:
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS
REASONABLE
"B-T
BY THE RIGHT REV.
WALTER J. CAREY, D.D.
Bishop of Blcemfontein
3ntrctouctfon bg
HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND, M.A., D.D., D.Lrrr
Regius Professor of Divinity in th* University of Oxford
LONDON
WELLS GARDNER, DARTON & CO., LTD.
3 & 4 PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.G. 4
first Impression, May, 1904
Second Impression, October, 1904
Third Impression, March, 1905
Fourth Impression, March, 1923
PRINTED AND MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN
WELLS GARDNER, DARTON & Co., LIMITED
NOTE BY AUTHOR
IN England religion is hardly ever treated as a
Science, and the average religious man is very
often in the uncomfortable position of being able
to give no reasons for his belief.
He believes, and his religion is a reality ; but
why he believes he hardly knows himself, and can
therefore be of little use in helping others, or
maintaining his own ground against destructive
critics.
At all times it is hard to construct and easy to
destroy, whether a house or a scientific instru
ment or a religion be in question ; but the
defender of religion has a much harder task
than he need have unless he can give fairly,
easily, and in a plain manner the reasons for his
belief.
In this little book an attempt is made to show
average men what real constructive grounds an
average man like themselves has for believing in
religion.
v
NOTE BY AUTHOR
No claim is made to any particular learning or
scientific knowledge ; all that is claimed is that
the following pages may possibly give an ordinary
man some plain reasons why religion is valid and
reasonable, and, if valid, then binding on all men.
All knowledge, whether religious or scientific,
involves some leaps in the dark, and religion is
no better off and no worse off in this respect than
any other department of objective truth.
W. J. C.
VI
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION BY PROFESSOR HENRY SCOTT
HOLLAND ix
I. BELIEF IN GOD - - J
II. FROM GOD TO CHRIST - 22
HI. CHRIST S DIVINITY - 34
IV. DIFFICULTIES OF BELIEF 5&
APPENDIX - - 88
Vll
INTRODUCTION
THE Faith has been roughly buffeted of late ; and
this time it was not the work of the scientist, or
the critic, or the philosopher. These are all
tolerant now and friendly ; they are wondering
at the strange revelations that are happening in
their own studies, and are being drawn into
something like sympathy with wonder and
revelation in other departments.
Rather, it has been our old friend " the man
in the street " who has suddenly flung himself
into the fray ; and in his hands the controversy
is raw and heated. It becomes an affair of
cudgels and bludgeons and hard knocks ; and
we have been startled by the keenness of the
conflict a keenness which has vanished for a
long time out of the more cultivated classes.
In the North of England the debate has been
carried on with much earnestness. In the South
we can hardly make this claim ; but, at least,
IX
INTRODUCTION
London has felt a certain excitement over the
old spiritual problems, which had almost ceased
to agitate it ; and this has been pure gain, for it
has broken up the dead weight of apathy, which
is our despair as we move up and down these
teeming streets. We preach, we appeal, we lift
the banner, we blow the trumpet, and no one
cares, and no one understands, and no one takes
the trouble to find out what we mean. That has
been our habitual experience, and it is an ex
perience which paralyses energy and kills down
nerve. But now a change has been in the air.
The noise of the religious debate has provoked
curiosity ; men will come together to hear what is
to be said. There is a chance for us of winning
some interest and response. So, once again,
apologetics are worth while ; and through apolo
getics we may here and there arrive at kindling
a hope, at evoking a conviction.
CHRIST, indeed, does not save the world through
syllogism ; but there are moments when syllogism
counts. There are moments when the challenge
of GOD to man raises intellectual issues into special
prominence ; and, when once the reason is aware
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INTRODUCTION
of the challenge, it has no alternative : it must rise
to meet it or be false to itself. That is why apolo
getic is a necessity. We may feel it wearisome ;
we may plead that faith is its own best inter
preter, and its own justification ; we may exhibit
the shallowness and futility of the work that logic
can accomplish in the region of spiritual realities ;
we may appeal to the victories won by an intui
tive belief, that could offer no arguments on its
own behalf; we may demonstrate that, when
reason has done its utmost, real belief may not
yet have begun. All this is so true : but it is all
beside the mark. It might be far better to act
and hope and love, without asking why, obeying
the cardinal motives of instinctive life ; but it is
no use to announce this at a moment when the
preference is forbidden us. We have been asked
why we believe, and we cannot be as if the
question had never been put. Just at this hour
the question is thundering in our ears. Men are
crowding round, insisting on their right to criti
cise, and compelling us to listen and answer.
At other times, in other conditions, we might
have been in a position to travel along a less
XI
INTRODUCTION
encumbered road ; but to-day, the obstructions
confront us. We have to surmount them, or
come to a stop. This is why we must apologise
for our faith, whether we like it or not. We
must examine our motives, at whatever risk to
their simplicity and naivete ; for it is these very
motives of ours which are under challenge : they
have been suspected, attacked, discounted. It is
nasty work to have to analyse self. A recoil on
to self-consciousness is always disturbing and
offensive. But, nevertheless, until it has been
done we are stuck.
Reason once called into play cannot be ignored,
and reason is just that in us which cannot admit
any authority but its own on its own ground. If
it has once asked a rational question, the answer
must be in terms of reason. No appeal to faith,
to tradition, to authority, meets the case. Reason
asks to be given a reason ; it is no answer to deny
that a reason can be given, and that it is better to
go on without it. It asks : Why is faith right ?
Why trust this tradition ? What is the nature of
this authority? It cannot be quieted by mere
parrot-like repetition of the very terms which it
xu
INTRODUCTION
was inquiring into. Reason can only be satisfied
by the rational. It is not pride for it to demand
this : it is its own inherent nature which neces
sitates it. Reason is that in us which requires
life to become intelligible to it, and it itself must
be the judge of what intelligibility means.
But how, then, can faith satisfy reason ? For
no reason can convey what we mean by faith.
"No man can give his faith to another, any
more than he can give another his imagination or
his private history. Faith is, in every case, a
personal thing, and rests upon reasons which go
down into the hidden and unfathomable secrets of
a man s own life. Into that region none can
intrude. It is the last recess and solitude of our
spirit. In all deep things we are strangers to
each other. I cannot, therefore, thrust my faith
upon you, for I cannot tell you of the very things
the voices and the silences which make me so
sure of GOD."*
No ! Faith is personal, and cannot be
transferred in word or argument. Conscious
*" Guidance from Robert Browning on Matters of Faith," by
J, A. Hutton, p. 12.
xiii
INTRODUCTION
logic covers but a very little of the ground.
What role, then, is left for apologetic ? What
reasons are there which reason can accept as
making faith intelligible ?
First, apologetic can remove obstruction. It
has the negative work to do of clearing away all
that obscures and disturbs the real demand of
faith in its pure simplicity. There is no work
nowadays more needed than this.
Then, it submits to reason all that naturally
falls within its range and under the conditions of
its criticism. For our Christian faith is historical ;
it has expressed itself in facts ; it has developed
an outward organisation ; it has embodied itself
in a varied literature. Here is material which
reason can examine by its own methods, and it
cannot be bluffed, or fobbed off by explanations
that do not explain, and by appeals to presupposi
tions which cannot be made intelligible.
Then, again, apologetic has a wide and
impressive task in exhibiting the rationality and
coherence which a creed gives to the entire body
of human experience.
And, lastly, it can satisfy reason by making
xiv
INTRODUCTION
reason itself aware of the conditions and directions
in which faith can justifiably claim to go beyond
the ground which reason can consciously
cover. It can show that faith makes no such
claim arbitrarily or at random, but only at points
where reason itself recognises its own limitations.
Reason does not refuse to be transcended : it only
demands that the transcendence should emerge
naturally out of the normal action of the mind,
which is forever passing out into mystery. It is
not mystery which reason objects to, but only to
mystery brought in to silence legitimate inquiry.
If we can show that our mystery begins there
where all life culminates in mystery, then our
claim to go beyond the syllogisms of proof is
rational and intelligible.
Yet, what a difficult and subtle task does such
an apologetic imply ! And how is it conceivably
to be made clear to our "man in the street," who
is now battering at the doors ? He is just caught
in that state of mind which is agog with its logical
triumphs. He has found his reason, and he is
keen for its absolute sufficiency.
We all have been through this state, when, as
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INTRODUCTION
Plato said two thousand years ago, our wits fasten
on an argument like puppies on a bone, delighted
with the joy of tearing it in pieces.
At such a moment it is hardest of all to have
to call attention to the narrow limits under which
reason works, and to the vast regions of experience
which it fails to touch. A laboured philosophical
proof of this would only look artificial and repres
sive to these heated and clamorous critics.
So it is infinitely more effective for a man who
believes to stand up and take his hearers into his
confidence, and tell them exactly what his faith
means to him, and why it has come about that he
believes it ; and the character of his own motives,
thoughts, intellectual needs, hopes, conclusions ;
and the vital truths of life which commend them
selves to him by their insistence, their worth, their
reality, their beauty, their effectual support ; and
how life fares with him through so believing ; and
how it meets his case ; and how it vivifies human
nature for him ; and how it solves some per
plexities ; and how it redeems that which cannot
be solved; and how it reconciles him with pain
and loss and discipline ; and how it widens his
xvi
INTRODUCTION
outlook ; and how it carries him on towards a far
goal which will at last interpret everything and
will satisfy the ardours and the passions where
with he had sought it.
The frank output by a living man of his own
vital creed is the best apologetic, after all, that
can be given to the crowd who press round to
hear. And in this little book, which I have been
allowed to preface, it seems to me that this is
done.
I am not asked to estimate the precise value
of each argument used, or of each position taken.
But here is a man, who, I am sure, is telling a
true tale of how he believes with all his heart
and soul. He is strong and simple and candid,
and in earnest. He speaks just as a man should
speak to his brothers. He is utterly committed
to his LORD, and he desires deeply that others
should share his gladness. He speaks, out of the
fulness of his spirit, about that which he has him
self known. He holds back nothing.
GOD grant him his reward !
H. S. H.
xvii
Why Christianity is Reasonable
BELIEF IN GOD
IN any constructive work it is always necessary
to make a preliminary clearing of the ground to
be occupied, and, so, before coming to the point,
" Why is Christianity reasonable ? " we will deal
with four points of difficulty or objection.
i. Some may say, " It is not necessary to talk
to us of the reasonableness of Christianity ; we
are quite convinced of that already. It is an
impertinence to suggest that Christianity requires
a recommendation to the common-sense of man
kind. Do you suppose we have lived a Christian
life for twenty or thirty years without finding the
reasonableness of our belief?" To such it might
be replied, that most men have times of depres
sion, times of doubt, and it is good for us to
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
know the intellectual bases of our belief, so that,
when Christian feelings ebb, the mind may still
have the solid rock of reasoned Christian belief
to fall back upon.
