Theology and the Social Consciousness
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Title: Theology and the Social Consciousness
Author: Henry Churchill King
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Language: English
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THEOLOGY AND THE
SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS
A STUDY OF THE RELATIONS OF THE
SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO THEOLOGY
BY
HENRY CHURCHILL KING
PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY
IN OBERLIN COLLEGE
_SECOND EDITION_
HODDER & STOUGHTON
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1902
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped September, 1902
Reprinted February, 1904;
July, 1907; August, 1910; April, 1912.
To the Members of the
Harvard Summer School of Theology
OF THE YEAR 1901
IN RECOGNITION OF THEIR INTEREST IN THE LECTURES
THAT FORMED THE BASIS OF THIS BOOK
PREFACE
There is no attempt in this book to present a complete system of
theology, though much of such a system is passed in review, but only
to study a special phase of theological thinking. The precise theme of
the book is the relations of the social consciousness to theology.
This is the subject upon which the writer was asked to lecture at the
Harvard Summer School of Theology of 1901; and the book has grown out
of the lectures there given. In preparing the book for the press,
however, the lecture form has been entirely abandoned, and
considerable material added.
The importance of the theme seems to justify a somewhat thorough-going
treatment. If one believes at all in the presence of God in
history--and the Christian can have no doubt here--he must be
profoundly interested in such a phenomenon as the steady growth of the
social consciousness. Hardly any inner characteristic of our time has
a stronger historical justification than that consciousness; and it
has carried the reason and conscience of the men of this generation in
rare degree. Having its own comparatively independent development, and
yet making an ethical demand that is thoroughly Christian, it
furnishes an almost ideal standpoint from which to review our
theological statements, and, at the same time, a valuable test of
their really Christian quality.
In attempting, then, a careful study of the relations of the social
consciousness to theology, this book aims, first, definitely to get at
the real meaning of the social consciousness as the theologian must
view it, and so to bring clearly into mind the unconscious assumptions
of the social consciousness itself; and then to trace out the
influence of the social consciousness upon the conception of religion,
and upon theological doctrine. The larger portion of the book is
naturally given to the influence upon theological doctrine; and to
make the discussion here as pointed as possible, the different
elements of the social consciousness are considered separately.
It should be noted, however, that the question raised is not the
historical one, How, as a matter of fact, has the social consciousness
modified the conception of religion or the statement of theological
doctrine? but the theoretical one, How should the social consciousness
naturally affect religion and doctrine? In this sense, the result
might be called, in President Hyde's phrase, a "social theology"; but,
as I believe that the social consciousness is at bottom only a true
sense of the fully personal, I prefer myself to think of the present
book as only carrying out in more detail the contention of my
_Reconstruction in Theology_--that theology should aim at a
restatement of doctrine in strictly personal terms. So conceived, in
spite of its casual origin, this book follows very naturally upon the
previous book. Some of the same topics necessarily recur here; and
references to the _Reconstruction_ have been freely made, in order to
avoid all unnecessary repetition.
That this social sense of the fully personal has finally a real and
definite contribution to make to theology, I cannot doubt. I can only
hope that the present discussion may be found at least suggestive,
particularly in the analysis of the social consciousness, and in the
treatment of mysticism and of the ethical in religion, as well as in
the consideration of the special influence of the elements of the
social consciousness upon the restatement of doctrine. Of the
doctrinal applications, the application to the problem of redemption
may be considered, perhaps, of most significance.
HENRY CHURCHILL KING.
