THE RELATION BETWEEN THE SPIRITUAL AND HISTORICAL SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY.*
IF this striking little book were more distinctly divided into parts, and furnished with a less clumsy title, and if the author, instead of talking about " historicity" and " Christianism," would use the ordinary phraseology, "historic truth" and " Christianity," this thoroughly simple and unaffected essay would have, as it deserves to have, a very large number of deeply interested readers. It wants what it has not got, a table of contents, indicating under clear heads the course of the author's thought, and it would be all the better for leaving out the two or three oddities of expression which interfere with the perfect naturalness and real beauty of the general style. It would also have been very much improved by a little explicit attention to the chief critical objections brought against the Gospel narratives, which the author virtually ignores, so deeply engrossed is he in his own special view of the true mode of getting access to the significance and genuineness of the Gospel message. We heartily agree with him on the value of that method. But it would have been all the better for his essay if he had discussed briefly a few of the critical difficulties which have been pointed out in the Gospel narratives, and had shown how little those difficulties are worth when confronted with his own statement of the Christian's case for his belief.
Our author's main contention is, that what the men of science mean by either demonstrative or inductive proof of a proposition, is not the sort of proof which, even if you could get it, would be of any real value for bringing home the truth of a religion. Either demonstrative or inductive evidence may land us in moral certainty, but not in the sort of certainty to influence onr lives half as much as strong presumptive evidence which appeals to the emotions and the affections. Perhaps he a little overstates his case on this point. He says, justly enough, that no mathematical evidence, however final, takes possession of our heart so as to transform our actions. No, because it is not of a nature to do so. However certain I may be that the square on the side opposite the right angle in a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two aides, that certainty only intrudes itself into the conduct of practical life so far as I am compelled to meddle in mensuration, and, as a rule, very little of one's life is closely concerned with mensuration. But could any reasonable and practical man be so foolish as to do any- thing in relation to mensuration which was inconsistent with that truth ? We think not. And therefore the sceptic might justly say that if an equally scientific proof of Christianity could be obtained, no reasonable and practical man would be likely intentionally to do anything that assumed Christianity to be false. But the question is not what might be the effect of a complete demonstrative or adequate inductive proof if we could get it, since, as a matter of fact, as happens in relation to everything which most deeply influences the affections and the will, we do not and cannot get proof of that particular kind. We might as well expect to get demonstrative or final inductive proof of the goodness of one's father and mother, or of the virtuousness of patriotism, or of the trustworthi- ness of one's own memory, as expect to get that kind of
• But How—if the Gospels ore Historic An Apology for Believing in Christiauism. By the Author of "If the Gospel Narrative is Mythical—What Then?" Edinburgh : David Douglas. 1891.
proof of the divine origin of a religion. Causes and effects in matters of this kind, are far too complex and too inex-
tricably blended with all sorts of disturbing influences, to render it in any degree rational to ask for modes of proof
which exist only in the case of a very simple and detachable class of phenomena.
Our author is happier, we think, in the admirable passage in which he shows how what is called " the uniformity of Nature," is the exception and not the rule in Nature,—in other words, that the great variety of causes and influences which enter into the actual operation of creative agencies, is so vast and complex, that in actual life we never find true uniformity at all, even in two leaves on the same tree ; so that when we come to find fault with Christianity because it involves events without parallel elsewhere in the world, we really find fault in principle with Nature also for its extraordinary variety, and ap- parent inability even to conform the same structures exactly to any single standard. What we have to ask ourselves, according
to our author, is not whether the events connected with onr Lord's life are or are not in wide divergence from the ordinary human order, but whether they are or are not more divergent from it than our Lord's nature, character, and teaching were- from the ordinary human order ; and if not, then whether the kind or degree of divergence in the events was or was not in strict keeping with the kind or degree of the divergence of his nature, character, and teaching from the nature,. character, and teaching of his fellow-men. Indeed, this is precisely what this striking little book has been written to maintain,—namely, that accepting our Lord's nature, character, and teaching as manifested in what we may term the non-miraculous portions of his life, the so-called miraculous
events were merely such as would most fitly frame, express, and engrave upon the hearts of men, the singular majesty, the unique authority, and the infinite pity and tenderness of his moral teaching. Thus, our author says with great truth and vividness :—
" The conclusion to which we are brought is, that whether the manifestation of Christ in the Gospel be a reality or a chimera, this at least is certain, that the conception which it embodies is the grandest and most beautiful that genius ever framed. Its idea is to present sympathy, love, and goodness in their absolutely perfect form before us, and through the love-begetting power of love to transform the human soul. And the execution is equal to the conception—as is proved by its having actually produced upon mankind the vast effects it was intended to produce. For by it millions of human souls have been rescued from the power of sin and converted to goodness, have given up life and all earthly things for the sake of the true and right, and the doubts, in- ward divisions and distractions, and deep sadness of humanity have been cleared away and harmonised into light and peace and joy. And all who study the Gospel aright experience these effects upon their souls. One of two things then must follow :—The Gospel story is either the veritable record of a real manifestation of God, or else it is the most wondrous work of human art that the- imagination of man ever produced. If the former, the results which follow are fully and satisfactorily explained ; we have a, real and adequate cause assigned for all the effects which appear. But if the latter, then these most astonishing effects have resulted without sufficient or intelligible cause. The more, therefore, that you throw doubt upon the historic truth of the Gospels, the more you exalt the wonderful and perfectly unexampled character of the imaginative and artistic power of their human authors. For in that case the weary and heavy-laden have found rest, and there has been nothing to rest on; sorrow has been comforted, and there has been no Comforter; faith has grown ever stronger and stronger, and all the while it had no reality to trust in ; weakness has been sustained, and there has been no power to sustain it ; doubts have been cleared away, vanishing into nothing, like the shadows of night at sunrise, and yet there has been no illuminating spirit and the soul has been delivered from sin, and yet there has been no Deliverer. The whole nature has been renewed, and there has. been no intelligible force to produce the mysterious change."