Moreover, you may have friends who doubt the
reasonableness of Christianity ; for their sakes,
therefore, consider the rational grounds of your
belief, so that you may help them.
2. Others may say, "You do not speak with
out bias ; you are a Christian, and therefore a
partisan."
This is true, but to be a partisan is not neces
sarily to be untruthful. When we are dealing
with facts we can be perfectly honest, and I
promise to bring forward no argument which I
do not believe to be true.
3. Others may say, again, "I do not want to
discuss these matters at all ; I want to live my life
unbothered by religion and its claims. I want no
philosophy of life, no theory of the universe ; I
want to be happy, and not to be worried."
Our answer to this position (which is the con
scious or unconscious position of the large mass
of mankind) is this :
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
You are men, not animals : reasonable beings,
and not automata : and you have got to live your
own life somehow ; and if your life is to be satis
factory, it must have some goal at which to aim,
some compass by which to steer. Aristotle told
us this more than twenty centuries ago when he
said that life must have an aim, just as archers
must have some mark to hit if they are to practise
shooting to any purpose ; if our life is not to be
aimless, unpurposed, erratic, it must have an aim
by which it is to be guided and controlled.
What is the meaning of life ? What is life ?
Is it a preface to eternity, or is it a time to pluck
the sweets of life as they come and let no flower
of the spring pass us by ? Is it a time of business,
a time of struggle to obtain the necessary means
of livelihood? Or is life a blind thing, being
simply matter which has by some hitherto unex
plained cause become self-conscious, or must we
seek some other solution ?
We know what life brings to all of us a little
joy, a little pain, much work, much worry, and
then the end.
Our object is to show that Christianity gives
3
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
life a real meaning, showing that it is a school of
character, a preface to eternity, an apprenticeship
to that real life which is lived not here, but here
after with GOD.
Every reasonable man ought at least to give a
fair consideration to a matter of such overwhelm
ing importance as this.
4. Again, no arguments are addressed to the
wilfully immoral. After all, even unbelievers, with
a few exceptions, hold by the " categorical im
perative " of the conscience. And if our minds
and intellects are choked with immorality, we
may not and cannot discuss profitably the high
matters of the aim of life, the reality of the soul,
the claims of conscience.
So, after this preliminary clearing of the ground,
let us come to the starting-point of Christianity
GOD.
Why do men believe in GOD ? Let us deal
with the fact of the idea of GOD, and then con
sider the reasonableness of it.
Men believe in GOD by instinct. The belief
in GOD is innate, as proved by the practically
universal consent of mankind.
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
By belief in GOD is meant a belief in a Power
other and higher than ourselves, and yet in some
way like ourselves. And this belief in GOD is
not invalidated by any vicious and anthropo
morphic ideas which may be held about GOD,
for it is the proper office of reason, conscience,
and revelation to correct, purify, and educate
the conception of GOD, which conception, how
ever, is not in origin reasoned out, but is innate,
instinctive.
The story of the original instinct of GOD, and
its subsequent purification by reason, conscience,
and revelation is nowhere brought out so clearly
as in the Bible, where belief in GOD is taken for
granted, (e.g., the first words of the Bible enshrine
this innate belief: " In the beginning GOD"), and
yet along with this belief has been held a mass of
anthropomorphic and strange ideas.
But the idea of GOD was gradually ennobled
and elevated by the Law, by the prophets, and
finally by CHRIST, until there is at last evolved
the tremendous and ultimate expression of GOD S
being "GoD is love."
It is perfectly ridiculous to criticise the ancient
5
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
Jewish conceptions of GOD as if Christians be
lieved the same to-day. GOD, of course, remains
GOD the Unchanging, yet the ideas of men about
GOD have evolved upwards since then ; and to
scoff at the Jewish ideas of GOD as if for us they
rendered a belief in GOD impossible is as foolish
as to deride the science of astronomy because
ancient astronomy was geocentric, and the
Ptolemaic and Copernican theories of astronomy
were only approximations to the truth.
Astronomy has advanced since then, so have
the conceptions of GOD since Abraham s day.
We can show the interest and validity of all the
ancient ideas of GOD in their own day, and for
men of that time, but the only conceptions of
GOD we can and will defend literally and entirely
are those given to us by JESUS CHRIST.
And now authority must be given for the
statement that a belief in GOD is instinct in all
mankind.
This is simply matter of history. All nations
in their natural state have believed in a God.
Our Saxon ancestors are good examples of bar
barians pure and simple, and they were religious
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
to a remarkable degree. They believed in a
supreme God, Odin, or Woden. They also had
a belief in the immortality of the soul, an inter
mediate state after death, and a final place of
punishment or reward. Purely instinctive, and
yet profoundly valid, for I maintain that there is
no instinct of the human heart which is not
ultimately valid. Philosophers admittedly often
go astray, because in their aerial speculations
they lose touch with the facts of everyday life,
but a philosophy which realises the validity of
instincts (recognising, of course, their need of
education and refinement) is more likely to give
a true explanation of life than any other.
Or, take the instance of a nation which is
the antithesis of the Saxon race the Greeks.
Plato, the golden thinker of the most intellectual
race that has ever existed, plainly believed in a
supreme Power higher than man, and yet like
man. " GOD is good," he says, " and the only
source of good ; GOD cannot be unrighteous,
He must be perfectly righteous, and none is like
Him except the most righteous among men."
Although Plato was a philosopher, and not simply
7
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
a man of instinct, yet he stands as an example of
the belief in GOD prevalent among the Greeks.
The common people believed implicitly in a god
or gods, and Plato the philosopher, believed too,
for he could make such statements about GOD as
I have just quoted above.
And, indeed, I might lead you through a
multiplicity of nations the Romans, Persians,
Egytians, Chinese, and all nations proving
simply as a historical fact that all nations instinc
tively believe in GOD.
Polytheism, anthropomorphism (which repre
sents GOD as a mere magnified Man), and similar
errors and mistakes embarrass the view, perhaps,
for some, but the main issue remains clear.
Belief in a higher Power i.e., GOD is innate
and instinctive in all mankind. I will finally leave
the historical question with a quotation from
Hume :
" Look out for a people entirely destitute of
religion. If you find them at all, be assured that
they are but a few degrees removed from the
brutes."
So if you want to know whence men believe
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
in GOD, I answer that belief in GOD is instinctive,
and that history proves that it is instinctive, and,
therefore, valid.
And now to pass on from the historical fact of
GOD we must attempt to show the reasons why
men have thought their belief in GOD to be
rational as well as instinctive.
If we were primitive men we should not need
this further step, the instinct would be its own
justification ; but because we have reached that
further stage in man s education where he reflects
on his own instincts, we must reflect too on this
idea of GOD, and try not to explain it away, for
that would be most unscientific, but to explain it,
and, I hope, to justify it. And my justification
of the idea of GOD is threefold : GOD is known
from Nature, from Witness, and from Experience.
I. When I say that GOD is known from Nature.
I mean that GOD is known through His works.
There are some minds (not all) to whom GOD S
existence and power are irresistibly brought home
by Nature. For some it is the aspect of the
heavens on a starry night, when the firmament is
studded with its clusters of jewels ; for others it
9
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
is the ocean, so boundless and so free. Different
aspects of nature affect different minds ; perhaps
we might take Browning as a typical instance :
" In youth I looked to those very skies,
And probing their immensities
I found GOD there, His visible power ;
Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense
Of the power, an equal evidence
That His love, there too, was the nobler dower."
Christmas Rve, Sec. 5.
And Browning is followed by many who, seeing
creation, are irresistibly impelled to belief in a
Creator. I do not say that all minds are affected
this way, but the fact remains that many are, and
we cannot ignore their convictions. And even
the old argument from design in Nature the
teleological argument has a great deal of force
in it if it be regarded as a whole. If we go into
minute details of teleology we shall probably not
be convinced, but if we look at Nature as a
whole, the conviction is borne in upon the mind
that it is an intelligent system of means and ends,
controlled by Intelligence, and not by chance ;
the creation of a Creator rather than the for-
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
tuitous combination of a concourse of atoms
guided simply by haphazard circumstance.
And remember that the theory of evolution as
such does not the least affect the idea of GOD as
Creator. He creates. If you grant that, the
question of how He creates is of secondary im
portance. It may be by special creations, or it
may be by the gradual evolution from the simplest
to the most complex structures. In either case
GOD remains the guiding and constructing power.
It is only the mode of His working that is in
question. On the whole, considering that pro
gress is a characteristic of all true life, and that
religion, morals, character, all obviously evolve
from lower to higher forms, evolution (though
not necessarily by the process of natural selection)
seems most highly probable ; but whether it is true
or false, it does not trouble the Christian, who
believes GOD to be the Creator, but is quite
willing to learn from a genuine unprejudiced
science the exact mode of GOD S work.
But let us turn to another side of Nature
human nature and briefly justify from it the
idea of GOD.
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
Man is a reasonable being, and when he reflects
on himself and the world he thinks that here
must be the work of a reasonable and intelligent
Author. He knows that he did not make him
self or the world, and knows too that anything
he himself makes is made intelligible, not in
virtue of any qualities in the material he uses,
but in virtue of a meaning stamped upon the
material by his own intelligence.
For instance, he knows that a house is meant
to live in, and can be lived in, but the property
of inhabitability is not inherent in bricks and
mortar, but imparted by the brain of the architect
and builder. So the average reasonable man,
seeing creation with its system of means and
ends, argues to an intelligent Creator.
And it is not only sentimental people who feel
thus, for it was reported in a paper recently how
Liebig, the German scientist, was asked by Lord
Kelvin, when the two were out for a walk,
whether he thought that Nature had made itself,
and he answered : " No more than I think books
on botany wrote themselves."
Again, there is conscience. Whence comes it?
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
Can it really be the survival of prudential motives
in the past, as some assert ? Does a man abstain
from adultery just because in past ages adultery
was apt to be followed by summary vengeance on
the part of the injured husband ? Or is it likely
that man could create his own conscience, since
conscience so often points higher than any man
has yet attained ?
Kant, with his " categorical imperative," has
surely put the mere prudential theory of con
science out of court.
Kant was unable to account for his conscience,
but he recognised its utterances as the supreme,
unarguable authority in human conduct. Can it
then be wondered at if the Christian claims that
here is the voice of GOD speaking to the soul ?
Of course conscience requires educating, but
the fact of conscience remains the fact " I must,
therefore I can." Conscience cannot be explained
away :
"When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The soul replies, c I can. "
So far we have tried to justify from Nature (of
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
the world and of man) the idea of GOD which
we find as a fact in history.
It may well be that the argument from Nature
will never convince all minds, but still, it does, as
a matter of fact, convince many, and effects this
at least that it makes the idea of GOD reason
able and not unreasonable. But to come to the
second argument by which the instinctive idea of
GOD is justified Witness.
II. By "Witness" is meant that the idea of
GOD is made at least reasonable by the fact that
in all ages godly people have believed in Him.
