needed to undermine
the infidel position. It is not necessary to prove
that the Gospels are a Divine revelation ; it will
94
The I rraiionalism of hi fide lily
suffice to show that they are credible records ; and
this much is guaranteed to us by the character of
the men who wrote them. As a test case let us
take the miracle of the feeding of the five thouaand,
recorded in all the four Gospels. I begin with the
First. And I will not speak of the writer as "Saint"
Matthew, the Apostle of Christ, but of Matthew
the ex-tax-collector. Such a man, we may be sure,
was at least as shrewd and as suspicious as any of
the infidels who with amazing conceit dispose of his
testimony. He records that on a certain day, in
a "desert place," he assisted in distributing bread
and fish to a vast multitude that gathered to hear
the Lord's teaching — there were five thousand men
besides women and children ; that the supply was
five loaves and two fishes; that "they did all eat
and were filled, and they took up of the fragments
that remained twelve baskets full." And this is
confirmed by the writer of the Fourth Gospel, who
also took part in the distribution of the food, and
who gives details which prove the accuracy with
which he remembered what occurred. If we as-
sume that the other Evangelists were not present,
their narratives become incidentally important as
showing that the miracle was matter of common
knowledge and discussion among the disciples.
Miracles of another kind the infidel gets rid of
to his own satisfaction by taking each in detail and
appealing to what we know of the infirmity of
human testimony, or the effects of hysteria and the
power of mind or will over the body. But this
miracle is one of many that cannot possibly be
95
A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion
accounted for on natural principles. And mistake
or illusion was no less impossible. That "the nar-
rative arose out of a parable" is the nonsense of
sham sceptics and real fools.^ For the witnesses
were admittedly neither idiots nor rogues, but men
of the highest intelligence and probity. And this
being so the facts are established, and the only ques-
tion open is, What explanation can be given of
them? What explanation is possible save that
Divine power was in operation?-
The infidel therefore, so far from being the
philosopher he pretends to be, is the blind dupe
of prejudice. And this is in efifect the defence
pleaded for Voltaire by his latest English apologist.
To him we are told rinfdme, "if it meant Chris-
tianity at all, meant that which was taught in Rome
in the eighteenth century, and not by the Sea of
Galilee in the first"; "it meant the religion which
lit the fires of Smithfield and prompted the tortures
of the Inquisition."^ In a word, Voltaire was ignor-
ant of the distinction between Christianity and
what is called "the Christian religion." Not strange,
perhaps, in the case of an eighteenth century
Frenchman, but inexcusable in the case of cultured
Englishmen of our own times. For the distinction
is clear upon the open page of Scripture and of his-
tory. How indeed can it be missed by any one who
has read the story of the martyrs?* For the mar-
1 Encyc. Biblica, article "Gospels," § 142.
2 The Atheist, while admitting that the evidence is adequate and
trustworthy, refuses to accept the miracle, because he holds on a priori
grounds that miracles are impossible! Thus it was that Hume got rid
of certain miracles the evidence for which he admitted to be satisfactory
and complete.
3 Miss Tallantyre's Life of Voltaire.
* What sort of God have those who believe that He could ever for-
96
The Irrattonalism of Infidelity
tyrs were the representatives and champions of
Christianity: "the Christian reHgion" it was that
tortured and murdered them. But this is a digres-
sion.
While the aggressive infidel has no special claim
to consideration, the honest-minded sceptic is en-
titled to respect and sympathy. And never was
the path of the truth-seeker more beset with diffi-
culties. For the development of the rival aposta-
sies of the last days, so plainly revealed in Scrip-
ture, goes on apace. On the one side there is a
national lapse toward the errors and superstitions
from which we supposed the Reformation had for
ever delivered us, and on the other there is an
abandonment of the great truths to which the
Reformation owed its power.
These apostasies moreover are well organized
under zealous and able leaders. And while their
discordant cries are ever in our ears, "truth is fal-
len in the street." In the National Church the
great Evangelical party has effaced itself, and
fallen into line behind the champions of the pagan
superstitions of "the Christian religion."^ And
though in the "Free" churches, as in the Estab-
lishment, there are great numbers of true and earn-
est men who refuse to bow the knee to any Baal,
give those hideous crimes of "the Professing Church"? His grace
toward the individual sinner is infinite, but a corporation God never
forgives. But the fulfilment of Rev. xviii. 4-8 belongs to a time still
future. And see p. 99 post.
1 Bishop Lightfoot of Durham and Dr. Salmon of Dublin would, I
suppose, be regarded by all Evangelicals as among the greatest theo-
logians of our time; and their writings might serve to check the present
apostasy of the Church of England, Lightfoot's treatise on the Mm-
istry, for example, (Epistle to the Philippians), supplies a crushing
answer to the pricstlv pretensions now in the ascendant. But to-day
these great men and their writings are contemptuously ignored.
97
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
the only corporate testimony ever heard is ''the
gospel of humanity," which, as Scripture warns us,
will lead at last to the worship of the Antichrist.
We are pestered by the nostrums of ''feather-headed
enthusiasts who take the first will-o'-the-wisp for
a safe guide, and patch up a new religion out of
scraps and tatters of half-understood science," or of
quasi-Christian ministers who are busy "framing
systems of morality apart from the ancient creeds"
and "trying to evolve a satisfactory creed out of
theosophical moonshine."^
In the past, superstition and rationalism were the
open enemies of the faith, but now they are en-
trenched within the citadel, and half the churches
and chapels in the land are places to be shunned.
Organised Christianity is becoming an organised
apostasy, and the time seems drawing near when
practical expression must be given to the cry, "To
your tents, O Israel !" "The very Church of God
which ought to be the appeaser of God is the pro-
voker of God." These words seem as apt to-day as
when they were written fifteen centuries ago.
I will here avail myself of the language of a
great commentator and divine, Dean Alford of Can-
terbury. After speaking of the apostasy of "the
Jewish Church" beginning with the worship of "the
golden calf," he proceeds as follows: —
"Strikingly parallel with this runs the history of
the Christian Church. Not long after the Apostolic
times, the golden calves of idolatry were set up by
^ These words were not penned with reference to Sir Oliver Lodge's
Catechism or "the New Theology"; they are taken from Sir Leslie
Stephen's Apology (pp. 339, 354).
98
The Irrationalts7n of Infidelity
the Church of Rome. What the effect of the cap-
tivity was to the Jews, that of the Reformation has
been to Christendom. The first evil spirit has been
cast out. But by the growth of hypocrisy, secular-
ity, and rationalism, the house has become empty,
swept and garnished: swept and garnished by the
decencies of civilisation and the discoveries of secu-
lar knowledge, but empty of living and earnest
faith. And he must read prophecy but ill, who does
not see under all these seeming improvements the
preparation for the final development of the man of
sin, the great repossession, when idolatry and the
seven [other more wicked spirits] shall bring the
outward frame of so-called Christendom to a fear-
ful end."i
1 Greek Test. Com., Matt. xii. 43-45. Alford is not speaking here
of the Spiritual Church, the Body of Christ, of which Christ Him^
self is at once the Builder and the Head (Matt. xvi. 18; Eph. i. 22, 23)
but of the Professing Church on earth, the administration of which
was entrusted to men. The one ends in glory, the other in apostasy
and judgment. The religion of Christendom confounds the one with
the other; and it also confounds the Church with "the kindom of
heaven," the "keys" of which were committed to the Apostle of the
Circumcision.
The following weighty words relating to the Church on earth are
quoted from Canon T. D. Bernard's Progress of Doctrine (The Bamp-
ton Lecture, 1864) : —
"How fair was the morning of the Church! how swift its progress!
what expectations it would have been natural to form of the future
history which had begun so well! Doubtless they were formed in
manv a sanguine heart; but they were clouded soon. ...
"While the Apostles wrote, the actual state and the visible tendencies
of things showed too plainly what Church history would be; and at the
same time, prophetic intimations made the prospect still more dark. . . .
"I know not how any man, in closing the Epistles, could expect to
find the subsequent history of the Church essentially different from what
it is. In those writings we seem, as it were, not to witness some passing
storms which clear the air, but to feel the whole atmosphere charged
with the elements of future tempest and death. ...
"The fact which I observe is not merely that these indications of
the future are in the Epistles, but that they increase as we approach
the close, and after the doctrines of the Gospel have been fully wrought
out, and the fulness of personal salvation and the ideal character of
the Church have been placed in the clearest light, the shadows gather
and deepen on the external history. The last words of St. Paul in
the Second Epistle to Tiirothv, and those of St. Peter in his Second
Epistle, with the Eoistles of St. John and St. Jude, breathe the lan-
guage of a time in "which the tendencies of that history had distinctly-
shown themselves; and in this respect these writings form a prelude and
a passage to the Apocalypse." qq
A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion
CHAPTER X
A sceptic's plea for faith
ONE who is himself a sceptic both by tem-
permanent and by training can appreciate the
difficulties of the honest truth-seeker. And to
such I would offer the assurance of respectful sym-
pathy, and such counsel as my own experience may
enable me to give.
