SIR ROBERT ANDERSON
Secret Service
Theologian
A
DOUBTER'S DOUBTS about science and religion
CHAPTER TEN
A SCEPTIC'S PLEA FOR FAITH
ONE who is himself a sceptic both by temperament and by
training can appreciate the difficulties of the honest truth-seeker. And to
such I would offer the assurance of respectful sympathy, and such counsel as my
own experience may enable me to give.
And first, I would say with emphasis,
Ignore the atheistical section of the scientists. To quote the words of " that
prince of scientists" Lord Kelvin, "If you think strongly enough you will be
forced by science to the belief in God." And I would add, quoting Lord Kelvin
again, "Do not be afraid of being free thinkers." For the free thinker will
refuse to be either prejudiced or discouraged by the confusion and error which
abound on every side, and which have always marked the history of the
professing Church.
Fifteen centuries ago the great Chrysostom ' deplored
that even in those early days, every Christian ordinance was parodied, and
every Christian truth corrupted. And if it be demanded, \Vhere can we look for
guidance amid the din of the discordant cries which beat upon our ears to-day ?
his words may best supply the answer :- "There can be no proof of true
Christianity," he says, " nor any other refuge for Christians wishing to know
the true faith, but the Divine Scriptures. . . . Therefore the Lord, knowing
that such a confusion of things would take place in the last days, commands on
that account that Christians should betake themselves to nothing else but the
Scriptures" (Matthew, Hom. XLIII.).
The Scriptures ! " some one may
exclaim, "but what about Moses and Jonah and Daniel ? " Some people will
believe nothing, unless they can believe everything. But men who make fortunes
in commerce are content with small beginnings, enough for the necessaries of
life. The " Catholic Church," it is true, would hand us over to "the secular
arm" for failing, not only to accept the whole Bible, but to swallow all its
own superstitions. And to fit us for this achievement, Pascal's advce would be
to take to ' religion." For, he said, " that will make you stupid, and enable
you to believe." But a very different spirit marks the Divine dealings with
sinful men. " He that cometh unto God must believe that He is, and that He is a
rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." "That He is" for not a few of the
difficulties which men find in the Bible are practically atheistical. And if
even in the natural sphere it is the " diligent seeker" who succeeds, no one
need wonder if in the spiritual sphere it is the " diligent seeker " who
secures the treasure.
Here then is my advice to any who are troubled with
sceptical doubts Be in earnest; and begin at the beginning. God does not
require of us that before we come to Him we shall believe in Daniel and Jonah
and Moses. But, to render the words with slavish literalness, It is necessary
for the comer unto God to believe that He exists, and that He is a rewarder of
them that seek Him out. "Men do not find pearls upon the open beach, or nuggets
of gold upon the public road. Even in this world the principle of "the narrow
way " prevails. And it is only the few who find it. Even in the mundane sphere,
success is not for the trifler or the faddist. But while in this world the
diligent seeker is often thwarted, and sometimes crushed, it is never so with
God: He never says, "Seek ye Me in vain."
I repeat then," Do not be afraid
of being free thinkers." In peace-time a war-ship may carry top-hamper without
endangering her safety; but in presence of an enemy the first order is to clear
the decks. And in these days, when it is necessary to "contend earnestly for
the faith once delivered," we cannot be too fearless or too ruthless in
jettisoning all error and superstition. The schoolboy's definition of "faith "
is not the right one: he described it as " believing what we know to be
untrue." The God of revelation is the God of nature; and in the spiritual, as
in the natural sphere, there are difficulties which perplex and distress us.
But though the Word of God, like the works of God, may be full of mystery, it
is wholly free from falsehood and folly.
Some one may object that the truth
here urged is quite too elementary to be vital. But elementary truths are often
the deepest, and always the most important. And it is a significant fact that,
in view of the completed revelation of Christianity, the last of the doctrinal
books of the New Testament closes by re-iterating this most elementary of all
truths "We know that the Son of God is come and has given us an understanding
that we may know Him that is true. . . . This is the true God." Faith begins by
giving up belief in the Deity as a mere abstraction, like "the Monarchy" or
"the State," and learning to believe in "the living God" who is "the Rewarder
of them that seek Him." This is the alpha of the alphabet of faith. We reach
the omega when, giving up "the historic Jesus," we come to believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ, "the Son of God." Just as "all the law and the prophets" are
included in love to God and our neighbour, so, in the same sense, the whole
revelation of Christianity is an unfolding of this truth. Not, as the
rationalist has it, "that a man of the name of Jesus Christ once stood in our
midst," but that "the Son of God is come," He who was in the beginning with
God, and who was God, and by whom all things were made "-that He once stood in
our midst. "God hath spoken to us in His Son."
"But," it may be said,
"there is a fallacy here. Belief in God belongs to the sphere of natural
religion, but belief in Christ depends upon revelation; and this raises the
question of the inspiration of Scripture." I challenge that statement. The
question of inspiration is of vital importance in its own place, but this is
not its place. Here and now we are concerned with facts-the public facts of the
ministry of Christ, including His miracles and His resurrection from the dead.
For the genuineness of the records is admitted, and, as we have seen their
authenticity is guaranteed by the character of the men who wrote them. And I
need not repeat the argument that the denial of their inspiration compels us to
form a still higher estimate of their personal competence.'