Perhaps, however, you would like to turn round
and say : " Well, conversely, the fact that ungodly
people have not believed proves that He does not
exist." That, however, does not necessarily
follow, as may be shown by parallel cases.
In all ages there have been poetry, music, and
painting. Yet how many people have cared for
any of them ? Just about the same proportion as
have cared for religion. Is there, accordingly,
no such thing as poetry because unpoetical people
ignore it and despise it ? Is there no such thing
as music because more people prefer to listen to a
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
barrel-organ than to a sonata of Beethoven ? Is
there no painting because the majority of people
would much rather see a circus than an old master ?
Of course, the objection is ridiculous, and the
existence of music, art, poetry is guaranteed by
musical, artistic, and poetic persons, and is not
invalidated by the ignorances and negations of
unmusical, unpoetical philistines. So in the same
way the existence of religion is guaranteed by the
religious people, and not invalided simply because
some others have never valued or experienced
religion.
And the argument is not spoilt by the fact that
music lays no obligation on us to study it, for if
music did lay the same obligation on us to study
it as religion does, then it would be our duty to try
our best that is all we can do to understand
music and fulfil its obligations. So we turn to
Witness, and what a volume of evidence there is
for a belief in GOD.
The Jewish race, with its history, its success,
and its failures, is all bound up indissolubly with
religion ; the enactments of its lawgivers, the
thunders of its prophets, the sacrifices of its
15
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
priests, all witnessing to an intense and instinctive
belief in GOD ; the personal devotion to GOD of
Jewish heroes, saints, and kings all this is in
itself an abundance of witness so great that it
might be said without exaggeration that the history
of the Jews alone is sufficient evidence for proving
the existence of GOD and the truth of religion.
But we are not confined to the witness of the
Jews, for there is all the testimony of Christian
evidence, to say nothing of the enormous mass of
corroborative witness for GOD S existence from
non-Jewish or non-Christian religions.
Ask the Apostles, ask St. Peter or St. Paul,
ask mild Francis or strong Dominic, whether or
no their whole life did not hinge on their belief
in the existence of a God ; ask, again, some of
our own sanest and wisest saints and statesmen,
such as Dunstan, Anselm, Robert Grosseteste, all
the pious founders of schools, colleges, and hospi
tals, whether or no their whole life were not
pledged to the truth of their religion, and there
will be but one universal affirmative from them
all.
Or shall we ignore godly men of to-day, men
16
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
eminent in every walk of life, judges, literary men,
doctors, soldiers must we not rather in all
seriousness give due weight to their testimony ?
The solid fact remains thus : a very consider
able portion of mankind Christian, pre-Christian,
non- Christian including many of the most emin
ent men of all times, have believed in GOD and
religion. How do you explain it if there be no
GOD, and consequently no religion ?
You must not explain it away ; you must reckon
with it as a permanent phenomenon of human
consciousness, a real datum of evidence which
must be accounted for in your verdict ; it is not to
be sneered away, or easily denied away, as if all
believers in a God were madmen or deluded
fanatics. No philosophy of life is or can be com
plete which ignores the religious convictions of
religious men. There is sure to be some founda
tion for the positive beliefs of so great a number
of believers.
Let me add one word of caution about the
numerical inferiority of those who believe in GOD.
According to recent statistics, not more than
twenty per cent, of people in London believe in
B i;
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
GOD sufficiently strongly to impel them to worship
Him at least in public. To some this may seem
an argument against religion. But a similar state
of things prevails as regards morality, science, art,
and literature. What percentage of mankind are
truly moral ? What percentage care for art or
science ? Probably not twenty per cent. There
fore, to argue against the validity of religion be
cause of the fewness of those who believe in it will
be to argue against the validity or truth, of art, or
morals, because in these, too, only a small propor
tion of mankind are interested.
III. And our third argument for the validity
of the idea of GOD is experience personal con
viction of what we know and believe ourselves.
I know because I believe, and I believe because I
know. When all objections that can be raised
are raised, how can the following state of things
be explained away ? A man comes to you and
says : " My whole life is changed from evil to
good by the knowledge and love of GOD. I find
in Him my only hope, my only inspiration, my
philosophy of life ; without Him I would not care
to live, with Him I am contented to die,"
IS
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
Of course, if a case like this were an isolated
one, it might perhaps be treated as a delusion ;
but how will you explain away the fact that
thousands, including sometimes the salt of the
earth, passionately vouch for similar convictions
and experiences ?
The fact remains indisputable and unexplain-
able by non-believers that a large mass of man
kind believes beyond possibility of contradiction,
believes seriously and intelligently, that there is a
God, and that they know Him, and that in this
knowledge of GOD is their sole pledge of hope
and energy here and immortality hereafter.
It has been truly written, " The aim of life has
been, as a single magnet, acting on all, though
upon many by repulsion. It is quite indescribable
in words. But there are two things by which
you can tell a man s truth to it a faith to GOD
and a longing for a future life."
* * * * * *
This, then, is our constructive justification for
the reasonableness of belief in GOD and in
religion, and, for the sake of clearness, the
argument is summarised.
19
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
Belief in GOD is shown by history to be
instinctive, innate, and universal ; and that in
stinctive belief is shown to be rational by a
consideration of
1. Nature (of the universe and of man).
2. Witness of believers as a whole.
3. Our personal convictions and experiences
of religion.
And if there be a God, you must admit the
consequences are tremendous, for if GOD exists in
reality, the dictum of the writer of Ecclesiastes
will be literally and absolutely true : " Fear GOD
and keep His commandments, for this is the
whole duty of man."
Nations and individuals alike must modify
conduct if their works are truly done under the
eye of a Judge who some day will have the will,
as He now has the power to execute judgment.
Nations may juggle with national responsi
bility ; massacres, cruelties, treacheries, may all
be perpetrated unpunished by man, but if there
be a God, then some day there will be vengeance.
And equally this is true of individuals : sweaters
may wring riches from the unceasing toil and
20
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
agony of the sweated, tradesmen may cheat,
libertines may ruin the helpless, the ungodly, in
short, may seem to prosper as a green bay-tree
but if there be a God, what then ?
There would be in this case one stage worse
than atheism. We know what the Psalmist says,
that it is the "fool " who "hath said in his heart,
There is no GOD," yet it is surely madness worse
than foolishness, to say, " I believe there is a
God, yet I will act as if He did not exist."
So if we believe that GOD does exist, we had
better lay in a good stock of logic and act as if
He really did exist, instead of doing what so
many do to-day when they deny in their conduct
the GOD whom they confess with their lips.
21
II
FROM GOD TO CHRIST
BRIEFLY to recapitulate :
History tells us that a belief in GOD is
instinctive and innate in all races of men, and
though in common with all other instincts it
has to be trained and educated by conscience and
reason, yet it is so admittedly innate that a man
like Hume can maintain that to be without
religion is to be only a few degrees removed
from the brutes.
This instinctive belief in GOD is justified
from the witness given to it by Nature, both
physical and human, by the lives and testimony
of a mass of mankind, sane and serious, and by
the personal experience and assurance of each
individual believer.
So with this constructive evidence for GOD S
22
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
existence as a basis, the resulting reasonableness
of the idea and fact of CHRIST must now be shown.
Now, if there be a God, then there are for us
really only two main, overwhelmingly real facts
of life GOD and ourselves divided and con
trasted by the gap which separates the finite
from the Infinite.
GOD is Eternal, Immortal, Holy, by the nature
of His very Being hating and punishing evil ;
while we are finite, mortal, our life is short and
full of pain and sorrow, our bodies are frail and
weak, and, worst of all, our consciences if they
are honest convict us of moral shortcomings,
failures and sins. So our condition in the sight
of GOD is miserable : we are fallen, and have no
power to raise ourselves ; we are sinful and have
no means of washing away our sin.
Now, supposing GOD to be a GOD of love, a
Father (as even non-Christians like the Greeks
and Romans believed), what would most natur
ally be His conduct towards His children if they
were full of misery and helpless distress ?
Ask any father, or any friend, what would he
most naturally do if his child or his friend were
23
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
lying in helpless misery and in evil plight ? Of
course, he would go to them, or if they were too
far away he would send to them messages of
comfort and assurances of help.
What has England done again and again for
those in misery, even when they were not her
own children ? What was it that impelled
England to spend twenty million pounds on the
redemption of the slaves in America, the most
glorious and unselfish act ever done by a
nation ?
What, again, is the motive which has prompted
Englishmen to send twenty thousand pounds to
Macedonia recently, and a committee of her own
sons to distribute help and relief? The motive
has been simply pity England has a heart, and
could not bear to see fellow-creatures in such
piteous condition. So money was collected and
relief sent. And it is equally reasonable that
GOD, when He saw His children hopeless and
abandoned, should send a messenger and good
news of comfort to those who were unable to
help themselves, and Christianity claims that He
actually did what it was reasonable that He
24
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
should do, and that CHRIST, the SON OF GOD,
was that Messenger, and the Gospel that good
news.
And at this point we come in touch with
the great and fundamental question : Who was
JESUS CHRIST ?
Was He merely a good man, the best of all
teachers, the most inspired man who ever lived,
or was He GOD Incarnate, the SON of GOD Who
exists from all eternity, the Second Person of the
Blessed Trinity, Who nineteen hundred years ago
miracuously took a human Nature (in addition to
the Divine Nature He possesses from all eternity)
of the substance of the Virgin Mary, His
Mother ?
This is the all-important question, and JESUS
Himself recognised it when at a critical and
central point in His ministry He asked His
Apostles: "Whom say ye that I am?" Then,
when St. Peter confessed His Divinity, He
uttered a cry of eulogy and blessing on him :
" Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona : for flesh and
blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My
FATHER which is in heaven." His work could
25
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
now go forward ; it was laid on a solid basis
when once the fundamental fact of His Divinity
was recognised and confessed.
Let us consider candidly the " fact " of CHRIST
Whom Christians have ever confessed to be the
Eternal SON of GOD.
Who was He ? What picture do the Gospels
give of Him Who claimed to be the Messenger of
GOD the SON of GOD ? Firstly the most striking
feature of His character is the entire absence of
sin or consciousness of sin. CHRIST never acted
or spoke as if He Himself needed salvation or
redemption. He said, indeed, the strongest
things about others, their vital need of repentance
and salvation, but not a word implying that He
classed Himself with them in this respect.
He even challenges His enemies, saying :
" Which of you convinceth Me of sin ? " And
there was no answer to the challenge.
His contemporaries also bear witness to the
same phenomenon, for Pilate said : " I find no
fault in Him at all" And the dying thief
testified : " This man hath done nothing amiss."
The centurion who watched Him in His dying
26
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
agonies was forced to exclaim : " Truly this was
the SON of GOD."
And this outside witness is confirmed by the
testimony of the inner band of Apostles, who
were constantly with Him, and would have
known any weakness or sin in their Companion ;
yet " He did no sin" is their account of Him,
and their judgment is certainly endorsed by the
verdict of posterity.
