by Bart Schultz
Christianity is implicitly contained: but that the evolution of this conception was
gradual, and was not completed at his death. The one thing important to Jesus
in man was a principle so general that faith, love, and moral energy seem only
different sides of it. It was the ultimate coincidence, or rather, if we may use a
Coleridgean word, indifference of religion and morality. It was “the single eye,” the rightness, of a man’s heart before God. It was faith in the conflict with baser and narrower impulses, love when it became emotion, moral energy as it took effect
on the will. It was that which living in a man filled his whole body with a light,
purified him completely, so that nothing external could defile him. (MEA )
This principle carries several further consequences. Jesus’ work “in-
tensified or deepened all moral obligations,” for the “inner light could not
produce right outward acts, except through the medium of right inward
impulses,” and the man who had it “could acquiesce in no compromises,
but must aim at perfection.” It is this inner rightness of heart that fixes
one’s place in the Kingdom of God – not birth, wealth, etc. – and the
Kingdom is thus open to all of Adam’s seed. With this development, “the
ceremonial law must fall. This elaborate system of minute observances
was needless, and if needless it was burdensome.” (MEA ) But not all
of this work was done by Jesus; clearly, Saint Paul was crucial in explic-
itly drawing out these implications, and indeed, the historical progress
of ethics and civilization suggests how much was yet to come after Jesus,
great as his ethical example was. Seeley’s account could not accommodate
the growth, the progress, of doctrine, though such a view of history was
an element common to Coleridge, Maurice, Whewell, Newman, Comte,
Mill, and perhaps most of the notable moral theorists of Darwin’s century.
“Here and there we feel that if Jesus planted, Jean Jacques and Comte have
watered” (MEA ). Progress was real, whether or not it was the result of
divine intervention.
Thus, Sidgwick’s (rather ironic) appeal to Comte and Mill as repre-
senting the best in the Christian tradition allowed that that tradition had
grown and progressed, and that it contained various elements that were
difficult to reconcile. To Noel, Sidgwick explained, with reference to his
criticisms of Seeley and others,
I have counted the cost, and am content to go on exciting the disgust of enthusiasts –
that is, of the people whose sympathy I value most – in defence of (what seems
to me) historic truth and sound criticism. It seems to me that ultimate religious
agreement is ideally possible on my method, and not even ideally possible on
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yours – as each sect and party will go on making a particular view of history a test
of spirituality and thus feel itself at liberty to dispense . . . with other arguments.
(M )
One could scarcely hope for a plainer statement of Sidgwick’s own quest
for unity, of how critical inquiry, for him, held out the hope of both truth
and reconciliation. The Socratic search was a very personal business.
And in this pursuit of truth, there is a profound sense in which Sidgwick
took up directly the challenge, not of Seeley, but of Renan. One could not,
with Seeley, deduce the miracles from the morality of Jesus – Renan was
right. But perhaps Renan was wrong in too hastily assuming that modern
science could not recognize the existence of ghosts. Although the gospels
should not receive a special dispensation to ignore the laws of nature,
perhaps the laws of nature might allow that the “miraculous” does occur,
today as much as two thousand years ago. But that is not a question to be
settled by books.
III. Rational Faith
I pass by a kind of eager impulse from one Drama or Heart-Tragedy or Comedy
as the case may be to another: and when I begin to take stock as it were on my
account, my prudential instincts being awakened, I wonder what it all means, and
whether there is any higher or lower, better or worse in human life, except so far
as sympathy and a kind of rude philosophy go.
