The Eliminator Part 21

We have shown that the Gospels are highly dramatic; that the Christ is largely ideal; that many other persons before the Christian era claimed all that was claimed for Jesus; and that he, his conduct, and alleged sayings (he wrote nothing) are widely open to criticism.

We have shown that the distinguis.h.i.+ng feature of the New Testament-blood-salvation-is not a special revelation, but that it has been borrowed and modified and adapted from savages and from the most ignorant and superst.i.tious tribes; and that what is called the "redemptive scheme" is full of absurdities and contradictions, and that it is philosophically and naturally demoralizing in its tendency and influence if its logical consequences are accepted.

We now come to the practical question, _What have we left?_ Is there anything in religion worth preserving? Indeed, is there anything condemned in this book that is essential to the purest religion and the highest morality? After doubting and throwing discredit on so much, have we anything left worth preserving? Having cast so much of the cargo overboard to lighten the s.h.i.+p, is the vessel worth saving? Having cast away the accretions and superst.i.tions of religion, we are only now just prepared to defend its essential and sublime principles. Let us see what remains.

I. _Our Faith in G.o.d remains._-Not a G.o.d. The pa.s.sage in the New Testament (John 4: 24) admits that "a" is an interpolation.

There is no personality in G.o.d in a sense which implies limitation. G.o.d is spirit, and so spirit is G.o.d. Even Professor Haeckel, the German materialist, says: "This monistic idea of G.o.d, which belongs to the future, has already been expressed by Bruno in the following words: A spirit exists in all things, and no body is so small but contains a part of the divine substance within itself by which it is animated." The words G.o.d and religion have been so long a.s.sociated with superst.i.tion and priestcraft that many liberal thinkers have a repugnance to both. But we must not let these perversions of sacerdotalism rob us of good words. We can conceive of G.o.d as the _Over-all and In-all Spirit of the Universe._ That spirit is causation, and matter, its palpable form, is one of its manifestations. We know that Nature's method of making worlds and brutes and men is by a uniform system of evolution, taking millions and billions of years to carry on the work to the present time, and that it is likely that it will take millions more to perfect it. When asked what spirit is, we answer, We do not know; neither do we know what electricity is, nor can we answer one of a thousand questions that come up regarding the subtle and occult qualities of matter. We see no difference between the Unknowable of Herbert Spencer and the Unsearchable of Zophar in the book of Job. The Unknown Power is the Noumenon, the absolute Being in itself, the inner nature of force, motion, and even of conscience.

We have said, in substance, elsewhere: It is a great mistake to think of G.o.d as outside of and distinct from the universe. If there be a G.o.d at all, he is in the universe and in every part of it. We cannot properly localize him, and say that he is present in one place and not in another, or that he is in one place more than another. He must be everywhere and in everything. Anthropomorphic (man-like) views of G.o.d are what make atheists and agnostics.

Men constantly talk of the laws of Nature, forgetting that law itself is a product and cannot be a cause. The law of gravitation is not the cause of gravitation. A self-originating and self-executing law is unthinkable. The prevalence of law supposes the existence of a lawmaker and a law-executor. We accept the law of evolution, but cannot conceive of evolution independent of involution and an Evolver.

It may be said that this is "begging the question" by a.s.suming the existence of an infinite G.o.d. But we deny that it is an a.s.sumption in its last a.n.a.lysis. What is known as the scientific method leads logically to the conclusion that there must be something that theists generally name G.o.d. You may call it "protoplasm," "molecular force," the "potentiality of matter," or even matter itself; and when you tell us what these words mean we will tell you what we mean by "G.o.d." Possibly we all mean the same thing. We know of the existence of G.o.d, as we know other things, by palpable manifestations.

Astronomers a.s.sumed the existence of Neptune from certain phenomena long before its existence could be demonstrated; and if the discovery had never been made the phenomena so long observed would have nevertheless justified the conclusion that there must be some stupendous cause for such unmistakable and marvellous perturbations.

