The Note-Books of Samuel Butler Part 60

G.o.d and Life

We regard these as two distinct things and say that the first made the second, much as, till lately, we regarded memory and heredity as two distinct things having less connection than even that supposed to exist between G.o.d and life. Now, however, that we know heredity to be only a necessary outcome, development and manifestation of memory- -so that, given such a faculty as memory, the faculty of heredity follows as being inherent therein and bound to issue from it--in like manner presently, instead of seeing life as a thing created by G.o.d, we shall see G.o.d and life as one thing, there being no life without G.o.d nor G.o.d without life, where there is life there is G.o.d and where there is G.o.d there is life.

They say that G.o.d is love, but life and love are co-extensive; for hate is but a mode of love, as life and death lurk always in one another; and "G.o.d is life" is not far off saying "G.o.d is love."

Again, they say, "Where there is life there is hope," but hope is of the essence of G.o.d, for it is faith and hope that have underlain all evolution.

G.o.d and Flesh

The course of true G.o.d never did run smooth. G.o.d to be of any use must be made manifest, and he can only be made manifest in and through flesh. And flesh to be of any use (except for eating) must be alive, and it can only be alive by being inspired of G.o.d. The trouble lies in the getting the flesh and the G.o.d together in the right proportions. There is lots of G.o.d and lots of flesh, but the flesh has always got too much G.o.d or too little, and the G.o.d has always too little flesh or too much.

G.o.ds and Prophets

It is the manner of G.o.ds and prophets to begin: "Thou shalt have none other G.o.d or Prophet but me." If I were to start as a G.o.d or a prophet, I think I should take the line:

"Thou shalt not believe in me. Thou shalt not have me for a G.o.d.

Thou shalt worship any d.a.m.ned thing thou likest except me." This should be my first and great commandment, and my second should be like unto it. {333}

Faith and Reason

The instinct towards brushing faith aside and being strictly reasonable is strong and natural; so also is the instinct towards brushing logic and consistency on one side if they become troublesome, in other words--so is the instinct towards basing action on a faith which is beyond reason. It is because both instincts are so natural that so many accept and so many reject Catholicism. The two go along for some time as very good friends and then fight; sometimes one beats and sometimes the other, but they always make it up again and jog along as before, for they have a great respect for one another.

G.o.d and the Devil

G.o.d's merits are so transcendent that it is not surprising his faults should be in reasonable proportion. The faults are, indeed, on such a scale that, when looked at without relation to the merits with which they are interwoven, they become so appalling that people shrink from ascribing them to the Deity and have invented the Devil, without seeing that there would be more excuse for G.o.d's killing the Devil, and so getting rid of evil, than there can be for his failing to be everything that he would like to be.

For G.o.d is not so white as he is painted, and he gets on better with the Devil than people think. The Devil is too useful for him to wish him ill and, in like manner, half the Devil's trade would be at an end should any great mishap bring G.o.d well down in the world. For all the mouths they make at one another they play into each other's hands and have got on so well as partners, playing Spenlow and Jorkins to one another, for so many years that there seems no reason why they should cease to do so. The conception of them as the one absolutely void of evil and the other of good is a vulgar notion taken from science whose priests have ever sought to get every idea and every substance pure of all alloy.

G.o.d and the Devil are about as four to three. There is enough preponderance of G.o.d to make it far safer to be on his side than on the Devil's, but the excess is not so great as his professional claqueurs pretend it is. It is like gambling at Monte Carlo; if you play long enough you are sure to lose, but now and again you may win a great deal of excellent money if you will only cease playing the moment you have won it.

Christianity

i

As an instrument of warfare against vice, or as a tool for making virtue, Christianity is a mere flint implement.

ii

Christianity is a woman's religion, invented by women and womanish men for themselves. The Church's one foundation is not Christ, as is commonly said, it is woman; and calling the Madonna the Queen of Heaven is only a poetical way of acknowledging that women are the main support of the priests.

iii

It is not the church in a village that is the source of the mischief, but the rectory. I would not touch a church from one end of England to the other.

iv

Christianity is only seriously pretended by some among the idle, bourgeois middle-cla.s.ses. The working cla.s.ses and the most cultured intelligence of the time reach by short cuts what the highways of our schools and universities mislead us from by many a winding bout, if they do not prevent our ever reaching it.

v

It is not easy to say which is the more obvious, the antecedent improbability of the Christian scheme and miracles, or the breakdown of the evidences on which these are supposed to rest. And yet Christianity has overrun the world.

vi

If there is any moral in Christianity, if there is anything to be learned from it, if the whole story is not profitless from first to last, it comes to this that a man should back his own opinion against the world's--and this is a very risky and immoral thing to do, but the Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy.

vii

Christianity is true in so far as it has fostered beauty and false in so far as it has fostered ugliness. It is therefore not a little true and not a little false.

viii

Christ said he came not to destroy but to fulfil--but he destroyed more than he fulfilled. Every system that is to live must both destroy and fulfil.

Miracles

They do more to unsettle faith in the existing order than to settle it in any other; similarly, missionaries are more valuable as underminers of old faiths than as propagators of new. Miracles are not impossible; nothing is impossible till we have got an incontrovertible first premise. The question is not "Are the Christian miracles possible?" but "Are they convenient? Do they fit comfortably with our other ideas?"

Wants and Creeds

As in the organic world there is no organ, so in the world of thought there is no thought, which may not be called into existence by long persistent effort. If a man wants either to believe or disbelieve the Christian miracles he can do so if he tries hard enough; but if he does not care whether he believes or disbelieves and simply wants to find out which side has the best of it, this he will find a more difficult matter. Nevertheless he will probably be able to do this too if he tries.

Faith

i

The reason why the early Christians held faith in such account was because they felt it to be a feat of such superhuman difficulty.

ii

You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.