Moreover, CHRIST taught in a unique way four
great lessons to mankind the lessons of purity,
love, humility, and forgiveness. Purity has since
CHRIST S day changed from being a negative into
a positive virtue. No longer is chastity simply
abstinence from impurity ; it is the noblest and
most lovely of all the virtues, and is to be sought
and retained in thought as well as deed as the most
priceless and rare treasure. JESUS Himself mixed
with sinners. He could speak gently even to an
adulteress ; He did not shrink from the touch of
a woman " out of whom had gone seven devils,"
yet in action and word He is the supreme
example and teacher of a purity so burning and
white that, like snow in the arctic regions, it
27
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
burns and blisters in the intensity of its cold
spotlessness.
He is also the supreme teacher of " love " as
the law of life not merely family love or the
love founded on friendship, but a love for " the
brethren," a love of all mankind, transcending
racial and national distinctions, and including all
human creatures in its horizon.
Love had till then been at most national. Greeks
might treat Greeks as friends, but all non-Greeks
were to them " Barbaroi," alien and antagonistic ;
the Jews had obligations to Jews, but non-Jews
were Gentiles, outsiders to the covenant of Israel.
JESUS taught that GOD " so loved the world"
that He had given His Son to redeem it.
" Love " was to be the keynote of His new
society, the Church, and men were to judge of
Christians by the test of the love which they
would bear to one another, if, indeed, they were
true Christians.
Again he introduced into the world that purely
Christian conception of " humility," the root of
which is found in the comparison of self with
GOD instead of with one s fellow-men.
28
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
Aristotle s conception of a good man was that
of a virtuous man conscious of and proud of his
own dignity and virtue (otcrat aios emu atos 5v)^
but our LORD, on the contrary, bade His disciples
remember that even when they had done all in
their power they were still unprofitable servants.
And, once more, our LORD taught the great
doctrine of forgiveness which the world so mnch
needed, for till that time the ideal was to be
gracious to one s friends, but terrible to one s
enemies, and if a man were injured the law of
retaliation came into force at once, " an eye for
an eye, and a tooth for a tooth : " but our LORD
reveals the Christian law of forgiveness : " Love
your enemies."
I have dwelt rather long on the picture
of our Lord as a sinless person, unconscious and
unconvicted of sin, as well as the unique teacher
of recognised great Christian virtues, in order
that you may acknowledge that any statements
which He made must in virtue of His character
be regarded as very serious and weighty.
What, then, did he claim to be ? He claimed to
be the SON of GOD.
29
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
Perhaps, however, you will stop me at once
with the old, well-worn objection that the Gospels
are not dependable, and, therefore, that the picture
of our LORD S character is not reliable.
Now, I have only one answer to that, for I
must leave the authenticity of the Gospels to
recognised scholars and writers,* and will only
mention in passing that even rationalistic critics,
like Harnack, bring the Synoptic Gospels well
into the first century, and that the old ideas of
the unreliability of the Gospels simply vanish at
the touch of real knowledge and sober criticism.
But my single answer is this : If our LORD S
character in the Gospels was not the photograph
of a real living person, then it was invented by
four Jewish writers, either with or without col
laboration, and if there could be in the world a
greater miracle than the Incarnation, it would
be the invention of such a character by the
Evangelists.
What artist, what dramatist, could have in
vented such a character ? So spotless, so non-
national, so wonderful in its appeal to all posterity
* See e.g. " On Behalf of Belief" (Longmans).
30
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
of whatever race or clime, so non-Jewish in its
opposition to formalism and the professors of
religion of the day so unique, in short, in every
way.
It is impossible. No one artist, still less four
artists, could possibly have invented a character
so far transcending any conceptions of human
character which were current in the world up to
the time the Gospels were written.
The character of Jesus is dependable because
uninventable. So in all soberness we have to
meet the argument, What did CHRIST, being what
He was, claim to be ?
He claimed unequivocally to be the SON of
GOD : " I and My FATHER are One" (one thing,
one in essence, w eV/ue^) ; " Before Abraham was,
I am"; " No man knoweth the FATHER but the
SON " ; " Come unto Me, all ye that travail and
are heavy laden." And the great blessing on
St. Peter was pronounced when that saint con
fessed " Thou art the CHRIST, the SON of the
living GOD."
So you are forced to one of two conclusions
about CHRIST, this sinless Person, this teacher of
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
the world s highest morality, whose character is
truly depicted in the Gospels because uninvent-
able by human art or ingenuity : either He was
GOD, as He claimed to be, or else though in all
ways seemingly perfect He was as regards His
own person a liar and impostor.
There is flatly the choice, either one or the
other. He is either GOD or a bad man, either
GOD or not good, and I maintain that by far the
more reasonable explanation is the Christian one,
that CHRIST was what He claimed to be, the SON
of GOD.
Do you shrink from saying He was a bad man,
a liar? Then He must be the SON of GOD. Do
you hesitate to say he was the SON of GOD ?
Then he was a bad man.
Take your choice, for there are only two
alternatives.
And though it lies, perhaps, outside the pro
vince of an essay, it is necessary to note what
the result is if the conclusion be reached that
CHRIST was the SON of GOD.
No mere intellectual result is obtained, but a
moral result, for if CHRIST be the SON of GOD,
32
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
he challenges not our intellects merely but our
lives.
Christians not merely intellectually assent to
the " Fact of CHRIST." They are forced to
submit their lives to Him, believing, that for
every act, even for every word and thought, they
must render strict and solemn account.
So a man cannot logically stop at an intellectual
assent to the Divinity of CHRIST ; he must alter
his life so that it harmonizes with his faith ; and
here it is that the " cross " of the Christian life
is found and felt. Yet a believer in CHRIST can
not merely on account of difficulty stop short
of the life of CHRIST, but is logically bound to
carry out in his life the principles of the faith he
confesses, and it is just here that the enormous
difficulty of the Christian life begins.
Yet we must not be afraid of our conclusions,
and though the conditions of modern life render
the Christian life harder than ever, yet the
Christian must prefer CHRIST to the world, even
if it mean as much moral crucifixion to himself
as it meant physical crucifixion to his Master.
33
Ill
CHRIST S DIVINITY
As this pamphlet is for the practical purpose of
presenting clearly to average minds the grounds
for belief in GOD, I do not shrink at risk of
repetition from repeating what I have tried
to prove so far about the " Reasonableness of
Christianity."
We started with the idea of there being a
GOD, and proved that the idea of GOD is natural
to man, that it is a natural instinct of the human
heart, as even Hume can assert. " Show me a
people without religion, and if you can find such
a people, be assured that they are but a few
degrees removed from the brutes."
That instinct we found to be a natural one in
every nation until spoilt by sophistries.
The argument is justified first from nature.
34
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
If there is a universe, a created world, an in
telligible world, there must seemingly of necessity
be an intelligent Creator.
It is justified also by the argument from
Witness. There is a continuous witness, before
and after the Apostles time down to the good
men of the present day, that a belief in GOD is
the centre and core of life ; ^and you can only
thrust aside that witness and say it is worthless
and irrational if you say that all those men have
been deluded, and are only a point off being mad.
The charge of being mad was actually levelled
against St. Paul, and must be levelled against all
believers from the beginning till now if you are
going to set aside their witness as of no account
whatever. And you can only do so, it seems to
me, in defiance of all the rules of sufficient
evidence. Millions of human hearts, the hearts
of people whom you acknowledge to be reason
able in all else, have acknowledged GOD to be,
above all things, the Master and Ruler of their
life, and surely this evidence must count for
something.
And then I went on to^ suggest, secondly, that
35
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
if there is a God Who is in any sense our FATHER,
then it is quite reasonable, supposing His children
to be, as we know we are, in sin and weakness
and misery, that He should send some message
of hope and comfort to them. It would be
quite reasonable for anyone a father, a friend,
or a lover to think compassionately of those
whom they love, and if these were in distress
they would never rest till they had either sent a
message or gone to them in person.
Therefore it is not unreasonable to suppose
that GOD also, seeing His children in such hope
less plight, should send to them a message of
hope, consolation, and refreshment.
Such a Messenger makes His appearance on
the earth. He calls Himself, and was called,
" the CHRIST." He lived a life of spotless
holiness and purity. He also claimed to be
the SON of GOD.
He is an historical fact ; you must give some
account of Him. Was He merely a good man
and nothing else ? Because, if so, then He was
not a good man at all ; that is absolutely certain,
for no mere man could say, " I and My FATHER
36
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
are one Essence, one Substance " ; no mere
man could say to his fellow-creatures, " Come
unto Me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden,
and I will refresh you " ; no mere man could say,
" Before Abraham was, I am " ; no mere man
could say that, as regards GOD S power of forgive
ness, He had that power in Himself, and that He
Himself was sufficient to satisfy every need of the
human heart.
So, as Dr. Liddon says, if He is to be regarded
as merely a good man, He was not in reality a
good man, because no mere man could make those
statements without being arrogant and boastful,
untruthful and insincere.
But, on the other hand, if He were not a good
man, was He a bad man ? Was our LORD a bad
man ? Surely that is too monstrous ! Even
people who deny Hs Divinity are overwhelmed
by the beauty and purity of His life.
You find Channing, who was beyond question
a man of the highest character himself, and able
to judge character, though he did not accept the
Divinity of our LORD S Person, yet saying the
most astonishing things about Him, He says
37
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
that the life of JESUS strikes him as simply over
whelming both in its calm seriousness and in its
perfection and wonderful beauty of holiness, even
though he denies Him to be the Personal and
Eternal SON of GOD.
Was He a bad man ?
Do you know what Napoleon says about JESUS
CHRIST? He says : " Alexander, Caesar, Charle
magne, and I myself have founded great empires ;
but upon what did these creations of our genius
depend ? Upon force. JESUS alone founded His
empire upon love, and to this day millions would
die for Him. JESUS CHRIST was more than man.
I have inspired multitudes with such an enthusiastic
devotion that they would have died for me, but
to do this it was necessary that I should be visibly
present with the electric influence of my looks,
of my words, of my voice. When I saw men
and spoke to them, I lighted up the flame of self-
devotion in their hearts. CHRIST alone has suc
ceeded in so raising the mind of man towards
the unseen that it becomes insensible to the
barriers of time and space. Across a chasm of
i, 800 years JESUS CHRIST makes a demand which
38
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
is beyond all others difficult to satisfy ; He asks
for that which a philosopher may often seek in
vain at the hands of his friends, or a father of
his children, or a bride of her spouse, or a man
of his brother. He asks for the human heart ;
He will have it entirely to Himself. He
demands it unconditionally, and forthwith His
demand is granted. Wonderful ! In defiance
of time and space, the soul of man, with all its
powers and faculties, becomes an annexation to
the empire of CHRIST. All who sincerely believe
in Him experience that remarkable supernatural
love towards Him. This phenomenon is un
accountable ; it is altogether beyond the scope
of man s creative powers. Time, the great
destroyer, is powerless to extinguish this sacred
flame ; time can neither exhaust its strength nor
put a limit to its range. This it is which strikes
me most ; I have often thought of it. This
it is which proves to me quite convincingly the
Divinity of JESUS CHRIST."
