The Eclipse of Faith Part 29

The other was also not unwilling to admit the miraculous and inspired character of the revelation, but contended, further, that the "religious element" was to be submitted to human judgment as well as the rest; and that, if apparently absurd, contradictory, or pernicious, as judged by that infallible and ultimate standard, it was to be rejected.

It was amusing to think that, in this little company of three devout believers in the "internal oracle," no two thought alike! After the two youths had frankly stated their opinions, Harrington quietly said, "I should much like to ask each of you a few questions. There are certain difficulties connected with each hypothesis just stated, on which I should be glad to receive some light. I frankly confess beforehand, however, that I fear that that curiously constructed book, which gives us all so much trouble,--which will not allow me to say positively either that it is true or false,--will still less permit you to reject a part or parts at your pleasure. It is, I must admit, a most independent book in that respect, and treats your spiritual illumination most cavalierly. It says to you, "Receive me altogether, or reject me altogether, just as you please"; and when men have rejected it altogether, it leaves them certain literary and historical, and moral problems, in all fairness demanding solution, which I doubt whether it is in our power to solve, or to give any decent account of."

"What do you mean," said the younger of the two youths, "by affirming that we are compelled to receive the whole book, or to reject it all?"

"Let us see," said Harrington, "whether there is any consistent stopping-place between. It appears to me, that, whether by the most singular series of 'coincidences,' or by immense subtlety of design, this book, evidently composed by different hands, has yet its materials so interwoven, and its parts so reciprocally dependent, that it is impossible to separate them,--to set some aside, and say, 'We will accept these, and reject those': just as, in certain textures, no sooner do we begin to take out a particular thread, than we find it is inextricably entangled with others, and those again with others; so that there immediately takes place a prodigious 'gathering' at that point, and if we persevere, a rent; but the obstinate part at which we tug will not come away alone. Whether it is so or not, we shall soon see, by examining the results of the application of your theories.

I will begin with you," (addressing the younger,) "because you believe least; you say, I think, that you admit the records of the New Testament contain a real revelation,--a religious element,--and that it has been authenticated to you by miracles and other evidence; but that the human mind is still the judge of how much of that revelation is to be received, 'and sit in judgment' on the 'religious element as well as the rest.'"

The other a.s.sented.

"You admit, probably, the doctrine of the soul's immortality as a part of that revelation,--perhaps even the doctrine of a resurrection?"

"I do,--both these doctrines."

"But perhaps you reject the idea of an 'atonement,' though you admit it to be in the Book?"

"Yes. At the same time it is contended by many (as you are aware) that such a doctrine is not there."

"I am aware of it, of course; but with them we have no controversy here.

They are consistent, so far as the present argument goes; as consistent as the orthodox themselves. They do not allege a liberty of rejecting what they admit the book does contain, but only deny that it does contain some things which they reject. They would admit that, if those doctrines be there, then either they must concede them because authenticated by the miracles and other evidence, which proves what else they concede, or they must reject the said evidence altogether, because it authenticated what they found it impossible to concede. The controversy between them and the orthodox is one of interpretation, and is quite different from that in which we are now engaged."

"I must admit it."

"They may go, then?" said Harrington.

"They may."

"You admit, then, the miraculous authentication of such an event as the resurrection of man, but deny the doctrine of the atonement, though equally found in the said records?"

"I do."

"May I ask why?"

"Because the one doctrine does not seem to me to contradict my 'spiritual consciousness,' and the other does."

"You receive the one, I suppose you will say, on account of the miracles, and so on; since, while not contradicting your impressions of spiritual truth, it could not be authenticated without external evidence?"

"Exactly so."

"But is not the other doctrine as much authenticated by the miracles and so forth? or have you any thing to show that, while all those pa.s.sages which relate to the former are true a.s.sertions, as well as truly the a.s.sertions of those who published the revelation, those which relate to the latter are not?"

"I acknowledge I have not," replied the youth.

