Hastings Rashdall

“ I am far from saying that every individual is bound to satisfy himself by personal enquiry as to the truth of every element in his own Religion; but, if and so far as he determines to do so, he cannot reasonably accept an alleged revelation on any other ground than that it comes home to him, that the content of that Religion appeals to him as true, as satisfying the demands of his intellect and of his conscience. The question in which most of us, I imagine, are most vitally interested is whether the Christian Religion is a Religion which we can accept on these grounds. ”

“ The element of inadequacy and uncertainty which the admission of this antinomy introduces into our theory of the Universe is an emphatic reminder to us of the inadequate and imperfect character of all our knowledge. The knowledge, however, that we possess, though inadequate knowledge, is real knowledge—not a sham knowledge of merely relative or human validity; and is sufficient not only for the guidance of life but even for the partial, though not the complete, satisfaction of one of the noblest impulses of the human mind—the disinterested passion for truth. ”

“ We have no difficulty in thinking that in other worlds there may be colours which we have never seen, or whole groups of sensation different from our own: we cannot think that any existence should be neither mind nor matter, but utterly unlike either. We are not arguing from the mere absence of some special experience, but from the whole character of all the thought and experience that we actually possess, of all that we are and the whole Universe with which we are in contact. ”

“ We can show the absurdity of regarding time as merely subjective; we can show that it belongs to the very essence of the Universe we know; we can show that it is as 'objective' as anything else within our knowledge. But how to reconcile this objectivity with the difficulty of thinking of an endless succession no Philosopher has done much to explain. For religious purposes it seems enough to believe that each member of the time-series—no matter how many such events there may be, no matter whether the series be endless or not—is caused by God. ”

“ Are we to suppose that a new planet comes into existence for the first time when first it sails into the telescope of the astronomer, and that Science is wrong in inferring that it existed not only before that particular astronomer saw it, but before there were any astronomers or other human or even animal intelligences upon this planet to observe it? Did the world of Geology come into existence for the first time when some eighteenth-century geologist first suspected that the world was more than six thousand years old? ”

“ There is, almost obviously, some kind of Unity underlying all the diversity of things. Our world does not arise by the coming together of two quite independent Realities—mind and matter—governed by no law or by unconnected and independent systems of law. {21} All things, all phenomena, all events form parts of a single inter-related, intelligible whole: that is the presupposition not only of Philosophy but of Science. Or if any one chooses to say that it is a presupposition and so an unwarrantable piece of dogmatism, I will say that it is the hypothesis to which all our knowledge points. ”

“ I say 'can be true' rather than 'is true,' because, though dogmatic Materialists are rare, the typical Agnostic is one who is at least inclined to admit the possibility of Materialism, even when he does not, at the bottom of his mind, practically assume its truth. The man who is prepared to exclude even this one theory of the Universe from the category of possible but unprovable theories is not, properly speaking, an Agnostic. To know that Materialism at least is not true is to know something, and something very important, about the ultimate nature of things. ”

“ In this way we are, as it seems to me, led up by a train of reasoning which is positively irresistible to the idea that, so far from matter being the only existence, it has no existence of its own apart from some mind which knows it—in which and for which it exists. The existence of a Mind possessing universal knowledge is necessary as the presupposition both of there being any world to know, and also of there being any lesser minds to know it. It is, indeed, possible to believe in the eternal existence of limited minds, while denying the existence of the one Omniscient Mind. ”

“ To me it appears that such evils as sin and pain are so enormously worse than the mere absence of good, that I could not regard as rational a Universe in which the good did not very greatly predominate over the evil. More than that I do not think we are entitled to say. And yet Justice is so great a good that it is rational to hope that for every individual conscious being—at least each individual capable of any high degree of good—there must be a predominance of good on the whole. ”

“ But then learning what Philosophy is—especially that most fundamental part of Philosophy which is called Metaphysics—is like learning to swim: you never discover how to do it until you find yourself considerably out of your depth. You must strike out boldly, and at last you discover what you are after. I shall presuppose that in a general way you do all know that Philosophy is an enquiry into the ultimate nature of the Universe at large, as opposed to the discussion of those particular aspects or departments of it which are dealt with by the special Sciences. ”

