If
man has a soul, a God, and a hereafter, and is a fallen being, then,
indisputably, every good man must deem the bearings of any code of
speculative opinions upon the doctrine of Christian Redemption as
unspeakably its most important aspect. For it is impossible for any
professed humanitarianism to advance any praiseworthy purpose or
motive whatsoever, assuming to tend to the well-being or elevation of
our race, but that I will show, if man is to have any future, that
motive is bound to urge the well-wisher to seek his fellow-creatures'
future good, as much more earnestly, as immortality is longer than
mortal life. But has the Sensualistic philosophy any proposal to
offer for redeeming men from a disordered and mortal estate, as
plausible or promising as Christianity? Unless it has, a mere decent
regard for humanity should prevent all disrespect to this doctrine,
from which, it is manifest, the larger part of all the virtue, hope,
and happiness in a miserable world now spring. I freely declare,
therefore, not as a clergyman, but as a human being not simply
malignant toward my suffering race, that my main impeachment of the
Sensualistic philosophy, and especially of the Positivist and
Evolution doctrines, in which it now chiefly appears, is grounded
upon their anti-Christian tendencies. I have pointed to that gulf of
the blackness of darkness, and of freezing despair, toward which they
thrust the human soul; a gulf without an immortality, without a God,
without a faith, without a Providence, without a hope. Were it not
both impossible and immoral for a good man to consider such a thing
dispassionately, it would appear to him odd and ludicrous to witness
the pretended surprise and anger of the assailants at perceiving,
that reasonable Christian people are not disposed to submit with
indifference to all this havoc.
There
is a great affectation of philosophic calmness and impartiality. They
are quite scandalized to find that Christians cannot be as cool as
themselves, while all our infinite and priceless hopes for both
worlds are dissected away under their philosophic scalpel. Such
bigotry is very naughty in their eyes! This conduct sets Christianity
in a very sorry light beside the fearless and placid love of truth
displayed by the apostles of science! Such is the absurd and insolent
tone affected by them. J. S. Mill coolly argues, that, of course, we
clergy are wholly unfitted for any pursuit of philosophy, because
they are bound beforehand by their subscription to creeds, which have
taken away their liberty of thought in advance; and it is quietly
intimated that mercenary regard for salaries and dignities dependent
on that subscription, will prevent their accepting or professing the
Sensualistic gospel. To this arrogance and injustice I, for one, give
place by subjection, not for a moment. It is a composition of
hypocrisy and folly. For we observe that whenever these philosophic
hearts are not encased in a triple shield of supercilious arrogance,
they also burn with a scientific bigotry, worthy of a Dominic or a
Philip II. of Spain. They also can vituperate and scold, and actually
excel the bad manners of the theologians! The scientific bigots are
fiercer than the theological, besides being the aggressors!
If
we were about to enter upon an Arctic winter in Labrador, with a
dependent and cherished family to protect from that savage clime, and
if "a philosopher" should insist, in the "pure love of
science” upon extinguishing by his experiments all the lamps which
were to give us light, warmth, and food, and to save us from a
frightful death; and if he should call us testy blockheads because we
did not witness these experiments with equanimity, I surmise that
nothing but compassion for his manifest lunacy would prevent sensible
people from breaking his head before his enormous folly was
completed. When a wilful, absurd person chooses to dignify his novel
(or stale) vagaries, which contradict not only my most serious and
honest judgment, but that of the best and wisest of human kind, with
the reverend names of "Truth" and "Science," I
submit that I have at least as much right to reject them as no truth
and no science, as he has to advance them. Let us suppose a case
perfectly parallel. I had an honored father, whose virtue, nobleness,
and benevolence were the blessing of my life. That exalted character
and all that beneficence were grounded in certain professed
principles. Now, I know that father; I know, by their fruits, that
his principles were noble. But here come a parcel of men who did not
choose to become acquainted with him, and so really do not know his
memory, and they indulge their vanity, or some other caprice, in
disparaging his person and principles. But they expect me, his son
and beneficiary, to "take it all coolly!" It is quite
naughty to have any heat toward gentlemen who are proceeding so
purely "in the interests of the Truth!" Now, every right
heart knows that it is not only my. right, but my sacred duty to
defend the sacred character of my father and benefactor with zeal and
righteous emotion. If I were capable of really feeling the
nonchalance which his gratuitous assailants profess, I should be a
scoundrel.
