Osa 3

Suvaitsemattomuuden lähteitä

Kristinuskon saapumisen yhteydessä yli maailman leviävä suvaitsemattomuus on eräs kummallisimmista piirteistä, mikä luullakseni johtuu juutalaisesta uskosta vanhurskauteen ja juutalaisen Jumalan muut poissulkevaan todellisuuteen. En tiedä, miksi juuri juutalaisilla oli nämä erikoisuudet. He näyttävät kehittäneen vankeusaikanaan reaktion, joka vastusti juutalaisten sulautumista vieraisiin kansoihin. Kuinka sen laita lieneekin, juutalaiset ja eritoten profeetat keksivät henkilökohtaisen vanhurskauden painotuksen ja uskomuksen, että on paheellista suvaita muita kuin yhtä uskontoa. Näillä kahdella uskomuksella on ollut tavattoman tuhoisa vaikutus länsimaiden historiaan.

Kirkko teki suuren numeron Konstantinuksen aikaa edeltävän Rooman valtion harjoittamasta kristittyjen vainosta. Tämä vaino oli kuitenkin vähäistä, ajoittaista ja täydellisesti poliittista. Jatkuvasti, aina Konstantinuksen ajoilta 1600-luvun lopulle, kristittyjä vainosivat Rooman keisareita paljon raivoisammin toiset kristityt.

Ennen kristinuskon nousua tämä vainoasenne oli tuntematon muinaisessa maailmassa, paitsi juutalaisten keskuudessa. Jos lukee esimerkiksi Herodotosta, löytää lempeän ja suvaitsevan kertomuksen hänen vierailemiensa muiden kansojen tavoista. Totta kyllä jokin erityisen raaka tapa saattaa järkyttää häntä, mutta yleisesti ottaen hän on hyväntahtoinen vieraita jumalia ja vieraita tapoja kohtaan. Hän ei pyri innokkaasti todistamaan, että ihmiset, jotka kutsuvat Zeusta jollakin toisella nimellä, kärsivät iankaikkisen rangaistuksen ja että heidät pitäisi tappaa, jotta heidän rangaistuksensa pantaisiin täytäntöön niin pian kuin mahdollista. Tämä asenne on luonteenomaista vain kristityille. On totta, että nykyajan kristityt eivät ole yhtä ankaria, mutta siitä ei pidä kiittää kristinuskoa; kiitokset kuuluvat niille vapaa-ajattelijoiden sukupolville, jotka renessanssin ajoista nykypäivään asti ovat saattaneet kristinuskon häpeämään monia perinteisistä uskomuksistaan.

On huvittavaa kuulla nykypäivän kristityn kertovan, miten lempeä ja järkevä kristinusko todella on, samalla kun hän jättää huomiotta sen tosiseikan, että kaikki sen lempeys ja järkevyys on peräisin omana aikanaan kaikkien oikeauskoisten kristittyjen vainoamien ihmisten opetuksista. Kukaan ei nykyään usko, että maailma luotiin v. 4004 e.Kr., mutta vain vähän aikaa sitten tämän opin epäilemistä pidettiin kauhistuttavana rikoksena. Tehtyään huomioita laavan syvyydestä Etnan rinteillä oman isoisäni isoisä tuli siihen johtopäätökseen, että maailman täytyy olla vanhempi kuin mitä oikeauskoiset olettivat, ja julkaisi mielipiteensä kirjana. Tämän pahan teon johdosta kreivikunta halveksi häntä ja yhteiskunta sulki hänet pois piiristään. Mikäli hän olisi elänyt vaatimattomammissa oloissa, hänen rangaistuksensa olisi epäilemättä ollut ankarampi.

Oikeauskoisille ei ole ansioksi se, etteivät he nykyään usko kaikkiin järjettömyyksiin, joihin uskottiin 150 vuotta sitten. Kristillisen opin vähittäinen vesittäminen on tullut käytäntöön huolimatta mitä pontevimmasta vastutuksesta, ja se on tulosta yksinomaan vapaa-ajattelijoiden rynnistyksistä.

Oppi vapaasta tahdosta

Kristittyjen asenne luonnon lakeja kohtaan on ollut omituisen häilyvä ja epävarma. Yhtäältä oli vapaan tahdon oppi, johon kristittyjen suuri enemmistö uskoi; ja tämä oppi vaati, etteivät inhimillisten olentojen tekojen ainakaan pidä olla luonnonlakien alaisia. Toisaalta erityisesti 1700- ja 1800-luvuilla oli olemassa usko Jumalaan lainantajana ja näkemys luonnonlaeista päätodisteena Luojan olemassaolosta.

JATKUU...

In recent times the objection to the reign of law in the interests of free will has begun to be felt more strongly than the belief in natural law as affording evidence for a Lawgiver. Materialists used the laws of physics to show, or attempt to show, that the movements of human bodies are mechanically determined, and that consequently everything that we say and every change of position that we effect fall outside the sphere of any possible free will. If this be so, whatever may be left for our unfettered volitions is of little value.

If, when a man writes a poem or commits a murder, the bodily movements involved in his act result solely from physical causes, it would seem absurd to put up a statue to him in the one case and to hang him in the other. There might in certain metaphysical systems remain a region of pure thought in which the will would be free; but, since that can be communicated to others only by means of bodily movement, the realm of freedom would be one that could never be the subject of communication and could never have any social importance.

