But now let us turn sharply, and find out where doubt does come in, and
where it is as honorable, as noble, as necessary as faith.
People misuse this word "faith." Doubt applies to all questions of fact
that may be investigated, to all questions of history, to all questions
open to the exercise of the critical faculty. For example, if I am told
that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, and I say I accept that statement on
faith, I am abusing the dictionary. I have no business to accept it on
faith. Faith has nothing whatever to do with it. It is a pure matter of
scholarship. It is a matter of study, of investigation, a matter of
clear and hard intelligence and nothing more.
Suppose I am told that the Catholic Church is infallible, and I am
asked to accept it as an article of faith. Here, again, the
introduction of the word "faith" into a domain like that is an
impertinence. Faith has nothing whatever to do with it. That is a
question of fact. We can read history for the last eighteen hundred
years. We can find out what the Catholic Church has said and what the
Catholic Church has done, as to whether it has proved itself absolutely
infallible or not. It is a matter of study and decision intellectually;
and it is my duty to doubt that which does not bring authentic
credentials in a field like this.
Take the question of the authorship of the Gospel of John. Was it
written by the apostle John, who lay in the bosom of Jesus, and was
called the beloved disciple? Have I any business to say I have faith
that it was written by him, and let it rest there? Faith has nothing to
do with it.
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