And first, I would say with emphasis, Ignore the
atheistical section of the scientists. To quote the
words of ''that prince of scientists'* Lord Kelvin,
*'If you think strongly enough you will be forced
by science to the belief in God."^ And I would add,
quoting Lord Kelvin again, "Do not be afraid of
being free thinkers." For the free thinker will re-
fuse to be either prejudiced or discouraged by the
confusion and error which abound on every side,
and which have always marked the history of the
professing Church.
Fifteen centuries ago the great Chrysostom de-
plored that even in those early days, every Christian
ordinance was parodied, and every Christian truth
corrupted. And if it be demanded, Where can we
look for guidance amid the din of the discordant
cries which beat upon our ears to-day? his words
may best supply the answer : —
"There can be no proof of true Christianity," he
says, "nor any other refuge for Christians wishing
'^Christian Apologetics, see p. 23 ante.
100
A Sceptic's Plea for Faith
to know the true faith, but the Divine Scriptures.
. . . Therefore the Lord, knowing that such a con-
fusion of things would take place in the last days,
commands on that account that Christians should
betake themselves to nothing else but the Scrip-
tures" (Matthew, Hom. XLIIL).
'The Scriptures!" some one may exclaim, "but
what about Moses and Jonah and Daniel?" Some
people will believe nothing, unless they can believe
everything. But men who make fortunes in com-
merce are content with small beginnings, enough
for the necessaries of life. The "Catholic Church,"
it is true, would hand us over to "the secular arm"
for failing, not only to accept the whole Bible, but
to swallow all its own superstitions. And to fit us
for this achievement, Pascal's advice would be to
take to "religion." For, he said, "that will make
you stupid, and enable you to believe."^
But a very different spirit marks the Divine deal-
ings with sinful men. "He that cometh unto God
must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder
of them that diligently seek Him." "That He is" :
for not a few of the difficulties which men find in
the Bible are practically atheistical. And if even
in the natural sphere it is the "diligent seeker" who
succeeds, no one need wonder if in the spiritual
sphere it is the "diligent seeker" who secures the
treasure.
Here then is my advice to any who are troubled
with sceptical doubts: Be in earnest; and begin at
the beginning. God does not require of us that
1 Quoted from the Preface to Matthew Arnold's God and the Bible.
101
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
before we come to Him we shall believe in Daniel
and Jonah and Moses. But, to render the words
with slavish literalness, "It is necessary for the
comer unto God to believe that He exists, and that
He is a rewarder of them that seek Him out."
Men do not find pearls upon the open beach, or
nuggets of gold upon the public road. Even in
this world the principle of "the narrow way" pre-
vails. And it is only the few who find it. Even in
the mundane sphere, success is not for the trifler or
the faddist. But while in this world the diligent
seeker is often thwarted, and sometimes crushed,
it is never so with God : He never says, "Seek ye
Me in vain."
I repeat then, "Do not be afraid of being free
thinkers." In peace-time a war-ship may carry top-
hamper without endangering her safety; but in
presence of an enemy the first order is to clear the
decks. And in these days, when it is necessary to
"contend earnestly for the faith once delivered," we
cannot be too fearless or too ruthless in jettisoning
all error and superstition. The schoolboy's defini-
tion of "faith" is not the right one : he described it
as "believing what we know to be untrue." The
God of revelation is the God of nature ; and in the
spiritual, as in the natural sphere, there are difH-
culties which perplex and distress us. But though
the Word of God, like the works of God, may be
full of mystery, it is wholly free from falsehood and
folly.
Some one may object that the truth here urged is
quite too elementary to be vital. But elementary
102
A SceMic's Plea for Faith
truths are often the deepest, and always the most
important. And it is a significant fact that, in view
of the completed revelation of Christianity, the last
of the doctrinal books of the New Testament closes
by reiterating this most elementary of all truths:
We know that the Son of God is come and has
given us an understanding that we may know Him
that is true. . . . This is the true God." Faith be-
gins by giving up belief in the Deity as a mere
abstraction, like "the Monarchy" or "the State,"
and learning to believe in "the living God" who is
"the Rewarder of them that seek Him." This is
the alpha of the alphabet of faith. We reach the
omega when, giving up "the historic Jesus," we
come to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, "the Son
of God." Just as "all the law and the prophets"
are included in love to God and our neighbour, so,
in the same sense, the whole revelation of Chris-
tianity is an unfolding of this truth. Not, as the
rationalist has it, "that a man of the name of Jesus
Christ once stood in our midst," but that "the Son
of God is come," He who was in the beginning with
God, and who was God, and by whom all things
were made" — that He once stood in our midst.
"God hath spoken to us in His Son."
"But," It may be said, "there Is a fallacy here.
Belief in God belongs to the sphere of natural
religion, but belief In Christ depends upon revela-
tion; and this raises the question of the inspiration
of Scripture." I challenge that statement. The
question of inspiration Is of vital importance in Its
own place, but this is not Its place. Here and now
103
A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion
we are concerned with facts — the public facts of
the ministry of Christ, including His miracles and
His resurrection from the dead. For the genuine-
ness of the records is admitted, and, as we have
seen, their authenticity is guaranteed by the
character of the men who wrote them. And I
need not repeat the argument that the denial of
their inspiration compels us to form a still higher
estimate of their personal competence.^
In order to evade the force of their testimony
the infidel points to the lapse of time since these
events occurred, and he tries to raise a cloud of
prejudice by ringing the changes on the apostasy
of the Christian Church. But this is only nisi prius
claptrap. The significance of facts such as those
we have here in view cannot be impaired either by
the lapse of centuries or by any amount of human
failure and folly. I put this question therefore to
all fair and earnest thinkers. Suppose the ministry
of Christ belonged to the nineteenth century,
instead of the first, what effect would it have upon
you? How would you account for it? Is not the
only reasonable explanation of it this, *'that the
Son of God is come"?
The New Testament records but one apostolic
sermon addressed to a heathen audience. Jews
could be referred to the Hebrew Scriptures in proof
''that Jesus was the Christ." But when preaching
to the Areophagites of Athens the Apostle appealed
to their own religion, the writings of their poets,
and the phenomena of nature, to prove the existence
of an intelligent, personal, and beneficent God ; and
^ See p. 94 ante.
104
A Sceptic's Plea for Faith
he pointed to the resurrection of Christ in proof
that God had declared Himself to men. The times
of ignorance which God could overlook were past.
''He now commandeth all men everywhere to
repent"; for agnosticism has become a sin that
shuts men up to judgment, ^'whereof He hath
given assurance unto all men in that He hath raised
Him from the dead." ^
There is not a word here about the inspiration
either of writings or of men. That is a question
for "the household of faith," the home circle of the
family of God. But here we have to do with what
concerns ''all men everywhere." And, I repeat, the
fact that " the Son of God is come," and the solemn
warning that judgment is assuredly to follow, are
wholly unaffected by accidents of time or place.
I am not fencing with professional sceptics, but
appealing to real truth-seekers, and upon such I
again press the question, What bearing has this
upon you?
No one who will read these pages is more scep-
tical than the writer of them, none who feels a
stronger antipathy to superstition and error and
nonsense. But the falsehoods and follies of "the
Christian religion" in its many phases, whether
venerable or newfangled, must not be allowed to
obscure the issue here involved. "The Son of God
is come." And in view of that supreme fact God
commands repentance, "for He has appointed a day
in the which He will judge the world in righteous-
ness by that man whom He has ordained."
And in that day no one will be condemned
lActs xvii. 22-31.
105
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
because he did not belong to this Church or that,
or because he failed to accept the inspiration of one
book or another. The judgment will turn on this,
''that God sent His Son into the world." Here are
His own words — the words of Him who is Himself
to be the Judge; ''This is the condemnation, that
light is come into the world, and men loved dark-
ness rather than light because their deeds were evil."
A blind and unreasoning infidelity denies the
resurrection. But to aver that God could not
raise Christ from the dead is practical atheism :
to aver that He would not raise Him from the dead
is mere nonsense; and to assert that He did not
raise Him from the dead is to deny a public fact,
*'the certainty of which can be invalidated only by
destroying the foundations of all human testimony."
