Christianity in relation to Freethought, Scepticism, and Faith: Three discourses by the Bishop of Peterborough with special replies by Mr. C. Bradlaugh — John Shaqi
Christianity in relation to Freethought, Scepticism, and Faith: Three discourses by the Bishop of Peterborough with special replies by Mr. C. BradlaughBradlaugh, Charles
Religion
Christianity in relation to Freethought, Scepticism, and Faith: Three discourses by the Bishop of Peterborough with special replies by Mr. C. Bradlaugh
Therefore the man who will believe nothing but what can be
demonstrated to him, will deny at last the obligation of duty in
obedience to his sceptical intellect, just as he began with denying
the existence of God. How does he get out of this great difficulty?
By calling up the instinct of faith. He wills to believe that he is
something more than a bundle of material elements, that the
conscience in his soul is something supreme and divine, that the man
in him is something above the animal; and by an exercise of faith in
his own higher and better self, he silences the eternal _why_ of the
sceptical intellect, the serpent more subtile than any other beast of
the field, which if it had its way would make man a beast.
There is only one more question to which I have to call your
attention. Having shown you that the sceptical intellect is not the
only judge, having shown you that there are domains of human
knowledge and human life into which, if it comes at all, it must come
as the servant and not as the master; having shown you that
scepticism is really nothing else than the intrusion of the mere
understanding into the province of the soul and the spirit, it
remains to ask, Is religion, is Christianity, one of those subjects
on which the understanding is not to be the only judge, but on which
the spirit and soul and heart of man have something to say about his
belief? Surely then if Christianity be what it professes to be, a
life, like all human and temporal life, it must be conducted upon a
principle of faith or trust. If we cannot live our ordinary human
life without trust, where we cannot have certainty, neither can we
live the spiritual life without trust, where we can neither prove nor
demonstrate; then if we think of this life in close relationship with
the divine and the infinite life, can it possibly be otherwise than
that out of the meeting place of those two mysteries there shall grow
mystery and difficulty? All that Christianity requires is, not that
man shall not ask for reasonable proof, but that we should not deal
with it in a different way from that in which we deal with human life
and morality. We don’t ask you in religion to believe without
evidence, but to require large evidence. Now my friends, still
remember when we ask you to believe before you see all, it is that
you may experience all. Christianity has a certainty, but it comes
not as the proof, but as the reward of faith. There is a
demonstration of the spirit, an evidence of divine life, in the soul
of the Christian, that he cannot demonstrate to others, because it is
as invisible as his own soul and spirit, and yet it fills the inner
core of the spirit—it is the strengthener of the spirit.
Christianity is a great experiment, a probable experiment, a
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