The Eclipse of Faith Part 6

"And for a similar reason, surely, you would reject at once the oral teaching of any such man as Paul or Matthew, or any body else, if he professed that what he said was dictated by divine inspiration, concurrently or not with the use of his own faculties? You would repudiate at once his claims, however authenticated, to be your infallible guide; to tell you what you are to believe, and how you are to act? For surely you will not pretend that there is any difference between statements which are merely expressed by the living voice, and those same statements as consigned to a book; except that, if any difference be supposed at all, one would, for some reasons, rather have their in the last shape than in the first."

"Of course there is no difference: to object to a book-revelation and grant a 'lip-revelation' from G.o.d, or to deny that lip-revelation (when it is made permanent and diffusible) the authority it had when first given, would be a childish hatred of a book indeed," answered Fellowes.

"I perfectly agree with you," replied Harrington.

"I understand you, then, to deny that any revelation professedly given to you or to me does, or ever can, come to us through any external channel, printed or on parchment, ancient or modern, by the living voice or in a written character; and that this is a proper translation, in a generalized form, of the phrase 'a book-revelation'?"

"I admit it. For surely, as already said, it would be truly ridiculous to allow that Paul, if we could but hear his living voice, was to be listened to with implicit reverence as an authorized teacher of divine truth; but that his deliberate utterances, recorded in a permanent form, were to be regarded not merely as less authoritative, but of no authority at all."

"So that if you saw Peter or Paul to-morrow, you would tell him the same story?"

"Of course I should," replied Mr. Fellowes.

"And you would of course also reject any such revelation, coming from any external source, even though the party proclaiming it confirmed it by miracles? For I cannot see how, if it be true that an external revelation is impossible, and that G.o.d always reveals himself 'within us' and never 'out of us,' (which is the principle affirmed,)--I say I cannot see how miracles can make any difference in the case."

"No, certainly not. But surely you forget that miracles are impossible on my notion: for, as Mr. Newman says---"

"Whatever he says, I suppose you will not deny that they are conceivable; and that is all I am thinking of at present. Their impossibility or possibility I will not dispute with you just now.

I am disposed to with you; only, as usual, I have some doubts, which I wish you would endeavor to solve; but of that another time. Meantime, my good friend, be so obliging as to give me an answer to my question,--whether you would deem it to be your duty to reject any such claims to authoritative teaching, even if backed by the performance of miracles? for, admitting miracles never to have occurred, and even that they never will, you, I think, would hesitate to affirm that you clearly perceive that the very notion involves a contradiction. They are, at least, imaginable, and that is sufficient to supply you with an answer to my question. I once more ask you, therefore, whether, if such a teacher of a book-revelation, in the comprehensive sense of these words already defined, were to authenticate (as he affirmed) his claims to reverence by any number, variety, or splendor of miracles,--undoubted miracles,--you would any the more feel bound to believe him?"

"What! upon the supposition that there was any thing morally objectionable in his doctrine?"

"I will release you on that score too." said Harrington, in a most accommodating manner. "Morally, I will a.s.sume there is nothing in his doctrine but what you approve; and as for the rest,--to confirm which I will suppose the revelation given,--I will a.s.sume nothing in it which you could demonstrate to be false or contradictory; in fact, nothing more difficult to be believed than many undeniable phenomena of the external universe,--matters, for example, which you acknowledge you do not comprehend, but which may possibly be true for aught you can tell to the contrary."

"But if the supposed revelation contain nothing but what, appealing thus to my judgment, I can approve, where is the necessity of a revelation at all?"

"Did I say, my friend, that it was to contain nothing but what is referred to your judgment? nothing but what you would know and approve just as well without it? or even did I concede that you could have known and approved without it that which, when it is proposed, you do approve? I simply wish an answer to the question, whether, if a teacher of an ethical system such as you entirely approved, with some doctrines attached, incomprehensible it may be, but not demonstratively false or immoral, were to substantiate (as he affirmed) his claims to your belief by the performance of miracles, you would or would not feel constrained any the more to believe him?"

