A Paper read before the Brisbane Freethought Association, on Sunday, 25th February, 1877, by Mr. Gavin PETTIGREW.
THE subject which I have undertaken to discuss to-night is one of such a profound nature that I may possibly be considered presumptuous in attempting to deal with it. At the commencement of the inquiry, I may here state that I have no hope of being able to throw any new light on this most mysterious subject ; but if I can only succeed in agitating thought on the question, I hope my effort may not prove altogether valueless.
The science which professes to teach us about the nature and qualities of the Divine Being goes by the name of Theology. To any one who has studied theology from a disinterested standpoint, there can be little doubt that it has not yet taken its place amongst what are termed " the exact sciences." Whatever progress may be made in that direction in the future, at the present time we find a great variety of theories afloat on the subject of all theological research —the Divine Being.
It may be urged by these learned “ divines,” who make theology a “ profession,” and live by it, that the facts of theology do not admit of the same kind of demonstration as those of a physical nature, seeing that they are principally of a metaphysical character. This is a fact that meets all honest inquirers after theological truth on the very threshold of their investigations, and if they attempt to proceed by scientific methods of research, they soon find that few, if any, theologic theories can be verified scientifically. Another difficulty is that of being deprived of the use of some of our best logical tools by the exigencies of the case. Reasoning by analogy, for instance, is a comparative failure when applied to theology, as there can be no proper analogy between Finite and Infinite.
Such being the nature of the difficulties that stand in the path of theological science, we could hardly expect anything else than uncertainty in the region of theology. But, what are the facts? We meet with theologians on every side, differing widely from each other in their teachings, and although, for the most part, incapable of proving the propositions they advance, yet, at the same time, actually insisting on the absolute truth of all their propositions with a dogmatic certainty and intolerance which professors of the “exact sciences” would blush to exhibit.
While the conditions are so unsatisfactory, on which a knowledge of Theology depends, forcing us to the conclusion that, if a science at all, it must necessarily be “the most speculative of any ; " still we find that it has engrossed the attention of some of the most highly developed minds that have lived in the world's history. From the speculations of Job as to the possibility of “ finding out God,” down to the latest cogitations of Herbert Spencer on the same subject, men in all ages and countries have desired to know something about the “ Power” behind the phenomena of Nature. Although we might reasonably expect man's knowledge of this “Power” to increase in proportion to his mental development, yet we find on com paring the theologies of the most ancient nations with these of modern times, that theology, as a science, has made little if any progress in the world during the last three or four thousand years. The theological conceptions of the ancient Brahmins differed very little from the most advanced ideas of God at present existing. In the sacred books of the Hindoos, the deity called Brahma was stated to be "immaterial, invisible, unborn, uncreated, without beginning or ending, and unapprehensible to the understanding.” Surely this “ God idea “ of the Hindoos, propounded probably 2,000 years before the Christian era, is quite as philosophic as that taught by moral philosophers in our age, and will bear favourable comparison with the idea of God presented by the learned “divines” of the orthodox Christian religion.
Vishnu, alias Brahma, in Hindoo theology, is made to describe himself in the following words : — “I am the soul, O Arjuna, which exists in the heart of all beings, and I am the beginning, and the middle, and also the end of existing things.” Can anything be more comprehensive than that? Compare it for a moment with the Hebrew Jehovah, who is delineated in the Bible as a personal, jealous, and revengeful being, "who visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him, and shows mercy unto these that love Him and keep his commandments," and tell me which is the higher conception ? How comes it that the heathen Hindoos should be in possession of such exalted ideas of God without a special revelation, which orthodox Christians grant only to the Hebrews? The question naturally arises, wherefore the necessity of a revelation from God to man, when man by his own unaided powers can thus acquire as truthful conceptions of the Divine Being as with a revelation ?