And by the resurrection He was "declared to be
the Son of God." ^ How else can the resurrection
be explained? What other significance can possi-
bly be assigned to it? That Christ Himself claimed
to be the Son of God is not a matter of inspiration
but of evidence. His crucifixion by the Jews estab-
lishes it. The Jews were not savages who murdered
their Rabbis. They honoured them. But, we read,
when He said, "Before Abraham was, I am, then
took they up stones to cast at Him." And when
He said, "I and My Father are one, then the Jews
took up stones again to stone Him." And in an-
swer to His remonstrance they exclaimed "Thou
being a man makest thyself God."- If He was not
Divine He was a blasphemer, and by their law
1 Rom. i. 4.
2 John viii. 58, 59; x. 30-33.
106
A Sceptic's Plea for Faith
deserved to die. But the resurrection proved Him
to be Divine.
And can the appalHng fact that the Son of God
has thus died at the hands of men be dismissed
as a mere incident in history, or as a commonplace
of religious controversy! *'As He had laid aside
His glory, He now restrained His power, and
yielded Himself to their guilty will. In return for
pity He earned but scorn. Sowing kindnesses and
benefits with a lavish hand, He reaped but cruelty
and outrage. Manifesting grace, He was given up
to impious law without show of mercy or pretence
of justice. Unfolding the boundless love of the
heart of God, He gained no response but bitterest
hate from the hearts of men." The fate of the
heathen who have never heard of Him rests with
God ; but to us the Cross must of necessity bring
either blessing or judgment. In presence of it we
must take sides. And he who takes sides with God
is safe.
And now, having reached this stage, can we not
advance another step? ''Scientific thought compels
belief in God." And here "Agnosticism assumes
a double incompetence, the Incompetence not only
of man to know God, but of God to make Himself
known. But the denial of competence is the nega-
tion of Deity. For the God who could not speak
would not be rational, and the God who would not
speak would not be moral. The idea of a written
revelation, therefore, may be said to be logically
involved in the notion of a living God." And with
overwhelming force this applies to the matter here
107
A Doubter'* s Doubts about Science and Religion
at issue. If ''the Son of God is come," is it credible,
it is possible, that God has not provided for us an
authentic record of His mission and ministry?
Even the credulity of unbelief might well give way
under the strain of such a supposition. Whether
you describe it as "inspiration" or "providence" —
call it by what term you please — must not the exis-
tence of such a record be assumed? If men are
doubters here, it must be because they doubt either
that "God is," or that "the Son of God is come."
But "we knozv that the Son of God is come." With
certainty, therefore, we accept the record. And
here are His words: —
"As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but
have eternal life. For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have ever-
lasting life."
And if this be Divine truth, who will dare to
cavil at the words which follow: "He that believeth
on Him is not condemned : but he that believeth
not is condemned already, because he hath not
believed in the name of the only begotten Son of
God." ^
It is not death that decides our destiny, but our
acceptance or rejection of the Gospel of Christ.
For the consequences of receiving or rejecting Him
are immediate and eternal.
ijohn iii. 14-18.
108
CHAPTER XI
HOW TO READ THE BIBLE
THE preceding chapter opened by quoting
words spoken by the most eminent of living
scientists : this chapter shall be prefaced by quoting
a man of the highest eminence in another sphere—
the greatest philologist of our time. The following
is an extract from a letter written in one of the
later years of his life by Prof. Max Miiller of
Oxford :—
"How shall I describe to you what I found in the
New Testament ! I had not read it for many years
and was prejudiced against it. The light which
struck Paul with blindness on his way to Damascus
was not more strange than that which fell on me
when I suddenly discovered the fulfilment of all
hopes. ... If this is not Divine I under-
stand nothing at all. In all my studies of the
ancient times I have always felt the want of some-
thing, and it was not until I knew our Lord that
all was clear to me." ^
Testimonies of this kind— and they might be
multiplied indefinitely — have no efifect upon the
aggressive infidel. But they cannot fail to influence
honest and earnest men who are willing to deal
fairly with the Scriptures.
And here another testimony of a wholly diflferent
kind will be opportune. Among the many learned
* This letter was publisked in the Standard newspaper of May 20,
1905
109
A Doubter'' s Doubts about Science and Religion
and brilliant assailants of the Bible whom Germany
has produced, no name ranks higher than that of
Ferdinand Christian Baur, the leader of "the
Tubingen School" of critics, by whom the New
Testament was rejected "as a tissue of deceptions
and forgeries." Among living exponents of the
so-called "Higher Criticism" Germany possesses
no greater authority than the Principal of Berlin
University. But the result of Baur's labours Dr.
Harnack dismisses as "an episode" which had bet-
ter be forgotten ; and as the outcome of his own
investigations, he declares, "The oldest literature
of the Church, in all main points and in most
details, from the point of view of literary criticism,
is genuine and trustworthy." ^
The importance of this testimony can scarcely
be exaggerated. For Dr. Harnack is as uncom-
promising a rationalist as was Baur himself. And
when this great scholar and critic, reviewing Baur's
conclusions, vouches for the genuineness and trust-
worthiness of the New Testament writings, the
most sceptical of men may rest assured that we
possess reliable records of the ministry of Christ
and His Apostles.
And now may we not appeal to any who are
really honest doubters to face this matter with an
open mind? To such we would say, begin your
Bible study, not with Genesis or Jonah, but with
^ The Chronology of the Oldest Christian Literature. He adds: "In
the whole New Testament there is in all probability only a single writing
that can be looked upon as pseudonymous in the strictest sense of
the word— i.e. 2 Peter." I infer, however, from his book, What is
Christianity? that the exigencies of his rationalistic scheme, as un-
folded in that work, compelled him to place the Fourth Gospel in the
same category.
110
How to Read the Bible
the historical books of the New Testament. Max
Miiller's study of them, in spite of his avowed
prejudice, convinced him that Christianity was
Divine, and you may expect to reach the same
conclusion.
And when you come upon difficulties and seem-
ing contradictions, pass them by. They will
possibly appear to you in a different light when
you come back to them afterwards with a more
educated mind. It is always so in the study of
Nature, and it is not strange that it should be so
in the sphere of revelation. And as you read the
Gospel narratives keep in view the purpose with
which "these things were written," namely "that
ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of God, and that believing, ye might have life
through His name." ^ They deal, therefore, with
issues the most important and solemn that can
possibly occupy the thoughts of men. For they
reveal the secret of peace, and even of joy, in a
world that is full of doubt and sadness and sorrow
and pain and sin and death. That evil is a mere
fantasy, and sin but a defect of character or pur-
pose — this is the dream of fools. These things are
terribly real. And if it be not true that "the Son
of God is come" — if Christianity be a delusion or
a fraud — we must resign ourselves to the "deepen-
ing gloom" of life in this world unrelieved by any
hope beyond it.
And what is the alternative? What if Christianity
be true? The answer shall be given by one whose
1 John XX. 31.
Ill
A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion
testimony will command universal respect and
confidence, the late Earl Cairns, three times Lord
High Chancellor of England, and the greatest
Chancellor perhaps of modern times. The follow-
ing words were spoken by him to a company of
working men, that included agnostics and infidels
who deprecated any reference to ''religion" on the
occasion : —
''As I am a stranger among you I do not know
that I have any right to intrude my opinions. All
I can do is to tell you how this question afifects
me personally. If I could take you to my home
you would think it a luxurious one, and the food
on my table is abundant. You would say that with
all this I ought to be a happy man. I am indeed
a happy man, but I do not think my furniture and
food have much to do with it. Every day I rise
with a sweet consciousness that God loves me and
cares for me. He has pardoned all my sins for
Christ's sake, and I look forward to the future with
no dread. And His Spirit reveals to me that all
this peace is only the beginning of joy which is to
last throughout eternity. Suppose it were possible
for someone to convince me that this happiness
was altogether a delusion on my part, my home
would give me little repose, and food would often
remain upon the table untasted. I should wake in
the morning with the feeling that it was scarcely
worth while to get up, so little would there be to
live for; all would be so dark to me."
"What is it about?" is a legitimate question to
112
How to Read the Bible
ask when a book is placed in our hands. And an
intelligent answer to that question, as we open the
Bible, will save us from many a prejudice and many
an error. It is strange that any one can be deceived
by the figment that the Old Testament is the his-
tory of the human race. Except for a brief preface
of eleven chapters, its burden is unmistakably the
history of that people *'of whom, as concerning the
flesh, Christ came." It has, indeed, an esoteric
meaning, for its hidden purpose is to foretell, and
lead up to, that supreme event. But this shall be
dealt with in the sequel.
This clew to the true character and vital unity
of the Bible will guard us against another popular
error. '*To us there is but one God," the Apostle
writes ; but most people have two — the God of
Nature and providence, and the God of revelation.