When men talk of the eternity of matter we do not even profess to understand them. The most advanced scientists do not attempt to explain one of a thousand mysteries in which the phenomena of the material world is enshrouded. Why, then, should we be expected to explain where and how and when G.o.d came into existence, or how he could have had an eternal existence or be self-existent? We affirm no more of G.o.d than materialists imply of matter, and we endow him with no attributes that they do not virtually ascribe to matter. So far as a.s.sumption is concerned, both stand on the same ground. They, indeed, call things by different names, but mean about the same thing. What theists prefer to call "the works of G.o.d" materialists call "Nature," "cosmic laws,"

"spontaneous generation," "the potency of matter," "conservation of energy," "correlation of force," and "natural selection."

The fundamental error of modern scientists is that they limit their investigations to the physical and palpable, while we have demonstrable evidence of the existence of the spiritual and invisible. We know nothing of matter but from its properties and manifestations, and we have the same kind of evidence in regard to spirit, and know that it is superior to gross matter, and therefore cannot be tested by the same crucibles. In the very nature of things a great cause must ever be imponderable and invisible. It cannot be weighed and measured, but must ever remain intangible and incomprehensible. The spirit in physical man in its relation to the Supreme Spirit is as the drop of water to the ocean or the single glimmering ray to the full-orbed, refulgent sun. Men may talk of "force correlation," and trace its progress and products, but they must remain dumb as to the beginning or origin of force unless they accept the doctrine of an _intelligent First Force_. There is no way of accounting for the existence of spirit, of life, of intelligence, but by premising the prior existence of spirit, life, and intelligence.

Like only causes like. An egg does not come from a stone, and the ascidian did not come from a lifeless rock.

The logical conclusion from the facts and principles herein suggested is that there must be an intelligent First Cause of all things-an all-pervading, fecundating, animating Spirit of the universe; and we prefer to call this G.o.d. Science has taught us the processes of his work, and denominates them the "laws of Nature." In point of fact, as little is known of the origin and essence of matter as of spirit, and there is as good ground for agnosticism in the former as in the latter.

There is therefore no necessary conflict between true science and a rational theism or monism.

It is a rational proposition that something must have been before what is called creation. There must have been an _intelligent potency_, and that power theists call G.o.d. Materialism in its last a.n.a.lysis ascribes to matter all that theists ascribe to G.o.d. It gives matter an eternal self-existence-endows it with an inherent infinite intelligence and an omnipotent potency. It spells "G.o.d" with six letters instead of three.

It makes a G.o.d of matter, and then denies his existence!

We now submit that it is more rational to postulate the existence of an eternal Supreme Intelligence and Power, the Creator and Ruler of all things visible and invisible, who is the Author and Executor of the laws by which both mind and matter are governed. This Supreme Being is alone the Self-existent One, and what are called the properties and modes of inert matter are but the proofs and manifestations of his eternal power and G.o.dhead. There cannot be a poem without a poet, nor a picture without an artist. There cannot be a watch or other complex machine without an inventor and artisan. The universe is the sublimest of all poems, and Cicero well said that it would be easier to conceive that Homer's Iliad came from the chance shaking together of the letters of the alphabet than that the atoms should have produced the cosmos without a marshalling agency. The visible and palpable compel us to acknowledge their counterpart in the invisible and intangible, and we cannot rationally account for the origin of man without postulating the existence of an Intelligence and Power greater than humanity.

We are reproached for the inconsistency of believing in a Power we cannot comprehend, and endowing him with attributes of which we can form no just conceptions. Atheists do not seem to realize that they are guilty of a greater inconsistency. They tell us that we believe in a Being of whom we can form no conception, but they themselves must form some conception of such a Being, else how could they deny his existence?

There is no difficulty in admitting the existence of a Supreme Power if we do not attempt to comprehend and describe it. Matthew Arnold says: "We too would say 'G.o.d' if the moment we said 'G.o.d, you would not pretend that you know all about him." His definition of G.o.d is indeed vague, but vastly suggestive: "An enduring Power not ourselves that makes for righteousness." This suggests the moral element in the unknown Power. There is not only a spiritual sense in man which recognizes the supersensuous, but there is an indwelling witness to the eternal principle of rightfulness. The sentiment of oughtness is inherent and ineradicable. Every man who is not a moral idiot has a feeling that certain things ought and ought not to be-that there is an essential right and wrong. Human intuition sees and feels this mysterious Power that answers to our Ego, and from which it proceeds; and this inward conviction cannot be eradicated from the average mind by the pretensions of science. The patient watcher in the dark room at the terminus of the ocean cable sees in his suspended mirror the reflection of an electric spark, and he at once recognizes it as a message from the operator three thousand miles away. So G.o.d is seen by the aspiring and contemplative in the concave mirror of man's own spirit, and, though it is a mere reflection, a spark, a flash, it clearly proves the existence of the Central Magnet. It is this recognition of the moral element that forms the basis of moral government and of that wors.h.i.+pfulness which has manifested itself among all nations, barbarian and civilized.