OBERLIN COLLEGE, June, 1902.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PAGE
THE THEME 1
THE REAL MEANING OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS
FOR THEOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE THEOLOGIAN 5
CHAPTER I
THE DEFINITION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS 9
I. The Sense of the Like-Mindedness of Men 9
II. The Sense of the Mutual Influence of Men 11
1. Contributing Lines of Thought 11
2. The Threefold Form of the Conviction 13
III. The Sense of the Value and Sacredness of the Person 16
IV. The Sense of Obligation 18
V. The Sense of Love 20
CHAPTER II
THE INADEQUACY OF THE ANALOGY OF THE ORGANISM AS AN
EXPRESSION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS 23
I. The Value of the Analogy 23
II. The Inevitable Inadequacy of the Analogy 24
1. It Comes from the Sub-personal World 24
2. Access to Reality, Only Through Ourselves 24
3. Mistaken Passion for Construing Everything 25
III. The Analogy Tested by the Definition of the Social
Consciousness 27
CHAPTER III
THE NECESSITY OF THE FACTS OF WHICH THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS
IS THE REFLECTION, IF IDEAL INTERESTS ARE TO BE SUPREME 29
I. The Question 29
II. Otherwise, No Moral World at all 30
1. The Prerequisites of a Moral World 30
(1) A Sphere of Law 30
(2) Ethical Freedom 30
(3) Some Power of Accomplishment 31
(4) Members One of Another 32
2. The Ideal World Requires, thus, the Facts of the
Social Consciousness 32
CHAPTER IV
THE ULTIMATE EXPLANATION AND GROUND OF THE SOCIAL
CONSCIOUSNESS 35
I. How can it be, Metaphysically, that we do Influence
One Another? 35
1. Not Due to the Physical Fact of Race-Connection 36
2. We are not to Over-Emphasize the Principle of Heredity 37
3. Not Due to a Mystical Solidarity 39
4. Grounded in the Immanence of God 40
II. What is Required for the Final Positive Justification of
the Social Consciousness, as Ethical? 44
1. Must be Grounded in the Supporting Will of God 44
2. God's Sharing in our Life 48
3. The Consequent Transfiguration of the Social
Consciousness 49
THE INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS
UPON THE CONCEPTION OF RELIGION
INTRODUCTION 53
CHAPTER V
THE OPPOSITION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO THE FALSELY
MYSTICAL 55
I. What is the Falsely Mystical? 55
1. Nash's Definition 55
2. Herrmann's Definition 56
II. The Objections of the Social Consciousness to the Falsely
Mystical 57
1. Unethical 58
2. Does not Give a Really Personal God 58
3. Belittles the Personal in Man 59
4. Leaves the Historically, Concretely Christian 62
CHAPTER VI
THE EMPHASIS OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THE PERSONAL
RELATION IN RELIGION, AND SO UPON THE TRULY MYSTICAL 66
I. The Social Consciousness Tends Positively to Emphasize
the Personal Relation in Religion 66
1. Emphasizes Everywhere the Personal 66
2. Requires the Laws of a Deepening Friendship in
Religion 67
3. Requires the Ideal Conditions of the Richest Life
in Religion 68
II. The Social Consciousness thus Keeps the Truly Mystical 70
1. The Justifiable and Unjustifiable Elements
in Mysticism 71
(1) Emotion, the Test 71
(2) Subjective Tendency 72
(3) Underestimating the Historical 72
(4) Tendency toward Vagueness 73
(5) Tendency toward Pantheism 73
(6) Tendency to Extravagant Symbolism 76
2. The Protest in Favor of the Whole Man 78
3. The Self-Controlled Recognition of Emotion 82
CHAPTER VII
THE THOROUGH ETHICIZING OF RELIGION 86
I. The Pressure of the Problem 86
II. The Statement of the Problem 87
III. The Answer 89
1. Involved in Relation to Christ 89
2. The Divine Will Felt in the Ethical Command 90
3. Involved in the Nature of God's Gifts 91
4. Communion with God, Through Harmony with His
Ethical Will 92
5. The Vision of God for the Pure in Heart 92
6. Sharing the Life of God 93
7. Christ, as Satisfying Our Highest Claims on Life 94
8. The Vision of the Riches of the Life of Christ,
Ethically Conditioned 96
9. The Moral Law, as a Revelation of the Love of God 98
CHAPTER VIII
THE EMPHASIS OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THE
HISTORICALLY CHRISTIAN 102
I. The Social Consciousness Needs Historical Justification 102
II. Christianity's Response to this Need 103
THE INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS
UPON THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINE
CHAPTER IX
GENERAL RESULTS 105
I. The Conception of Theology in Personal Terms 106
II. The Fatherhood of God, as the Determining Principle
in Theology 109
III. Christ's Own Social Emphases 111
IV. The Reflection in Theology of the Changes in the Conception
of Religion 113
CHAPTER X
THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE LIKE-MINDEDNESS
OF MEN UPON THEOLOGY 115
I. No Prime Favorites with God 116
II. The Great Universal Qualities and Interests, the Most
Valuable 117
III. Essential Likeness Under very Diverse Forms 121
IV. As Applied to the Question of Immortality 124
V. Consequent Larger Sympathy with Men, Faith in Men,
and Hope for Men 127
VI. Judgment According to Light, and the Moral Reality of
the Future Life 132
CHAPTER XI
THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE MUTUAL
INFLUENCE OF MEN UPON THEOLOGY 136
I. The Real Unity of the Race 136
II. Deepening the Sense of Sin 139
III. Mutual Influence for Good in the Attainment of Character 145
