Having thus placed Christian Faith in its true point of view, and assigned to it its just rank in the history of the human soul, let us see whence arises the contest in which that Faith is engaged with natural Religion and with religious philosophy? What is the principle of this contest, and what its character?
Here we are met by that all-important question, the question which has been agitated during nineteen centuries, and to which all the intellect of modern times has applied itself. Is the Christian Faith in contradiction to human reason? Some affirm that a contest between the two is natural and inevitable; of these there are who tell us that reason should give way to faith, and again others who say that faith should yield to reason: whereas, on the contrary, there are those also who deny that such contest is inevitable, and who maintain that faith and reason, as they ought to do, may both live in peace with each other.
In my opinion, the difference between Christian Faith and that which is styled natural Religion, or religious philosophy, is profound; but I do not think that the question between the two has been rightly put, or that the character of their opposition has been rightly defined.
To discover what, in effect, this character is, I address myself, first, to the philosophers.
We know how Descartes began his great philosophical inquiries, to what state he brought his mind in order to enter upon his task: "I persuaded myself," says he, "that I could not do better with respect to the opinions which up to that time I had entertained, than to begin by ridding myself of them entirely, in order then either to replace them by better opinions, or to return to the old ones if I should find them, on examination, to conform to the standard of reason." { 175} Then proceeding to determine the precepts to be followed by him in this recasting of all his opinions by such standard,--"My first principle," said he, "was never to accept anything as true, unless I could evidently recognise its truth; in other words, to avoid carefully any precipitate judgment, to allow my mind to follow no bias, and not to comprise anything in its judgments but what presented itself so clearly and so distinctly to my mind as to leave me no room for doubt." [Footnote 42]