It is safe to a.s.sume that the average Atheism is disbelief in the G.o.d of the dominant theology, and not in the Ultimate Power that makes for righteousness. Vulgar, anthropomorphic conceptions of G.o.d, which endow him with certain speculative attributes, are condemned by reason and science; but nevertheless phenomena have something behind them, and energy has something beneath it, and all things have something in them which is the source of all phenomena and energy; and this enduring, all-pervading Power is our sure guarantee of the order of the universe.

And this Power theists persist in calling G.o.d. Theologians may call this Pantheism, but it is only seemingly so. There is a vast difference between saying that everything is G.o.d, and that G.o.d is in everything.

The old watchmaker-mechanician idea, a G.o.d separate and outside of the universe, has become obsolete, and science and reason and the law of progressive development now compel men to reshape their conceptions of G.o.d as identical with the Cosmos, plus the Eternal Power.

Herbert Spencer has beautifully said: "But amid the mysteries, which become the more mysterious the more they are thought about, there will remain the one absolute certainty that man is ever in presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed." The felt and the seen have their fulness in the unseen and intangible, and the visible impels us to seek its counterpart and complement in the invisible.

II. _Our Faith in Religion remains_.-And here the question comes up, What is religion? The commonly-accepted meaning of the word is as derived from the Latin _religare_, which means "to bind back or to bind fast." We do not accept the definition, because it is suggestive of _bondage_. It implies a previous harmonious relation with G.o.d which had been lost. It favors the dogmas of the fall of Adam and man's alleged reinstatement and "binding back" to the divine allegiance, through what is called, in theological parlance, a "redemptive scheme." It is a significant fact that Lactantius, a theologian of the early part of the fourth century, was the first to apply the word religion to "the bond of piety by which we are bound to G.o.d."

Augustine of the fifth century followed his example, and so did Servius about the same time; and their example has been followed by theologians ever since, presumably because it favors the dogmas of the fall of Adam and the redemption by Christ. But the highest cla.s.sical authorities derive the word religion from _relegere_ or _religere_, signifying "to go through or over and over again in reading, speech, or thought-to review carefully and faithfully to ponder and reflect with conscientious fidelity."

Cicero must have understood the original meaning and origin of the Latin word, and he took this view of the subject. He lived more than three hundred years before Lactantius, and he said: "But they who carefully meditated, and as it were considered and reconsidered all those things which pertained to the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds, were called religious, from religere." The word _religio_ was in common use in ancient Rome in the sense of _scruple_, implying the consciousness of a natural obligation wholly irrespective of the G.o.ds. The oldest popular meanings of the word _religion were faithfulness, sincerity, veracity, honor, punctiliousness, and conscientiousness.*(1) Religion, then, in its true meaning, is the great fact of *duty, of oughtness or right-fulness, of conscience and moral sense_. Its great business is to seek conformity to one's highest ideal. It consists in an _honest and persistent effort by all appropriate means to realize ideal excellence and to transform into actual character and practical life._

(1) See A Study of Religion, by Francis E. Abbot.

Religion in this sense is universally approved. It is false religion which is condemned. It is what some men would require you to believe in spite of history, science, and self-consciousness. It is superst.i.tion, bigotry, credulity, creed, sectarianism, that men detest. Religion is innate and ineradicable in man, and there is a natural religion concerning which man cannot be skeptical if he would. Bishop Butler has well said that the morality of the gospel is "the republication of natural religion and it would be easy to show the evolution of religion from very small beginnings and how this work is going on to-day.