1. Application to the Problem of Redemption 147
2. The Consequent Ethical and Spiritual Meaning of
Substitution and Propitiation 150
IV. Mutual Influence for Good in our Personal Relation to God 160
1. In Coming into the Kingdom 160
2. In Fellowship within the Kingdom 162
3. In Intercessory Prayer 164
V. Mutual Influence for Good in Confessions of Faith 167
1. Complete Uniformity of Belief and Statement Impossible 169
2. Complete Uniformity of Belief and Statement Undesirable 171
VI. The Consequent Importance of the Doctrine of the Church 177
CHAPTER XII
THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE VALUE AND
SACREDNESS OF THE PERSON UPON THEOLOGY 179
I. The Recognition of the Personal in Man 180
1. Man's Personal Separateness from God 180
2. Emphasis upon Man's Moral Initiative 181
3. Man, a Child of God 183
II. The Recognition of the Personal in Christ 184
1. Christ, a Personal Revelation of God 184
2. Emphasizing the Moral and Spiritual in Asserting
the Supremacy of Christ 185
3. The Moral and Spiritual Grounds of the Supremacy
of Christ 188
(1) The Greatest in the Greatest Sphere 188
(2) The Sinless and Impenitent One 192
(3) Consciously Rises to the Highest Ideal 194
(4) Realizes the Character of God 195
(5) Consciously Able to Redeem All Men 196
(6) Complete Normality under this Transcendent
God-Consciousness and Sense of Mission 197
(7) The Only Person Who can call out Absolute Trust 198
(8) The One, in Whom God Certainly Finds Us 199
(9) The Ideal Realized 200
4. Christ's Double Uniqueness 201
5. The Increasing Sense of Our Kinship with Christ,
and of His Reality 205
III. The Recognition of the Personal in God. 207
1. The Steady Carrying Through of the Completely Personal
in the Conception of God. Guarding the Conception 208
2. God is Always the Completely Personal God 212
(1) Consequent Relation of God to "Eternal Truths" 212
(2) Eternal Creation 214
(3) The Unity and Unchangeableness of God 216
(4) The Limitations of the Conception of Immanence 217
3. Deepening the Thought of the Fatherhood of God 218
(1) History, no Mere Natural Process 218
(2) God, the Great Servant 219
(3) No Divine Arbitrariness 220
(4) The Passibility of God 221
4. As to the Doctrine of a Social Trinity 222
5. Preëminent Reverence for Personality, Characterizing
all God's Relations with Men 226
(1) Reflected in Christ 226
(2) In Creation 230
(3) In Providence 232
(4) In Our Personal Religious Life 233
(5) In the Judgment 237
(6) In the Future Life 240
THEOLOGY AND THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS
INTRODUCTION
_THE THEME_
No theologian can be excused to-day from a careful study of the
relations of theology and the social consciousness. Whether this study
becomes a formal investigation or not, the social consciousness is so
deep and significant a phenomenon in the ethical life of our time,
that it cannot be ignored by the theologian who means to bring his
message to men really home. This book is written in the conviction
that, while men are thus moved as never before by a deep sense of
mutual influence and obligation, they have also as deep and genuine an
interest as ever in the really greatest questions of religion and
theology. Interests so significant and so akin cannot long remain
isolated in the mind. They are certain soon profoundly to influence
each other. And this mutual influence of theology and the social
consciousness form the theme of this book.
Two questions are naturally involved in this theme. First: Has
theology given any help, or has it any help to give, to the social
consciousness?--the question of the first division of the book.
Second: Has the social consciousness made any contribution, or has it
any contribution to make, to theology?--the question of the second and
third divisions. That is to say: On the one hand, Have the great facts
which theology studies any help to give to the man who faces the
problem of social progress--of the steady elevation of the race? On
the other hand, Has the great fact of the immensely quickened social
consciousness of our time, with all that it means, any help to give to
the theologian in his attempt to bring the great Christian truths
really home to men, to make them more real, more rational, more vital?
Or again: On the one hand, do theological doctrines--the most adequate
statements we can make of the great Christian truths--best explain and
best ground the social consciousness, so as best to bring our entire
thought in this sphere of the social into unity? Is the Christian
truth so great that it not only includes all that is true in this new
social consciousness--is fully able to take it up into itself and to
make it feel at home there--but also, so great that it alone can give
the social consciousness its fullest meaning, alone enable it to
understand itself, and alone furnish it adequate motive and power? Is
the social consciousness, in truth, only a disguised statement of
Christian convictions, and does it really require the Christian
religion and its thoughtful expression to complete itself? Must the
social consciousness say, when it comes to full self-knowledge,--I am
myself an unmeaning and unjustified by-product, if there is not a God
in the full Christian sense? and, so saying, confirm again the great
Christian truths? This is the question of the first division.