“ Christianity alone of the historical Religions teaches those great truths to which we have been conducted by a mere appeal to Reason and to Conscience. It teaches ethical Monotheism; that is to say, it thinks of God as a thinking, feeling, willing Consciousness, and understands His nature in the light of the highest moral ideal. It teaches the belief in personal Immortality, and it teaches a Morality which in its broad general principles still appeals to the Conscience of Humanity. ”

“ Now, it would be just possible to contend that we have got the bare abstract concept or category of Causality in our minds, and yet that there is nothing within our experience to give it any positive content—so that we should have to say, 'Every event must have a cause, but we never know or can know what that cause is. If we are to talk about causes at all, we can only say "The Unknowable is the cause of all things."' Such a position can be barely stated without a contradiction. ”

“ For all that such a theory has to say to the contrary, we might have to suppose that, though God is perfectly good, the world which He is compelled to think is very bad, and going from bad to worse. To think of God merely as the Mind which eternally contemplates Nature, without having any power whatever of determining what sort of Nature it is to be, supplies no ground for hope or aspiration—still less for worship, adoration, imitation. ”

“ It might, of course, be contended that the same Reason which assures me that goodness is worth having and that the whole is greater than the part, assures us no less immediately of the existence of God. I can only say that I am sure I have no such immediate knowledge, and that for the most part that knowledge is never claimed by people who understand clearly the difference between immediate knowledge and inference. The idea of God is a complex conception, based, not upon this or that isolated judgement or momentary experience, but upon the whole of our experience taken together. ”

“ And therefore I will say this much—that, if we regard a miracle as implying a suspension of a law of nature, I do not think we can call such a suspension a priori incredible; but the enormous experience which we have of the actual regularity of the laws of nature, and of the causes which in certain states of the human mind lead to the belief in miracles, makes such an event in the highest degree improbable. ”

“ We should cut at the roots of it by teaching frankly that this is the best of all possible Universes, though not the best of all imaginable Universes—such Universes as we can construct in our own imagination by picturing to ourselves all the good that there is in the world without any of the evil. We may still say, if we please, that God is infinite because He is limited by nothing outside His own nature, except what He has Himself caused. ”

“ Because I deny that the truth of God's existence can reasonably be accepted on the basis of an immediate judgement or intuition, I do not deny for one moment that an apparently intuitive conviction of the truth of Christianity, as of other religions, actually exists. The religious belief of the vast majority of persons has always rested, and must always rest, very largely upon tradition, education, environment, authority of one kind or another—authority supported or confirmed by a varying measure of independent reflection or experience. ”

“ Surely, on reflection those who are most suspicious of a priori knowledge, who are most unwilling to carry their speculations beyond the limits of actual experience, will be prepared to say, 'No, the thing is utterly for ever impossible.' Ex nihilo nihil fit: for every event there must be a cause. Those who profess to reject all other a priori or self-evident knowledge, show by their every thought and every act that they never really doubt that much. ”

“ I will not attempt to say how far it is desirable that persons who are perfectly satisfied with a creed which they have never examined should (as it were) pull up the roots of their own faith to see how deep they go. I merely want to point out that the occurrence of certain emotional experiences, though undoubtedly they may constitute part of the data of a religious argument, cannot be held to constitute in and by themselves sufficient evidence for the truth of the intellectual theory connected with them in the mind of the person to whom they occur. ”

“ I have given reasons for thinking that the material world cannot be explained without the assumption of a universal Consciousness which both thinks and wills it. I have assumed rather than proved that the lesser minds, in which the divine experience is partially reproduced, are also caused to exist and kept in existence by the same divine Will. But how, it may be said, do we know that those minds did not exist before the birth of the organisms with which upon this planet they are connected? ”

“ Whether our intellectual beliefs about Religion are energetic enough to influence action, does to an enormous extent depend upon our wills. Faith is, then, used, and almost inevitably used, in such a great variety of senses that I do not like to lay down one definite and exclusive definition of it; but it would be safe to say that, for many purposes and in many connexions, religious faith means the deliberate adoption by an effort of the will, as practically certain for purposes of action and of feeling, of a religious belief which to the intellect is, or may be, merely probable. ”

