That kind of faith which Dr. Wace describes and lauds is of no use here.
Indeed, he himself takes pains to destroy its evidential value.
"What made the Mahommedan world? Trust and faith in the declarations and
assurances of Mahommed. And what made the Christian world? Trust and
faith in the declarations and assurances of Jesus Christ and His
Apostles" (_l.c._ p. 253). The triumphant tone of this imaginary
catechism leads me to suspect that its author has hardly appreciated its
full import. Presumably, Dr. Wace regards Mahommed as an unbeliever, or,
to use the term which he prefers, infidel; and considers that his
assurances have given rise to a vast delusion which has led, and is
leading, millions of men straight to everlasting punishment. And this
being so, the "Trust and faith" which have "made the Mahommedan world,"
in just the same sense as they have "made the Christian world," must be
trust and faith in falsehood. No man who has studied history, or even
attended to the occurrences of everyday life, can doubt the enormous
practical value of trust and faith; but as little will he be inclined to
deny that this practical value has not the least relation to the reality
of the objects of that trust and faith. In examples of patient constancy
of faith and of unswerving trust, the "Acta Martyrum" do not excel the
annals of Babism.[31]
The discussion upon which we have entered goes so thoroughly to the root
of the whole matter; the question of the day is so completely, as the
author of "Robert Elsmere" says, the value of testimony, that I shall
offer no apology for following it out somewhat in detail; and, by way
of giving substance to the argument, I shall base what I have to say
upon a case, the consideration of which lies strictly within the
province of natural science, and of that particular part of it known as
the physiology and pathology of the nervous system.
I find, in the second Gospel (chap. v.), a statement, to all appearance
intended to have the same evidential value as any other contained in
that history. It is the well-known story of the devils who were cast out
of a man, and ordered, or permitted, to enter into a herd of swine, to
the great loss and damage of the innocent Gerasene, or Gadarene, pig
owners. There can be no doubt that the narrator intends to convey to his
readers his own conviction that this casting out and entering in were
effected by the agency of Jesus of Nazareth; that, by speech and action,
Jesus enforced this conviction; nor does any inkling of the legal and
moral difficulties of the case manifest itself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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