Rationalism owes much of its success to its name. It was a stroke of genius to invent a name which begs the whole question at issue and a triumph of audacity to persuade Christians to describe their opponents as rationalists, thus labeling themselves, by implication, as anti-rational.
The question at issue is not whether reason is to be preferred to unreason, but whether the theistic or the atheistic conception of the universe is the more rational–in other words, whether the theists are right. Had the rationalists described themselves as “rightists,” the impertinence would have been more obvious, but, in effect, no greater, for “rationalist” means “rightist,” seeing that conclusions based on reason are right and conclusions which are based on unreason are wrong.
I have no serious quarrel with the genuine agnostic who suspends his judgment. That the available evidence is insufficient to demonstrate either theism or atheism is a claim for which a reasonable argument can be advanced, but the missionary enterprise of Victorian rationalism was directed, not by genuine agnostics, but by men who were convinced that they had arrived at a satisfactory “gnosis” and that it was their duty to deprive their fellow men of the consolations of religion.
Their gloomy faith was the spiritual product of Puritanism. Calvin made things uncomfortable for the cheerful skeptic, and the Victorian rationalist tried to make things equally uncomfortable for the cheerful believer. To those who argued that even if atheism were true, it would still be best to leave people the comforting illusion of a loving God, the militant rationalist replied sternly that truth is always to be preferred to falsehood and that we should sternly set our face against the use of palliatives.
Now, if rationalism be, as the rationalists claim, founded on reason, the rationalist must be prepared to prove the first article of his creed–“I believe in truth.” But the rationalist who is challenged to demonstrate that truth is always to be preferred to falsehood shows signs of irritation as if you were taking an unfair controversial advantage. He is apt to reply that there are certain axioms which no sensible man should be required to prove. There well may be, but the obligation of truth is not one of them.
Professor Julian Huxley, for instance, wrote a long book, Religion without Revelation, in which he dismissed in one paragraph the belief in a personal God. “It is quite clear,” he wrote, “that the idea of personality in God is put there by man.” Of course, if this is quite clear, there is nothing more to be said, and we need not pause to refute the long array of proofs for a personal God which have been advanced by a long array of unenlightened thinkers, Greek, Roman, and Christian. Professor Huxley, with all that fine, hearty confidence of the man whose creed is based not on reason, but on faith, expects us to accept not only his negations, but his beliefs, on trust. “What, then, do I believe?” he believe something. Complete scepticism does not work.” Perhaps not, but the Christian would not expect Julian Huxley to accept theism merely because “complete atheism does not work.” The Christian realizes that a creed must be supported by reason no less than by expediency.
Huxley continues: “Truth is not merely truthfulness; it is also discovery and knowledge. I believe that the acquisition of knowledge is one of the fundamental aims of man, that truth will, in the long run, prevail, and is always to be preferred to expediency.”
Aquinas, a rationalist living in an age of reason, did not begin by assuming, but by proving, the articles of his creed. He developed his system, not from a highly arguable proposition such as the theorem that truth is always to be preferred to expediency, but from such modest premises as the axiom that nothing moves unless it has been set in motion.
No pupil of Aquinas would have been allowed to assume that truth should always be preferred to falsehood. He would have been expected to prove his proposition, and if he had been unable to do so, he would have been sent to the bottom of the class and required to write out in a fair flowing hand the twenty-third chapter of the second book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, in which Aquinas proves that the first cause of the universe is mind and that the last end of the universe must be the good of mind, that is, truth, and that in the contemplation of truth man finds the principal object of wisdom.
That truth is always to be preferred to expediency is a logical deduction from theistic premises. That expediency should always be preferred to truth is a no less logical deduction from atheistic premises.
Certain configurations of matter produce in one brain the illusion of an all-loving God, in another brain the conviction that God himself is a figment of the imagination. Now, on the atheistic assumption, the movements of matter in the brain of the believer and the movements of matter in the brain of the atheist are alike the product of natural law. By what right do those who maintain the supremacy of natural law discriminate between these varying sequences of matter, sequences dictated by that law? By what right does the atheist despise the victim of groveling superstition? By what right does he take pride in his own intellectual superiority? Credulity and scepticism are alike the outcome of forces over which neither atheist nor believer has the least control. And by what right does the atheist seek to deprive the superstitious of their superstitions? If life be nothing more than the flicker of a candle for a few fitful moments, and consciousness be nothing more than an idle spectator powerless to control the chance conglomerations of matter which create the illusion of personality; if the universe be nothing more than an endless re-arrangement of atoms without plan and without purpose, why, in the name of reason, should we refuse to dull the edge of mental pain with the drug of consoling falsehood and to render as easy as possible our pointless passage from the darkness of the womb to the oblivion of the grave?
What rational answer can the rationalist advance against the arguments of Cicero, who declared (De Senectute, 23:85) that even if immortality was an illusion, he would still prefer to go through life consoled by this illusion, knowing full well that if he was mistaken, the skeptics would never have the laugh of him in the next world?