In short, his general argument, enforced with great beauty and delicacy, comes to this, that Christ's character and teaching, his life and death, his attitude when he spoke " with authority and not as the scribes," his bearing on the cross when his whole concern was for those who were not suffering as he was, but were leagued with the persecutors who inflicted his sufferings, were far too unique and original
to have been imagined by any biographers of the kind which our Gospels indicate ; and yet that, at the very centre of his teaching, and as the very characteristic of his attitude towards all whom he taught, was the inculcation of spiritual trust, illimitable spiritual trust, in himself. His teaching was not trustworthy, would not even have been plausible, if he had not been able to accompany it by such acts of power as the " signs,"—our author rightly objects to call them, what the Gospels never call them, "miracles,"—which he gave of the divine authority which he wielded :-
" If Christ's teaching is such as it is represented to have been, and if that teaching is good and wise and valuable as it is allowed to be, the conclusion can hardly, so far as I see, be avoided that He must have wrought the miracles which are attributed to Him. For, unless it be so, His teaching was not great or wise or true, but a delusion and a snare, a deception and an absurdity ; and He Himself was not wise or pure or holy, but at the best an enthusiast or an impostor. Because—what was that teaching P Its very central point was trust in Himself—trust, I mean, not in His word or teaching, but trust in Him as a Deliverer, a Saviour from sin, a Helper of the spirit in its deepest needs, a Consoler and Comforter in its deepest distresses. Now, plainly, it was absolute insanity to proffer such services as these, -unless He who did so not only possessed, but had shown that he possessed, power over all nature. If He did not work the miracles recorded of Him, trust in Him was impossible. It was vain to demand it,—it would have been utter vanity and folly to concede it. Nay, what meaning was it possible to attach to such a claim for faith and trust from those who would live the higher life ? What sense or fitness in His invitations to the weary and heavy-laden to come to Him for rest—to live in Him ? What conceivable validity in His promises that He and His Father would come and take up their abode with us in a special way—would be in us to help us in all our difficulties, to comfort us in all our sorrows and adversities, to strengthen us against all temptations, to support us in all our efforts to serve Him—to be, in short, our Life, our Power, our Hope, our Confidence, our Everything ? Unless He had by miraele,—by the giving of life, of health, of growth, and otherwise, manifested His power to control all Nature, such demands, such promises, could take no effect on any rational soul. They were mere empty pretension, impudent boasting. If He did not possess the miraculous power attributed to Him, and did not by miracle show that He possessed such power, the inference was inevitable that His nature was no higher than that of other men. He was liable as they to sin, liable to err from the truth. He had no sure light to set forth—no real strength to impart. To trust in Him was only to lean upon a broken reed that would pierce the hand that grasped it."
Nothing could be better put, and the author illustrates in detail all that he gives in these general terms. What we miss is some comment on the character of the criticism brought against the authenticity of the Gospels in direct relation to our author's own view. How does it bear upon that view, that in one Gospel there are two demoniacs where in another there is but one P—that in one Gospel there are two blind men where in another there is but one ?—that the proem of Matthew's Gospel differs so much from the proem of Luke's, that it is at least most difficult, even if it is possible, to reconcile them?— and that the different accounts of the Resurrection diverge so 'widely? We believe that if our author had boldly compared his own view of the Gospel with difficulties of this kind, and had asked how such divergences can affect the certainty that here was a spiritual career so far above human nature that the main external features of it must necessarily have been,—as all the accounts agree,—equally above human nature, were it only in order that our Lord's exhortations to trust in him might not be visibly falsified by his impotence to justify such trust, this essay would have produced a much greater effect than it could by ignoring, as it has done, the actual criticisms by which Professor Huxley and others have tried to explode the supernatural character of the Gospel narrative.
But when we have so much that is valuable expressed with so much force and beauty, we must not lay too much stress on deficiencies which, as it seems to us, our author might very easily and successfully have supplied.
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