Have We Lost Faith?
Have We Lost Faith? is an article written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published in the Manchester Evening News on 22 january 1926.
Have We Lost Faith?
(By SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE)
As the most popular and most famous exponent of Spiritualism Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is always read with interest by thousands of people all over the world. On such a subject as "Have We Lost Faith?" his utterances are doubly important.
In the following article Sir Arthur defines his position and takes his stand. It is a position which many condemned, praised or blamed but which, what ever it achieves, cannot fail to grouse comment.
If one is asked the question, "Have we lost faith?" one has naturally to answer, "Faith in what?" If the question refers to the exact meaning of certain texts, the infallibility of old Jewish records, the value of certain ritual observances, then most undoubtedly the world in general, or at least the more progressive and intellectual part of it has lost faith.
- If on the other hand the faith concerns the existence of a Supreme Power and its direct action upon the affairs of man, then I think the mind of man is turning more clearly in that direction and away from the ironical negatives of Gibbon or Voltaire, or the philosophic doubts of the Victorian agnostics.
Indiscriminate unreasoning faith is obviously a bad thing — a vice, not a virtue. Every sect can see this clearly when it considers some other faith than its own. Thus the very orthodox Westerner when he is told by the Oriental that his faith informs him that the world is sustained upon the back of elephants cannot help wondering how any human being can accept such nonsense. And vet he does not see the inference that his own faith, if viewed from outside, contains elements which are not as absurd. As to ritual, also, he may ridicule the preposterous ceremonies of the East, but is there in any religion a custom so inhuman and so indefensible as that when mother and child die in childbirth the unbaptised baby shall not be buried with its mother but separately in unconsecrated ground?
Upon the Midnight Sky.'
If all faiths were agreed then we might accept them as some divine intuition which leads us in our path, but when they all contradict each other we are bound to conclude that it is unsafe to trust our guidance entirely to their direction.
- So far as the existence and attributes of God are concerned I cannot see that any faith is needed. They are written not in letters upon parchment, but in silver scroll upon the midnight sky.
The power that set forth that marvellous universe, with its exquisite adjustment, is obvious and undeniable. It is useless to say that it was Law only which made and controlled it, for a system of laws needs creation as clearly as a system of planets. It was Napoleon the Great who heard the Voltairian talk of the savants on board the ship as he voyaged to Egypt, and who interrupted them by pointing to the starry sky and saying "But, gentlemen, who made this?" It is the final objection to the Atheist, but it involves knowledge and reason — not faith.
Guardian Angels.
As the human mind evolved it felt more and more the need of positive knowledge in the affairs of the spirit. The Reformation was the first clumsy move in that direction. It was clumsy because while it did get upon more solid ground in some directions, in others it moved from what was true to what was false. The knowledge which we Spiritualists have acquired, not by faith but directly from the other world, has shown us, for example, that we really have Guardian Angels, that miracles in the sense of phenomena inexplicable by our present Science do occur, that there is such a condition as purgatory, and that prayers or fervent good wishes for the dead are very welcome to them. In all these respects the old Catholic church was right and the Reformers were wrong. Both parties were especially misguided in their adherence to the barbarous and illogical conception of eternal punishment, which is now happily on the wane.
Revelation Renewed.
By the middle of the 19th century the world had reached the material age of coal and iron, but it had also evolved a more intelligent, earnest type of brain which had discarded the old and was reaching out for the new. It was in response to this craving for more definite knowledge that there was discharged from the centre of all things a fresh wave of inspiration which should advance man one more stage upon his upward journey. If one may without irreverence imagine words coming from that august source one could conceive that He would say, "You ask for more material and positive signs. Your reason revolts at the distortion of what was once a pure revelation. Then the revelation shall be renewed in such a fashion that anyone who will examine it will find in it those material proofs which he demands."
- That was the beginning of modern Spiritualism, a movement which in spite of that declension and abuse to which all human things are liable, is still far the most important event of the last two thousand years.
The movement began in the humblest fashion, as Christianity, Mahometanism, and all great permanent religions have done. But already in 76 years it has penetrated every country, gained millions of adherents and elicited that bitter opposition which is the sign of poignant strength. It may be said generally to have been accepted by those who have approached it with open and earnest minds, while it has been rejected by those who have been so clouded by prejudice that they have refused an adequate examination. The claim of the Spiritualist is that he has broken through the barrier of death, that he can under proper conditions get in touch with the dead, and that among these he can come into contact with old souls who have learned wisdom in the beyond, and that from their experience he can gain an accurate knowledge of the real nature of life, death, and the beyond.
Home Will be the Church.
This is not the place to go into, detail as to what the spirit teachers say, or what the proofs are that both they and their teaching are to be taken very seriously. The point is that for us who know the truth of these things faith has ceased to have any meaning. We go not think or believe. We know. And in that direction lies the universal religion of the future. It will be simple. All the theologies and complications which have vexed men's minds will be gone. There will be just two elements, which may be defined as the spirit of the sermon on the Mount on the one hand and spirit of communication upon the other. The essence of Christianity will be preserved, for nothing can supplant the ethics and example of the Great Teacher, but all that is irrational and all that is unintelligible will have disappeared. Religion and Science will be one. The cleavage of sects will have ceased, for all will be referred to a common authority. The home will be the church, with husband and wife as priests and priestess. The certainty as, the results of sin will make deliberate transgression a rarity. The irreligious man will simply be the ignorant man. Our lower sphere will share all the knowledge of the higher ones. Death will be a perfectly natural and welcome process.
- In those days it will seem strange that there should ever have been an era in the world's history when man was so cut off from Cod that he had to rely upon faith alone for his belief in the things of the spirit.
The Final Battle.
This is the force which is destined to win the final battle against materialism. The churches were powerless against the man who refused to accept their texts as argument, and adduced the facts of Nature which seemed to be all against the orthodox. But the materialist in turn is helpless against a force which meets him on his own ground, shows him material phenomena which be cannot explain, and demonstrates intelligence as being independent of matter as we understand the word.
Our intervention has turned the long defeat of the churches into an ultimate victory. And yet it is in these very churches that we meet our most stubborn opponents, and we find the bishops united with the agnostics in ignorant ridicule and unworthy derision. But so unnatural an alliance cannot prevail, and it will dawn on the churches that we who prove by fact those things which, in the main, they accept on faith, the survival of the soul and the effect of its worldly deeds upon its future, will recognise at long last how deeply they have sinned and what terrific responsibility they have incurred by their senseless opposition and by their obstinate refusal to examine the facts for themselves.
The next article, by Mr. E. F. Benson, will appear on Monday next.