I do not think that after such witness we can
call Him a bad man. And if He was not merely
a good man because of His claims, and if He
39
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
certainly was not a bad man because of His life,
what was He? He must be SON of GOD, the
Second Person of the ever Blessed Trinity, from
all eternity GOD, Who came down to earth
because of the love GOD bore to the human race,
in order to redeem and save mankind.
And if He be what He claims to be, the SON
of GOD, forthwith all difficulties vanish. Of
course He claimed to be the SON of GOD if He
is the SON of GOD. We have no difficulties about
His claims and His miracles or His marvellous
Birth, if we believe that JESUS was Almighty GOD.
But you may say, even after all that, you
believe He was an imposter, a bad man, and that
nothing will convince you to the contrary. If you
say that, of course you must be met with other
arguments. But, at all events, this point is surely
proved, that it is more reasonable, looking at the
life of JESUS CHRIST, to believe that He was
truthful than untruthful. If He were truthful,
then He was the SON of GOD. That is my
position. I maintain that JESUS is the SON of
GOD, proved by His life, by His claims, by His
works.
40
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
But you may say, " I cannot grasp it ; I am
overwhelmed by it." Men say sometimes, that
if a person were to come nowadays claiming to
be the Messiah, we should not argue with him ;
we should simply laugh at him. It is not fair,
they say, that you should have expected the Jews
to receive CHRIST as the Messiah when you would
not to-day receive a man who came from, e.g.,
Clapton, and made the same claims. They say
(and I wish to put their argument quite fairly),
" Why do you believe that JESUS CHRIST Who
came down on this earth 1,900 years ago was
genuine, and yet you only laugh at the idea of a
Clapton Messiah to-day ? "
I will tell you why.
We do not expect a Messiah to-day : nothing in
our history lends any support to such a supposition.
But with the Jews it was quite another thing.
So far from the advent of a Messiah being an
unexpected event with them, it was confidently
looked forward to and anticipated. Their whole
national and individual life was founded on that
belief. It was the most natural thing in the
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
world for the Jews to expect the Messiah. The
same is not the case with ourselves.
" The Jews expected the Messiah " : let us
see if that statement is borne out by facts.
When the wise men came to Herod and asked
where was He that was born King of the Jews,
what did Herod do ? If men came to us to-day
with that question, we should say at once,
" There is no Messiah to be born ; the only
Messiah to be born was born 1,900 years ago
in Bethlehem."
But what does Herod do ? He sends to ask
the Chief Priests and Scribes, who said at once
"that He was to be born in Bethlehem." They
-were not at all surprised ; they quoted Micah
immediately as authority for His birthplace
"And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,"
and so on.
Again, when our Lord was presented in the
Temple, there was Simeon, the aged prophet,
actually waiting for the consolation of Israel, the
coming of the Messiah. It had been revealed to
him that he should not die till he had seen the
LORD S CHRIST. So far, therefore, from being
42
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
surprised when the Messiah came, there he was,
waiting for the consolation of Israel. When he
held CHRIST in his arms he knew at once that his
expectations were at length realized, and he broke
forth into his beautiful Nunc Dimittis.
Then there was Anna, the old prophetess, the
daughter of Phanuel, waiting in the Temple for
the Messiah s coming. And when He came she
spoke of Him "to all who were looking for
redemption in Israel."
The woman of Samaria, too, an alien, what
does she say ? "I know that when Messias comes
He will teach us all things." A Messiah was no
puzzle to her " I knoiv that when Messias
comes He will teach us all things."
We have finally the witness of John the Baptist,
He sends to our LORD, asking, " Art thou He
that should come, or do we look " (you see that
He was looking for someone) " for another ? "
He told the Jews, " I indeed baptize you with
water, but there cometh one after me " One !
Who? "and He shall baptize you with the
HOLY GHOST and with fire."
So, just from these few instances, you can see
43
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
how the Jews, so far from ignoring the coming
Messiah, were actually waiting in an attitude of
eager expectancy for Him just at the very time
when CHRIST was born.
Perhaps you see now why it was not strange
for the Jews to expect a Messiah. They could
not have done otherwise in the face of all the
prophecies about Him and His coming. These
are so well known that you cannot expect a
reference to all the prophecies of the Messiah,
simply because those prophecies are so many. If
you take any concordance of the Bible, and look
up " Prophecies of the Messiah," you will find
out more than a hundred instances, direct and
indirect, and though some doubtless are capable
of a different explanation, yet, the very fact
that the Jews in our LORD S day were eagerly
expecting a Messiah is quite sufficient evidence
that the prophecies had done their work in
leading the Jewish nation to anticipate CHRIST S
coming.
It is most reasonable then for us to have
expected the devout Jews to welcome CHRIST
when He came, though it would not be reasonable
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
to expect us now to welcome a man who came
claiming to be the Messiah.
Not only, however, did the Jews expect a
Messiah ; they had also had very broad hints that
He was to be a Divine Messiah ; He would be
" Emmanuel, GOD with us." He is spoken of
by Isaiah as the Messiah who should be the
" Mighty GOD," " Eternal FATHER, the Prince of
Peace." He was to be the " Restorer of Israel,"
the "Saviour of the Gentiles," a " Prince," a
" Prophet," and a " King."
So, not only is Messiah expected, but there
are hints, and even bold statements, that this
Messiah is not only to be a Prophet, but Divine
" Emmanuel, GQD with us." It was prophesied,
also, that He was to be a " suffering " Messiah.
This idea of a suffering Messiah must have been
strange to the Jews, and yet that idea of suffering
runs strongly through the prophecies of the
Messiah. It is found, e.g., in Psalm xxii, which,
though not necessarily such a direct prophecy
as Isaiah liii, yet is remarkable in the coincidence
of its details with the details of our LORD S
Passion ; indeed, the whole imagery of the psalm
45
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
is so unlike anything known to the Jews
(for crucifixion was a Roman, and not a Jewish,
mode of execution) that the psalm may be well
maintained to be wholly predictive at any rate,
at the very lowest estimate, it cannot be divested
of a very strange and strong prophetical character.
Take Psalm xxii, in the Prayer- Book, and go
through it carefully. It was written hundreds of
years before CHRIST came : but it is an exact
description of what happened to our LORD when
He was crucified on Calvary. Isaiah tells that
He was to be bruised for our iniquities, and that
by His stripes we were healed. Psalm xxii.
details these sufferings with remarkable clearness,
and JESUS fulfils them to the letter.
Not only by prophecies, however, but also by
the Jewish system of sacrifices, is a Messiah
and a suffering Messiah predicted. The whole
sacrificial system of the Jewish religion is typical
of CHRIST and points to the Messiah who should
come, to be a Lamb the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world, offered for the sins of
the world. The Messiah was to be a whole
burnt-offering to His FATHER S will. He was
46
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
to be a sin-offering to expiate the sins of the
people. He was also to be a peace-offering, to
bring forth the blessed fruits of reconciliation.
It was not at all unreasonable, then, that the
Jews should expect a Messiah. Claims so start
ling to us were, in the light of their prophecies
and psalms, not at all startling, but, on the
contrary, most natural to them. It was their sin
and pride, and resentment at finding Him in
opposition to the official leaders of religion, which
made them reject the LORD of Glory when He
came, and crucify Him on Mount Calvary.
Yet some of you may say, " Well, that is all
very true ; but you must surely admit that the
prophecies and the types, after all, are very frag
mentary and broken they do not all say right
out in so many words, that JESUS is what He
claimed to be. There is some uncertainty
about it ; it is not absolutely clear."
Well, that may be partly true. But I do not
think any prophecy at all, if it foretold a fact so
clearly as to give no ground or scope for faith,
could really be called a prophecy.
Yet let us see what we have got so far. We
47
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
have got this : That JESUS CHRIST, a real person,
comes to earth and lives the holiest, purest, and
most wonderful of lives, as attested both by His
foes and by His friends.
That this person, JESUS CHRIST, made certain
definite claims to be the Divine Messiah, and
fulfilled all the prophecies and types contained
in the Old Testament.
But, though we have all that, you may still say
it is not enough for you, any more than it was
enough for all the Jews. It was enough for
Peter and the Apostles, and that hard-headed
St. Paul, at all events ; still there were some
Jews who did not believe.
What does JESUS CHRIST do to give us certainty
in this matter? He brings an argument to bear
upon us, so certain that it justifies all His claims
justifies Him as the SON of GOD, the suffering
Messiah, the Divine Messiah.
What is this proof, which gives us certainty so
far as we can have it, of the truth of His
claims ?
It is His resurrection from the dead.
Before His death, JESUS CHRIST said that He
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
would die, and that He would rise again the
third day. He claimed that, and He did it.
The Resurrection is a clinching argument. It
is the fundamental basis of all Christianity. If
the Resurrection is not true, then I am writing
nonsense, and Christian faith is vain. We can
put our whole weight on the Resurrection. If
that be not true, we are still in our sins.
The Church says, the Bible states, the witness
of the Apostles and the testimony of posterity
affirms, that JESUS CHRIST was crucified and died
on the Cross, lay in the tomb on Friday night,
and remained there part of three days until
Sunday morning, when He rose from the dead,
burst through the sealed stone at the mouth of
the tomb, passed the file of Roman soldiers, lived
on the earth for forty days, and then ascended
into heaven, and after ten days sent down the
HOLY GHOST to guide the Church. This has
always been the belief of the Church.
And the Church corroborates her testimony by
witness. She is first her own witness. She is
built on the Resurrection ; she exists as the result
of the Resurrection : and she brings forward in
D 49
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
her handbook, the Bible, ten instances of our
LORD being seen, spoken to, and handled. JESUS
CHRIST appeared to Mary Magdalene, He was
seen by Simon Peter, by the Apostles without
Thomas, by the eleven Apostles with Thomas ;
and^there are other appearances to the number of
ten, including one most striking appearance to
500 brethren at once, of whom St. Paul, writing
to the Corinthians, says that the greater part
"remain alive to this day," able to answer
questions, willing to give information.
Therefore the Resurrection is justified by the
witness of the Apostles, 500 brethren, and St.
Paul. That evidence would be quite sufficient
to give the Resurrection the highest credibility.
Men would certainly believe any other fact taking
place at that time on much scantier evidence.
But I am going further than that.
I wish to ask anyone who does not believe in
the Resurrection one very simple question : " If
JESUS CHRIST did not rise from the dead, what
happened to His body ? "
What reply will an unbeliever give to this
question ? He must say that, if He did not rise
So
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
from the dead, two things were possible : the
body either remained in the tomb, the Roman
soldiers guarding it (there it lay, and when the
soldiers had guarded it long enough they buried
it), or else the Apostles came, stole the body, and
buried it.