On the other hand, since the task of any given theologian is
necessarily temporary, and since any marked modification of the
consciousness of men will inevitably demand some restatement of
theological doctrine, the question here becomes--To what changed
points of view in religion and theology, to what restatements of
doctrine, and so to what truer appreciation of Christian truth, does
the new social consciousness naturally lead? How do the affirmations
of the social consciousness, as the outcome of a careful, inductive
study of the social evolution of the race, affect our theological
statements? This is the question of the second and third divisions of
the book.
Our discussion must of course assume and build on the conclusions of
sociology, and of New Testament theology, especially the conclusions
concerning the social teaching of Jesus.
THE REAL MEANING OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS FOR THEOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
_THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE THEOLOGIAN_
First, then, what is the real meaning of the social consciousness, as
the theologian must view it? The answer to this question involves a
preliminary one: What is the point of view of the theologian in any
investigation? One can only give his own answer.
First of all, the theologian, as such, is an _interpreter_, not a
tracer of causal connections. He builds everywhere upon the scientific
investigator, and takes from him the statement of facts and processes.
With these he has primarily nothing to do. With reference to the
social consciousness, therefore, he does not attempt to do over again
the work of the sociologist; he asks only, What does the social
consciousness, in the light of the whole of life and thought, mean;
not, How did it come about?
The theologian, too, is a _believer in the supremacy of spiritual
interests_; this is his central contention. He affirms strenuously,
with the scientific worker, the place and value of the mechanical; but
he is certain that the mechanical can understand itself even, only as
it is seen to be simple means, and thus clearly subordinate in
significance. His problem is, therefore, everywhere, that of ideal
interpretation, not of mechanical explanation. But, while he has
nothing to do with the scientific tracing of immediate causal
connections, he recognizes causality itself as requiring an ultimate
explanation, that cannot be mechanically given. The theologian must be
in this, then, an _ideal_ interpreter, and an inquirer after the
_ultimate_ cause.
The theologian assumes, moreover, the legitimacy and value of the fact
of _religion_; for theology is simply the thoughtful, comprehensive,
and unified expression of what religion means to us. The meaning of
the social consciousness to the theologian involves, therefore, at
once the question of its relation to religious conviction.
The point of view of the Christian theologian involves, besides, the
_reality of the personal God_ in personal relation to persons.
Theology is in earnest in its thought of God, and knows that God is
everywhere to be taken into account; that, if there is a God at all,
he is not to be exiled into some corner of his universe, but is
intimately concerned in all, is at the very heart of all; and that,
therefore, it is not a matter of merely curious interest or of
subsidiary inquiry, whether we are to look at our questions with God
in mind.
Finally, the Christian theologian tries everywhere to make his point
of view _the point of view of Christ_. The theology, upon which he
ultimately stakes his all, is Christ's theology. He knows that there
is much concerning which he cannot refuse to think, but upon which
Christ has not expressed himself either explicitly or by clear
inference; but in all this unavoidable supplementary thinking he aims
to be absolutely loyal to the spirit of Christ.
From this point of view of the Christian theologian, now, what does
the social consciousness mean? The answer may be given under four
heads: (1) the definition of the social consciousness; (2) the
inadequacy of the analogy of the organism, as an expression of the
social consciousness; (3) the necessity of the facts, of which the
social consciousness is the reflection, if ideal interests are to be
supreme; (4) the ultimate explanation and ground of the social
consciousness.
These four topics form the subjects of the four chapters of the first
division of our inquiry.
CHAPTER I
_THE DEFINITION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS_
The simplest and probably the most accurate single expression we can
give to the social consciousness, is to say that it is a growing sense
of the real brotherhood of men. But five elements seem plainly
involved in this, and may be profitably separated in our thought, if
that is to be clear and definite:--a deepening sense (1) of the
likeness or like-mindedness of men, (2) of their mutual influence, (3)
of the value and sacredness of the person, (4) of mutual obligation,
and (5) of love.
I. THE SENSE OF THE LIKE-MINDEDNESS OF MEN[1]
If a society is "a group of like-minded individuals," if the
"all-essential" requisites for coöperation are "like-mindedness and
consciousness of kind," as Giddings tells us, then certainly a prime
element in the social consciousness is likeness and the sense of it--a
growing sense of the mental and moral resemblance and "potential
resemblance" of all men, and of all classes of men, though not
equality of powers.
"Equality of need" among men, too,[2] to which sociology comes as one
of its surest conclusions, implies a common capacity, even if in
varying degrees, to enter into the most fundamental interests of life,
and so points unmistakably to the essential likeness of men in the
most important things.
