So in the present instance. Some have been biassed in favour of Faith, others in favour of Reason; some have accepted as historical all the miracles and mighty works in the Old and New Testament indiscriminately, others have rejected all indiscriminately; some have declared that every word in the Old and New Testament (I don’t quite know how they have got rid of the difficulty of various readings) is exactly inspired and every detail historically true; others, that there are so many errors and illusions that the books may be put aside as no better than myths: some have said that, since we cannot worship an unknown Being, we must worship the human race; others that, since we cannot worship our very degraded selves, we must worship some being altogether different from ourselves: some have said that Christ is God, and have ignored His humanity; others have said that He was a “mere man,” and therefore not divine. Now in all these cases the truth lies between the two extremes. Man derives religious truth from Faith, but Faith assisted by Reason; Christ did not perform miracles, but He did perform mighty works; the Old and New Testament, like all other vehicles of revelation, contain illusion, but illusion preserving and protecting truth; we must not worship ourselves, and yet we cannot worship one who is altogether different from ourselves; Christ is a man, and yet Christ is God. But to all these conclusions we are not led by “mutual promise,” give and take of any kind, but by full and unbiassed consideration of all sides of the subject, knowing that (for the present at all events) we shall displease all, both the orthodox and heterodox alike.
So far from suggesting any compromise between Faith and Reason, I have merely pointed out that the provinces of the two are, to a very large extent, distinct, so that many of their operations can be performed altogether independently. I have never said, “Do not follow out the conclusions of your Reason in this or that instance because you would be led to inconvenient results,” but, “Follow out the conclusions of your Reason in every instance and presently acknowledge that you are led, in some cases, to results so absurd and unpractical that you must infer Reason to be out of its province in these cases. Reason your utmost for example about a First Cause and Predestination and the Origin of Evil and the like; but then, when you have come to the conclusion that, logically speaking, it is equally absurd to suppose that the world had no cause, and that the First Cause had no cause, give the subject up as being beyond the syllogistic powers.” Surely there is no unworthy compromise here, nothing but common sense! Wherever historical facts are affirmed in religion, I have said that the accounts of those facts are to be judged upon evidence and by Reason alone; here Faith and Hope have no place; history in the New Testament is to be judged like history in Thucydides.