and of a unique vocation. No man ever claimed more for Himself, or so confidently asserted that His work enjoyed the favour of God. "All power in heaven and earth hath been committed unto Me." And in no other life have the facts so plainly seemed to contradict the faith which inspired it. His mission, judged by the ordinary standards, was not a success, and from the very first it was clear what the end would be. The shadow of the Cross darkens every page of the story. Rejected at Capernaum, refused a hearing at Nazareth, driven from Samaria, crucified at Jerusalem-it was all of a piece and all inevitable. He devoted His life absolutely to the service of God, and the result was the Cross. But though the life of Christ is the supreme illustration of the paradox of faith, it is not the only one. Calvary sums up in one dramatic moment the experience of all the prophets. Destitute, afflicted, evil entreated, they all died in faith, "not having received the promise. At the moment of his call, Isaiah knows that his preaching will be of no avail. The warning of Jeremiah falls, as he knows it will, on deaf ears.

And again the question presents itself to the nonreligious man, Why is it that these men believe in God and devote their lives to His service, apparently failing, yet never despairing? What is the source of their unconquerable hope and undying faith? The heroism of it and the boldness fascinate and attract him. Clearly it is "of faith" and not "of knowledge." It goes beyond any induction from observed facts, and is incapable of complete verification in them.

This does not necessarily mean that it is either untrue or incredible. We sometimes forget that it is not only the religious man who must live by faith. The optimism of religion is, in fact, closely analogous to the optimism of science. The faith of the religious man in the goodness of God-or, in other words, his belief that every event has a moral purpose-finds a parallel in the faith of the man of science that the

E

Universe is a Cosmos, that every event has a cause, and is ultimately explicable in relation to the whole scheme of things. In both cases the belief is incapable of complete verification. The religious man fully recognises that there are some events of which he does not yet see the moral purpose, and that, so far, his postulate is not completely verified. And so, too, with the man of science the existence of research implies his recognition that there are some events of which he does not yet see the cause, and that, so far, his postulate is not completely verified. Yet neither will abandon the hope that the unexplained is not ultimately unexplainable. The difference is that the one is seeking an explanation in terms of moral purpose, and the other in terms of self-consistency.

And in each case, too, the hope or the faith is reasonable and persists only in so far as it finds adequate -though never complete-justification in experience. What the religious man calls "faith" is, up to a certain point, analogous to what the man of science calls "working hypothesis"; but, by the terms of the definition, the hypothesis must "work." The man of science admits that there is much that he has not explained in the light of his "faith," but, despite this, he maintains it because it seems to him to explain more of the facts than any alternative view, and he makes a venture of faith-from the known to the unknown. So, too, the religious man admits that there is much which he has not been able to harmonise with his faith; but despite this, he maintains it because it seems to him to explain more of the facts of human nature and of life than the alternative theory of the non-religious man. He does not glory in a credo quia impossibile. He satisfies

1 "Every synthesis of fact to fact, every attempt to know... is inspired by a secret faith in the unity of the world. Each of the sciences works within its own region, and colligates its details in the light of its own hypothesis; and all the sciences taken together presuppose the presence in the world of a principle that binds it into an orderly totality.”—Henry Jones, Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher, p. 37.

himself, and he tries to satisfy others, by appealing to those facts which are explained by and do justify his faith, to the manifestations in history and in life of the power not ourselves, which makes for righteousness.

Thus the Biblical writers try to show how behind the maze of history with its apparent contradictions and its apparent arbitrary occurrences, there is the hand of God guiding and controlling it all, and that in it all and through it all there is a Divine purpose slowly fulfilling itself in the ordered sequence of events. Where they cannot do this, they, too, make a venture of faith, from the known to the unknown, and trust that somehow good will be the final goal of ill. Because He believes in the goodness of God, Jesus Christ is sure that His death cannot mean either the end of His life or the ruin of His work. His faith leads Him to see in the apparent failure of His ministry the vindication of the teaching of Deutero-Isaiah as to the redemptive value of suffering, and therefore He sees in the Cross the salvation of mankind, and beyond the Cross the triumph of His risen life. Doubtless this was a venture of faith, but essentially it was a venture which faith was bound to make.