And a great many Christians have three; for with
them the God of the Old Testament is not the God
of the New. This error is largely due to a false
conception of the place held by the Jew in the
previous dispensation ; and as the result of it the
semi-infidel "Christian literature" of the day uses
language about Israel's Jehovah Avhich I will not
pollute the page by reproducing here. It represents
Him as callously devoting the mass of men to
destruction, and having no care or thought save
for one specially favoured race. This betrays
extraordinary ignorance of Scripture.
The Bible begins by recording the Creation and
the Fall, the apostasy of the sinful race, the world
judgment of the Flood, and the post-diluvial apos-
113
A Doubter'' s Doubts about Science mid Religion
tasy of Babylon. And then follows the call of
Abraham. The religion of Babylon was a syste-
matised perversion of Divine truth. Its ''Bible'*
travestied both the primeval revelation of which
the opening chapters of Genesis contain the authen-
tic record and the sacrificial cult by which God
sought to teach mankind that death was the penalty
of sin. The earlier apostasy had been wiped out by
the Flood, but God had in mercy promised that
that judgment would never be repeated.^ And the
truth and value of that promise were displayed
in the call of Abraha.m and the segregation of the
covenant people. The Divine purpose was thus to
guard the truth from corruption, and to establish
a centre from which it might enlighten the world.
Among the many advantages enjoyed by the
favoured people, the greatest was ''that unto them
were committed the oracles of God."- When the
owner of some famous vineyard establishes an
agency in London or New York, his object in doing
so is not to hinder the public from procuring his
wines, but to ensure that what is sold as his shall
be genuine and pure. And agency, as distinguished
from monopoly, illustrates the position which in the
old dispensation was Divinely accorded to the Jew.
In days before books were within reach of all,
the knowledge of literature and the arts was kept
alive in certain great seats of learning, and in like
manner it was intended that the light of Divine
truth should be kept burning in Jerusalem, and
that the Temple of Zion should be "a house of
1 Gen. viii. 21, 22
a Rom. iii. 1, 2.
114
How to Read the Bible
prayer for all nations."^ But just as the Christian
Church of this dispensation has failed, so the "Jew-
ish Church" was false to its trust. And as the
result the God of the New Testament is blasphemed
by infidels, and the Jehovah of the Old Testament
is blasphemed by Christian Professors of theology.
Errors of another kind prevail, which we need
to guard against. Here is a typical one. Israel
was a theocracy, and therefore the Divine code
included, not merely "the moral law," but enact-
ments of various kinds relating to social and
commercial life, sanitation, and crime. If all
Scripture be "God-breathed," we may be assured
that all is "profitable";- but yet we must use it
with mtelligent discrimination. "Every creature
of God is good, and nothing to be rejected." But
we do not on that account feed our babies on beef
and potatoes. Some people do so, indeed; and they
are not more unintelligent than the Christians who
ply their children with these ordinances of the
Mosaic code, when they ought to be giving them
"the sincere milk of the Word."
A somewhat similar abuse of Scripture is
denounced in the Sermon on the Mount. People
imagine that love is the abrogation of law, but
1 Mark xi. 17 (R.V.); Isa. Ivi. 7. This appears in the plainest way
in the great dedication service of the Temple (see 2 Chron. vi.- 32, 33,
about "the stranger who is not of Thy people Israel, but is come
from a far country ... if they come and pray in this house,
then hear Thou . . . that all people of the earth may know Thy
name and fear Thee"). In this connection reference may be made
also to the precepts of the law for hospitality and kindness in the
treatment of foreigners. They have no parallel in the code of any
Christian country.
2 In writing on crime I have given grounds for believing that if the
two main features of the Mosaic code were accepted in our criminal
law the reform would lead to a substantial and immediate decrease of
crime.
U5
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
Scripture teaches that it is the ''fulfilling" of it.
Therefore it was that to "the Beatitudes" the Lord
immediately added words to guard against the
error, which half of Christendom has adopted, of
supposing that His purpose was to set aside, or in
some way to disparage, the law. But the law had
two aspects. Christianity itself knows no higher
standard than love to God and one's neighbour;
and this was expressly declared to be the esoteric
teaching of the Mosaic law. In this aspect of it
the law proclaimed what a man ought .to he; in
its lower aspect it prohibited what men ought not to
do. But in this its lower form "the law was not
made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and
disobedient." And yet "the righteousness of the
Scribes and Pharisees" consisted in non-violation
of the "Thou shalt not's" of the penal code of the
theocracy. But what was not the righteousness
of those who desired to be sons of the Father in
heaven, nor would it give entrance into the King-
dom. Theirs was a far different standard of life
than mere discharge of their responsibilities as citi-
zens of the Commonwealth.^
Error is altogether human and may be detected
by the use of our natural faculties. Hence our
Lord's indignant rebuke addressed to the Pharisees,
^ Comnare the 20th with the 45th verse of Matt. v. Immediately
preceding verse 20 is the express statement that "one jot or one tittle
shall in no wise pass from the law." Immediately following it are the
instances above referred to, beginning "Ye have heard that it was said
to [not by} them of old time, Thou shalt not kill," etc. As a citizen
a Jew committed no crime in being angry with his brother; but as a
child of his I-'ather in heaven (verse 45) he was guilty of sin. The
formula "Ye have heard," etc., repeated in verses 21, 27, 33, 38, 43,
clcarlv indicates that the Lord was referring to the teaching of their
instructors, and probably to some "catechism" in common use. For it
was not in this fashion that He was used to quote Holy Scripture,
116
How to Read the Bible
*'How is it that even of yourselves ye do not judge
what is right?" Lord Kelvin's dictum therefore
is apt and useful : "Do not be afraid of being free
thinkers." But a caution is needed here. While
common sense may save us from much of the error
and nonsense by which the language of the Bible
is perverted or obscured, our natural faculties will
not avail to reveal to us its deeper teaching. For
Divine truth is spiritually discerned, and therefore
spiritual intelligence is needed for the apprehension
of it. And there are difficulties in the Bible which
even spiritual intelligence will fail to solve,
difficulties which seem nearly as insoluble and dis-
tressing as are God's providential dealings with His
people in their life on earth.^
But such difficulties cannot shake the faith of
those who have learned to trace the golden threads
of type and promise and prophecy, which are
spread through all the sacred writings, giving proof
of their unity and testifying to their Divine author-
ship. **These are they which testify of Me" was
the Lord's description of the Hebrew Scriptures.
And in His post-resurrection ministry, we are told,
"beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, He
expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the
things concerning Himself." On this Dean Alford
writes: "I take the [words] to mean something
very different from mere prophetical passages.
The zvhole Scriptures are a testimony to Him; the
whole history of the chosen people, with its types,
* It IS a most significant fact that the greatest difficulties in Scrip-
ture are of this character. If the wavs of God in providence so often
try our faith, it is not strange that this method should be true also of
the words of God in revelation.
117
A Doubter'' s Doubts about Science and Religion
and its law, and its prophecies, is a showing forth
of Him: and it was here the zvlwle that He laid
before them." ^
And these golden threads unite the later with
the earlier Scriptures. Indeed, the Gospels belong
as much to the Old Testament as to the New. For
the Christ of the Gospels is ''the son of David, the
son of Abraham." And the ministry there recorded
is that of the Jews* Messiah. It is not till we come
to the Epistles that we are confronted by the new
and startling fact that Divine Scriptures are
addressed to Gentiles. And the Acts of the Apos-
tles explains the change. Because they rejected
the Messiah, the covenant people are themselves
rejected. Their position as the Divine agents upon
earth is determined, and the Gospel now goes out
unfettered to the world.
The unbelief of infidels is seldom as unintelligent
as that of professing Christians. ''Back to Christ"
is the shibboleth of a school that seeks to set one
part of Scripture against another, and to disparage
the ministry of Paul. But unless Christ was to
come back in person, the new and special revelation
consequent upon the great dispensational change
involved in setting aside the earthly people must
needs have been made by the ministry of human
lips and pen ; and Divine sovereignty made choice
of the Apostle of the Gentiles. And to disparage
the Apostle Paul, or the revelation entrusted to
him, is not to get back to Christ, but to put our-
^ This is too commonly ignored; and as the result very many present-
day expositors betray ignorance of the language in which the New
Testament is written — not Greek (for that is merely the outward shell)
but the types and prophecies of the earlier Scriptures.
118
How to Read the Bible
selves back into the position which the Gentiles
occupied in the days of His earthly ministry.
The intelligent student of Scripture will find
ever increasing proofs of what Pusey aptly calls
its "hidden harmony." "Not harsh and crabbed,
as dull fools suppose" is the poet's vindication of
"divine philosophy"; and with still fuller meaning
and deeper truth may these words be used of the
Divine Book.