Turning to the Persian idea of God, we find the following “confession of faith” in the Zend Avesta or Persian Bible : — “I ascribe all good things to Ahura Mazda (or Ormuzd) ; he is good, and has good, he is true, lucid, shining, and is the originator of all the best things of the spirit of Nature, of the growth in Nature, of the luminaries, and the self-shining brightness which is in the luminaries.” Zoroaster is generally acknowledged as the “ founder “ of the Persian religion, and it has been ascertained that it was in existence before the conquest of Bactria by the Assyrians, which took place about 1,200 B.C. It has been argued by some theologians that because there is a great similarity between the theology of the Persians and that of the Hebrews, that the former must therefore have borrowed their conceptions from the “ inspired “ writings of the latter. But to the unprejudiced critic the evidence goes to prove the very reverse; as from Jewish history we know that the religion of the Hebrews did not contain any ideas about the immortality of the soul or the existence of the god Satan, until after they had been taken captive to Babylon, some 600 years B C. Besides, it would require a wonderful stretch of the imagination to conceive of a people advanced in numbers and intelligence, as there is evidence of the Persian nation having been, contemporaneously with the existence of the Hebrews as a single family, or a small nomadic tribe, having necessity to borrow their theology from the latter. In claiming goodness as the special attribute of the Persian Deity, Zoroaster, in common with other theologians, had one great difficulty to contend with — to account for the existence of evil in the world. He mastered the difficulty in apparently a very reasonable way, viz., by investing an archfiend (Ahriman) with the power over evil, as Ormuzd had over good. This explained the mystery of evil, but the unity and power of the Divine Being was lost in this dualistic conception. Here, undoubtedly, was the source from which the Hebrews derived their conception of “ the adversary of Jehovah,” called Satan; and from them it has passed to us —becoming one of the chief “corner stones” of the orthodox theology. No doubt it is humiliating to think that this “ devil idea “ of 3,000 years ago, coming as it does from an “ uninspired source,” has been so long perpetuated and lovingly clung to by Christian theologians. To have to acknowledge its Pagan origin can hardly be agreeable to learned “ divines “ of our day, and yet there is no alternative, if history is to be respected at all.
The “sacrificial idea” was a necessary sequence of such a belief in a God of Evil; and all the cruelties that have been perpetrated in the world with the object of propitiating the god Satan, are referable to this Zoroastrian conception. The “ Saviour idea “ may also be looked upon as the latest and ultimate development of this “ devilish belief.” It will thus be apparent that we are indebted to the Persians for the “ divinely-appointed plan of salvation,” which is amounted the Alpha and Omega of evangelical Christianity,
Passing to China, that wonderful country, on whose surface are located nearly one-half of the human race, where they claim to have a history reaching as far back as 45,000 years, we find that they have not lived without the “ God idea.” There is evidence that some of their theologians have entertained as sublime conceptions of Deity as ever came from “ inspired penman “ or “ Divine Oracle.”
In one of the Chinese “ Sacred Books,” called Taó te-King, written by Laotse about 520 B.C., is the following record of a belief in a Supreme Being : “ There existed a Being, inconceivably perfect, before heaven and earth arose. So still ! So supersensible ! It alone remains, and does not change. It pervades all, and is not endangered. It may be regarded as the mother of the world. I know not its name ; if I describe it I call it Tao. Constrained to give it a name, I call it Great ; as Great, I call it Immense; as Immense, I call it Distant ; as Distant, I call it Returning."
In speaking of the name of the Divine Being, Laotse says : “ It is written Tao ; if it can be pronounced, it is not the Eternal Tao. The Nameless One is the foundation of heaven and earth. He who begins to create has a name ; Tao, the Eternal, has no name.” This conception of the Eternal Being as distinct from the Creator, is perhaps one of the most abstruse conceptions of Deity ever propounded, and nearly identical with that taught by the French spiritists at the present time.
Lord Amberley, in his work entitled "Analysis of Religious Belief," in referring to the “ Taó-te-King,” says — “That of all sacred books it is the most philosophical ; it stands, indeed, on the borderland between a revelation and a system of philosophy, partaking to some extent of the nature of both." "Other teachers,” he goes on to say, '' have seen God mainly in violent and convulsive manifestations, and have appealed to miraculous suspensions of natural order, as the best proofs of His existence. Not so Laotse. He sees Him in a quiet unobtrusive, unapparent guidance of the world, in the unseen yet irresistible power to which mankind unresistingly submit precisely because never thrust offensively upon them. The Deity of Laotse is free from these gross and unlovely elements which degrade His character in so many other religions.” It seems, therefore, that theology amongst the heathen Chinese has little to be ashamed of by comparison with that of Christendom.
There is not the least probability that “the special people of God,” who were entrusted with the “ only revelation from God to man,” had ever the slightest dealings with the people of China, and yet, unaided by the "light of revelation,” they were capable of arriving at juster and more philosophic conceptions of Deity than ever the Hebrews were, even with the special manifestations of Jehovah, to assist them. Surely the old apologetic argument of theologians regarding Pagan nations "having to borrow what glimpses of true theology they possess from the sacred writings of the Hebrews,” will not bear a moment's consideration in this case, as the Chinese nation was most probably in a comparatively high state of civilization at the time Abraham left his father's house on that expedition which resulted in the formation of the tribe of Hebrews ; and at the time when Jehovah promised to make of Abraham's seed a great nation, that would be as the sands on the sea shore for multitude, the Chinese must then have been such a nation ; while the Hebrews have never, and in all human probability never will, attain to such numerical strength as the Chinese.
