Thus, even the question of the divinity of Christ ultimately resolves itself into the question of all questions—­viz. is or is not mechanical causation ’the outward and visible form of an inward and spiritual grace’?  Is it phenomenal or ontological; ultimate or derivative?

Similarly as regards the redemption.  Whether or not Christ was really divine, in as far as a belief in His divinity has been a necessary cause of the moral and religious evolution which has resulted from His life on earth, it has equally and so far ‘saved His people from their sins’; that is, of course, it has saved them from their own sense of sin as an abiding curse.  Whether or not He has effected any corresponding change of an objective character in the ontological sphere, again depends on the ‘question of questions’ just stated.

Reasonableness of the Doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity.

Pure agnostics and those who search for God in Christianity should have nothing to do with metaphysical theology. That is a department of enquiry which, ex hypothesi, is transcendental, and is only to be considered after Christianity has been accepted.  The doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity seemed to me most absurd in my agnostic days.  But now, as a pure agnostic, I see in them no rational difficulty at all.  As to the Trinity, the plurality of persons is necessarily implied in the companion doctrine of the Incarnation.  So that at best there is here but one difficulty, since, duality being postulated in the doctrine of the Incarnation, there is no further difficulty for pure agnosticism in the doctrine of plurality.  Now at one time it seemed to me impossible that any proposition, verbally intelligible as such, could be more violently absurd than that of the doctrine [of the Incarnation].  Now I see that this standpoint is wholly irrational, due only to the blindness of reason itself promoted by [purely] scientific habits of thought.  ’But it is opposed to common sense.’  No doubt, utterly so; but so it ought to be if true.  Common sense is merely a [rough] register of common experience; but the Incarnation, if it ever took place, whatever else it may have been, at all events cannot have been a common event.  ’But it is derogatory to God to become man.’  How do you know?  Besides, Christ was not an ordinary man.  Both negative criticism and the historical effects of His life prove this; while, if we for a moment adopt the Christian point of view for the sake of argument, the whole raison d’etre of mankind is bound up in Him.  Lastly, there are considerations per contra, rendering an incarnation antecedently probable[75].  On antecedent grounds there must be mysteries unintelligible to reason as to the nature of God, &c., supposing a revelation to be made at all.  Therefore their occurrence in Christianity is no proper objection to Christianity.  Why, again, stumble a priori over the doctrine of the Trinity—­especially as man himself is a triune being, of body, mind (i.e. reason), and spirit (i.e. moral, aesthetic, religious faculties)?  The unquestionable union of these no less unquestionably distinct orders of being in man is known immediately as a fact of experience, but is as unintelligible by any process of logic or reason as is the alleged triunity of God.