119
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
CHAPTER XII
THE HIGHER CRITICISM
"DlBLE students nowadays seem to be haunted
^^ by the grim spectre of the /'Higher Criti-
cism." But if instead of running away from ghosts
we face them boldly, our fears generally give place
to feelings of contempt or indignation. And this
is the experience of many who have fearlessly
examined what are called ''the assured results of
modern criticism." The fact that these attacks
upon the Bible originated with German rationalism
formerly barred their acceptance by Christians of
the English-speaking world. But in our day they
have been accredited by distinguished scholars on
both sides of the Atlantic, whose reputation for
piety and reverence for things Divine is deemed
a guarantee that they are legitimate and harmless
I am not referring to that admirable and useful
system of Bible study to which the title of Higher
Criticism properly belongs/ but to "the Higher
Criticism" in inverted commas — a German rational-
istic crusade against the Scriptures. The New
Testament was at one time its chief objective; and
we have seen with what results.- The much
vaunted conclusions of the Tubingen School of
critics are now relegated to the same limbo as the
Bathybius of the scientists.^ And it may be pre-
1 It has for its aim to settle the human authorship of the sacred
books, and the circumstances in which they were written.
2 See p. 110 ante. s See p. 45 ante.
120
The Higher Criticism
dieted with confidence that a generation hence the
present-day attacks upon the Old Testament will
be equally discredited. Meanwhile, however, they
must be reckoned with.
But while these attacks cannot be ignored, no
one surely will suppose that they can be fully dis-
cussed in a brief concluding chapter. My aim here
is limited to destructive criticism of the critics.
I do not pretend, for example, to establish the
Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch — that would
need a treatise of some magnitude — but the reader
will here find proof that "the critical hypothesis"
of its origin is untenable.
It is commonly assumed that these ''assured
results of modern criticism" are the outcome of
an honest and impartial examination of the text
by Hebrew scholars, whereas in fact the critics
began with the ''results," and all their labours have
been directed to the task of finding facts and argu-
ments to justify them.
Rationalism gained such an ascendency in the
latter part of the eighteenth century that it well
nigh swamped the Christianity of Germany. And
Eichhorn, "the founder of Old Testament criticism,"
took up the task of "winning back the educated
classes to religion." ^ To accomplish this it was
necessary to bring the Bible down to the level of
a purely human book, and therefore every feature
savouring of what is called "the supernatural" had
to be eliminated. All miracles had, of course, to be
got rid of. But the only element of real Higher
1 Prof. Cbeyne's Founders of Old Testament Criticism.
121
A Doubter'' s Doiibts about Science and Religion
Criticism in the business was Astruc's discovery,
made in the year of Eichhorn's birth, that the early
chapters of Genesis are possibly ''mosaic" in the
secondary sense of that term, and that they incor-
porated documents of an earlier era.
Astruc's theory, however, has no bearing upon
the issue here involved. For it seems incredible
that there was no written revelation before the
epoch of the Exodus; and if such a revelation ex-
isted, we should naturally expect to find traces of it
in Genesis.^
How then was the Pentateuch to be discredited?
One scheme after another was broached, as suc-
ceeding generations of critics faced the problem;
and that which at last gained acceptance was that
the books were literary forgeries of the Exilic Era.
But let it be kept clearly in view that these various
theories were not the outcome of honest inquiry.
One and all, they were devised to sustain the fore-
gone conclusion which rendered them necessary.
And that conclusion rests on no better foundation
than a few isolated and perverted texts. Chief
among these is the statement that in Josiah's reign
"the book of the law" was found in the Temple —
not a very strange discovery, seeing that the law
itself ordered it to be kept there V
But, it will be said, this implies that our Chris-
tian scholars have lent themselves to what is on
the face of it a fraud? By no means. The whole
* Chap. VII., ante, deals with the cosmogony of Moses.
2 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14 cf. Deut. xxxi. 26. It was not "a book of
the law" as in A.V., but the book, the known record of "the law of the
Lord given by Moses,' but neglected and forgotten during the apos-
tasy of Manasseh's long and evil reign.
122
The Higher Criticism
business is German from first to last. Our own
scholars have not contributed one iota to the
''Higher Criticism." The only ''independent work"
done by them has been to check and verify the
labours of the Germans, and this they have done,
of course, with skill and care. And as the result
they assure us that in their judgment the case has
been established against the Mosaic Books. ^
"But," some one will exclaim, "is not this an
end of controversy in the matter?" One might
have supposed that the egregious fallacy here
involved would be apparent to all thoughtful peo-
ple. For it assumes that anything supported by
a clear and complete case must be true. But no
one who is brought before a court of justice, either
in a civil action or on a criminal charge, is ever
required to open his lips in his defence unless a
clear and complete case is established against him —
such a case as must, if unanswered, lead to a hos-
tile verdict. And the object of a trial is to sift
that case and to hear what is to be said upon the
other side. "Critic" is Greek for judge, but the
"Higher Critics," like the Dreyfus tribunal, took
the place of prosecutors ; and beginning with a
hostile verdict, they then set to work to justify it.
This is not rhetoric but fact. It was essential to
their purpose to prove that the Bible is purely
human. And therefore, as no one would believe in
miracles if unsupported by contemporary evidence,
the Pentateuch was assigned to the era of the
Captivity.
^ See Prof. Driver's Introduction, p. xiv.
123
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
The main ground on which this scheme found
acceptance with Christian scholars is now dis-
carded as a blunder. It was deemed to be
impossible that such a literature could have orig-
inated in an age which was supposed to be
barbarous. And until recent years the question
was solemnly discussed whether the art of writing
prevailed in the Mosaic age. But to-day it is a
matter of common knowledge that long before' the
time of Moses literature flourished ; and archaeo-
logical discovery tells us that "in the century before
the Exodus Palestine was a land of books and
schools." ^
But further. The idea was scouted that such
a code of laws could have been framed at such
an early period. Recently, however, the spade of
the explorer unearthed the now famous code of
Hammurabi, who ruled in Babylon four centuries
before the Exodus. And this discovery under-
mined the very foundations of ''the critical hypo-
thesis." But instead of repenting of their error and
folly, the critics turned round, and with amazing
effrontery declared that the Mosaic code was bor-
rowed from Babylon. This is a most reasonable
conclusion on the part of those who regard the
Mosaic law as a purely human code. But here
the critic is "hoist with his own petard." For if
the Mosaic law were based on the Hammurabi
code, it could not have been framed in the days
of Josiah long ages after Hammurabi had been
forgotten. This Hammurabi discovery is one of
1 Prof. Sayce in Lex Mosaica (p. 9).
124
The Higher Criticism
the many that led Professor Sayce to declare that
"the answer of archaeology to the theories of mod-
ern "criticism" is complete : the Law preceded the
Prophets, and did not follow them." ^
But even this is not all. It is a canon of ''criti-
cism" with these men that no Biblical statement
is ever to be accepted unless confirmed by some
pagan authority ; Genesis xiv. was therefore dis-
missed as fable on account of its naming Amraphel
as a King of Babylon. But Amraphel is only
another form of the name of Hammurabi, who now
stands out as one of the great historical characters
of the past.-
''His nonsense suited their nonsense," was the
explanation Charles H. offered of the popularity
of a certain preacher with his flock. And the clap-
trap by which the minor prophets of this cult
commend it to the ignorant multitude may be
dismissed in similar fashion. To trade on prejudice,
however, is not my method. The case against the
Pentateuch shall be stated in the words of a scholar
and teacher whose name and fame stand high in
the Universities of Christendom — I refer to Pro-
fessor Driver of Oxford. Here is his summary of
the critics' case against the Mosaic books, as for-
mulated in his great work The Infrodtiction to the
Literature of the Old Testament: —
"We can only argue upon grounds of probability
derived from our view of the progress of the art
of writing, or of literary composition, or of the
1 Mon. Facts and H. C. Fancies, p. 83.
2 " 'Ammurapi ilu' is letter for letter the 'Amraphel' of Genesis,"
Mon Facts and H. C. Fancies, p. 60.
125
A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion
rise and growth of the prophetic tone and feeling
in ancient Israel, or of the period at which the tra-
ditions contained in the narratives might have taken
shape, or of the probability that they would have
been written down before the impetus given to
culture by the monarchy had taken effect, and
similar considerations, for estimating most of
which, though plausible arguments on one side or
the other may be advanced, a standard on which
we can confidently rely scarcely admits of being
fixed" (sixth ed., p. 123).