So, too, sociology's unquestioning assertion that both smaller and
larger groups of men constantly tend toward unity, assumes potential
resemblance.
And the uniform experience and prescription of social workers, that
_really_ knowing "how the other half lives" brings increasing
sympathy, also affirm the fundamental likeness of men. Every
painstaking investigation of a social question comes out at some point
or other with a fresh discovery of a previously hidden, underlying
resemblance between classes of men.
From the careful, inductive study of social evolution, too, the men of
our day see, as no other generation has seen, that the great force
always and everywhere at work in that evolution has been likeness and
the consciousness of it.
For all these reasons, this generation believes, as men never believed
before, in the essential like-mindedness of men; and this deepening
sense of the like-mindedness of men is certainly one element in the
modern social consciousness.
II. THE SENSE OF THE MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF MEN
A second element in the social consciousness, and, perhaps, that which
has most of all characterized it through the larger period of its
growth, is the strong sense of the mutual influence of men--that we
are all "members one of another."
1. _Contributing Lines of Thought._--It is worth seeing how firmly
planted the idea is. Several lines of thought have united to induce
men to emphasize--perhaps even to over-emphasize--this way of thinking
of society. The influence of natural science, in the first place, has
been inevitably in this direction. Its root idea of the universality
of law forces upon one the thought of a world which is a _coherent_
whole, a unity with universal forces in it, in which every part is
inextricably connected with every other. So, too, the acceptance of
the theory of evolution has led science to regard the whole history of
the physical universe as an organic growth.
Psychology, also, with its present-day emphasis, in Baldwin and Royce,
upon the constant presence and fundamental character of _imitation_,
and its insistence upon the still more fundamental impulsiveness of
consciousness which Dewey believes underlies imitation,[3] is really
proclaiming exactly this element of the social consciousness. And the
whole assertion by the later psychology of the unity of man--mind and
body, and of the complex intertwining of all the functions of the
mind, is in closest harmony with a similar view of society.
Philosophy, too, is exerting all along a half-unconscious pressure
toward the thought of the organic unity of society. That philosophy
may exist at all, it must start from the assumption of a universe, a
real unity of truth, and its problem is to find a _discerned_ unity.
It knows no unrelated being, and, consequently, whether it
theoretically accepts the formulation or not, it must admit that, as a
matter of fact, to be is to be in relations. It asserts as a universal
fact, what natural science and psychology both affirm in their own
respective spheres, the concrete relatedness of all. It cannot well
deny the same thought when applied to society. Its repeated attempts,
moreover, to conceive all as a developing unity, and the profound
influence of the analogy of the organism upon its history, both
further sustain the organic view of society.
Christianity, as well, has been a powerful factor in this direction
from the beginning, for it really first gave the Idea of Humanity.[4]
2. _The Threefold Form of the Conviction._--Sustained, now, by all
these movements in natural science, psychology, philosophy, and
Christianity, this thought of the mutual influence of men has taken
three forms: that mutual influence is inevitable, isolation
impossible; that mutual influence is desirable, isolation to be
shunned; that mutual influence is indispensable, isolation blighting.
(1) This second element in the social consciousness has meant, then,
in the first place, a growing sense of the inevitableness of the
mutual influence of all men, and of all classes of men; that we are
all parts of one whole, each part unavoidably affected by every other;
that we are bound up in one bundle of life with all men, and cannot
live an isolated life if we would; that we do influence one another
whether we will or not, and tend unconsciously to draw others to our
level and are ourselves drawn toward theirs; that we joy and suffer
together whether we will or not, and grow or deteriorate together.
(2) But the mutual influence of men means more than this: not only
that we do inevitably affect one another in living out our own life,
but a growing sense of the fact that we are obviously not intended to
come to our best in independence of one another; that we are made on
so large a plan that we cannot come to our best alone; that we are
evidently made for personal relations, and that, therefore, largeness
of life for ourselves depends on our entering into the life of others.
(3) But even more than this is true. It is not only that entering into
the life of others is a help in my life, it is _the_ great help, the
one great means, the indispensable, the essential condition of all
largeness of life; it is the very meaning of life,--life itself. We
are to find our life only in losing our life. Life is the fulfilment
of relations. When we try to run away from the variety and complexity
of these relations, we are running away from life itself. The
indispensableness of these relations to others is assumed, also, in
the assertion by the sociologist of an evolution toward a society, at
once more and more complex, and more and more perfect.
But if I grow in the growth of another, the other grows in my growth.
