Note 7 — Chapter I · THE GRAVITY OF THE PRESENT SITUATION

Leaving the sceptic, let us examine another extremely common type—the man who is under the impression that he is a Christian, without either being particularly devout or having inquired at all deeply into the grounds of his faith. He is ignorant of the causes for doubt, because he has not had, or has not cared to afford, any time for such matters. I do not refer so much to the masses, who obviously have very little leisure, but to the more leisured and influential classes. Such a man’s scientific education, if he ever had any, was broken off early in life. A large proportion of those all-important years of his boyhood were devoted probably to an unwilling study of the “humanities.” His faith is decidedly vague, and according to his own peculiar interpretation, an adjustment between his heavenly aspirations and his earthly inclinations. It has never been thought out, and is not the result of a thorough study of its tenets. He was born and bred a Christian, and all the nicest people he knows are Christians, or he thinks they are. He is, all unconsciously, a social chameleon taking his colour from the conditions in the midst of which he happens to live. He, too, like his heterodox brother, sneers at organised Freethought in this country, because it owes its inception and conduct chiefly to poor and lowly men, forgetting that it was from such a source that the mighty creed of Christendom itself arose. He forgets that the first Christian apostles were mostly working men. If he has heard or read anything of a sceptical nature, he has never stopped to inquire any further into it. He has no idea that the central features of the Bible have been attacked by men of the greatest learning and integrity, with the result that even the defenders of the faith ask for a reverent agnosticism as to the historical circumstances out of which, in the first instance, belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ arose.7 Not knowing that the essentials are called in question, he sees no reason to trouble himself about mere details. It is enough for him that he feels sure that there must be some object in our existence, and that there must be a First Cause. It never occurs to him to consider whether his and the Christian conception of God can be reconciled. For him the truth of the Christian dogma is proved sufficiently by the unsatisfying nature of materialism. Has he not been taught that he must have faith, and that faith is a feeling of trust divinely implanted, and not needing to be fed on evidences? Is not Christianity the civilising agent of the world, and the origin of all morality and all good works? Does not scepticism lead to atheism? If thought only leads to disbelief in God, he for one is not going to think.