"Or supposing they are not their sayings at all, have you any evidence by which you can show that they are not, so as to separate them from those that are?"

"I must admit that I have no criterion of this kind."

"For aught you know, then, since you know nothing of Christianity except from those doc.u.ments in which the miracles and the doctrines are alike consigned to you, the said miracles, together with the other evidence, do equally establish the truths which you say are a part of divine revelation, and the errors which you say your 'spiritual faculty,' 'moral intuitions,' or what you will, tells you that you are to reject. You believe, then, in the force of evidence, which equally establishes truth and falsehood?"

"You can hardly expect me to admit that."

"But I expect you to answer a plain question?"

"Why," said the youth, with a little flippancy, but with a good-humored laugh too, "the proverb says 'Even a fool may ask questions which a wise man cannot answer.'"

"I acknowledge myself to be a fool" said Harrington, with a half serious, half comic air; "and you shall be the wise man who does not --for I will not say cannot--answer the fool's question."

"I beg your pardon," said the other. "I acknowledge that it was an uncourteous expression."

"Enough said," replied Harrington; "and now, since you are not pleased to answer my question, I will answer it myself; and I say, it is plain that the evidence to which you refer does affirm equally the truths you declare thus revealed to you, and the errors you declare you must reject. Now either the evidence is not sufficient to prove the one, or it is sufficient to prove both. So far, then, I think we may say, and say justly, that the supposed revelation is so constructed that you cannot accept a part and reject a part, on such a theory. But to make the case a little plainer still, if possible. There have been men, you know, who have taken precisely opposite views of the two doctrines you have mentioned; who have declared that the doctrine, not of man's immortality, but of the resurrection, so far from being conceivable, is, in their judgment, a physical contradiction; but who have also declared that the doctrine of atonement, in some shape, is instinctively taught by human nature, and has consequently formed a part of almost every religion; that it is in a.n.a.logy with many singular facts of this world's const.i.tution, and is not absolutely contradicted by any principle of our nature, intellectual or moral. Such a man, therefore, might take the very opposite of the course you have taken. He would proceed upon your common basis of a miraculously confirmed revelation, grossly infested with errors and falsehoods; he might say that he believed the authentication of the doctrine of 'atonement' in virtue of the evidence, because, though transcendental to his reason, it was not repugnant to it; but that he rejected the doctrine of the 'resurrection,' though equally established by the evidence, because contrary to the plainest conclusions of his reason."

"I cannot in candor deny," said the other, "the possibility of such a case."

"And in such a case, we might say, he does the very opposite of what you do."

"Neither can I help admitting that."

"The miracles, then, and other evidence, not only play the part of equally supporting truth and falsehood, but, what is still more wonderful, convert the same things, in different men, into truth and falsehood alternately. Miracles they must verily be if they can do that! A wonderful revelation it certainly is, which thus accommodates itself to the varying conditions of the human intellect and conscience, and demonstrates just so much as each of you is pleased to accept, and no more. No doubt the whole 'corpus dogmatum,' so supported, will, by the entire body of such believers, be eaten up; just as was the Mahometan hog, so humorously referred to by Cowper; but even that had not all its 'forbidden parts' miraculously shown to be 'unforbidden' to different minds! I do not wonder that such a revelation should need miracles; that any should be sufficient, is the greatest wonder of all; if indeed we except two;--the first, that Supreme Wisdom should have constructed such a curious revelation, in which he has revealed alternately, to different people, truth and falsehood, and has established each on the very same evidence; and the second (almost as great), that any rational creature should be got to receive such a revelation on such evidence as equally applies to which he says it does not prove, and to points which he says it does; these points, however, being, it appears, totally different in different men! But I will now go to your friend, who has got a point further in his belief, and graciously accepts all the 'religious elements' in this revelation."

"Excuse me," said the last; "before you go to him, permit me to mention a difficulty which occurred to me while we were speaking."