Sidgwick to Dakyns, April , (M )
The sixties were undoubtedly some of Sidgwick’s most turbulent years,
but in many respects, the overall direction of his thought during this time
was a painfully consistent one:
I want to earn my freedom from the Church of England. What a hideous compro-
mise between baseness and heroism! Yet I do not see anything else in this strange
age of transition for a man who feels bitterly the Drück of hypocrisy, yet cannot reconcile himself to cut the Gordian knot. My feeling is that emotional Theism will
shine in more and more upon mankind through the veil of history and life; that all
religions are good in so far as they approximate to it, and that formulae are neces-
sary for the mass of mankind in their present state: and that the task of substituting a purer for a crasser formula is a grand one, but I must leave it to a man who has more belief in himself than I have. In short I feel with regard to the Church of England
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; ,
, & I mean to put it if possible in my power. (M –)
In , he had declared that “one ought to begin by being a Theist – to
contemplate, I mean, a Heart and Mind behind phenomena” and allowed
that if, at that point, he was “only a Theist,” it would not be “for want of
profound and devoted study” if he did not “become a Christian” (M –
). No one could deny that he gave himself over to profound and devoted
study, avoiding any open break with his church, but the effort never got him
beyond the above formulation of historical theism, at least for any length
of time. He was determined not to barter his “intellectual birthright for a
mess of mystical pottage.” By , after much linguistic study, he could
still complain that he had “discovered nothing and settled nothing. Is
Theism to be the background or the light of the picture of life?” (M )
And by , he is concluding,
I do not feel called or able to preach religion except as far as it is involved in
fidelity to one’s true self. I firmly believe that religion is normal to mankind, and therefore take part unhesitatingly in any social action to adapt and sustain it (as
far as a layman may). I know also that my true self is a Theist, but I believe that
many persons are really faithful to themselves in being irreligious, and I do not
feel able to prophesy to them. (M )
His complaint wi
th the irreligious is not their disbelief, but “that they
are content with, happy in, a universe where there is no God ” (M ).
Sidgwick could entertain the thought that there was no God; what he
could not entertain was the thought of being happily content in such a
cold, uncaring, unjust universe.
The essence of Sidgwick’s position was nicely expressed in an
letter that he sent to the Times concerning “Clerical Engagements.” He
delineated three different theological orientations: that of “Simple Scrip-
turalism,” holding that the errors of the Bible are insignificant and that “all
the more important historical statements, and absolutely all the statements
on moral and theological subjects in the Bible, are true”; that of “Histor-
ical Scripturalists,” who agree that the theology of the Bible is final, but
who “hold that only its theological and moral statements have this peculiar
claim on our acceptance, and that on all other subjects a Biblical writer is
just as likely to err as any other equally honest and conscientious person,”
and that even the theology of the Bible should be read historically; and
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finally, that of the “Rationalist,” who holds that although the “most impor-
tant part of religious truth (what may be fairly called the true religion) was
discovered or revealed before the first century of Christianity was closed”
and “no sound developments of later thought are likely to deviate from
the main lines laid down in the Bible,” nevertheless, “no expression, even
of these truths, by the Biblical writers is to be regarded as authoritative.”
According to this last view, with which Sidgwick identifies himself, the
theology of the Bible has, and always will have, a unique interest for mankind,
but unique only as the interest of Greek philosophy is unique, because it is the
fountain from which the main stream of thought upon the subject is derived; so
that not only must it always be presupposed and referred to by religious thinkers,
but must always possess for them what M. Renan calls the ‘charme des origines.’
However, the Rationalist believes that
the process of development which the historical scripturalist traces between the
earlier and later of them has continued since, and will continue, and that we cannot
forecast its limits; and that even where the doctrine of the Bible, taken as a whole, is clear, an appeal lies always open to the common sense, common reason, and
combined experience of the religious portion of mankind. (CWC)
It is, of course, the Rationalist view that Sidgwick takes to be the di-
rection of history. He is confident “that the thought of civilised Europe
is moving rapidly in its direction, and that it must inevitably spread and
prevail,” but he also wishes “as heartily as any broad Churchman can, that
it may spread with the least possible disruption and disorganization of
existing institutions, the least possible disruption of old sympathies and
associations.”
Hence, the three-way current of Sidgwick’s storm and stress. He cannot,
intellectually, ignore the possibility of atheism and materialism, though
he cannot accept such a worldview as emotionally satisfying and does not
think humanity at large capable of this either. Yet the crude superstition
and ahistoricism of most orthodox Christianity is hardly something that he
can accept intellectually, though he recognizes its sociological and political
importance and is determined not to abandon orthodoxy lightly. He hopes
to be able (eventually, at least) to vindicate a minimal, theistic conception
of the universe and to work for gradual social reforms that will duly install
this view in place of the older ones.