“ The idea of a Religion which is merely based upon Psychology and involves nothing else is a delusion: all the great Religions of the world have been, among other things, metaphysical systems. We have no means of ascertaining their truth but Reason, whether it assume the form of a rough common-sense or of elaborate reasoning which not only is Metaphysic but knows itself to be so. Reason is then the organ of religious truth. But then, let me remind you, Reason includes our moral Reason. That really is a faculty of immediate knowledge ”

“ Because religious truth can now be defended by the use of our ordinary intellectual faculties, and because all possess these faculties in some degree, it is absurd to suppose that the ordinary individual, if left to himself, would be likely to evolve a true religious system for himself—any more than he would be likely to discern for himself the truths that were first seen by Euclid or Newton if he were not taught them. To under-estimate the importance of the great historical Religions and their creators has been the besetting sin of technical religious Philosophy. ”

“ If a man has reason to think his friend is trustworthy, he will do well to trust him wholly and implicitly. If a man has reason to think that a certain view of the Universe is the most probable one, he will do well habitually to allow that conviction to dominate not merely his actions, but the habitual tenour of his emotional and spiritual life. We should not love a human being much if we allowed ourselves habitually to {133} contemplate the logical possibility that the loved one was unworthy of, or irresponsive to, our affection. ”

“ Moreover, I would remark that, though I do not believe that an intention to edify is any excuse for slipshod thought or intellectual dishonesty, I am speaking now mainly from the point of view of those who are enquiring into metaphysical truth for the guidance of their own religious and practical life, rather than from the point of view of pure speculation. I do not, for my own part, believe in any solution of the religious problem which evades the ultimate problems of all thought. ”

“ Bradley's Philosophy—it may be contended that none of our judgements are wholly true or fully adequate to express the true nature of Reality, we at all events cannot get nearer to Reality than we are conducted by the judgements which present themselves to us as immediate and self-evident. Now, if we do apply these judgements of value to the Universe as we know it, can we say that everything in it seems to be very good? ”

“ Value is one thing: existence is another. To my mind a Christian Apologetic should begin, like the old Apologies of Justin or Aristides, with showing the essential reasonableness of Christ's teaching about God and its essential harmony with the highest philosophic teaching about duty, about the divine nature, about the soul and its eternal destiny. The Ritschlian is too much disposed to underrate the value of all previous religious and ethical teaching, even of Judaism at its highest: he is not content with making Christ the supreme Revealer: he wants to make him the only Revealer. ”

“ But, though I am firmly convinced that it is possible to find good reasons for the religious beliefs and hopes which have in fact inspired the noblest lives, I still feel that the greatest service which even a little acquaintance with Philosophy may render to many who have not the time for any profounder study of it, will be to give them greater boldness and confidence in accepting a view of the Universe which satisfies the instinctive or unanalysed demands of their moral, intellectual, and spiritual nature. ”

“ LECTURE III GOD AND THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS A course of purely metaphysical reasoning has led us up to the idea of God—that is to say, of a conscious and rational Mind and Will for which the world exists and by which that world and all other spirits are caused to exist. I have passed over a host of difficulties—the relation of God to time, the question whether or in what sense the world may be supposed to have a beginning and an end, the question of the relation in which God, the universal Mind, stands to other minds, the question of Free-will. ”

“ It certainly does not exist merely in any or all of the human and similar minds whose knowledge is fleeting, and which have, there is every reason to believe, a beginning in time. We are bound then to infer the existence of a single Mind or Consciousness, which must be thought of as containing all the elements of our own Consciousness—Reason or Thought, Feeling, and Will—though no doubt in Him those elements or aspects of Consciousness are combined in a manner of which our own minds can give us but a very faint and analogical idea. ”

“ Philosophy itself—the Philosophy of the professed philosophers—has no doubt contributed a very important element to the content of the historical Religions; but it is only in proportion as they become part of a system of religious teaching, and the possession of an organized religious community, that the ideas of the philosophers really come home to multitudes of men, and shape the history of the world. Nor in many cases would the philosophers themselves have seen what they have seen but for the great epoch-making thoughts of the great religion-making periods. ”