Now, with regard to the first supposition, if
the body of JESUS remained in the tomb guarded
by the Roman soldiers, how was it that, when
the Apostles went out and preached Christianity,
saying that JESUS was risen, the Jews and the
Roman soldiers did not produce the dead body ?
That was all they needed to prove the Apostles
liars, or deluded men, and Christianity a fraud
or a delusion. If JESUS CHRIST lay dead in the
tomb, why did they not bring out His body, and
smash all the talk of a Resurrection ? There is
no answer to that.
But to such straits are the objectors of Christ
ianity driven that they say, " Oh, well, we will
give up that argument, and fall back on another.
The Apostles came by night and stole Him
away." The Roman soldiers for once, I suppose,
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
st have slept at their post, though they well
knew the penalty was death.
The Apostles, we are asked to believe (those
brave men who ran away on Good Friday), came
by night, terrifying the Roman soldiers, and stole
away the body and buried it somewhere else.
If they did that, all I can say is that they must
have found out how wise they were to run away
on Good Friday. They ran away when they
thought He would be put to death ; and yet you
expect me to believe that, when they found out
that their worst fears were realized, and JESUS was
really dead, they plucked up their courage, took
away the evidence of His failure, and then went
out with the hearts of lions and preached with
a voice which has never been weakened the
Resurrection of JESUS CHRIST!
Do you think that Peter, who went skulking
away at the trial and the Crucifixion, could have
gone joyfully before tribunals and kings, counting
it joy to suffer for the sake of what he knew to
be a lie ? Do you think that possible ? Surely
it has only to be stated to be laughed out of
court. Can you imagine that the Apostles, who
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
ran away when their LORD was in danger, came
back when He was actually dead, buried Him,
and then were so strong in what they knew to
be a lie that their testimony to the Resurrection
reverberated all down the ages ever since ?
Yet these seem the only two alternatives to the
truth that our LORD rose from the dead. The
Body of CHRIST must either have remained in
the tomb, in which case the Jews had only to
produce it to effectually crush Christianity, or
else the Apostles must have stolen away His
Body and secretly buried it, in which case I defy
anyone, even the most credulous, to believe that
these timid men could have preached with such
joy and enthusiasm the Resurrection of their LORD.
Sometimes the opponents of the Resurrection
say and it is difficult to take it seriously that
the Apostles saw, or thought they saw, a ghost.
Well, if they did, and really believed it was
CHRIST, the ghost s body still remained in the
tomb, and its production would have crushed
Christianity just as effectually by proving the
Resurrection unreal, whether the Apostles had
seen a ghost or whether they had not.
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
But perhaps it may be said that our LORD never
died. As if CHRIST could have remained on the
Gross, had His side pierced by a soldier, and then
after thirty-six hours be sufficiently recovered to
go for a long walk to Emmaus ! Is it not really
absurd to ask anyone to believe such a story as
that ? The Roman soldiers had enough experi
ence of death to prevent them saying CHRIST was
dead if He were only in a trance.
No, there is only one reasonable conclusion to
the whole thing, and that is, that JESUS CHRIST,
that Man, that Divine Man, was what He claimed
to be the SON of GOD, and that He rose from
the dead in majesty because He could not be
holden of death. And the Apostles went forth
in all their glorious enthusiasm simply because
they had really seen their Master, their real
LORD.
They were able to preach with all that new
courage and faith, because they knew He had
indeed risen, and had communed with them after
the Resurrection. They had seen JESUS fulfil
His promises; they had seen Him justify His
claims to be the Messiah. They saw and were
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
satisfied. They, therefore, like all other reason
able Christians since, were willing and ready to
do and suffer anything for the sake of their
Divine Master.
So it is that the Resurrection of our LORD is
the centre of Christian belief and the climax of
Christian faith. We can lean our whole weight
on that fact. In view of the alternatives which
we have considered, it is more reasonable to
believe in it than not. But I say more than
that : I assert that so far from merely holding
the Resurrection to be reasonable, I hold it to be
as absolute a certainty as any other recorded
incident which happened 1,900 years ago is or
can be.
And if our LORD rose from the dead, then not
only does it bring us assurance in regard to our
faith, it also gives great comfort as regards our
life, for the Resurrection is a guarantee that good
is, after all, stronger than evil.
We know well that the world is full of evil,
sin, and misery. The world bows down to power
and money. The world worships its brazen
images. It seems so strong, and we seem so
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
weak. All around us is evil so seemingly tri
umphant; the good man is so often overwhelmed,
and the bad man apparently succeeds. And then,
when we are feeling depressed and hopeless about
it all, with a glad cry we realise the Resurrection
of CHRIST. His Resurrection is a proof that one
day good shall triumph, and evil shall be beaten
down. At the last great day evil will be shown
up in its true colours, in all its forms, under what
ever guise.
JESUS, when he rose from the dead, triumphed
over the forces of evil. And he is our guarantee
that one day Right shall be Might.
But not only is the Resurrection a guarantee
of the triumph of good, it is also a continual help
to men in their spiritual life. Sometimes we
feel ourselves so weak and feeble, and tempta
tions to be so strong, that it seems impossible to
bring all our lives under the sway of CHRIST S
dominion. The one great truth which religion
and honesty bring home to a man is that he is
a sinner, a hopeless failure, if he is left alone.
And GOD seems sometimes so far away ; He
does not appear to care very much about man-
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
kind, or to answer their prayers. We seem to
tremble on the brink of some huge precipice, in
momentary fear of toppling over. Well, when
we feel like that we can remember the Resurrec
tion, and that as CHRIST rose from the dead,
triumphing over every evil, over sin and tempta
tion, so also those who are one with CHRIST,
baptized into Him, made one with Him by faith
and Sacraments, shall one day in like manner
triumph.
The Christian life ought not to be feeble and
wavering. We must hold our position. Our
faith is built upon the rock of the Resurrection.
We shall go on striving and triumphing over all
difficulties, in the hope that we too shall rise and
see face to face our Master, Who long ago died on
the Cross for us, and Who lives to-day to help us
to rise here from a life of death and sin, till one
day we share with Him His triumph and glory in
heaven.
IV
DIFFICULTIES OF BELIEF
I HAVE tried in my last three essays on this
subject to put forward the reasonableness of
what I believe. Please remember that I have
never said that I have got my faith, or that any
one else could necessarily get his faith, from pure
reason alone, simply by the use of the intellect.
What I have tried to do is to show that faith is
not contrary to reason. The Christian faith is
not against reason, though it is not obtained by
the use of that faculty alone.
Faith in GOD is justified, firstly, by the fact that
you find it a universal instinct in all nations ;
secondly, by the witness of the saints of all time ;
and thirdly, by the experience of our own hearts.
Then, again, I spoke of JESUS CHRIST and His
claims. I argued that we might reasonably be-
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
lieve in Him, grounding our belief on certain
facts viz., the prophecies about Him which
were fulfilled, His life of spotless holiness and
truth united with claims so far-reaching and
majestic, and, finally, His resurrection from the
dead, which He foretold long before He died,
and which He accomplished.
Then I brought forward two arguments to
meet possible objectors to the Resurrection, "If
CHRIST had not risen, where was the body, the
production of which, whether by the Roman
soldiers or by the Jews themselves, would have
been quite sufficient to smash Christianity in its
cradle ? If the Romans could simply have
brought out His body it would have shown the
whole of Christianity to be false, because Christ
ianity is based on the truth of the Resurrection."
And again, "if the Apostles had buried Him
secretly, as the Roman soldiers said, you cannot
surely reasonably explain to me how, having
justified all their fears, having proved themselves
to be in the right in running away on Good
Friday, having proved that CHRIST was a failure,
and had told a lie when He said He would rise
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
from the dead, in spite of all that, those same
Apostles went out and preached His Resurrection
with a confident voice, which has not since ceased
to reverberate all down the ages."
Having given you these reasons for my faith,
let us now start off as Christians to face the
difficulties of belief. We are not going over the
same ground again. We have spent many pages
in proving the reasonableness of our faith, and
having scaled that mountain, you must not ex
pect us to descend again to the valley and
recommence the ascent.
And now to face the difficulties of religion.
The first difficulty is the failure of Christianity.
Yes, Christianity is a failure, if you mean that
the world as a whole, and England in particular,
is not converted. I admit it. It is not a Christian
country. The world is not a Christian place.
Christianity is a failure ; but why is it so ? Is it
because Christianity per se is a failure, or because
people have somehow failed to grasp and hold and
believe it ?
So we must face the fact of failure. Yet Christ
ianity is a failure only in the same sense as JESUS
60
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
CHRIST was a failure. And why was He a failure?
Why was it that when He, Whom we believe to
be the SON of GOD, came down to earth all men
did not believe in Him? Why did they resist
His claims? There was nothing wrong with His
message, because even His opponents admit that
" never man spake as this Man" then why was
it that He was a failure, and that the whole world
was not converted ?
He has Himself given us the reasons. He
tells us in the parable of the Sower that there
are three reasons why men did not accept His
message.
First of all there was the Devil, who resisted
what He had to say. The seed was sown all
right, but the Devil came and took away "the
word."
We are very apt to overlook the fact of the
Devil. We are inclined to forget that Christianity
is committed to the truth that there is a personal
principle of evil (seen best in sins like cruelty and
spite), whose business it is to prevent us obtaining
the happiness he has himself forfeited. Therefore
we must remember this fact of a personal principle
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
of evil, Satan, whose aim now is to spite the
Creator by injuring the souls of those whom GOD
loves.
Then there was Shallowness. There was the
seed sown on the rock where it had not depth of
earth that is to say, people were shallow. They
were shallow, first of all, because they did not
recognise their own needs. They did not recog
nise sin and its power over them, and their conse
quent need of redemption. Our LORD told them
that if they had been blind they would have had
no sin, but they said they saw, and therefore their
sin remained. They were shallow because so self-
satisfied. They had no recognition of sin.
Again, they were shallow because they were
offended by the difficulty of CHRIST S demands.
He asked men, as He asked the rich young ruler,
for the whole of their life, with all its powers and
possibilities. People who are shallow will not
give to CHRIST that which He asks, whether in
the old Jewish days or now.
There was also sin. JESUS tells us once more
in the same parable that some seed fell among
brambles and thorns, which sprang up and
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
choked the word. Worldly cares, sinful pleasure
of all kinds all these things choke the word.
When our LORD came down on earth speaking
as never man spake before, the people rejected
Him, and He was a failure, not because His
message was wrong, but because the people
themselves were full of the working of the Devil,
of sin, and of shallowness.
And at the present day the reasons why people
do not accept Christianity are very much the same,
for carelessness and shallowness are the most pre
vailing reasons why people reject Christianity.
