Bible would go too; since this basis is inevitably doomed. For whatever is to stand must rest upon something which is verifiable, not unverifiable. Now, the assumption with which all the churches and sects set out, that there is 'a Great Personal First Cause, the moral and intelligent Governor of the universe,' and that from him the Bible derives its authority, cannot at present, at any rate, be verified.
Those who 'ask for the reason and authority for the things they have been taught to believe,' as the people, we are told, are now doing, will begin at the beginning. Rude and hard reasoners as they are, they will never consent to admit, as a self-evident axiom, the preliminary assumption with which the churches start. But this preliminary assumption governs everything which in our current theology follows it; and it is certain, therefore, that the people will not receive our current theology. So, if they are to receive the Bible, we must find for the Bible some other basis than that which the churches assign to it, a verifiable basis and not an assumption; and this, again, will govern everything which comes after. This new religion of the Bible the people may receive; the version now current of the religion of the Bible they never will receive.
Here, then, is the problem: to find, for the Bible, for Christianity, for our religion, a basis in something which can be verified, instead of in something which has to be assumed. So true and prophetic are Vinet's words: 'We must,' he said, make it our business to bring forward the rational side of Christianity, and to show that for thinkers, too, it has a right to be an authority.' Yes, and the problem we
