Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors. James Freeman Clarke

      But what is this Holy Spirit? What does it teach? Scientific truth? No. Scientific truth has been taught the [pg 111] world by other channels. Bacon and Newton, La Place and Cuvier, Linnæus and De Candolle, have been inspired to teach science. Their knowledge came, not only by observation, not only by study, but by patiently opening their minds to receive impressions from above. Were the writers of the Bible inspired to teach history? We think not. There are histories of the Jews in the Bible, and they are likely to be as authentic, as histories, as are those of Herodotus and Livy, and other painstaking and sincere historians. But the special inspiration of the Bible does not appear in the historic books.

      But are not all parts of the Bible equally inspired by this Holy Spirit? By no means. We can easily see that they are not. It is evident that there is nothing spiritually edifying in a large part of the history of the Old Testament—the account of Samson, the story of Gideon, large parts of the books of Judges and Chronicles, the Song of Solomon, the book of Esther. The book of Ecclesiastes is full, throughout, of a dark and terrible scepticism. Now, all these books are valuable, exceedingly so, as history, but not as proceeding from the Holy Spirit.

      But it may be said, “If the history of the Bible is not inspired, it may be erroneous.” Certainly it may. We have seen that the account of creation in the book of Genesis is probably erroneous. It contains one great faith, luminous throughout—namely, that there is one God, Creator of all worlds and of mankind. But as to the order of creation—the six days, the garden of Eden—all we can say is, that there may be some way by which Moses could, in vision, have seen these things, represented in picture, as they happened long before. There may be such a kind of unveiling of the past before the inner eye of the soul. We do not deny it, for it is not wise to deny where we know nothing. But we can assert that Christianity does not require us to believe those chapters of Genesis to contain historic truth. [pg 112] It may be allegorical truth. It may be a parable, representing how every little child comes into an Eden of innocence, and is tempted by that wily serpent, the sophistical understanding, and is betrayed by desire, his Eve, and goes out of his garden of childhood, where all life proceeds spontaneously and by impulse, into a world of work and labor. If it be such an allegory as that, it teaches us quite as much as if it were history.

§ 7. Authority of the Scriptures.

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      We have seen that the Bible, though inspired, is not infallible. But, it is said, unless the Bible is infallible it has no authority. This we deny. Inspiration is not infallibility, but inspiration is authority. The inspired man is always an authority. Phidias and Michael Angelo are authorities in sculpture; Titian and Rafaelle are authorities in painting; Mozart and Beethoven in music; and Paul, John, Peter, in religion.

      Authority without infallibility is the problem before us. It is evident that authority is desirable; it is equally evident that infallibility is impossible. Can there, therefore, be the one without the other? Can God reveal himself to man through a fallible medium? Can the writers of the New Testament be so inspired as to be able to communicate truth, and yet so inspired as not to be infallible? To all these questions we answer, Yes; and will try to show it to be so.

      Suppose that you are going through a forest in company with others. You have lost your way. No one knows which way to go; dangers are around you—dangers from cold, hunger, wild beasts, enemies. If you go the wrong way, you may all perish; if you go the right way, you will reach your destination and be safe. Under these circumstances, one of the party climbs a tree, and when he has reached the top he cries out with joy, “I see the way we ought to go. We must go to the right. I see the ocean in that direction, and the spires of the city to which we are [pg 113] bound.” You all immediately go the way that he directs. He has become an authority to you. You follow his guidance implicitly, and put your lives into his hands, depending upon the truth of what he says. Why? Because he has been where you have not been, and has seen what you have not seen, and you believe him honest and true. He has no motive to deceive you. This is his authority.

      But is it equivalent to infallibility? By no means. No one supposes him to be infallible. If, after following his direction for a while, you see no signs to show that you are in the right way, you begin to think that he may have been mistaken, and some one else climbs a tree to verify his judgment, or to correct it. But if, instead, signs begin to appear to show that you are in the right way, your faith in your guide is confirmed, and his authority is practically increased.

      What gives a man authority as a guide, teacher, counsellor, is not our belief in his infallibility, but our belief in his knowledge; if we believe that he knows something we do not know, he becomes thereby an authority to us. If he has been where we have not been, and seen what we have not seen, he is an authority. A man who has just come from Europe or from California, who has been in the midst of a great battle, who has studied a subject which others have not studied, and made himself familiar with it, such a man is an authority to others. Observe men listening to him. All defer to him while he is speaking on this subject. He may be much more ignorant than they are in regard to other things, but, if he has had superior opportunities in regard to this subject, he is an authority. Yet they do not believe him infallible; for if, in the course of his conversation, he says anything which seems contradictory, incredible, absurd, they begin to withdraw their confidence, and may withdraw it wholly. But if, on the other hand, what he says is clear, [pg 114] consistent, solid with information, his authority is increased continually, and his bearers defer to him more and more.

      Now, the authority of the writers of the New Testament is exactly of this kind. The authority of inspiration everywhere is of this kind. An inspired man is one who is believed to have been where we have not been, and to have seen what we have not seen.

      In Cooper's novels there is a character whom he calls Leatherstocking, familiar with the woods, knowing all their signs, acquainted with the habits of bird, beast, and Indian. He guides the travellers through the wilderness, and, by his superior knowledge, saves them from the Indian ambush and the pursuing savage. They commit themselves implicitly to his guidance, trust their lives to him. Why? Because they confide in his knowledge of woodcraft and in his fidelity. As regards all matters pertaining to the forest, he is an authority; their teacher if they want information, their guide if they are ignorant of the way, their saviour in imminent peril from savage beasts and savage men. He is an authority to them, a perfect authority; for they confide in him entirely, without a shade of doubt. But no one thinks him infallible, nor supposes it necessary to believe him infallible, in order to trust him entirely.

      Just so a ship on a lee shore, in the midst of a driving storm, throws up signal rockets or fires a gun for a pilot. A white sail emerges from the mist; it is the pilot-boat. A man climbs on board, and the captain gives to him the command of the ship. All his orders are obeyed implicitly. The ship, laden with a precious cargo and hundreds of lives, is confided to a rough-looking man whom no one ever saw before, who is to guide them through a narrow channel, where to vary a few fathoms to the right or left will be utter destruction. The pilot is invested with absolute authority as regards bringing the vessel into port.

      When Columbus came back from his first voyage, and [pg 115] reported the discovery of America, was he not an authority? Did not men throng around him, to hear of what he had seen and done? Yet who believed him infallible. He who has been where I have not been, and seen what I have not seen, is an authority to me. If I believe him honest, and no impostor, then I learn from him, and depend on his testimony. Now, the writers of the New Testament have been where we have not been. They have ascended heights, and sounded depths in the spiritual world unknown to us. So they are authorities to us, provided we have enough of their spirit in us to enable us to see and know their inspiration. For, unless I have some musical spirit in me, I cannot discern the inspiration of Mozart; unless I have some mathematical spirit in me, I cannot discern the mathematical inspiration of Newton and Kepler. So the natural man (the man who has nothing in him corresponding to the Christian inspiration) cannot discern the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, for they are spiritually discerned or judged. He lives in external things, as babes do. The authority of