Regarding religion as an evolution, a development, and not as something as inflexible as a demonstrated proposition in mathematics, we are all the while expecting an improvement. We have a right to expect that Christianity should be better than more ancient religions, because it is the latest; and so it is in many respects. But we have a right to expect that this improvement will go on with the lapse of time. The religion of the nineteenth century is an improvement on the religion of the first century, but we are reaching forward to greater perfection. Even the system of morals taught in the New Testament is defective. We want something purer and better, and it is rapidly coming. All true religion is natural, and its morality relates to the mutual and reciprocal claims of men arising from organized society. If we are right in our dealings with our fellow-men, we cannot be out of harmonious relations with G.o.d.

All happiness here and hereafter depends upon our knowledge of the order of the universe and the conformation of our lives to it. It is impossible to divorce true religion from real science, and the more we know of the latter the more we shall have of the former. Whatever tends to promote pure religion ought to be encouraged, and no man has any more reason to be ashamed of his religion than he has to be ashamed of his appet.i.te. We sum up our ideas of religion by saying: Do all the good you can to all the persons you can by all the means you can, and as long as you can.

III. _The Scriptures remain for just What they are._-Portions of the Bible command our most profound reverence and our most unqualified admiration. We respond heartily to some of the truly excellent moral maxims of the Bible, and read with rapture some of the selections of poetry from the Hebrew prophets. But right in close connection we often find stories of uncleanness, fornications, adulteries, and incests that the vilest newspaper of to-day would not dare publish. Jael meanly murders Sisera, and is praised for it, while the deceit and treachery of Rahab are commended in the New Testament. The story of Boaz and Ruth is only fit for a dime novel. Solomon's Song is full of lasciviousness. Abram lies. Moses gets mad.

David commits adultery and murders Uriah. Jacob is deceitful and a trickster; and so on to the end. Polygamy is shown to have been the rule, and not the exception, among Jehovah's favorites. War is everywhere tacitly justified, and slavery is practised and not an abolitionist opens his mouth. We go to the New Testament, and He who is called the "Perfect One" curses a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season, drives out with small cords men engaged in legitimate business, upsets their tables, and uses the most violent and reproachful language toward them. He shows want of respect for his mother, and is ambiguous and evasive in his conversation with the woman of Canaan-says he does not know whether he is going to the feast at Jerusalem or not, and then straightway sets out for the Holy City, and makes believe by his actions that he is going to one place, when he is actually going to another.

We want a higher morality than is taught in the Bible. We want higher and more n.o.ble conceptions than are given in the parable of the "Unjust Judge," and more just and equitable principles than are taught in the parable of the "Unjust Steward" or the "Laborers in the Vineyard" or the "Ten Talents." We want a morality that relates to this life rather than to the next We do not want the possession of property held up as a crime, and poverty represented as a virtue ent.i.tling one to a seat in the future kingdom. We want good homes to live in now, rather than "mansions in the skies." We do not want a morality that appeals to selfishness only, that discriminates in favor of celibacy, and that only tolerates marriage as a remedy for l.u.s.t, as taught in the seventh chapter of First Corinthians. We want a higher morality than the morality of even the New Testament.

It is difficult to speak to ears polite of the obscenity of the Bible.

There are more than one hundred pa.s.sages of the most coa.r.s.e and vulgar description. To print these in a book and send it through the United States mails, if law were impartially administered, would put a man in the penitentiary. There are entire chapters that reek with obscenity from beginning to end. We cannot tell you about Onan, and Tamar, and Lot and his two daughters, and scores of other obscene matters. There are pa.s.sages even in the New Testament that cannot be mentioned in the presence of a virtuous woman. When we enter a lady's parlor and see the richly-gilded Bible upon the centre-table, we shudder as we remember the obscenity that is contained between its costly lids. When we see a young girl tripping along our streets, Bible in hand, we wonder if she knows that she carries more obscenity than Byron ever wrote, than Sh.e.l.ley ever dreamed of, than the vilest French novelist ever dared to print.