The shallowness of men, their indifference, their
refusal to think of anything beyond the pleasures
of the moment, their sin, the lusts of the flesh, the
pride of life, the lust of the eyes all these things
are, in the main, the causes which keep people
from Christianity.
But there are other causes at work as well.
There is the unworthiness of the professors of
Christianity, laity as well as clergy. We do not
act up to our Christian faith. I think that very
often the lives of both clergy and laity who pro
fess to be Christians bring more scandal and
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
harm to Christianity than all the doubts of un
believers. Bishop Westcott said truly that
Christians lives were the only Bible people read
nowadays. It is at our lives that people will
look, and on which they will base their con
clusion as to whether Christianity is a fraud and
a sham or not.
But there are two other causes, found often
among men of excellent life, which work against
Christianity.
One is the pride of intellect. People who are
following some great idea democracy, for in
stance (and I have not one word to say against
that) or who have great ideas of freedom, educa
tion, and so on, forget the need of a converted
heart ; they forget that, however exalted they
may be among men, yet in the presence of GOD
they must bow themselves in lowliness and
humility. And therefore we are forced to
reckon pride of intellect as one of the greatest
of the causes which lead people to reject Christ
ianity.
The other cause is the isolation of the intel
lect. People think they can solve the problems
64
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
of religion by the intellect alone. They think
that by that one faculty, the intellectual, they can
solve all the problems of that complex personality
Man.
So I believe there is many a man to-day living
a good and worthy life who yet, by leaning all his
weight on his intellect alone, has starved and
atrophied other powers, instincts, needs and
capacities of his body and soul, which need
satisfaction and never get it.
It is for these reasons, then, shallowness, sin,
the working of the devil, pride of intellect, iso
lation of intellect, the unworthiness of the pro
fessors of Christianity, that Christianity is a
failure.
I believe, with Father Dolling, that it is not
the medicine of Christianity which is wrong. I
doubt, alas ! as he did, whether people are willing
to take the medicine which would save their
souls. It is too frequently pride, sin, and the
one-sidedness of the intellectual position which
prevents people accepting Christianity, which is
not for the intellect alone, but for the whole man,
body, soul, and spirit.
E 65
BJBL MAJ.
COLLEGE
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
And yet, all the same, I do not mean to say
that, because I think the main causes of people s
failure to accept Christianity can be seen, that
there are no difficulties, for there are difficulties,
and real difficulties, and I do not pretend to solve
them all. But then, you know we live by faith,
and not by sight. We do not pretend, nor ought
we to expect, to see the whole of the subject, any
more than the astronomer sees the solution of all
astronomical problems. We are mere mortals.
Religion and GOD are Infinite. We do not see
all that is to be seen. How can the finite grasp
the Infinite?
As Browning says, "A scientific faith s absurd."
There is only one condition on which we could
have no difficulties, and that is if we were GOD.
If I were GOD, I could see the whole of Creation,
with all its explanations mapped out before
me. I should see no sudden stops and starts. I
should see all the corners rounded off. I should
see the whole thing in one huge, complete
circle.
Not being GOD, we must be content, as finite
beings, to know that here we see through a glass
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
darkly, and that there are sure to be difficulties in
religious belief.
Difficulties being, then, granted, the question
is, how do we propose to meet them ?
How do men, as a matter of fact, meet them ?
Now, first of all, there are some people who
have never felt the difficulties of religious belief
at all. There are some simple trustful souls
who have known from their earliest years the
LORD JESUS CHRIST and what He is to them.
They never seem to have had a difficulty or
doubt at all. I have known such. I envy, but
am not of them. I think them blessed, but can
not be the same. I think that Almighty GOD
allows these blessed souls to have no difficulties
just to show us what a beautiful thing the
Christian character can be.
" Leave them thy sister when she prays
Her early Heaven, her happy views :
Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse
A life that leads melodious days."
I think GOD allows others to feel the difficul
ties, in order that they may the better help those
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
who feel the same. So, though I bless and envy
those who have never felt the smallest doubt, I
confess, frankly, that I am not of them.
There are others, again, who feel no doubts,
because they have never entered the arena at all.
They are outside Christianity. They do not
care at all about the Christian life or about
morality. What does the man who spends his
life in drink, in pleasure, or sin, who never looks
beyond to-day, care about these problems? He
has no doubts ; but I do not praise him for it.
If he has no difficulties, it is because he is too
shallow to go deep enough to feel them.
And there are others, again, who have no right
to difficulties; they ought not to have them. Why?
Because they are not acting up to the light they
already possess. If there are any people who
are not trying to lead a moral life as well as they
know how, one can have nothing whatever to
say to them ; no argument can do anything for
them.
There do remain, however, difficulties for
serious people. And how, as a matter, of fact,
are these difficulties met by them ? Mainly in
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
two ways : there is the way of agnosticism, and
there is the way of faith.
What do we mean by agnosticism ? An agnostic
is a person who looks on these problems purely
with the light of the intellect. It is for him a
matter of the intellect alone. It is an intellectual
puzzle. He comes to this question as he does
to a problem in Euclid. He tries to solve it by
the intellect alone, and, of course, he naturally
finds it very hard ; and as a result of his investi
gations, he comes to us and says, " I have in
vestigated this matter, and if you ask me for an
answer, I can give you none. If you say to me,
* Is there a God ? I do not know. There may
be, or there may not be, but I do not know."
That is stating perfectly fairly the position of the
pure agnostic ; though, be on your guard, for
there are very many false agnostics about. The
false agnostic is of two kinds : he either denies
because he does not want to believe (and I shall
not deal with him at all), or else he argues (e.g.,
like Herbert Spencer) that " GOD is unknow
able." This is false agnosticism. If Herbert
Spencer had been a true agnostic, he would have
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
said, " There may be a god or not : I do not
know;" but, as a matter of fact, he says, " GOD
is unknowable," and there he departs from pure
agnosticism, and becomes a false agnostic.
So Herbert Spencer, eminent philosopher
though he be, makes this great mistake : instead
of saying, "There may be a God, but I do not
know," he says, " GOD is unknowable you cannot
know Him." Instead of being a pure agnostic, in
this particular argument he is a false agnostic, and
practically an atheist. We must recognise that
if a person says " GOD cannot be known," and
yet poses as an agnostic, he is describing himself
wrongly.
But what is the great fallacy of agnosticism ?
It is this that it wont do for life. It may do
very well for the study, to argue with, but it will
not do for life.
We have to live our lives. Our veins are filled
with red blood ; we have passions, instincts,
hopes, and all the materials and powers which go
to make up a man and constitute human life.
Agnosticism comes to us, and we ask of it an
explanation, a solution of life. We must have
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WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
it : our life is real, is earnest ; there must be a
solution to it. The agnostic can give us no help.
His only answer to all our questions is, " I don t
know." And there we are, lost, hopeless, with no
answer. We have to go out into the world, with
all our passions, our difficulties, our temptations,
and it is all one hopeless, black enigma so far as
agnosticism is concerned.
Christianity, at all events, is a constructive ex
planation of life. It does give you an answer.
You ask what life is, and it tells you that life is a
pilgrimage here, spent in working out our Father s
Will. That is very different from agnosticism,
which frankly tells you it does not know whether
there is any answer to life or not.
If you ask a reason for your existence, agnosti
cism cannot give it to you. And you know you
cannot prove even your existence. You accept
it, you believe it ; but you cannot prove it. I
think I exist, and so do you ; but you have no
logical proof of it.
If I say to the agnostic, "Are my aspirations
after immortality vain ? " he says, " I do not
know."
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
" May I pray to GOD to help me, for I am in
a sore strait ? " He says, " I do not know."
u May I have desires beyond this world ? " "I
do not know."
" May I go to a sinner and give him help-
tell him that GOD will wash away his sins, and
give him a new life ? " He replies still, " I do not
know."
You will see for yourself that agnosticism is
no answer to the riddle of life ; it is at best only
a halting-place, where people stunned with the
din of the conflict go aside to rest. It is never
a solution.
The facts of life call for an explanation. The
mere fact of being alive forces an explanation.
Therefore you can never rest in agnosticism.
You must go on to affirm ; or else you must deny
and say there is no GOD at all.
You see what a strait we are placed in by
agnosticism. It doesn t help at all, and if life is
real, I must either affirm or deny. Am I to deny
and say there is no GOD ? Am I to say there is
no CHRIST? If I say there is no CHRIST I per
sonally must say there is no GOD, because CHRIST
72
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
explains GOD to me. Without CHRIST I do not
understand the universe at all ; and if I give up
CHRIST and GOD, on what am I to rest ? Am I
to rest on morality ? Well, you can throw doubts
on morality, you know. Some people say it is a
survival of the sense of prudence, that long ago
people learnt the wisest thing to do, and the sur
vival of that has come down to us in the form
of conscience. If you doubt about CHRIST, if
you doubt about GOD, you may also throw doubts
on morality.
What, then, is my life to be ? Doubts about
GOD, doubts about CHRIST, doubts about morality,
doubts about everything !] What satisfactory
answer can agnosticism give to me when I be
lieve that life is real, no delusion, but demanding
a solution because a real life ? Agnosticism gives
no answer to life, and is thereby condemned as
inadequate.
Once more, I do not want you to think, as some
people ignorantly do, that science is mixed up
with agnosticism. A man can be a scientist and
a religious man at the same time. Lord Kelvin
says that the deeper he went into science, the
73
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
nearer he got to religion, and Lord Salisbury,
who was a great chemist, was a man who believed
with his whole heart and soul in the Incarnation.
Science and Religion do not contradict one
another. They deal, indeed, with the same
things up to a certain point, but under different
aspects, and in a different stage.
Science will tell you that a thing is composed of
molecules and atoms, and so forth, but it will not
give you the whole explanation of anything.
For instance, take a sunset. The scientist will
tell you that it is composed of a mass of atoms in
terfused with other atoms of light from the sun,
and so on. But when you have told me that, you
have not told me everything ; you have not told
me the whole explanation of the sunset. Do you
think the poet will have nothing to say to you
on the subject ? He, of course, will tell you of
the spiritual meaning of the sunset. He will tell
you how it flecks the heavens with bars of gold,
flushing the trailing clouds with glory, and
suggesting to him all manner of poetic fancies
and meanings. You must not think that the
scientist gives you the whole explanation of
74
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
everything. He cannot tell you all about the
sunset, or explain to you by pure science the
smile of welcome on a friend s face, or anything
which is spiritual in life. He will tell you of
molecular changes, and all he says is perfectly
right and true ; but what he cannot do is to tell
you the spiritual meaning of material facts.
Therefore, you must not think that Science,
and Religion are in conflict. Science will tell
you of things within her own province : she will
tell you of what materials things are composed,
how they are welded together, but there is room
there must be room in a complete explanation
of things, not for the scientist alone, but for the
religious man, the poet, and the metaphysician.