"But I do not see the use of discussing a question under circ.u.mstances which it is admitted never did nor ever can occur?"

"You 'fight hard,' as Socrates says to one of his antagonists on a similar occasion; but I really must request an answer to the question.

The case is an imaginable one; and you may surely say how, upon the principles you have laid down, you think those principles would compel you to act in the hypothetical case."

"Well, then, if I must give all answer, I should say that upon the principles on which Mr. Newman has argued the question,--that all revelation, except which is internal, is impossible,--I should not believe the supposed envoy's claims."

"Whatever the number or the splendor of his miracles?"

"Certainly," said Fellowes, with some hesitation however, and speaking slowly.

"For that does not affect the principles we are agreed upon?"

"No,"--not seeming, however, perfectly satisfied.

"Very well," resumed Harrington, "that is what I call a plain answer to a plain question. I fancy (waverer that I am!) that I should believe the man's claims. I should be even greatly tempted to think that those things which I could not entirely see ought to be contained in the said revelation, were to be believed. But all that is doubtless only because I am much weaker in mind and will than either Mr. Newman or yourself. You must pardon me; it will in no degree practically affect the question, except on the supposition that the same infirmity is also a characteristic of man in general; that not I, from my weakness, am an exception to rule; but you, in your strength.

But to dismiss that. You have agreed that a book-revelation is impossible, and not to be believed, even if avouched by miracles.

Have men in general been disposed to believe a book-revelation impossible? for if not, I am afraid they would be very liable to run into error, if they share in my weaknesses."

"Liable to run into error!" said Fellowes. "Man has been perpetually running into this very error, always and everywhere."

"If it be true, as you say, that man has always and everywhere manifested a remarkable facility of falling into this error, many will be tempted to think that the thing is not so plainly impossible. It seems so strange that men in general should believe things to be possible when they are impossible. However, you admit it as a too certain fact."

"I do, for I can not honestly deny it; but it has been because they have confounded what is historical or intellectual with moral and spiritual truth."

"I am afraid that will not excuse their absurdity, because, as you admit, all book-revelation is impossible.--But further, supposing men to have made this strange blunder, it only shows that the 'moral and spiritual' could not be very clearly revealed within; and no wonder men began to think that perhaps it might come to them from without! When men begin to mistake blue for red, and square for round, and chaff for wheat, I think it is high time that they repair to a doctor outside them to tell them what is the matter with their poor brains. Meantime an external revelation is impossible?"

"Certainly."

"But men, however, have somehow perversely believed it very possible, and that, in some shape or other, it has been given?"

"They have, I must admit."

"Unhappy race! thus led on by some fatality, though not by the const.i.tution of their nature (rather by some inevitable perversion of it), to believe as possible that which is so plainly impossible.

O that it did not involve a contradiction to wish that G.o.d would relieve them from such universal and pernicious delusions, by giving them a book-revelation to show them that all book-revelations are impossible!"

"That," said Fellowes, laughing, "would indeed be a novelty. Miracles would hardly prove that."

"I think not," said Harrington. "But, as the poet says, 'some G.o.d or friendly man' may show the way. Pray, permit me to ask, did you always believe that a book-revelation was impossible?"

"How can you ask the question?--you know that I was brought up, like yourself, in the reception of the Bible as the only and infallible revelation of G.o.d to mankind."

"To what do you owe your emanc.i.p.ation from this grievous and universal error, which still infects, in this or some other shape, the myriads of the human race?"

"I think princ.i.p.ally to the work of Mr. Newman on the 'Soul,' and his 'Phases of Faith.'"

"These have been to you, then, at least, a book-revelation that a 'divine book-revelation is impossible'; a truth which I acknowledge you could not have received by divine book-revelation, without a contradiction. You ought, indeed, to think very highly of Mr. Newman.