We have very grave doubts about putting the Bible into the hands of children. They are, through it, made familiar with much that is demoralizing. We have many reasons for rejecting the dogma of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures and of their infallibility. These fragmentary writings must be judged by their merits-by what they are. It has been shown by the author of Supernatural Religion that we gain more than we lose by taking this rational view of the Bible. An illusion is lost, but a reality is gained which is full of hope and peace. The unknown men who mostly wrote the little pamphlets which make up the Bible probably did the best they knew-that is, they wrote according to the degree of their development-but some of the writers were on a very low plane. We should read these books and all other sacred writings of all nations just as we study geology-as showing what was in the mind of man when the books were written, 'just as we learn from the earth's strata the history and order of the various periodic formations. The bibles of the ages are accessible to every man who can read. All of them contain much that is valuable, with much that is frivolous, superst.i.tious, and false. But these books belong to our race, and happy is the man who knows how to use them wisely. He who rejects all makes as great a mistake as he who accepts all. The true position is that the Bible contains the best thoughts of many of the best men that have lived in the ages of the past, expressed according to their light; and, while their obvious errors should be rejected, whatever commends itself to our reason, according to the best light of to-day, and to which each man's own inspiration and spiritual discernment responds, should be reverently studied and highly esteemed. Religion is not a product of the Bible, but the Bible is a product of religion-natural religion-though often misunderstood and perverted. We do not throw aside the bibles, but accept them for just what we find them to be worth. We eat the kernel and throw away the sh.e.l.l.

IV. Our most Implicit Faith in the Continuity of Life remains.-We have no more confidence in Materialism than we have in Atheism.

We believe that some men at least are immortal-that the intellectual and moral giants should be blotted out at death is unthinkable. We find in this doctrine of a future state much that has a moral tendency. It inspires self-respect and esteem.

It leads to a proper appreciation of humanity. It inspires hope for the future. It affords comfort in bereavement. It furnishes a proper motive for aspiration and progress.

When we consider the millions of years that have been employed in bringing man to his present high estate, it is rational to a.s.sume that a capacity for such immense progress is good ground for faith in still greater progress, so that there shall be no end to the advancement and attainments of humanity. If primitive man was not immortal, there may have been a time when he became immortal, just as there is a time when the embryo becomes a conscious, breathing babe, and when the undeveloped child begins to exercise the functions of rationality and becomes an accountable being. It is not true that even the extreme Darwinian doctrine is necessarily opposed to the doctrine of a future life for man. On the contrary, its fundamental principles suggest the hypothesis of immortality.

If the "conservation of energy" is a true principle of science, it favors the faith of man in the doctrine of a future life. Greatness and goodness developed in man must be "conserved," and how can it be done if death is a destroyer? The "persistency of force" in the human personality must at least be equal to the primary elements which environ that personality. Is it rational to suppose that the sweep of evolution which has brought man from such unfathomable depths will not carry him up to still more illimitable heights? Are these vast achievements of Nature to be so un-thriftily wasted? Do not the products of a past eternity point unmistakably to still greater things in an eternity to come?

And, then, does not the scientific doctrine of the "indestructibility of matter" favor the belief in life after death?

The theory of "natural selection" also favors the doctrine of a future life, and never appears so real and so beautiful as when we realize that as man progresses in everything that is grand and good he voluntarily falls in with this natural law, and of choice not only selects that which is most to be desired, but by self-denial and almost superhuman exertions strives to attain the highest ideal of his heavenly aspirations. The unwearied effort of the most highly-developed men to reach a higher perfection and a more exalted excellence is evidence that Nature is true to herself, and that man will not be blotted out of conscious existence just as he first clearly perceives the essential difference between good and evil. Having tasted the fruit of the tree of life, he is destined to live for ever.

It is certainly a significant fact that the faith of man in, and a desire for, a future life are strongest in his moments of greatest mental and spiritual exaltation. If this is an illusion, it is strange that it should be particularly vivid when he is in his most G.o.d-like moods and when he is most in love with the beautiful, the true, and the good. Is it possible for Nature to thus trifle with and deceive and disappoint man when he is most serious and truthful, and when all the elements of his better nature are in the ascendant and predominate over everything that is gross and perishable?