Confucius, the Chinese sage, although the founder of a religion, was a moralist in contra-distinction to a theologian. Like Buddha in India, he aimed at practical religion, rather than speculative theology. As theology is the question in hand, I cannot at present deal with the religions of these most ancient nations. Through the researches of philologists and antiquarians, we are now in possession of a vast amount of knowledge in regard to the history and theology of nations, which, till lately, has been to us a " sealed book ;" and I am glad to know that researches of this kind are still being prosecuted with vigour. The diffusion of knowledge of this particular description cannot fail to teach us that theology is of human origin as much as any other product of the human mind, and it is eminently calculated to remove the prejudice existing in regard to the current Judaised-Christian religion, accounted orthodox, in which its theology is looked upon as “a patent right,” originally secured by the Hebrews.
Amongst the ancient Egyptians theologic conceptions seem to have been rather vague ; while there is evidence that an unseen God was worshipped in Egypt more than 3,000 years before the Christian era, there is also the clearest proof that they were at a later period idolaters, worshipping different animals. The Egyptian mind seems to have been more distinguished for scientific investigation than theologic speculation. Ancient Greece doubtless derived its theology from Egypt, as its Polytheism abundantly shows. Although the Grecian Deities were often endowed with beautiful qualities, they were always human and imperfect.
Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, partook of the essentially selfish nature of that most narrow-minded and exclusive section of the human race. He was jealous, cruel, changeable, and vindictive in His dealings with man, seeking His own glory, and the aggrandisement of His "special favourites" (the Hebrews) at the expense of other peoples. Although we find in the Old Testament Scrip tares many passages conveying grand and elevated conceptions of Deity, still the persistent idea which crops up, over and anon, throughout the whole Book, seems to be this — That Jehovah was the God of the Hebrews only ; that His principal attention was devoted to their welfare, and that all the other nations of the earth might go to chaos for aught He was likely to do to prevent such a catastrophe.
The millions of human beings in China and India seem to have been as nothing to Jehovah, when “ weighed in the balance " against a few thousands of the descendants of Abraham.
Plainly enough Jehovah was too partial in His affections to be any one else's God than the Hebrews. He was not universal in His sympathies, as the Hebrews were a mere fraction of the human race.
That Jehovah was a Deity made in the image of man, is most offensively apparent in different parts of the Bible; as for instance, in the beginning of the Book of Genesis, where we are told that He "rested on the seventh day,'' as if He were a being apart from the forces of Nature, and might allow the world to go on without Him. He is also described as walking in the Garden of Eden, " in the cool of the day,” just as a man with the common ideas of personal comfort would do. We are also told that on one occasion Moses "saw Jehovah's backparts."
We smile when we read the descriptions given by antiquarians of the Assyrian Gods. Some of whom were "in the habit of sneezing,” while others were often so much affected as “to cause tears to roll down their cheeks,” but is not the God of the Hebrews quite as ridiculously human ? That such a God should be the popular conception of the Divine Being in this enlightened age, can only be accounted for by the extraordinary influence possessed by "professional" theologians, whose self-interest consists in maintaining supernatural religion in spite of reason and common sense. The theology of Jesus, which has been grafted on the old stock of Judaism, was doubtless a great improvement on the old system. It teaches that God is a father whose principal attribute is love. It is pleasing to know that this conception of the Divine Being is growing, and that the old conception of “ Omnipotent tyranny” is gradually losing ground.
Leaving the fields of " theology proper,'' let us briefly consider the subject of Deity from a metaphysical standpoint.
While personality is mostly implied in all " theologies," it is a noted fact the metaphysicians have generally concurred in attributing impersonality to the Divine Being.
Spinoza, (one of the most profound thinkers that ever lived on this planet), after years of speculation on the nature of Deity, came to the conclusion that God and Nature were respectively, '' The Eternal Cause and the Everlasting Effect.” Hegel, the great German philosopher, defined Deity as “the sum of all reality.” Herbert Spencer, after a lifetime of philosophical research, uses the term “ Unknowable" to designate that ''persistent force," or formative principle, which he finds evidence of behind all phenomena ; while the famous Matthew Arnold evidently thinks he has made a step in the right direction, when he defines God as “ the power not ourselves, which maketh for righteousness.”