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What was the precise content of Sidgwick’s critique of orthodox
Christianity? How did it accord with or differ from the views of Renan,
Noel, and Strauss?
Sidgwick’s views on various points of doctrine certainly did fluctuate a
great deal, but in retrospect, he was fairly consistent in singling out certain
key difficulties. In the manuscript of the “Autobiographical Fragment,”
the text breaks off into a number of scattered remarks that include his
confession that of all the miracle tales in the Bible, the one that struck
him as simply unbelievable was the doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Jesus.
His testimony on this score must have struck his wife, Eleanor Mildred
Sidgwick, as accurate and unsuspect, since she was taking the dictation
and never in public or private registered any objection to this point. And
in his pamphlet on “The Ethics of Conformity and Subscription”
(actually composed around ), he singled out the Virgin Birth as one of
the most problematic issues dividing Anglicans, since a sincere Christian
could certainly believe that Jesus was God and that miracles could occur,
yet also hold that “legends may have been mixed up with the evangelical
narrations, and that some probably have been. A man who holds this
general view is very likely to reject the miraculous conception of Jesus,
as the narrative of it has a very legendary aspect, and the evidence which
supports it is exceptionally weak.” (CS )
However, a later friend, Canon Charles Gore, would record that
Sidgwick had confessed to him that his chief difficulty with orthodoxy
had to do with Jesus’ apparent belief in his immediate return as the glo-
rified Christ; this difficulty would have been especially hard to overcome,
since it involved an error by Jesus on a matter of great theological and
ethical significance, and the historical, textual evidence for attributing this
false belief to him was overwhelming.
Evident as it may be that such objections are bound up with the results
of historical biblical criticism, Sidgwick could, in some humors, speak
rather disparagingly of the additional value of such historical work. Thus,
even in the midst of his “orientalist” studies, he could complain that
I have the secret conviction that the great use of learning Hebrew is to ascertain
how little depends on it, and, with regard to Biblical criticism, that it is impossible to demonstrate from themselves the non-infallibility of the Hebrew writings: just
as it would be to demonstrate the non-infallibility of Livy if there was any desire
to uphold it. It all depends on the scientific sense, and antiquarianism will never
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overthrow superstition except in a few intellects who would probably have got rid
of it anyway.
In , he wrote to Dakyns: “My own views do not alter; you know I attach
less and less value to criticism the more time I spend over it. How can a
close knowledge of Hebrew help us to convince a man who after reading the
English Version believes that God Almighty wrote the account of Noah’s
flood?” (M ) The year finds him sarcastically observing that it “was
probably an erroneous idea of my relations to the infinite” to suppose that
“it was all-important to have a view on the historical question. As if after
dying I were likely to meet God and He to say, Well, are you a Christian?
‘No,’ I say, ‘but I have a theory on the origin of the Gospels which is really
the best I could form on the evidence; and please, this ought to do as
well.’” (M –) And at length, in , he complains “How I wish I
had employed my leisure which I have so wasted, in studying philosophy
and art!” (M )
As the “Autobiographical Fragment” records:
I began also to think that the comparative historical study which I had planned
would not really give any important aid in answering the great questions raised by
the orthodox Christianity from which my view of the Universe had been derived.
Was Jesus incarnate God, miraculously brought into the world as a man? Were
his utterances of divine authority? Did he actually rise from the grave with a
human body glorified, and therewith ascend into heaven? Or if the answers to
these questions could not strictly be affirmative in the ordinary sense of the term,
what element of truth, vital for mankind, could be disengaged from the husk of
legend, or symbolised by the legend, supposing the truth itself capable of being
established by human reasoning? Study of Philosophy and Theology, which I had
never abandoned, began again to occupy more of my time. (M –)
Because Sidgwick’s somewhat exaggerated reaction against historical
study in some ways carried over to the history of philosophy, and even
to the teaching of such, it should be stressed that his considered com-