A future life and an immortal one must exist to enable man to reach that perfection to which he aspires, and feels himself bound to attain as the only end worthy of his being, and which, during the brief span of mortal life, is never reached even by the most virtuous. Nature cannot be so blind, so stupidly improvident, as to throw away her most precious treasures, gathered by so much labor and suffering, and not permit man to carry forward the great work, in which he has just began to succeed, to that perfection to which all his aspirations unmistakably converge.

Then every cultivated man realizes as age increases that his attainments and successes in this ephemeral life fall far short of, and are absolutely inadequate and disproportionate to, his inherent powers; and it is irrational to conclude that his very existence is to be blotted out and life itself become utterly extinct just as he has learned how to live, and what life is, and what is his " being's end and aim." We do not desire to argue this question here: we only make a profession of our faith.

V. Our Faith in the Doctrine of Present and Future Rewards and Punishments remains.-While it is irrational to accept the horrible dogmas of sacerdotalism as to the eternal torments of the wicked, it is equally unreasonable to believe that all men enter upon a state of perfect happiness without regard to moral character.

The doctrine of rewards and punishments after death is clearly suggested by the principles of natural religion which have been recognized by all men, pagan and Christian. That virtue brings its own reward and vice its own punishment is a fact in the experience of men in this life. It must be so in the life to come, as the order of the universe cannot be changed by time or place. No valid objection can be made to the principle of future punishment. But its nature and object must be taken into the account. True punishment is never arbitrary nor vindictive. It is remedial, reformatory, disciplinary, and has respect to the const.i.tution of moral government and the best interests and welfare of its subjects. Suffering is a consequence of sin, not a judicial penalty, and happiness is not a favor conferred by grace, but a legitimate product of right being rather than of right doing. Men are rewarded or punished, both in this life and the life to come, not so much for what they have done or not done as for what they are. Suffering is intended to put an end to that which causes suffering, and is for the good of the sufferer. In this world and in all possible worlds sin must be a source of suffering, and goodness a fountain of happiness. The degree of happiness or misery of man after death must be in proportion to the degree of his perfection or imperfection in character evolved during life that will const.i.tute his "meetness."

The same penal code must prevail in the next life that prevails here, and it may be thus summarized: (1) Suffering is a consequence of imperfection and wrong-doing. (2) Imperfection and wrong-doing will meet their appropriate punishment in the future life as in this world. (3) The effect will only continue so long as the cause exists. (4) Men will for ever make their own heaven or h.e.l.l, and there is good reason for believing that the sufferings of many persons after death will be, beyond all conception, awful in the extreme. (5) But the "immortal hope"

justifies the conclusion that all men will, sooner or later, be established in holiness and happiness.

In response to the question, _After death-what?_ the proper answer to the interrogative is, _In life-what?_ Death is transition, not trans.m.u.tation. It is emigration, not Pythagorean transmigration. Change of place does not make change of character. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that a man after death is just what he was before death.

Every man will gravitate to his own place. There will be as many grades of moral character after death as in this life, and therefore as many heavens and h.e.l.ls. Misers and drunkards and libertines will still be such. Those who love the pure and beautiful, the true, the right, the unselfish, and the humane will still have the same desires and tastes after death as before death, and will naturally gravitate to kindred spirits.

After mature reflection the conclusion must be reached that the greatest happiness of which man is capable arises from three sources: (1) The perception of new truth; (2) Its impartation to others; (3) Doing good to others. A more rational conception of future blessedness than this is impossible.

If these views are correct, it is the highest wisdom to cherish and cultivate on earth and during life the tastes, the desires, the affections, the principles which in themselves const.i.tute the highest bliss of saints and angels in all possible worlds. And as to h.e.l.l after death, we have nothing to fear but the h.e.l.l we may carry with us-the h.e.l.l of unholy l.u.s.t, the h.e.l.l of unsanctified pa.s.sion, the h.e.l.l of selfishness, the h.e.l.l which follows wrong living and wrong doing.

But we must bring this book to a close. The writer is a firm believer in G.o.d, in religion, and in morality; he accepts the Bible for just what it is. He believes in the continuity of life after death and in future rewards and punishments. If he believed that he had written anything in this book to weaken faith in these doctrines, he would commit the ma.n.u.script to the flames instead of to the printer.