It seems that the difficulty of naming the Divine Being is as hard to be overcome in our day as it was three thousand years ago. Admitting the existence of a Divine Being (which I have assumed from the beginning of this inquiry), I am willing to believe with Laotse, that "it is unnameable." God, the Divine Being, the First Cause, the Infinite, the Eternal, the Absolute, the Universal Father, the Self-Existent, in common with many more titles that have been applied to the subject of our inquiry, are only arbitrary terms used to describe something we cannot conceive of. We are forced to use them, as we use x and y in algebra. " the Egyptian's Orsires, the Hindoo's Brahma, the Hebrew's Jehovah, the Grecian's Jupiter, the Mahomedan's Allah, the Christian's Our Father, the Theist's Deity, and the Indian's Great Spirit, are in reality one and the same thing, although like different artists painting the same hero, they necessarily partake of the idiosyncracies of the painters." In trying to reason out "the problem of Deity," we soon discover that our mental powers are quite inadequate for the task; and as we cannot transcend the capabilities of the human mind, God must continue to be the Unknowable, as long as human nature continues to be conditioned.
As to the possibility of ever being able to know what God is, the case is hopeless ; as “ to know God as he is, man must himself be God.”
Many ingenious arguments have been advanced in proof of the existence of God ; but seeing that most thinkers are agreed as to the existence of a “power” to which so many names have been given, the great desideratum is a definition of this “power.” The Pantheistic conception of God immanent in Nature, is, in my opinion, one of the most logical and consistent beliefs in regard to Deity of any with which I am acquainted. There seems to be some little analogy to assist us in forming this conception, provided we can accept the theory of man's " dual nature" (body and soul). According to which theory, the man's body is supposed to be the outward visible manifestation of an inward invisible "something" which energizes the " physical form." In a somewhat similar relation the Pantheist conceives of God as the inward, invisible Essence, or life-giving “power,” of which the system of Nature is the visible outcome. In this case there can be no Divine Personality, no separate Existence of God apart from Nature, and having reached thus far with the Pantheist, there seems to be only a step to the conclusion, " that God is Nature, and Nature is God," and that the one cannot exist apart from the other. Viewed in this light each human being must be a part of Deity, in fact every “atom “ in existence must likewise be
A part of that stupendous whole.
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
I confess that there may be some difficulty in accepting the logical deductions of this belief ; at the same time, we must acknowledge that it has the grand merit of universality in its favour.
Hear the Spiritualists' conception of the Divine Being, as follows :— “ To us God is the Infinite Spirit—Soul of all things, the incarnate Life Principle of the Universe, impersonal, incomprehensible, undefinable, and yet immanent in dew-drops that glitter and shells that shine, in stars that sail through silver seas, and angels that delight to do the immutable will. When we designate God as the Infinite Spirit, presence, and substance of Universal Nature, from whose eternally flowing life wondrous systems of worlds have been evolved, we mean to apply in the affirmative, all Divine principles; attributes, qualities, and forces, positive and negative— Spirit, as spirit substance ; and matter, as physical substance, or a solidified form of force, the former depending on the latter for its manifestations.”
All this high-sounding language strikes me as being not a whit nearer the object of our study than the Pantheistic conception before mentioned. the Russian poet reaches quite as far when he says,
Being above all beings, mighty one !
Whom none can comprehend, and none explore,
Thou fill'est existence with Thyself alone,
Embracing all— supporting, ruling o'er,
Being whom we call God, and know no more.
There seems to be a point in the investigation which cannot be overpassed ; at the same time it may be useful to the mind to give these insoluble problems some attention, as if we only learn how ignorant we are on these subjects it must be highly profitable to us in our search after truth.
In these speculations about the Divine Being, how much better would it be for society if it could be demonstrated that God is Unknowable. Would one theologian continue to " damn the soul" of his fellow-theologian because their conceptions of Deity did not agree, if the fact were recognised that all our theories regarding the nature of God are purely speculative, and the sum of our positive knowledge of the Divine Being nil ?
Let us briefly consider what Christian theologians have to offer as a solution of the problem of Deity.
They believe that God is Tripersonal. The only evidence that can be advanced in favour of this extraordinary proposition, is a stray passage or two from the New Testament, which seems to favour the supposition that Jesus held such a conception of Deity. But even supposing that Jesus and John and all the Apostles entertained such a conception, is that any proof to a rational being that the Divine Being is Tripersonal ?