'Tlausible arguments" and ''grounds of proba-
bility": such are the foundations on which rest
"the assured results of modern criticism"! But
even if the critics' position were as strong as it is
feeble, we could call a witness whose unaided testi-
mony would suffice to destroy it. I refer to the
Samaritan Bible. And here again their case shall
be stated by one of themselves, a writer whom they
hold in the highest honour, the late Professor Rob-
ertson Smith. In the judgment of the Samaritans
he tells us, ''Not only the temple of Zion, but the
earlier temple of Shiloh and the priesthood of Eli,
were schismatical." And yet, he adds, "their relig-
ion was built on the Pentateuch alone." Where
then, and when, did they get the Pentateuch? Here
is the critics' account of it : —
"They [the Samaritans] regard themselves as
Israelites, descendants of the ten tribes, and claim
to possess the orthodox religion of Moses. . . .
The priestly law, which is throughout based on
the practice of the priests in Jerusalem before the
126
The Higher Criticism
Captivity, was reduced to form after the Exile,
and was published by Ezra as the law of the rebuilt
temple of Zion. The Samaritans must therefore
have derived their Pentateuch from the Jews after
Ezra's reforms."
Now mark what this implies. We know the
bitterness of racial and religious quarrels. And
both these elements combined to alienate the
Samaritans from the Jews. But this was not all.
At the very time when they are said to have
''derived their Pentateuch from the Jews" these
antipathies had deepened into hatred — "abhorrence"
is Robertson Smith's word — on account of the con^
tempt and sternness with which the Jews spurned
their proffered help in the work of reconstruction
at Jerusalem. And yet we are asked to believe
that in such circumstances, and at that time, when
their feelings toward the Jews were such as now-
adays Orangemen bear to "Papists," they accepted
these Jewish books as their "Bible,' to the exclusion
of the writings, not only of their own Israelite seers,
but also of those sacred and venerated historical
books known as "the former prophets."
In the whole range of controversy, religious or
secular, was there ever propounded a theory more
utterly incredible and preposterous ! What have
the critics to say for it? Here is the defence they
offer in the new volume of the accredited handbook
of their heresies — Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible : —
"There is at least one valid ground for the con-
clusion that the Pentateuch was first accepted by
the Samaritans after the Exile. Why was their re-
127
A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion
quest to be allowed to take part in the building of
the second temple refused by the heads of the Jeru-
salem community? Very probably because the
Jews were aware that the Samaritans did not as yet
possess the Law-book. It is hard to suppose that
otherwise they would have met with this refusal.
Further, any one who, like the present writer, re-
gards the modern criticism of the Pentateuch as
essentially correct, has a second decisive reason for
adopting the above view." (Prof. Konig's article,
^'Samaritan Pentateuch," p. 68.)
The question is, When and how did the Samari-
tans get the Pentateuch? A ''valid ground" for
the critical theory, we are told, is that "very prob-
ably, the reason why the Jews under Ezra refused
their help was because they had not then got the
forged books, and it is ''hard to suppose" anything
else! But the "decisive reason" for accepting the
critical hypothesis is that the critical hypothesis is
"essentially correct" ! Men of common sense will
"very probably" conclude that if "the modern criti-
cism of the Pentateuch" can be supported only by
such drivel as this, it may be dismissed as unworthy
of discussion.
The fetich of "modern criticism" seems to have
a sinister influence even on scholars of eminence.
The Samaritan Bible is conclusive proof that the
"critical hypothesis" of the origin of the Pentateuch
is absolutely untenable. And its acceptance by
the Higher Critics is proof of their utter incapacity
for dealing with evidence.
And this leads me to say with emphasis that
the grounds on which these men claim the "Higher
128
The Higher Criticism
Criticism" as their own peculiar province are as
futile as are their arguments in its support. The
language of the incriminated books has very little
bearing on the issues involved ; and in the case of
the Pentateuch its testimony is against the critics.
The problems of the controversy fall within the
sphere, not of philology, but of evidence. And this
being so, a Professor of Theology or of Hebrew,
as such, has no special fitness for dealing with them.
*'As such" I say, for of course a knowledge of
languages and of Biblical literature is not a dis-
qualification. But experience abundantly proves
that the pursuit of studies of that character creates
no fitness for handling problems of evidence ; and
these should be left to men who by training and
practical experience are qualified for the task.
Proofs of this, both numerous and striking, might
be culled from the controversy respecting the
genuineness of the Book of Daniel. But I have
published so much on that subject elsewhere, that
I will not introduce it here.^ And other books,
moreover, will furnish further illustrations of my
statement. Take the *'two Isaiahs" figment, for
example. There is no element of profanity in this
hypothesis, and we can afiford to examine it on its
merits. What does it involve?
Having regard to the scathing denunciations of
the national religion which abound in the earlier
portions of the Book of Isaiah, it would not be
strange if their author's name had been deliberately
efifaced from the national annals. But the later
* But see Appendix, Note II.
129
A Doubter'' s Doubts about Science and Religion
chapters, attributed by the critics to Isaiah II., are
not only marked by extraordinary brilliancy, but
they abound in words of cheer and hope and joy,
unparalleled in all the Hebrew Scriptures. A
prophet raised up in the dark days of the exilic
period to deliver such messages of comfort and
gladness would have become immortal. His name
would have been enshrined with those of Moses
and Samuel and David and Ezra, and his fame
would have been blazoned on many a page of
apocryphal literature. But the critics ask us to
stultify ourselves by believing that he appeared and
vanished like a summer mist, without leaving even
the vaguest tradition of his personality or career.
There is no limit to the credulity of sham
scepticism !
The aim of the "Higher Criticism" is, as we
have seen, to banish God from the Bible. The
Rationalists, therefore, invented a sham Isaiah in
order to oust the element of Divine prophecy from
the writings of the real Isaiah. But the invention
of a sham Jonah would not have got rid of the
whale, so the Book of Jonah had to be torn out
of the Bible altogether. A serious matter this ; for
"Christ was raised from the dead the third day,
according to the Scriptures," and the Book of Jonah
was the only Scripture to which the Lord Himself
appealed in this connection. He placed it in the
foreground of His testimony, using it again and
again with the greatest emphasis and solemnity.
In the day of judgment. He declared, the men of
Nineveh would rise up to condemn the Jews for
130
The Higher Criticism
their rejection of Him, because they repented at
the preaching of Jonah when the prophet came to
them accredited by the "sign" of his deliverance
from death. ^
Some of the critics dismiss this reference to Jonah
by attributing it to the Lord's deplorable ignorance
of the Scriptures which it was His Divine mission
to fulfil; others, by representing it as merely a
rhetorical illustration. This latter view is not so
profane as the other; but it is wholly inadequate,
and moreover it is inconsistent with the plain state-
ments of the Gospel narrative.^
The rationalist denies the Jonah miracle, because
he holds miracles to be impossible. But why should
a Christian reject it? Why should we refuse to
believe that God delivered His prophet from death?
To say He could not deliver him is atheism; to say
He would not is nonsense ; and to say He did not
is to pour contempt on the words of our Divine
Lord, and to repudiate His authority as a teacher.
And this, and nothing less than this, the critics
demand of us.
Men who plan elaborate crimes are apt to give
themselves away by some glaring oversight or
blunder; and so is it with these critics who would
commit the supreme crime of filching the Bible
from us. They admit, for it cannot be disputed,
that the Lord accredited the Hebrew Scriptures in
1 Matt. xii. 39-41.
2 The Bible must not be held responsible for the unwise things writ-
ten in its defence. The statement, ex. gr., that "God prepared a great
fish" does not mean that He extemporised a sea monster. It is the
word used in Dan. i. 5, when Nebuchadnezzar appointed a daily pro-
vision for Daniel. I have dealt with the subject in The Bible and
Modern Criticism, chap. xi.
131
A Doubter* s Doubts about Science and Religion
the most unequivocal and solemn terms. But they
dare to aver that in the ministry of His humiliation
He was so entirely subject to the limitations of
human knowledge, that words which He declared
to be not His own, but the Father's who sent Him,
expressed in fact "the current Jewish notions" of
the time. But such is the blindness or obliquity
with which they read the Scriptures, that they have
entirely overlooked His post-resurrection ministry.
Kcnosis theories are but dust thrown up to obscure
the issue. They have no relevancy here. "I have
a baptism to be baptized with," the Lord exclaimed,
"and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!"
But now, that baptism is past. All limitations are
for ever at an end. And speaking as the Son of
God, to whom all power in heaven and earth has
been given. He adopts and confirms all His pro
vious teaching about the Hebrew Scriptures.
Referring to that very teaching, He addresses words
like these to His disciples: "These are the words
which I spake unto you while I was yet with you,
that all things must be fulfilled which were written
in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in
the Psalms, concerning Me."
