Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors. James Freeman Clarke

earth, before any written monument or sculptured stone which now exists. Two different sources have been discovered within a few years—one of them by philology, the other by geology.

      It has been found that the languages spoken by Europeans, in their airy sounds, are more permanent monuments than granite or enduring brass. Stamped on these light, imponderable words are marks of a gray antiquity going back to times before Herodotus, before Moses and the book of Genesis, [pg 093] before the Vedas in India, before the Zendavesta in Persia. It has been proved, first, that nearly all the languages of Europe belong to one linguistic family, and therefore that those who speak them were originally of one race. These different languages—seven sister languages, daughters of a language now wholly gone—are the Sanscrit or ancient Hindoo, the Zend or ancient Persian, the Greek, the Latin, the Keltic, the German, and the Slavic languages. By a comparison of these, it has been found that originally there lived, east of the Caspian, a race of shepherds and hunters, calling themselves Aryan; that one branch descended into India at least five thousand years ago, and drove out the aboriginal inhabitants, a second branch went into Persia, a third into Italy, a fourth into Greece, a fifth vast immigration filled Northern Europe with the Kelts, a sixth with Scandinavians and Germans, and a seventh with the Slaves. But long ago as this immigration was—before all history—it found aboriginal inhabitants everywhere, whose descendants remain. The Lapps and Finns in Northern, Europe, the Basques in Spain, and Magyars in Hungary, are probably descended from this earlier European race. It is difficult to suppose mankind only six thousand years old, when we find such great movements taking place four or five thousand years ago.

      But now come the geologists, and tell us that they find evidence of three different races existing in Europe in three distinct periods of civilization, some of which probably preceded the immigration of these Indo-European races. These three belong to what they call the Stone, the Bronze, and the Iron Age. In the gravel and drift, from ten to twenty feet below the surface, along with the bones of the elephant and the rhinoceros, and other animals long since extinct, are found hundreds of flint instruments, axes, arrow-heads, and tools, indicating that men lived in Europe in great numbers, contemporaries with these extinct animals. If this should [pg 094] be proved, we should then be brought to admit, with respect to the antiquity of man, what we have already admitted with regard to the antiquity of the world, that the account in Genesis is not to be understood as theologians have hitherto taught; that is, that we must not go to Genesis, but to philology and geology, for our knowledge of the most ancient history.

      In this case, then, it will be evident that the old notion of a literal inspiration cannot be maintained. God certainly did not inspire men to teach anything about the creation which was adapted to mislead and deceive men for two thousand years. We shall be obliged to say, then, that Moses was not inspired to teach geology or history; that what he taught on these subjects he taught from such sources as were available to him, and that he was liable to error.

      The old Orthodox theory of plenary inspiration has received very damaging blows from such scientific researches as these which we have been describing. The letter of the Bible seems, in such cases, to be at war with the facts of nature.

§ 3. Basis of the Orthodox Theory of Inspiration.

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      Why, then, should the Orthodox doctrine be so stoutly maintained? What are the reasons used in its defence? What its arguments? What is its basis? On what does it rest? Do the writers of the Bible say that they were inspired by God to write these books? Not at all. Do they claim infallibility? Nowhere. Do they lay down any doctrine of plenary, verbal, literal inspiration? No. We do not even know who wrote many of these books. We do not know who collected them, or why just these books were put into the collection, and no others. The Orthodox theory rests on few facts, but is mainly an assumption. It seemed necessary that there should be authority somewhere; and when Protestants rejected the authority of the Church, they took the Bible in [pg 095] its place. The doctrine of inspiration, therefore, was adopted as a basis for the authority of the Bible.

      The principal reason given by those who believe in the plenary inspiration of the Bible, for holding to this doctrine, is the necessity of some authority. The argument is this: Unless every part of the Bible is believed to be fully inspired, some part of it may be believed to be erroneous; and if we admit error in any part, the Bible loses its authority, and we do not know what to believe. The doctrine of literal and plenary inspiration rests, therefore, in the last analysis, on no basis of fact, but on a purely a priori argument. Let us therefore examine this argument, and see what is its force.

      Revelation, it is said, is a communication of truth with authority. It is truth shown to us by God, not truth reasoned out by man. Its value is, that we can rely upon it entirely, live by it, die by it, without doubt or hesitation. We do not want speculation, opinion, probability; we want certainty; otherwise religion ceases to be a power, and becomes a mere intellectual amusement.

      The only religion, it is added, which is of any real value, is that which carries with it this authority. The outward world, with its influences and its temptations, is so strong, that we shall be swept away by it unless we can oppose to it some inward conviction as solid and real. Amid the temptations of the senses, the allurements of pleasure, the deceitfulness of riches, will it enable a man to hold fast to honesty, temperance, purity, generosity—to believe that in all probability these things are right, and that there is something to be said in favor of the opinion that God approves of them?

      Will it help him, to think that unless the writer of the Gospel is mistaken, or his words mistranslated, Christ may have said that goodness leads to heaven, and sin to hell? No. We need authority in order to have certainty; and we need certainty in our convictions in order that they should influence us deeply and permanently.

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      This is the chief argument in favor of the plenary inspiration11 of the Bible. We see it amounts to this—that it is very desirable, for practical purposes, that we should believe everything in the Bible to be true.12

      In reply to this, we ought first to say, that the question in all these cases is not, What is desirable? but, What is true? We should begin by investigating the facts. We should ask, Does the Bible anywhere say of itself that it is inspired in this sense? Do any of the writers of the Bible declare themselves to be thus inspired, so that all that they say is absolutely true in every particular? Does Christ say that those who are to write the Gospels or the Epistles of the New Testament shall be thus guarded against every possible error? Or is there any evidence in the books themselves that the writers were thus protected? Do they never contradict each other or themselves? Do they never contradict facts of nature or facts of history?

      Now, to all these questions, we are obliged to say, No. The Bible claims no such absolute inspiration for itself. It says that “holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit,” but it does not say that the Holy Spirit made them infallible. It says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration, [pg 097] and is profitable for doctrine,” but it does not say what are the limits of Scripture; and to be profitable or useful for doctrine is surely not the same thing as to have infallible authority over belief. Besides, if those who wrote certain Scriptures were infallibly inspired, those who collected the present books of the Old and New Testament, and made our canon, were not so inspired. Those who transcribed their autographic manuscripts were not inspired. The manuscripts of the Gospels and Epistles, written by their authors, have long since perished. There were no autograph collectors in ancient times. There was no such reverence then paid to the letter of religion, to cause the original manuscript of an apostle to be kept in a church as a sacred relic. We have plenty of pieces of wood claiming to be parts of the true cross, but not a manuscript claiming to be the original writing of an apostle. The earliest manuscript goes only to the fourth century, and that contains the Epistle of Barnabas. If, then, the writers of the New Testament were inspired, those who collected their writings were not inspired, and may have left out the right books, and put in the wrong ones. Those who copied their manuscripts were not inspired, and may have left out the right words, and put in wrong ones. Those who translated their