Science and Religion, then, do not collide
they deal often with the same thing, but under
different aspects, and from different points of
view.
And it must in fairness be remembered that
agnosticism is involved in a difficulty as great or
greater than any Christian difficulty ; for when
Christians are asked to give up the supernatural,
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
they must fall back on the natural in other
words they must simply follow Nature.
Very good ; let us follow Nature. But what
is the principle on which Nature works ? It
seems certainly, on the whole, to be the principle
of evolution, which means the gradual upward
march of the universe and the human race,
from lower forms to the very highest. And this
upward progress is achieved by the elimination
or cutting out of the unfit, and the survival and
further development of the fit. Any species
which cannot survive must be cut out. And so
evolution goes on its glorious upward march by
eliminating all that is unfit. Therefore, for the
moment, let us be agnostics, and follow Nature.
How does it work out in life ? Do we follow
Nature ? Do we eliminate the unfit ? If so,
then we must go out into the world and gather
together all the weakly and sickly people, and
shoot them down one by one. We must do it if
we are to follow Nature, because Nature always
eliminates the unfit. Therefore, instead of, e.g.,
subscribing to hospitals, we must shut them up.
This is a difficulty which has never been got over.
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
Huxley, in his Romanes lecture, fully acknow
ledges the difficulty, and gives, of course, no
explanation. Still, that is what you must do if
you follow Nature Nature, who works by
making the weakest go to the wall :
"For the fittest will always survive,
And the weakliest go to the wall."
But there is in the heart of man a love for others,
an altruistic principle, which shows itself in the
care for the unfit, the helping of the weak, quite in
opposition to the eliminative process of evolution.
The agnostic must get out of that difficulty of
his own before he comes to us and asks us to give
up our position because of difficulties.
Therefore, I submit that agnosticism will not
do for life, because it gives no explanation at all
for this throbbing life of ours, which demands a
solution, a meaning for life, and will not admit
life to be a delusion. What is the alternative,
then, to agnosticism ? Faith.
We make the leap of faith for faith is a leap
but we do it not without cause. We have found
for a belief in GOD arguments which will hold^
77
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
water ; we have found belief in CHRIST made
reasonable by prophecies, by His claims, by the
Resurrection. Therefore, with these reasonable
bases, we make our great venture, the venture of
faith, and having made the leap, we find reason
waiting for us on the other side. But it is at this
point that many people are frightened, for the
idea of a " leap " suggests to them the abandon
ment of rationality, and an excursion into the
region of credulity and superstition.
It is, indeed, a strange idea that it is religion
only that makes " leaps," while science advances
majestically from verified first principles to results,
taking nothing for granted. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Scientific knowledge equally
with religion has its " leaps." Science starts out
to investigate and interpret Nature, and finds
itself compelled at once to make two great
assumptions first, the reliability and capability
of its own reason and powers to interpret Nature,
and, secondly, the rationality of Nature itself.
How do we know that our reason is capable of
rightly investigating Nature ? We may be as
incapable of understanding the world around us
78
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
as idiots or drunken men. It is simply on faith
in her own right and power to interpret that
Science starts on her investigations and re
searches.
And how, again, do we know that Nature itself
is interpretable ? We see such various and con
tradictory forces at work in Nature that it is
assuming a very great deal to assert that there is
orderliness and coherence underlying such multi
form and varying phenomena. Yet scientific men
make another "leap" in the dark, and take for
granted that Nature is capable of a solution, and
they vindicate their leap by the coherence and
rationality of the results obtained. So science
and religion each make their leaps. One cannot,
boast any more than the other of a progressive
knowledge of reality without any " ventures of
faith," for science assumes the validity of its own
powers of interpreting Nature, and assumes,
further, Nature s coherence and interpretability,
while religion assumes the validity of its religious
instincts, and the interpretability and coherence
of religious truth. Each makes two leaps, and
each justifies its leaps by results, called, in the
79
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
one case, verified scientific knowledge, and in the
other verified religious experience.
So, then, in Christianity as in science, there
will, of course, be " leaps" and difficulties, but
from our position as Christians we maintain that
there is even now a partial explanation of many
of these difficulties, while hereafter there will be
in the full sense for us then as to GOD now a
solution of them all.
Let us take one or two instances.
People take the doctrine of free-will, and find
a difficulty in that. How can there be, they say,
such a thing as free-will ? There is a paper
published now which says there is no such thing,
and that we cannot be blamed for sinning against
GOD, because GOD has so made us that we cannot
help sinning. That paper, the Clarion, is
published to tell men that they must not sin
against their fellow-men, but recognise their
rights.
Now, if a man has not got free-will, and cannot
help sinning against GOD, then neither can he help
sinning against his fellow-men ; and if so, what on
earth is the use of publishing a paper to tell him
80
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
not to do that which, from the nature of the
case, he can t help doing? Of course the
solution of the free-will question is to be found in
practical life.
Do we not know that we are free ? Have we
any delusions about it whatever? If I go to a
shop and steal something, and then say to the
magistrate, " I really could not help it ; I didn t
want to steal, but I had no choice," what do you
think he would say to me ? He would certainly
say that he too was not free, and therefore,
unfortunately, had no choice but to send me to
prison for six months. We know we are free to
act or not to act. We exercise the power every
day of our lives, and if I sin, and then say to you,
that I could not help it, you will call me, and
rightly, a hypocrite and a deceiver ; and similarly,
if you go and commit adultery or any other
grievous sin, and come and tell me you could not
help it, and had no choice in the matter, well, I
should say the same thing to you. You might
make out a very good case from the point of view
of the intellect, but it would not do for an instant
in everyday life.
F 81
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
Or, again, men say Christianity is so uncertain.
If there is a God, why does He not show Himself
more plainly ? The Christian will give you his
solution. He will say, "This world is evidently
a strange place if pleasure is the end of life, for
the more we pursue pleasure the less we get it.
But I see that the world is fitted above all things
for the production of character. It is the very
fact of difficulties in the world, the very want of
clear and complete evidence of Christianity, which
produce in men that most wonderful thing, the
true Christian character. The very difficulties
challenge and demand and produce trust and
faith ; they give birth to firmness of will among
all the temptations of life, and therefore, this
very uncertainty which makes a demand on faith
is really that which supplies the environment
admirably fitted to produce the Christian
character."
Others will say that there is so much injustice
in the world. What about the rich man, they
say, who has been a villain and flourishes, while
the poor man lives honestly, struggles on, and dies?
Why does GOD, if there be a God, allow this ?
82
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
Well, the Christian won t be altogether con
founded by that. He will say, " I believe in an
eternal life, and that is quite long enough to put
straight all injustices, however great they seem,
of a petty fifty or sixty years." Dives, you
remember, in his lifetime was clothed in purple
and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day.
Lazarus was glad enough to get the crumbs from
his table. But afterwards, the position is reversed ;
Lazarus was carried by the angels into Abraham s
bosom, and Dives now would fain have had him
come and with the tip of his finger cool his
burning tongue.
Or, again, there is another objection. Some will
urge the absurdity of the idea of the Creator
coming down to earth. How could the Creator
of this illimitable universe have comedown to this
insignificant speck, this earth, and live here as
Man?
The Christian sees a way out of that too.
He knows something of the love of GOD, and if
GOD loves us, is any sacrifice too great for His
almighty love ? Any who love must know that
the more you love, the greater will be the self-
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
sacrifice you are prepared to make. Therefore,
is it incredible that the Creator, Who bore such
marvellous and tender love to sinners, should
have come down even to this small world of ours
to help and redeem us ?
Perhaps we are the only fallen race. Other
worlds may be inhabited or not ; they may be
peopled by an unfallen race of human beings
we cannot tell. We do know that we were
lost in sin. Is it too absurd to imagine that
almighty and perfect Love should humble Himself
and come down here and live and die simply
because He so loved us ? Surely not.
I think, now, you will see that, leap though it
be, faith is not contrary to reason.
There are difficulties either way. There are
difficulties if you deny, and also if you affirm.
But we, at least, have this on our side, and have
a right to testify to it " If any man will do His
will, he shall know of the doctrine."
Those men who have tried to live the Christian
life have found, and gladly testify that they have
found, the solution to the difficulty. They have
made the leap on the side of faith, and have
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
found that the answer to all their difficulties is
to be found in the Christian life ; so what wonder
it is that they try to hand on to others the remedy
they have found so efficacious for themselves ?
Have you ever known the agony of doubt, the
agony of trying to live without GOD ? Some
remember well what they have felt in the past,
when they tried to solve all these difficulties
from the point of the intellect only. They
remember how all life seemed utterly dislocated.
There seemed absolutely nothing to live for ;
there was nothing but blank, hopeless despair.
There was no hope of a future life, no pardon
for sin, no GOD whose love encircled them in
the daily round and gave them strength for the
battle of life. They could never go to a sinner
and say, "Rise up; there is pardon." They could
never say to the fallen man or woman that there
was any hope to get back to GOD, to purity and
holiness. If any fallen and degraded souls had
come to them and said, " Is there hope for me ?"
they could give them no answer at all.
What power does a life without GOD give us
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
to help others? What comfort without Him can
we bring to broken hearts ?
You will find, as believers have ever found,
that the solution is to be found in the Christian
life.
To those who still tremble on the brink I
would say that they certainly will have a leap ;
but, having leapt, we believe they will find what
they are seeking.
But for professing Christians the responsibility
is tremendous. Those who say that the test of
the Christian faith is ultimately found in the
Christian life must see to it that their own lives
will bear investigation. We who say we believe
in GOD, does our life bear witness to our faith ?
Can men tell by our lives, by our work, by our
conversation, that we are Christian men ? Are
we ourselves looking for the resurrection from the
dead and life everlasting, or are we anticipating a
resurrection into damnation ? If our Christian
life is to be a test of the truth of our Faith, we
must live daily looking for the Resurrection, we
must live waiting and hoping for the day when
JESUS CHRIST shall come.
WHY CHRISTIANITY IS REASONABLE
Let us see to it that our lives will bear the
inspection of our Risen LORD when he comes
at the Judgment Day. It is no good saying that
our lives are to be the witness of our faith unless
those lives in every detail are showing forth
JESUS CHRIST.
We must make our lives a real witness to our
faith, and must show in all our actions the Christ
ian spirit, which alone will justify our faith before
GOD and our fellow-men.
APPENDIX
SUMMARY OF THE PARALLEL BETWEEN THE
METHOD OF SCIENCE AND THE METHOD
OF FAITH
Science assumes the validity of its own subjective
capacity to interpret Nature ; it next assumes the
interpretability, reality, and rationality of Nature ;
and having made these two leaps, it finds its
justification in the results i.e., coherent scientific
knowledge.
Faith assumes the validity of its own subjective
instincts of belief in GOD ; it next assumes the
reality and interpretability of GOD and GOD S
revelation ; and having made these two leaps, it
finds its justification in the verified experiences of
the religious consciousness i.e., religion.
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