And the record adds, "Then opened He their
understanding that they might understand the
Scriptures." Professor Driver tells us that "He
accepted as the basis of His teaching the opinions
respecting the Old Testament current around
Him." Or, as his Bible Dictionary coarsely
phrases it, "He held the current Jewish notions"
of His time. Could any words be more utterly
132
The Higher Criticism
opposed to fact? "Current Jewish notions"! All
His teaching was in direct opposition to the deep,
strong current of prevailing ignorance and error
respecting the character and scope of these very
Scriptures. Therefore it was that the Jews rejected
Him. Therefore it was that even His own disciples
failed to understand Him. But now *'He opened
their understanding." And it was this post-resur-
rection teaching which guided and inspired all their
after-ministry. The New Testament writings are
the unfolding of it. And yet, according to the
"Higher Critics," this was all a blunder, if not a
fraud.
The Christian is consistent in his faith and the
rationalist in his unbelief. Both are entitled to
respect, for either position is intellectually unas-
sailable. But what shall be said of men who cling
to an edifice the foundations of which they have
themselves destroyed? What of the superstition
which holds that though Christ and His Apostles
were deceived and in error, the Church which they
founded is infallible, and that its teaching affords
a sure resting-place for faith? What of the folly
which deludes itself by claptrap about the inspira-
tion of writings which are declared to be a mosaic
of myth and legend and forgery and falsehood?^
The devout may well be shocked by the profanity
1 These words are not aimed at the rationalists, represented by Pro-
fessor Harnack of Berlin, or Professor Cheyne of Oxford and his
colleagues of the Encyc\opaed^a BxbUca. . Nor do they apply to the
Church of Rome, whose claim to be the infallible exponent of an m-
fallible Bible is at least intelligent and consistent. But they accurately
describe the position of Professor Driver and his followmg. whose
"confession of unfaith" is the Bible DxcUonary btUl more definitely
do they apply to the Bishop of Birmingham and his Lux Mundt school.
133
A Doubter* s Doubts about Science and Religion
of such a scheme. But all sensible men will appre-
ciate the folly of attempting to reconcile it with
belief in Christianity.
To the rationalist it is a matter of indifiference
whether the books of the Bible were written at
one time or at another; but it is essential to his
position to destroy their claim to be Divine. And
even this is but an outwork: his main objective
is the citadel of the Christian faith — the Deity of
Christ. For if the Scriptures be discredited, the
foundations of the Lord's ministry ''are swept away,
so that Christ came to fulfil nothing, and becomes
only a teacher or a martyr." ^ And how can we
trust Him even as a teacher if His teachings be
unreliable in the only sphere in which we are com-
petent to test it. For no amount of sophistry can
get rid of the fact that He accredited the Hebrew
Scriptures, and unreservedly identified Himself
with them. It is not a question, therefore, of super-
stitious reverence for a book — that we may leave to
Professor Driver and his school — but of intelligent
faith in our Divine Lord and Saviour.
''Criticism in the hands of Christian scholars,"
Professor Driver tells us, "presupposes the inspira-
tion of the Old Testament." But criticism in the
hands of honest men presupposes nothing. It
enters on its task without prejudice, and accepts
its results without fear, whatever they may be.
And the legitimate results of this sort of criticism
of Scripture are to be found in the writings of
great thinkers like Dr. Harnack, and not in the
1 Alford on Matt. v. 18. See Appendix, Note III. t>osi.
134
The Higher Criticism
books of men whose minds are warped or blinded
by the, superstitions of religion.
In the ''New Theology" of the day, which is
but a crude and popular phase of Dr. Harnack's Neo-
Christianity the ''Higher Criticism" has produced
the results intended by its authors. Christianity
has been dragged down to the rationalistic level.
And at what a cost ! Instead of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, whose words were God-given
and eternal, we have a "Jesus" whose teaching was
marred by ignorance and error, albeit he demanded
acceptance of it as Divine. Infidelity has thus
achieved its triumph. In disparaging the Bible,
they deny the Christ of whom the Bible speaks.
"The Christ of ages past
Is now the Christ no more!
Altar and fire are gone,
The Victim but a dream !
"If these conclusions be demanded by irrefutable
fact, let them be made and accepted — but not light-
heartedly, and as if we were the freer for them,
and could talk glibly about them in the best modern
style. Let us make them with a groan, and take
care to carve no more the unauthentic promise on
the tombs of our beloved." ^ Or, to express these
thoughts in still plainer terms, if the rationalists
have proved their case, let us be done with all cant
and superstition, and frankly and honestly give up
belief in the Deity of Christ.
Here we stand at the parting of the ways. Hon-
est and clear-headed men of the world, to whom
1 The Bishop of Durham, in his Preface to The Bible and Modern
Crtttcism.
135
A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion
these pages are addressed, will refuse all by-patlis
of superstition, and fearlessly make choice between
a firmer faith and a bolder unbelief. And my main
purpose will be satisfied if they here find proof that
those who attack the Bible, whether from the stand-
point of a false science or of a false criticism, can be
met and refuted on their own ground. But while
destructive criticism has thus been my aim and
method, I would fain hope that some at least who
may read this 'Tlea for the Faith" will be led to
study the Scriptures for themselves, with minds
unbiassed by infidel prejudice or religious super-
stition, and that the study may lead them to believe
in the Son of God, and in believing to receive life
through His name.
136
KppmUx
NOTE I.
(Chap. VII. p. 79 ante.)
The Creation.
As already noticed, if the first chapter of Genesis speaks of
"the Creation of the Universe" at all it is in the first verse.
The very word "create" is not used again save in verses
21 and 27, which relate to the work of the fifth and sixth
"days." And if the truth of evolution could be scientifically
established, the evolutionist might appeal to the language
of verses 11, 20, and 24 as affording proof that it has
biblical sanction. And the word rendered "create" has as
wide a range of meaning as its English equivalent. Neither
in Hebrew nor in English does the word necessarily connote
a making out of nothing. Just as counters may represent
different values at different times, so is it with words; for
words are only counters. And we need to keep this in view
as we read Gen, i. and ii. For instance, we are told that
God created man, and yet that He made him out of the
dust of the earth.
Gen. i. 1 is almost always read as though "created" were
the emphatic word in the verse. But in the Hebrew the
structure of the sentence throws the emphasis on God; and
the Massorah intensifies this by inserting the Athnah, or
pause mark, after the Divine name. The burden of the
first verse is that God was the Creator. The second verse
tells that at the time of which the narrative speaks the earth
existed in a condition of desolation and emptiness. But
Isa. xlv. 18 declares that this was not its condition according
to the design of its maker. Of its earlier history we know
nothing, save what geology may teach us; but the sequel
1 The Coming Prince (Sth and later editions) ; and Daniel in the
Critics' Den (2nd edition).
137
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
describes the refitting and refurnishing of the planet as a
home for the Adam race.
Our English version suggests that the heavenly bodies came
into existence on the fourth day; and this, combined with the
figment that they are mere satellites, has been seized on by
infidels to discredit Scripture. But we must insist that the
same canon by which all other writings are construed shall
prevail in scriptural exegesis, viz., that when words bear
different meanings, that meaning is to be accepted which
is consistent with the context and with known facts. And,
as we have seen. Gen. i. 14-18 may be the description of
phenomena. My purpose here, however, is not to expound
the Scripture, but merely to enter a protest against confound-
ing what Genesis says with what men say about it.
NOTE 11.
(Chap. XII. p. 125 «;//£-.)
The Book of Daniel.
Professor Driver's Book of Daniel ("Cambridge Bible"
series), which is an. expansion of the "Daniel" section of his
Introduction, reproduces the farrago of "errors" and argu-
ments which were formulated by Bertholdt just a century ago,
and have been the stock-in-trade of the rationalists ever since.
Archaeological discoveries have disposed of most of them,
but still they serve their purpose. I have dealt with them
elsewhere fully and in detail.^ And even if they were all as
weighty as most of them are frivolous, the Christian would
brush them aside in view of the fulfilled prophecy of "the
Seventy Weeks," and the fact that the book has been accre-
dited by Christ.
The presence of Greek words in Daniel, we are told,
"demands" a date for the book after Alexander's conquests.
In Bertholdt's day the presence of Greek words in Daniel did
seem to "demand" a late date for the book; for it was then
supposed that there were ten such words, and that there was
138
Appe7idix
no intercourse between ancient Babylon and Greece. But in
view of the discoveries of the last century, the now admitted
fact that the Greek words in Daniel are not ten, but only tivo,
and these the names of musical instruments, the rejection of
the book on philological grounds is in part an anachronism
and in part a puerility,
A like remark applies to his list of "historical errors."
When I last reissued my Daniel in the Critics' Den,
Darius the Mede was the only "historical difficulty"
which seemed to remain unsolved. But there appears
to be no longer any doubt that this Darius was Gobryas,
Governor of Kurdistan, the General who commanded the
army of Cyrus that captured Babylon. Gobryas was the
son of Cyaxeres (Ahasuerus in the Hebrew) and the brother
and heir apparent of Astyages, the last King of the Medes.
