God and Sherlock Holmes
August 8th, 2013
The archetypical fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, who made his debut in the late Victorian age, is showing new life in the 21st century as the hero of a series of films and TV shows on both sides of the Atlantic.
I have more than a passing interest in Holmes, having written a book of essays about him as well as five published detective novels of my own. This long-time fascination with the sleuth isn’t as unrelated to my day job as communications director of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati as one might think.
Because Holmes is a scientific and rational man, numerous commentators have attempted to portray him as an atheist. But his words in the stories just don’t support that. There’s even a book called The Gospel According to Sherlock Holmes.
Several moving passages from the stories in particular make it clear that Holmes did believe in God, although he may not have embraced an organized religion.
At the end of an especially sad case called “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box,” Holmes breaks out with this cry of the heart:
“What is the meaning of it, Watson? What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.”
That is, of course, a problem that has challenged people of faith for centuries. And the great detective doesn’t offer a solution. In another story, however, he does give his viewpoint on how to deal with some of the challenges of life. In “The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger,” he advises the horribly disfigured title character against taking her own life. She wonders what use it is to anyone. “How can you tell?” he responds. “The example of patient suffering is in itself the most precious of all lessons to an impatient world.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the Sherlock Holmes tales, was a spiritualist. But he had been reared a Catholic, and it seems that the Catholic understanding of the redemptive value of suffering never left him – or his most famous creation.
His very realistic view of the world did not leave Holmes a pessimist or an atheist. At a decisive point in “The Naval Treaty,” he pauses to pick up a rose and muse about its meaning to his friend Dr. Watson.
“There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,” he says. “It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”
I’m not sure that bit of deduction would convince an atheist or satisfy a systematic theologian, but it makes sense to me.
Photo credit: Statue of Sherlock Holmes in Switzerland. Juhansen photo, used under Creative Commons License.
I don’t know whether Holmes was religious or not but in my latest sherlock titled Sherlock Holmes And The Mystery of Einstein’s Daughter he is put through a testing time trying to maintain his famous disguise as a Nonconformist clergyman:
Excerpt from Chapter 111:
The sound of people engaged in fierce argument burst in on us. Two men locked in each other’s clasp fell through the door, the one an elderly cleric, the other a member of the bank’s staff trying to prevent his entry. High-pitched tones emanated from the priest as he pushed himself into the room past the employee. Under a wrap-rascal he wore baggy trousers and white tie, topped by a broad black hat, the exact dress of the Nonconformist clergyman I described in A Scandal In Bohemia. He demanded to speak to the bank manager come what may, insisting he needed to open a safe deposit box on the instant, ‘poor as a church mouse as those of my calling may be’.
With a triumphant flourish at having gained entry, the clergyman dropped a heavy pouch on the manager’s desk. It was the very pouch of gold coins given to us by the Prince Regnant of Bulgaria five years before. The purse split with the force of the fall, scattering the glittering coins across the desk and into every corner of the room. At the sight of the gold coins the bank manager rushed around the desk and waved the staff member away.
‘I am sure Dr. Watson will not mind if we are joined by a clergyman,’ he expostulated. ‘I myself am a son of the manse, with a strict Presbyterian upbringing.’ ‘Not at all,’ I responded amiably. ‘The clergyman is most welcome.’
My Heavens, I thought. Holmes has gone a step too far. He will be found out within a matter of minutes. I turned to the bank manager.
‘You say you are a son of the manse?’ I enquired.
‘I am,’ he replied. ‘Every day my aged father proclaims the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Scriptures, and the necessity of grace through faith in Christ.’
‘Then I am sure our clergyman friend here would enjoy sharing his knowledge of the Sacred Book. A short test, perhaps?’
Embarrassed, the bank manager began to protest. Holmes cut back in.
‘Come now, Sir,’ he told the bank manager, gesturing towards me, ‘as our young friend here demands, you must question me. Test the simple preacher seated before you on his knowledge of the Scriptures.’
The bank manager agreed, immeasurably pleased. ‘The Epistle of Paul to the Church at Philippi,’ he began,’ the book of the Gospel where…’
‘Acts, Sir,’ Holmes broke in, chortling. ‘You shall have to do better than that.’
‘Which book? Ninth, I believe?’ asked the son of the manse.
‘Eleventh,’ Holmes returned.
‘But you agree it was written on St. Paul’s first missionary journey?’
‘Second,’ Holmes parried.
‘Date?’
‘49-51 AD,’ Holmes ended, triumphantly.
‘I too have a question,’ I broke in. It was a question my Tractarian mother had once posed on my return from Sunday School.
‘Where in the Bible does it refer to ‘Five Golden Emerods’ and ‘five golden mice’? Kings or Chronicles – or Ruth?’ I asked.
‘Good, Watson,’ Holmes whispered, ‘but not good enough!’ followed aloud by ‘Samuel, my dear fellow. 1 Samuel 6:4 if I am not mistaken.’
Heavens, Holmes, I thought admiringly. The stage may have lost a great actor when you took up crime, but the Church lost a doughty scholar.