"By all means; but I do not promise to solve it. Perhaps I on this occasion shall prove the 'wise man,' though I am sure you will not be the fool."

"You recollect," said the other, blushing, "our dismissing those who, while contending, like myself, that such and such doctrines are to be rejected, differ from me in this, that they contend that the said doctrines are not contained in the records of the supposed revelation at all; while others contend that they are. Now, if, while the two parties admit the general evidence which is to substantiate all that is in the records, they arrive by different interpretation at such very different results as to the supposed truth which it supports, are they in any better condition than I? There is the same difference, though arrived at in different ways; and the revelation still remains indeterminate."

"Your objection is ingenious," replied Harrington. "First, however, it is rather hard to ask me to solve a difficulty with which I am in no way concerned, who profess to be altogether sceptical on the subject.

Secondly, it certainly does not at all mend your case to prove that there are other men who possibly are as inconsistent as yourself. It makes your theory neither better nor worse. But, thirdly, if I were a Christian, I should not hesitate to contend that there was an obvious and vital difference in the two cases."

"Indeed! If you can show that."

"I should attempt it, at all events I should say that in the latter case the evidence to which the appeal was made did not equally serve to establish truth and falsehood, or, what is still worse, alternately to make falsehood truth, and truth falsehood, to different minds; that it was designed to establish all that was really in the records, though what that all was might give rise to different views, from the prejudices and the ignorance, the different degrees of intelligence and candor, on part of those who interpreted the records; that they made the falsehoods, and not the records or the evidence. I should, therefore, have no difficulty in relation to what, on your theory, is so incomprehensible; namely, that G.o.d should have given man so peculiarly constructed a revelation. That men should differ or err in its interpretation is not, I presume, very wonderful, because man, they say, is a creature of prejudice and pa.s.sion as well as reason."

"But G.o.d would still have given the revelation, and yet it is capable, it appears, of being variously interpreted!" said the other.

"Very true, and it is very plain to me that, supposing him to have given any, he could have given no other, unless his omnipotence had been immediately exerted separately upon each individual of the human race, and then in such a way as to supersede all the moral discipline which Christians affirm is involved in its reception.

Supposing this discipline (as those who believe in a revelation contend) to be an essential condition, I cannot conceive G.o.d himself to give a doc.u.ment which man's ingenuity cannot easily misinterpret.

You see man plays the same trick equally well with that faculty of 'spiritual insight,' which some say is the sole source of religious truth, and which you say is the sole arbiter of an external revelation!

We cannot find two of you who think alike, or who will give us the same transcript of religious truth. Similarly, we see the same ingenuity manifested by man whenever it is his interest to find in a doc.u.ment a different meaning from that which it apparently carries on its face. Does not the endless controversy, the perpetual litigation of men, respecting the meaning of seemingly the plainest doc.u.ments, a.s.sure us that, if a revelation were really given, the like would be possible with that? It is doubtful with me, therefore, whether G.o.d himself could give a revelation, such that men could not misrepresent and pervert it; that is, as long as they were rational creatures," he continued bitterly. "But the mischief of your theory is, that it charges the inevitable result of man's perverseness or ignorance on G.o.d, and the revelation he has been supposed to construct, and that is to me an absurdity."

"I do not see that these answers are satisfactory," said the other.

"I must leave you to judge of that," said Harrington, "or to contest it with my uncle here. I am keeping my next friend waiting, who, I can see, is impatient to run a course in favor of his view of revelation.

He tells us, too, that a divine revelation, as conveyed in the New Testament, is to be admitted, but he cannot away with the notion that its certainty extends to any thing more than to what he calls the 'religious element.' Is not that your notion?"

"It is."

"You think, for example, that it is possible that the Apostles and writers of the New Testament (in fact, whoever had the charge of recording and transmitting to posterity the doctrines of this revelation) were left liable, just as any other men, to all sorts of errors, geographical, chronological, logical, historical, political, moral--"