waves, and other “acts of God” that periodically desolate human and
animal life, and the total evidence suggests either a blind or an impartial
fatality, with incidental and apparently haphazard scenes to which we
subjectively ascribe order, splendor, beauty, or sublimity. If history supports
any theology this would be a dualism like the Zoroastrian or Manichaean: a
good spirit and an evil spirit battling for control of the universe and men’s
souls. These faiths and Christianity (which is essentially Manichaean)
assured their followers that the good spirit would win in the end; but of this
consummation history offers no guarantee. Nature and history do not agree
with our conceptions of good and bad; they define good as that which
survives, and bad as that which goes under; and the universe has no
prejudice in favor of Christ as against Genghis Khan [Genghis Khan,
Mongol ruler (r. 1206-1227)].
The growing awareness of man’s minuscule place in the cosmos has
furthered the impairment of religious belief. In Christendom we may date
the beginning of the decline from Copernicus (1543) [Copernicus, Nicolaus
(1473-1543)]. The process was slow, but by 1611 John Donne [Donne,
John (1573-1631)] was mourning that the earth had become a mere
“suburb” in the world, and that “new philosophy calls all in doubt”; and
Francis Bacon [Bacon, Francis (1561-1626)], while tipping his hat
occasionally to the bishops, was proclaiming science as the religion of
modern emancipated man. In that generation began the “death of God” as
an external deity.
So great an effect required many causes besides the spread of science
and historical knowledge. First, the Protestant Reformation, which
originally defended private judgment. Then the multitude of Protestant
sects and conflicting theologies, each appealing to both Scriptures and
reason. Then the higher criticism of the Bible, displaying that marvelous
library as the imperfect work of fallible men. Then the deistic movement in
England, reducing religion to a vague belief in a God hardly distinguishable
from nature. Then the growing acquaintance with other religions, whose