It is well, when G.o.d cannot do a this that man can; though I confess, considering the wide prevalence of this pernicious error, it would have been better, had it been possible, that man should have had a divine book-revelation to tell him that a divine book-revelation was impossible. Great as is my admiration of Mr. Newman, I should, myself, have preferred having G.o.d's word for it. However, let us lay it down as an axiom that a human book-revelation, showing you that 'a divine book-revelation is impossible,' is not impossible; and really, considering the almost universal error of man on this subject,--now happily exploded,--the book-revelation which convinces man of this great truth ought to be reverenced as of the highest value; it is such that it might not appear unworthy of celestial origin, if it did not imply a contradiction that G.o.d should reveal to us in a book that a revelation in a book is impossible."

Fellowes looked very grave, but said nothing.

"But yet," continued Harrington, very seriously, "I know not whether I ought not, upon your principles, to consider this book-revelation with which you have been favored, about the impossibility of such a thing, as itself a divine revelation; in which case I am afraid we shall be constrained to admit, in form, that contradiction which we have been so anxious to avoid, by making 'possible with man what is impossible with G.o.d.'"

"I know not what you mean," said Fellowes, rather offended.

"Why," said Harrington, quite unmoved, "I have heard you say you do not deny, in some sense, inspiration, but only that inspiration is preternatural; that every 'holy thought,' every 'lofty and sublime conception,' all 'truth and excellence,' in any man, come from the 'Father of lights,' and are to be ascribed to him; that, as Mr. Parker and Mr. Foxton affirm on this point, the inspiration of Paul or Milton, or even of Christ and of Benjamin Franklin, is of the same nature, and in an intelligible sense from the same source,--differing only in degree. Can you deem less, then, of that great conception by which Mr. Newman has released you, and possibly many more, from that bondage to a 'book-revelation' in which you were brought up, and in which, by your own confession, you might have been still enthralled?

Can you think less of this than that it is an 'inspired' voice which has proclaimed 'liberty to the captive,' and made known to you 'spiritual freedom'? If any thing be divine about Mr. Newman's system, surely it must be this. Ought you not to thank G.o.d that he has been thus pleased to 'open your eyes,' and to turn you from 'darkness to light,'--to raise up in these last days such an apostle of the truth which had lain so long 'hidden from ages and generations'?

Can you do less than admire the divine artifice by when it was impossible for G.o.d directly to tell man that he could directly tell him nothing, He raised up his servant Newman to perform the office?"

"For my part," said Fellowes, "I am not ashamed to say, that I think I ought to thank G.o.d for such a boon as Mr. Newman has, in this instance at least, been the instrument of conveying to me: I acknowledge it most momentous truth, without which I should still have been in thraldom to the 'letter.'"

"Very well; then the book-revelation of Mr. Newman is, as I say, in some sort to you, perhaps to a divine 'book-revelation.'"

"Well, in some sense, it is so."

"So that now we have, in some sense, a divine book-revelation to prove that a divine book-revelation is impossible."

"You are pleased to jest on the subject," said Fellowes.

"I never was more serious in my life. However, I will not press this point any further. You shall be permitted to say (what I will not contradict) that, though Mr. Newman may be inspired, for aught I know, in that modified sense in which you believe in any phenomenon,--inspired as much (say) as the inventor of Lucifer matches,--yet that his book is not divine,--that it is purely human; and even, if you please, that G.o.d has had nothing to do with it. But even then I must be allowed to repeat, that at least you have derived from a 'book-revelation' what it would not have been a unworthy of a divine book-revelation to impart, if it could have been imparted without contradiction. Such book-revelation, in this case, must be of inestimable value to man, because, without it, he must have persisted in that ancient and all but inveterate and universal delusion of which we have so often spoken. There is only one little inconvenience, I apprehend, from it in relation to the argument of such a book; and that is, that I am afraid that men, so far from being convinced thereby that a divine revelation is impossible, will rather argue the contrary way, and say, 'If Mr.