There
is no righteous room for neutrality or indifference of soul when
righteousness is assaulted. It is impossible for man to love truth
and right as it is our duty to love it without having sensibility
when they are injured! Such is precisely the relation of the
honest-minded Christian when his God and Saviour is disparaged! If
men choose to exercise their right of free discussion by waging this
warfare on our God and His cause, they need not expect anything
except the resistance of honest indignation; it is a piece of
hypocrisy as shabby as shallow to pretend to a right to outrage other
people's clearest convictions without the provocation of their
disapproval. We shall, of course, give them the full privilege of
doing this wrong untouched of civil pains and penalties: this is the
liberty of thought which Protestantism asserts, to its immortal
honor. God forbid that any sinful abuse of the truth should ever
provoke any Christian to infringe that liberty by persecution. And it
is plainly our duty, under the bitterest provocation of these
gratuitous assaults upon the most precious principles, to see to it
that we "be angry and sin not;" that our indignation may
not go farther than the evil desert, and our condemnation may contain
none of the gall of personal spite.
But
there is an affectation abroad, among the assailants of Christianity,
which demands far more. It claims the privilege of speculating as
unchristianly as they please, not only without being molested, which
we freely concede, but without being disapproved. They say that the
very emotion of disapprobation is a persecution; that this zeal is
precisely the motive which, in more
bloody days, prompted churchmen to visit civil pains and penalties
upon dissentients; that this motive will do the same thing again,
upon opportunity, if it be allowed to exist ; and that, therefore, we
are not true friends of liberty of thought until the very emotion is
banished, and all speculation, no matter what holy and righteous
thing it may assail, is considered without feeling and weighed with
the absolute impartiality and initial indifference which they affect.
Upon
this claim my first remark is, that it is violently inconsistent.
With these men, this license of thought is a holy thing (possibly
their only one.) And when they imagine it assailed, or in the least
restrained, do they entertain the question of the restriction with
that dispassionate calmness? Not at all; they are full of an ardent
zeal; and they believe that they "do well to be angry."
They can argue the cause of charity most uncharitably, and can be
most intolerant in their advocacy of toleration. Why? Because the
encroachment is unrighteous. Aha! Then we have the sanction of the
nonchalant gentlemen for the truth, that righteousness ought to be
not only professed, but loved; that moral truth and right are the
proper object, not only of judgment, but of moral emotion. They have
found out that it is good to be "zealously affected" in
a good cause! This is precisely my doctrine, provided only one is
entitled to be sure that the cause is good. My second answer is: That
this species of indifferentism is unnatural and impossible. Man's
soul is formed by its Maker not only to see moral truth, but to love
it upon seeing it. It is an unnatural soul, a psychological
monstrosity, which does not. But love for that which is reasonably
valued must have its counterpart emotion toward the opposite. One
might as well demand to have a material mass with a top, but no
under-side; or a magnet with a North pole to it, but no South, as a
reasonable soul which loved the right (as it ought) and yet did not
hate the wrong. Last: I argue, that such a state of soul would be
criminal, if it were possible. Such moral neutrality would be
intrinsic vice. In order to be capable of it, man must be recreant to
the positive claims of virtue. If I find a man who is really able to
hear the question debated, whether Jesus Christ was an impostor, with
the same calmness, the same utter absence of emotion with which he
would properly debate the species in botany to which a certain weed
should be referred, I shall be very loath to trust my neck or my
purse with that man in the dark. The demand for this actual
indifferentism as essential to true liberty of thought and
philosophic temper, is absurd; it is impossible it should exist. The
speculative world needs to be reminded again of that doctrine of
liberty of thought which Bible Protestantism enounced - when she
bestowed that boon on mankind (for it was nobody's gift but
hers.) That men are responsible for their opinions, but responsible
not to society, but to God: that charity for evil and error is a
universal duty; but the object toward which we are to exercise it is
the person and not the error of "the misleading
fellow-creature. Charity had its incarnation in Him, who shed His
tears and His blood for the persons of the Scribes, while He
denounced their principles with inexorable severity.
Taken from: R.L. Dabney, The Sensualistic Philosophy of the 19th Century Considered, Chapter 12
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