Then, again, evolution has had a considerable influence upon those Christians who have accepted it. They have seen that it will not do to make claims on behalf of man which are totally different from those which are made on behalf of other forms of life. Therefore, in order to safeguard free will in man, they have objected to every attempt at explaining the behaviour of living matter in terms of physical and chemical laws. The position of Descartes, to the effect that all lower animals are automata, no longer finds favor with liberal theologians. The doctrine of continuity makes them inclined to go a step further still and maintain that even what is called dead matter is not rigidly governed in its behaviour by unalterable laws. They seem to have overlooked the fact that, if you abolish the reign of law, you also abolish the possibility of miracles, since miracles are acts of God which contravene the laws governing ordinary phenomena. I can, however, imagine the modern liberal theologian maintaining with an air of profundity that all creation is miraculous, so that he no longer needs to fasten upon certain occurrences as special evidence of Divine intervention.

Under the influence of this reaction against natural law, some Christian apologists have seized upon the latest doctrines of the atom, which tend to show that the physical laws in which we have hitherto believed have only an approximate and average truth as applied to large numbers of atoms, while the individual electron behaves pretty much as it likes. My own belief is that this is a temporary phase, and that the physicists will in time discover laws governing minute phenomena, although these laws may differ considerably from those of traditional physics. However that may be, it is worth while to observe that the modern doctrines as to minute phenomena have no bearing upon anything that is of practical importance. Visible motions, and indeed all motions that make any difference to anybody, involve such large numbers of atoms that they come well within the scope of the old laws. To write a poem or commit a murder (reverting to our previous illustration), it is necessary to move an appreciable mass of ink or lead. The electrons composing the ink may be dancing freely around their little ballroom, but the ballroom as a whole is moving according to the old laws of physics, and this alone is what concerns the poet and his publisher. The modern doctrines, therefore, have no appreciable bearing upon any of those problems of human interest with which the theologian is concerned.

The free-will question consequently remains just where it was. Whatever may be thought about it as a matter of ultimate metaphysics, it is quite clear that nobody believes it in practice. Everyone has always believed that it is possible to train character; everyone has always known that alcohol or opium will have a certain effect on behaviour. The apostle of free will maintains that a man can by will power avoid getting drunk, but he does not maintain that when drunk a man can say "British Constitution" as clearly as if he were sober. And everybody who has ever had to do with children knows that a suitable diet does more to make them virtuous than the most eloquent preaching in the world. The one effect that the free-will doctrine has in practice is to prevent people from following out such common-sense knowledge to its rational conclusion. When a man acts in ways that annoy us we wish to think him wicked, and we refuse to face the fact that his annoying behaviour is a result of antecedent causes which, if you follow them long enough, will take you beyond the moment of his birth and therefore to events for which he cannot be held responsible by any stretch of imagination.

No man treats a motorcar as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behaviour to sin; he does not say, "You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go." He attempts to find out what is wrong and to set it right. An analogous way of treating human beings is, however, considered to be contrary to the truths of our holy religion. And this applies even in the treatment of little children. Many children have bad habits which are perpetuated by punishment but will probably pass away of themselves if left unnoticed. Nevertheless, nurses, with very few exceptions, consider it right to inflict punishment, although by so doing they run the risk of causing insanity. When insanity has been caused it is cited in courts of law as a proof of the harmfulness of the habit, not of the punishment. (I am alluding to a recent prosecution for obscenity in the State of New York.)

Reforms in education have come very largely through the study of the insane and feeble-minded, because they have not been held morally responsible for their failures and have therefore been treated more scientifically than normal children. Until very recently it was held that, if a boy could not learn his lesson, the proper cure was caning or flogging. This view is nearly extinct in the treatment of children, but it survives in the criminal law. It is evident that a man with a propensity to crime must be stopped, but so must a man who has hydrophobia and wants to bite people, although nobody considers him morally responsible. A man who is suffering from plague has to be imprisoned until he is cured, although nobody thinks him wicked. The same thing should be done with a man who suffers from a propensity to commit forgery; but there should be no more idea of guilt in the one case than in the other. And this is only common sense, though it is a form of common sense to which Christian ethics and metaphysics are opposed.

To judge of the moral influence of any institution upon a community, we have to consider the kind of impulse which is embodied in the institution and the degree to which the institution increases the efficacy of the impulse in that community. Sometimes the impulse concerned is quite obvious, sometimes it is more hidden. An Alpine club, for example, obviously embodies the impulse to adventure, and a learned society embodies the impulse toward knowledge. The family as an institution embodies jealousy and parental feeling; a football club or a political party embodies the impulse toward competitive play; but the two greatest social institutions -- namely, the church and the state -- are more complex in their psychological motivation. The primary purpose of the state is clearly security against both internal criminals and external enemies. It is rooted in the tendency of children to huddle together when they are frightened and to look for a grown-up person who will give them a sense of security. The church has more complex origins. Undoubtedly the most important source of religion is fear; this can be seen in the present day, since anything that causes alarm is apt to turn people's thoughts to God. Battle, pestilence, and shipwreck all tend to make people religious. Religion has, however, other appeals besides that of terror; it appeals specifically to our human self-esteem. If Christianity is true, mankind are not such pitiful worms as they seem to be; they are of interest to the Creator of the universe, who takes the trouble to be pleased with them when they behave well and displeased when they behave badly. This is a great compliment. We should not think of studying an ants' nest to find out which of the ants performed their formicular duty, and we should certainly not think of picking out those individual ants who were remiss and putting them into a bonfire. If God does this for us, it is a compliment to our importance; and it is even a pleasanter compliment if he awards to the good among us everlasting happiness in heaven. Then there is the comparitively modern idea that cosmic evolution is all designed to bring about the sort of results which we call good -- that is to say, the sort of results that give us pleasure. Here again it is flattering to suppose that the universe is controlled by a Being who shares our tastes and prejudices.

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