(Xenophon calls him his son, in error, for Herodotus states
that Astyages had no son.) In his youth he would have
known Cyrus, who attended the Median Court; and this,
combined with the fact of his kingly rank, may well have led
Cyrus to trust and honour him. "Darius" was doubtless a
"throne name" (like "Artaxerxes." Josephus mentions that
he had another name among the Greeks). A most striking
confirmation of this is supplied by a statement in Ezra vi. 1, 2.
The decree issued by Cyrus for the building of the temple,
which could not be found either in the Chaldean or the
Persian capital, was at last discovered in the capital of
Kurdistan. How, then, could it have got to Ecbatana? The
obvious solution of this enigma is that, for some reason or
other, Gobryas was sent back to his own province, and that
he carried with him the archives of his rule in Babylon. The
language of Daniel ix. 1 clearly indicates that he was a vassal
king (he "was made king over the realm.")
The most important item in "the errors of Daniel" is the
opening statement of the book, that in the third year of
Jehoiakim Nebuchadnezzar besieged and took Jerusalem. But
the ground on which this is rejected as a blunder is itself a
blunder so grotesque that it deserves more than a passing
notice.
139
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
Josephus gives an extract from the lost history of Berosus,
which states that while on this expedition Nebuchadnezzar
received tidings of his father's death, and that "he hastened
home across the desert." And blindly following his German
guides, Professor Driver's gloss on this is that the news
reached him at Carchemish, after the battle in which he
defeated the Egyptians, and that he returned from there to
Babylon and never invaded Judaea at all. But Carchemish
is on the Euphrates; and "to hasten home" from Carchemish
to Babylon across the desert would be as extraordinary a
feat as if Professor Driver hastened home from London
to Oxford across the county of Kent or Hampshire! The
fact that the desert lay between Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon
is conclusive proof that in his homeward journey he set out
from Palestine.
But this is only a part of the blunder. The extract from
Berosus, which Professor Driver quotes, mentions expressly
his Jewish prisoners. How could he have had Jewish prisoners
if he had not invaded Judaea? The Jews were not a party
to the Battle of Carchemish. That battle, moreover, was
in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and after Nebuchadnezzar's
accession (Jer. xlvi. 2; cf. xxv. 1); whereas the expedition
mentioned by Berosus and Daniel was in his third year, be-
fore his father's death. This, I may add, reconciles every
chronological statement in the various books.
NOTE III.
(Chap. XH. p. 134.)
The Old Testament and the Critics.
As I wish to be fair to my opponents, I give here in extenso
the concluding passage of the Preface to Professor Driver's
Introduction. He writes: —
"It is objected, however, that some of the conclusions of
critics respecting the Old Testament are incompatible with the
140
Appendix
authority of our blessed Lord, and that in loyalty to Him we
are precluded from accepting them. That our Lord appealed
to the Old Testament as the record of a revelation in the past,
and as pointing forward to Himself, is undoubted; but these
aspects of the Old Testament are perfectly consistent with a
critical view of its structure and growth. That our Lord in
so appealing to it designed to pronounce a verdict on the
authorship and age of its different parts, and to foreclose all
future inquiry into these subjects, is an assumption for which
no sufficient ground can be alleged. Had such been His aim,
it would have been out of harmony with the entire method
and tenor of His teaching. In no single instance (so far as
we are aware) did He anticipate the results of scientific
inquiry or historical research. The aim of His teaching was
a religious one ; it was to set before men the pattern of a
perfect life, to move them to imitate it, to bring them to
Himself. He accepted as the basis of His teaching the opin-
ions respecting the Old Testament current around Him : He
assumed, in His allusions to it, the premises which His oppo-
nents recognized, and which could not have been questioned
(even had it been necessary to question them) without raising
issues for which the time was not yet ripe, and which, had
they been raised, would have interfered seriously with the
paramount purpose of His life. There is no record of the
question whether a particular portion of the Old Testament
was written by Moses, or David, or Isaiah, having been ever
submitted to Him ; and had it been so submitted, we have no
means of knowing what His answer would have been. The
purposes for which our Lord appealed to the Old Testament;
its prophetic significance, and the spiritual lessons deducible
from it, are not, as has been already remarked above, affected
by critical inquiries. Criticism in the hands of Christian
scholars does not banish or destroy the inspiration of the
Old Testament — it presupposes it ; it seeks only to determine
the conditions under which it operates, and the literary forms
through which it manifests itself; and it thus helps us to
frame truer conceptions of the methods which it pleased God
to employ in revealing Himself to His ancient people of
141
A Doubter^ s Doubts about Science and Religion
Israel, and in preparing the way for the fuller manifestation
of Himself in Christ Jesus."
I appeal to all spiritual Christians whether it is not a
thorough misrepresentation of the Lord's ministry to assert
that "the aim of His teaching . . . was to set before men
the pattern of a perfect life." He could not but be the Great
Exemplar, but this was purely incidental. His supreme aim
was to fulfil "all things which were written in the Law of
Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms concerning
Himself."
And I appeal to all honest men whether the words quoted
are not a flagrant misrepresentation of the question here
at issue; which is not as to the authorship and date of
writings accepted ^s inspired Scriptures, but as to whether
the Mosaic books be priestly forgeries of the later period
of the Monarchy. The Book of Jeremiah enlightens us as to
the character of the priests of that era. Against them it was
that his prophecies were mainly directed (see, e. g., i. 18;
V. 31) ; and the "laity" had to intervene to prevent their
murdering him (xxvi. 8, 16). Yet the "critical hypothesis"
\i that the books were concocted by these miscreants!
The great covenant name of God is deemed so sacred and
held in such awe by the Jews that they never utter it even in
public worship; and yet in Leviticus — the briefest book of the
Pentateuch— it is used more than 300 times, and nearly
40 times we find the solemn formula, "Jehovah spake unto
Moses." If this be not the authentic record of a Divine
revelation, the wanton profanity of it is unspeakably infamous.
It need not be said that Dr. Driver is incapable of either
wilful misrepresentation or profanity; but it is evident
that his mind is swayed by the superstitious belief that
because "the Church" accredits the whole Bible as Divine it
is immaterial whether its contents are the work of inspired
prophets or of apostate priests. Certain it is that he and his
co-editors and writers of the Bible Dictionary are the dupes
of "current German notions respecting the Divine authority
and revelation of the Old Testament."
By thus acting as jackals to the German rationalists these
142
Appendix
men have lowered the standard of biblical scholarship on both
sides of the Atlantic. But infinitely more deplorable is it that
they have dethroned the Bible from the place it used to hold
in every Christian home; and as the result "family worship"
— to use the good old term — is fast dying out. For the
practical common sense of the Britisher and the American
cannot be deluded by pious claptrap about the inspiration
of writings which, if the "Higher Criticism" has proved its
case, ought to be relegated to the Apocrypha. We are charged,
forsooth, with superstitiously clinging to discredited tradi-
tional beliefs ! My answer is, first, that such a taunt comes ill
from such a quarter. Both Christian and Rationalist stand
clear of superstition; but superstition alone supports the
attempted compromise between infidelity and faith, which
even their ally. Professor Cheyne, deplores in this Bible Dic-
tionary school of critics. And further, "the assured results-
of modern criticism" will not bear examination by any one
who is competent to test them (see Chap, XII. ante). The
sham "Higher Criticism" will live only so long as it remains
the preserve of the preacher and the pundit.
I will quote in conclusion the following bold and honest
words of Dean Alford: —
"It is important to observe in these days how the Lord here
includes the Old Testament and all its unfolding of the Divine
purposes regarding Himself in His teaching of the citizens of
the kingdom of heaven. I say this, because it is always in
contempt and setting aside of the Old Testament that Ration-
alism has begun. First its historical truth, then its theocratic
dispensation and the types and prophecies connected with it,
are swept away; so that Christ came to fulfil nothing, and
becomes only a teacher or a martyr; and thus the way is
paved for a similar rejection of the New Testament — begin-
ning with the narratives of the birth and infancy as theocratic
myths — advancing to the denial of His miracles — then attack-
ing the truthfulness of his own sayings, which are grounded
on the Old Testament as a revelation from God — and so
finally leaving us nothing in the Scriptures but, as a German
143
A Doubter\s Doubts about Science and Religion
writer of this school has expressed it, 'a mythology not so
attractive as that of Greece.' That this is the course which
unbelief has run in Germany should be a pregnant warning
to the decriers of the Old Testament among ourselves. It
should be a maxim for every expositor and every student
that Scripture is a whole, and stands or falls together."
{Greek Testament, Matt. v. 18).
144
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