If the only thing of value that I can finally give is myself, the
value of that gift depends upon the largeness and richness of the self
given. For love's own sake, therefore, I must grow, must strive to
bring to its highest perfection that work which is given me to do. A
person is a social being called to contribute to the whole, in the
line of his own best possibilities. One's largest ministry to others
is to be rendered, then, through sacred regard for one's own calling,
considered as exactly his place of largest service. Or, to put it the
other way: I can come to my best only in work so great and in
associations so large that I may lose myself in them in perfect
objectivity.
The mutual influence of men, therefore, is unavoidable, is desirable,
is indispensable; isolation impossible, hindering, blighting. This is
the true solidarity of the race, in which there is no fiction, no
hiding in the inconceivable, and no pretense.
III. THE SENSE OF THE VALUE AND SACREDNESS OF THE PERSON
The third element in the social consciousness, the sense of the value
and sacredness of the person, follows naturally from the sense of
like-mindedness and of mutual influence, but needs distinct and
emphatic statement.
It is less easily separable than the other elements named, and,
indeed, may be made to include all the others, and does, in a way,
carry all with it. Thus broadly conceived, it has seemed to the writer
that--with the return to the historical Christ--it might well be
called the most notable moral characteristic of our time.[5] But,
though less easily and definitely discriminated, one who knows deeply
the modern social consciousness would surely feel that the very heart
of it had been omitted, if this growing sense of the value and
sacredness of the person did not come to strong expression. Reverence
for personality--the steadily deepening sense that every person has a
value not to be measured in anything else, and is in himself sacred to
God and man--this it is which marks unmistakably every step in the
progress of the individual and of the race. Without it, whatever the
other marks of civilization, you have only tyranny and slavery; with
it, though every trace of luxury and scientific invention be lacking,
you have the perfection of human relations.
This sense of the value and sacredness of the person not only
characterizes increasingly the whole social and moral evolution of the
race, but it is to be seen in the clearly conscious demand for
equality of rights, and, especially--to take a single example--in the
growing recognition that the child is an individual with his own
rights; that he has a personality of his own of a sanctity inviolable
by the parent; that there are clear bounds beyond which no one may go
without personal outrage. The recognition by psychology of respect for
personality as one of the three or four most fundamental
conditions--if not the most essential of all--of happiness, of
character, and of influence, is explicit confirmation of the truth of
this element of the social consciousness.
IV. THE SENSE OF OBLIGATION
But the elements of the social consciousness already named lead
directly to a growing sense of obligation. Every man carries in
himself his only possible standard of measurement of all else. A
growing sense of the likeness of other men to himself quickens at
once, therefore, the sense of obligation, and leads naturally to the
Golden Rule. Recognition of mutual influence, too, inevitably carries
with it a deeper sense of obligation; for, if we do affect others
constantly, then we are manifestly under obligation not only to do
direct service to others, but so to order our own lives as to help,
not to hinder, others. The sense of the value and sacredness of the
person plainly looks to the same deepening of obligation.
As an element of the social consciousness, the sense of obligation
means for a given individual, a growing sense of responsibility for
all; and for society at large an increase in the number of those who
feel the obligation to serve.
The growth in each of these directions cannot be questioned. There is
no privileged class, in whose own consciences there is not being
recognized more and more the right of the claim that they must justify
themselves by service which shall be as unique as their privilege. In
consequence, the conception of the governing classes is steadily
changing, for both the governed and the governing, to some recognition
of Christ's principle, that he who would be first must be servant of
all. The sharp insistence of the sociologist that "organization must
be for the organized" expresses the same thought. One must add
sociology's double assertion, that society is really advancing toward
its goal, and yet that a chief condition of the progress of society is
unselfish leadership.[6] This can only mean that there is,
increasingly, unselfish leadership, more and more of conscious,
willing coöperation on the part of men in forwarding the social
evolution.
None of us can return to the older attitude of comparative
indifference, nor can we honestly defend it. We do have obligations
and we own them; we are judging ourselves increasingly by Christ's
test of ministering love.
V. THE SENSE OF LOVE
And the social consciousness ends necessarily in love, in the broader,
ethical meaning of that word. We shall never feel that the social
consciousness is complete, short of real love. All the other elements
of the social consciousness lead to love and are included in it. Even
the sociologist must bring in as necessary results of the
consciousness of kind--sympathy, affection, and desire for the
recognition of others;[7] and he finds these always more or less
distinctly at work among men.