But though both with the man of science and the prophet the faith only persists because those who hold it find it progressively justified in experience, it still remains true that in neither case is it arrived at as an inference from the facts of the world. The faith interprets the facts, and without the facts it would not have arisen, but by themselves the facts do not explain or create the faith.

Truth is within ourselves: it takes no rise

From outward things, whate'er you may believe.

We may carry the comparison a stage further. Alike in the sphere of science and of religion there are the great discoverers and revealers of truth,

1 Cf. Essay III. pp. 124 et seq.

men with special faculties of insight, which enable them to see deeper and with greater clearness of vision than other men. The great scientific discoverer in an intuitive flash sees cosmos where others see only chaos, and the great religious teacher sees an eternal purpose of righteousness and love slowly fulfilling itself, where others see only blind force directed to no moral end. The same, of course, applies in every region of mental activity or spiritual life. There are great poets and musicians and painters, just as there are great men of science, each possessing, in their respective spheres, faculties of insight which enable them to perceive aspects of truth or beauty which others, less gifted, cannot see. Such genius is mysterious in its origin, and, so far as we can see, subject to no general laws. We cannot account for the appearance of a great man of science or of a great poet. We cannot explain why one man has an ear for music and another has not, or why the great painter sees beauty to which others are blind. And it is the same in the religious sphere. The great painter is differentiated from other men in that he has, in a special degree, an eye for colour, or a feeling for line; and a great prophet is differentiated in that he possesses special faculties of insight in the region in which man holds communion with God. In the case of the prophet these perceptive powers may be called "a religious sense," and the existence of religion is the evidence of the existence of this religious sense, just as the existence of poetry or music is the evidence of the existence of a poetic or musical sense. There are some men who seem to have little or no religious sense.1 To them the language in which the Biblical writers describe their religious experience sounds as meaningless as a sonata of Beethoven does to those who have no musical

1 But see below, p. 61. It need not follow that Christianity has no message for those who seem to have no religious sense. For them, the support of their religion will depend, in the first instance, upon those philosophical, moral and historical considerations which are discussed in the later essays in this volume.

sense. But there are others in whom this religious sense exists in a highly developed form, who have a special genius for religion, as others have for art or music. Whether and to what extent others beside the Biblical writers possess this genius for religion need not, for the moment, be considered; that the Biblical writers do possess it is a fact which will not be denied.

We may go further than this. The Biblical writers have their own theory as to the origin of their faith a theory which is, in fact, an essential part of their faith. For them, religion, as has been said, is not the mere assent of the intellect to a certain view of God's existence and nature. It is not the mere belief that God is good and that every event has a moral purpose-like the belief of the man of science that every event has a cause. Still less, of course, is it a mere hypothesis which is held tentatively and laboriously verified. "What constitutes religion," says von Hügel, "is not simply to hold a view and to try to live a life with respect to the Unseen and the Deity, as possibly or even certainly beautiful or true or good; but precisely that which is over and above this-the holding of this view and this life to proceed somehow from God Himself, so as to bind my innermost mind and conscience to unhesitating assent.'

One and all the Biblical writers assert that their faith is due to the direct action of God upon their lives. This is the ground of their confidence and certainty-" Thus saith the Lord," "God said," "The Word of the Lord came unto me, saying." Their language was probably more than mere symbolism, but at the least it represents their conviction that their knowledge of God was due to direct relationship with Him.

Thus the analogy which has been drawn between the faith of the prophet and that of the man of science, and between the religious and the aesthetic sense is

1 The Mystical Element of Religion, vol. i. p. 46.

2 Cf. Essay III. p. 95.