It is, perhaps, not surprising that a philosophy which cannot prove, and which is impotent to justify, its fundamental assumptions should be riddled through and through with inconsistencies.
The note of moral indignation which permeates rationalistic literature is essentially irrational. Indignation is a luxury in which the determinist is not entitled to indulge. The consistent rationalist cannot reproach Rome with the Inquisition, for Torquemada, like Bradlaugh, represents a legitimate product of natural law. Only those who believe in free will can rationally demand religious freedom. The only possible ethic for the determinist is resignation; the only rational attitude is acquiescence in the status quo. The status quo is inevitable; therefore the status quo is right.
A determinist is entitled to take precautions against crime, just as the natives of an Alpine valley take precautions against avalanches, but the consistent determinist has no right to pass moral judgments either on criminals or on avalanches. He is entitled to hang but not to criticise a murderer, to regret but not to despise stupidity, to resist but not to resent injustice, to promote but not to admire virtue.
The consistent determinist is not even entitled to say, “You ought.” “You ought” takes him into a region where the writ of natural law no longer runs. “You ought” is, of course, the driving force behind all missionary endeavor. “You ought to be a Christian,” says the S.P.G., and is entitled to say it, for the S.P.G. recognizes that every man is free either to accept or to reject Christianity. “You ought to be a rationalist,” says the militant rationalist, to which the Christian is entitled to reply: “My dear sir, on your own showing, my beliefs are determined for me by the movements of matter. Why, then, should you seek to alter them?”
The militant rationalist cannot afford to be consistent, or he would cease to be militant. “Drink, for you know not whence you come nor why,” is the only logical deduction from his premises. Hedonism, grave or gay, is the only possible creed for the atheist. Hence the paradox that the drive behind militant atheism is essentially a religious impulse. The atheist who wishes to convert the world to his views is sustained by irrational mysticism, by the mystical belief that truth is always to be preferred to falsehood. Mysticism may be either rational or muddled. The conviction that the great mystics are in touch with ultimate reality is a rational deduction from theistic premises, but an atheist who worships absolute truth is guilty of muddled mysticism, for this belief is inconsistent with the very basis of the atheistic creed.
It is difficult for a determinist to be consistent. He cannot even describe his own philosophy without contradicting himself. Mr. Cohen, for instance, that plucky survivor of Victorian materialism, is the editor of a periodical in which he proclaims, week by week, that free will is an illusion, that there is no such thing as free thought and consequently no such person as a freethinker. And the name of the periodical in question is The Freethinker, from which it would seem to follow that the freethinker is a man who disbelieves in the possibility of freethinking.
I suggest that Mr. Cohen should rechristen his paper.
The Victorian rationalist committed, in all innocence, most of the dreadful crimes of which the Christian is so freely accused. The militant rationalist was more dogmatic than the most dogmatic of ultramontanes and with far less excuse, for the ultramontane, at least, makes some show of justifying his creed by reason. Rationalism is based on blind faith. The Christian begins by proving, the rationalist by assuming, the first article in their respective creeds.
The Christian is often accused of taking refuge from truth in a world of pleasant dreams and of refusing to follow truth “to whatever abysses truth may lead.” But it is the rationalist, not the Christian, who lacks the courage to face the more depressing implications of his creed. Few skeptics are candid enough to admit the bankruptcy of naturalism. They tend to evade this issue with pious phrases about progress, “absolute values,” and so forth, and, above all, by a na<o>ve faith in science. The Victorian rationalist was convinced that if bishops could only be replaced by biologists, the world would be a better and a brighter place. He was inspired by a mystical faith in the supreme importance of scientific discovery, irrespective of its practical results. He believed, as Julian Huxley believes, that “the acquisition of knowledge is one of the fundamental aims of man.” It matters little whether the knowledge in question is useful or useless. According to this creed, an astronomer who discovered a remote planet on the outskirts of the solar system would have every reason to feel vastly elated and to assume that he had made a contribution of great importance to the sum total of human knowledge.
But naturalism, as we have seen, lends no support to this view. Science cannot be more significant than life itself, and if life itself is futile, the acquisition of scientific knowledge is of no importance. The scientist anxious for a reasoned vindication of his deepest conviction, the conviction that “the acquisition of knowledge is one of the fundamental aims of man,” must fall back upon Aquinas. That is the tragedy of rationalism. The rationalist cannot defend by the reason to which he appeals the first article of his creed. “I believe in truth,” says the rationalist, but he must turn to the theist to justify that belief. “I believe in reason,” he continues, and naturalism replies that reason and unreason are alike the products of natural law. “I believe in science,” continues the rationalist, in despair, and the theist smiles, for he knows that theism alone can vindicate the idealism of science and alone can provide a reasoned basis for that mysticism which is the true inspiration of scientific research.