These further considerations from the study of evolution confirm this
result: that man is preëminently the social animal;[8] that with man
we have clearly reached the stage of persons and of personal
relations;[9] that the very existence and development of man required
love at every step;[10] and that the chief moral significance of man's
prolonged infancy is probably to be found in the necessary calling out
of love.[11]
So, too, it has become constantly more and more clear that our
obligation, what we owe to others, is ourselves; and the giving of the
self is love. It seems to be thrust home upon social workers
everywhere that there is no solution of any social problem without a
personal self-giving in some way on the part of some; that there is no
cheaper way than this very costly one of love, of the giving of
ourselves--whether in the family, or in charity, or in criminology.
The point, already noted, that the progress of society depends on
leaders who will serve with unselfish devotion, is only another
emphasis upon love as an indispensable element of the social
consciousness.
And the social goal--equality, brotherhood, liberty, when these terms
are given any adequate ethical content--is absolutely unthinkable in
any really vital sense without love.
Any attempted definition of love, moreover, resolves at once into what
we mean by the social consciousness. If we define love as the giving
of self, this is exactly what, with growing clearness and insistence,
the social consciousness demands. If with Herrmann we call love, "joy
in personal life"--joy, that is, in the revelation of personal life,
this can only come in that trustful, reverent, self-surrendering
association to which the social consciousness exhorts. If with Edwards
we call love, willing the highest and completest good of all, we reach
the same result. Or if with Christ in the Beatitudes, or with Paul in
the thirteenth of I Corinthians, we study the characteristics of love,
we shall hardly doubt that a complete social consciousness must have
these marks of love.
These elements, then, make up the social consciousness: the sense of
like-mindedness, of mutual influence, of the value and sacredness of
the person, of obligation, and of love; and all these, with their
implied demands, only point to what a person must be if he is to be
fully personal.
With this definition in mind, we may now ask, whether the analogy of
the organism can adequately express the social consciousness.
[1] Cf. Giddings, _Elements of Sociology_, pp. 6, 10, 65, 66, 77.
[2] Cf. Giddings, _Op. cit._, p. 324.
[3] See _The New World_, Sept., 1898, p. 516.
[4] Cf. Lotze, _The Microcosmus_, Vol. II, p. 211.
[5] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, Chap. IX, pp, 169 ff.
[6] See Giddings, _Op. cit._, pp. 302, 320-322.
[7] Cf. Giddings, _Op. cit._, pp. 65, 66.
[8] Cf. Giddings, _Op. cit._, p. 241.
[9] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 92-96.
[10] Cf. Drummond, _The Ascent of Man_, pp. 272 ff.
[11] Cf. John Fiske, _The Destiny of Man_, p. 74; Drummond, _Op.
cit._, p. 279 ff.
CHAPTER II
_THE INADEQUACY OF THE ANALOGY OF THE ORGANISM AS AN EXPRESSION OF THE
SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS_[12]
I. THE VALUE OF THE ANALOGY
The analogy of the organism has played so large a part in the history
of thought, especially in the consideration of ethical and social
questions, that it is well worth while to ask exactly how far this
analogy is adequate, although the danger of the abuse of the analogy
is probably somewhat less than formerly.
It may be said at once that it is, undoubtedly, the very best
illustration of these social relations that we can draw from nature,
and it is of real value. It has had, moreover, as already indicated, a
most influential and largely honorable history in the development of
the thought of men. Its classical expression is in the epoch-making
twelfth chapter of I Corinthians, which makes so plain the ethical
applications of the analogy.
II. THE INEVITABLE INADEQUACY OF THE ANALOGY
1. _Comes from the Sub-personal World._--But it ought clearly to be
seen, on the other hand, that, considered as a complete expression of
the social consciousness, it is necessarily inadequate; and it is of
moment that we should not be dominated by it. Too often it has been
made to cover the entire ground, as though in itself it were a
complete expression and final explanation of the social consciousness,
instead of a quite incomplete illustration. For, in the first place,
the very fact that the analogy comes from the physical world, from the
sub-personal realm, makes it certain that it must fail at vital points
in the expression of what is peculiarly a personal and ethical fact.
We cannot safely argue directly from the physical illustration to
ethical propositions.
2. _Access to Reality, Only Through Ourselves._--Moreover, in this day
of extraordinary attention to the physical world, it is particularly
important that we should keep constantly in mind that we have direct
access to reality only in ourselves; that man is himself necessarily
the only key which we can use for any ultimate understanding of
anything; or, as Paulsen puts it, "I know reality as it is in itself,
in so far as I am real myself, or in so far as it is, or is like, that
which I am, namely, spirit."[13] We are not to forget that, in very
truth, we know _better_ what we mean by persons and personal
relations, than we do what we mean by members of a body and by organic
relations; and, further, that in point of fact, all those metaphysical
notions by which we strive to think things are ultimately derived from
ourselves; and that then we illogically turn back upon our own minds,
from which all these notions came, to explain the mind in the same
secondary way in which we explain other things.