In order to
evade the force of their testimony the infidel points to the lapse of time
since these events occurred, and he tries to raise a cloud of prejudice by
ringing the changes on the apostasy of the Christian Church. But this is only
nisi prius claptrap. The significance of facts such as those we have
here in view cannot be impaired either by the lapse of centuries or by any
amount of human failure and folly. I put this question therefore to all fair
and earnest thinkers. Suppose the ministry of Christ belonged to the nineteenth
century, instead of the first, what effect would it have upon you? How would
you account for it? Is not the only reasonable explanation of it this, "that
the Son of God is come"?
The New Testament records but one apostolic sermon
addressed to a heathen audience. Jews could be referred to the Hebrew
Scriptures in proof "that Jesus was the Christ." But when preaching to the
Areopagites of Athens the Apostle appealed to their own religion, the writings
of their poets, and the phenomena of nature, to prove the existence of an
intelligent, personal, and beneficent God; and he pointed to the resurrection
of Christ in proof that God had declared Himself to men. The times of ignorance
which God could overlook were past. "He now commandeth all men everywhere to
repent" ; for agnosticism has become a sin that shuts men up to judgment,
"whereof He hath given assurance unto all men in that He hath raised Him from
the dead."'
There is not a word here about the inspiration either of
writings or of men. That is a question for "the household of faith," the home
circle of the family of God. But here we have to do with what concerns "all men
everywhere." Acts xvii. 22-31. And, I repeat, the fact that "the Son of God is
come," and the solemn warning that judgment is assuredly to follow, are wholly
unaffected by accidents of time or place. I am not fencing with professional
sceptics, but appealing to real truth-seekers, and upon such I again press the
question, What bearing has this upon you?
No one who will read these pages
is more sceptical than the writer of them, none who feels a stronger antipathy
to superstition and error and nonsense. But the falsehoods and follies of "the
Christian religion " in its many phases, whether venerable or newfangled, must
not be allowed to obscure the issue here involved. "The Son of God is come."
And in view of that supreme fact God commands repentance, "for He has appointed
a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He
has ordained."
And in that day no one will be condemned because he did not
belong to this Church or that, or because he failed to accept the inspiration
of one book or another. The judgment will turn on this, "that God sent His Son
into the world." Here are His own words - the words of Him who is Himself to be
the Judge:
"This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world,
and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil."
A
blind and unreasoning infidelity denies the resurrection. But to aver that God
could not raise Christ from the dead is practical atheism: to aver that He
would not raise Him from the dead is mere nonsense; and to assert that He did
not raise Him from the dead is to deny a public fact, "the certainty of which
can be invalidated only by destroying the foundations of all human
testimony."
And by the resurrection He was "declared to be the Son of
God."' How else can the resurrection be explained? What other significance can
possibly be assigned to it? That Christ Himself claimed to be the Son of God is
not a matter of inspiration but of evidence. His crucifixion by the Jews
establishes it. The Jews were not savages who murdered their Rabbis. They
honoured them. But, we read, when he said, "Before Abraham was, I am, then took
they up stones to cast at Him." And when He said, "I and My Father are one,
then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him." And in answer to His
remonstrance they exclaimed, "Thou being a man makest thyself God." If He was
not Divine He was a blasphemer, and by their law deserved to die. But the
resurrection proved Him to be Divine.
And can the appalling fact that the
Son of God has thus died at the hands of men be dismissed as a mere incident in
history, or as a commonplace of religious controversy! "As He laid aside His
glory, He now restrained His power, and yielded Himself to their guilty will.
In return for pity He earned but scorn. Sowing kindnesses and benefits with a
lavish hand, He reaped but cruelty and outrage. Manifesting grace, He was given
up to impious law without show of mercy or pretence of justice. Unfolding the
boundless love of the heart of God, He gained no response but bitterest hate
from the hearts of men." The fate of the heathen who have never heard of Him
rests with God; but to us the Cross must of necessity bring either blessing or
judgment. In presence of it we must take sides. And he who takes sides with God
is safe.
And now, having reached this stage, can we not advance another
step? "Scientific thought compels belief in God." And here "Agnosticism assumes
a double incompetence, the incompetence not only of man to know God, but of God
to make Himself known. But the denial of competence is the negation of Deity.
For the God who could not speak would not be rational, and the God who would
not speak would not be moral. The idea of a written revelation, therefore, may
be said to be logically involved in the notion of a living God." And with
overwhelming force this applies to the matter here at issue. If "the Son of God
is come," is it credible, is it possible, that God has not provided for us an
authentic record of His mission and ministry? Even the credulity of unbelief
might well give way under the strain of such a supposition. Whether you
describe it as "inspiration" or "providence "-call it by what term you please -
must not the existence of such a record be assumed? If men are doubters here,
it must be because they doubt either that" God is," or that" the Son of God is
come." But "we know that the Son of God is come." With certainty, therefore, we
accept the record. And here are His words :- "As Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life."
And if this be Divine truth,
who will dare to cavil at the words which follow: "He that believeth on Him is
not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath
not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."' It is not death
that decides our destiny, but our acceptance or rejection of the Gospel of
Christ. For the consequences of receiving or rejecting Him are immediate and
eternal. 2 John iii. 14-18.
Chapter Eleven
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