What possible evidence of the nature of Deity had they which we do not possess ? If the profoundest reasonings of men in the nineteenth century, with the accumulated experience of all history to guide them, prove conclusively that God is unknowable, is it at all probable that ever he was knowable ?
If Christian theologians can supply any evidence on this point, by all means let it be forthcoming, as the world is much in need of it. I question, however, whether they can produce a particle of evidence (worthy the name) as to the existence of three persons in the Godhead. The fact that so many of the brightest intellects of the age are dissatisfied with the Christian evidence shows its worthlessness. I am aware that Christian teachers rely mainly on revelation for their knowledge of the Divine Being, and are often in the habit of asserting that human reason can never of itself discover the nature of Deity.
Assuming the possibility of revelation, how are we to know whether it be true or false except by the use of reason ? Take for instance the “ revelations “ of Buddha, Jesus, and Mahomet (which Christians must admit are widely different from each other) and supposing that each " revelation " is in turn presented to me for my acceptance, how am I to determine which is true ? Obviously, by comparing the different statements, and accepting that which seems most probable. The fact that Christians accept the revelations of Jesus and reject those of Buddha and Mahomet, proves that they use the same faculty of reason, in discriminating between "true" and "false" revelation. It is therefore evident that revelation, instead of being superior to reason, must become subject to it, and that the more reasonable the revelation the more truthful it is likely to be.
Surely no person in his senses would accept the revelation that appeared to him to be the most unreasonable; but this is actually what Christian teachers would have us do, when they ask us to believe that three are one, and that the Divine Being at one time inhabited the organism of a Jewish mechanic. Christian theology asserts that the Divine Being is divided into three parts, each of which is not a part, but the whole. That one part, " The Father," or God of the Hebrews, is located in a place called Heaven, where He has resided uninterruptedly since the time that He appeared to Moses at Mount Sinai. That the second part "The Son," appeared in Palestine some 1900 years ago, where he suspended the laws of nature on different occasions, and at his death ushered into the world a new system of moral government (rendered necessary through some defect in the original plan) whereby a person through the acceptance of this belief may reap moral harvests that he has never sown, and safely and conveniently prevent effects from following their producing causes.
The third part of the Christian Deity is said to be generally operating for good in the human soul, although he has often to contend for the mastery with a " malignant being,” whose power seems to be all but omnipotent, and who continually disarranges and frustrates the intentions of this Tripersonal Deity. It must be very humiliating for Christians to consider that in spite of the efforts of the third part, aided with the sympathy and support of the first and second parts of Deity, and also the special assistance of the "servants of God," on earth in counteracting the work of the "Evil Power," still Satan seems to hold his own against such fearful odds, and is evidently in as powerful a position to-day as when he proffered Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth on condition that He worshipped him.
If this be the "best light " of Christian theology, it seems little better than "a glow-worm's lamp" amidst the profound darkness that envelopes the mysterious subject of Deity.
Some of the more honest and capable of orthodox theologians are beginning to confess as much ; and it is worthy of notice that the deepest thinkers amongst them are invariably the most cautious in making assertions regarding the nature of the Divine Being. A great change is observable in the tone of theological writers within the last few years; and no doubt the advance of science, and the spread of freethought, have had much to do in causing the adoption of that apologetic style which distinguishes the writings of " advanced " Christian theologians.
As to the evils resulting from the teaching of dogmatic theology, I have only time to refer you to the persecutions, fiendish cruelties, and cold-blooded butcheries that have been perpetrated in the name of religion throughout the past, and the sectarian animosities, and uncharitable feelings that are still engendered through the mistaken idea that the nature and purposes of the Divine Being can possibly be known to any individual or church organisation. In view of the religious wars and martyrdoms that blot the pages of history and call forth the execrations of the civilised world, let us endeavour to kill dogmatic theology by introducing doubt, and by promptly demanding proof from these who assert that they have any positive knowledge regarding the nature or intentions of Deity.
As once upon Athenian ground,
Shrines, statues, temples, all around,
The man of Tarsus trod
Midst idolaltars ; one he saw,
That filled his breast with sacred awe,
'Twas "TO THE UNKNOWN GOD."
Yet still, where'er presumptuous man
His Maker's essence strives to scan,
And lifts his feeble hands,
Though saint and sage their powers unite,
Ah ! still that altar stands.
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