3. _Mistaken Passion for Construing Everything._--Natural science,
with its sole problem of the tracing of immediate causal connections,
naturally provokes a persistent, but nevertheless thoroughly mistaken,
"passion," as Lotze calls it,[14] "for construing everything,"--even
the most real and final reality, spirit; which wishes to see even this
real and final reality explained as the mechanical result of the
combination of simpler elements, themselves, it is to be noted,
finally absolutely inexplicable. Such perverse attempts will be widely
hailed, by many who do not understand themselves, as highly
scientific. And one who refuses to enter upon such investigations will
be criticized by such minds as "hardly getting into grips with his
subject."
But it is a false application of the scientific instinct that leads
one to seek mechanical explanation for the final reality, or that
urges to precision of formulation beyond that warranted by the data.
It is from exactly this falsely scientific bias that theology needs
deliverance. "For," as Aristotle reminds us, "it is the mark of a man
of culture to try to attain exactness in each kind of knowledge just
so far as the nature of the subject allows." There is a wise
agnosticism that is violated alike by negative and by positive
dogmatism. It is often overlooked that there is an over-wise
radicalism that assumes a knowledge of the depth of the finite and
infinite, quite as insistent and dogmatic as the view it supposes
itself to be opposing. "I know it is not so," it ought not to need to
be said, is not agnosticism.
The guiding principle in a truly scientific theology is this, as Lotze
suggests: Just so far as changing action depends upon altering
conditions, we have explanatory and constructive problems to solve,
and no farther. No philosophical view can do without a simply given
reality. And we shall never succeed in understanding by what machinery
reality is manufactured--in "deducing the whole positive content of
reality from mere modifications of formal conditions."[15]
We shall not allow ourselves to be misled, therefore, by the
scientific sound of the _detailed_ application of the analogy of the
organism to the facts of the social consciousness. And it is a
satisfaction to see that the clearest sociological writers are coming
to agree that there is strictly no "social mind" that can be affirmed
to exist as a separate reality, supposed to answer to society
conceived in its totality as an organism.
III. THE ANALOGY TESTED BY THE DEFINITION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS
When, now, we test the analogy of the organism by its competency to
express the full meaning of the social consciousness, as it has been
defined, we must say that the analogy but feebly expresses the
likeness of men; it best expresses the inevitableness of mutual
influence, though even here there is no understandable ultimate
explanation; it fairly expresses the desirableness and indispensableness
of mutual influence, but, of course, with entire lack of ethical
meaning; and it quite fails to express the sense of the value and the
sacredness of the person, the sense of obligation, and the sense of
love. We need to see and feel exactly these shortcomings, if we are
not to abuse the analogy. There is no social consciousness that will
hold water that does not rest on what Phillips Brooks called "a
healthy and ineradicable individualism," in the sense of the
recognition of the fully personal. We are spirits, not organisms, and
society is a society of persons, not an organism, in a strict sense.
Why should we wish to make society less significant than it is?
[12] Cf. King, _Op. cit._, pp. 92 ff., 179.
[13] _Introduction to Philosophy_, p. 373.
[14] _The Microcosmus_, Vol. I, p. 262.
[15] Lotze, _The Microcosmus_, Vol. II, pp. 649 ff.
CHAPTER III
_THE NECESSITY OF THE FACTS, OF WHICH THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE
REFLECTION, IF IDEAL INTERESTS ARE TO BE SUPREME_
I. THE QUESTION
With this positive and negative definition of the social
consciousness in our minds, a third question immediately suggests
itself to one who wishes to go to the bottom of our theme. Why must
the facts, of which the social consciousness is the reflection, be as
they are if ideal interests are to be supreme? What has a theodicy to
say as to these facts? Why, that is, from the point of view of the
ideal--of religion and theology--why are we constituted so alike? so
that we must influence one another? so that the results of our actions
necessarily go over into the lives of others? so that the innocent
suffer with the guilty and the guilty profit with the righteous? so
that we must recognize everywhere the claim of others? so that we must
respect their personality? and so that we must love them?
II. OTHERWISE NO MORAL WORLD AT ALL
The answer to all these world-old questions may perhaps be contained
in the single statement, that otherwise we should have no moral world
at all. There would be no thinkable moral universe, but rather as many
worlds as there are individuals, having no more to do with one another
than the chemical reactions going on in a set of test-tubes.
1. _The Prerequisites of a Moral World._ For our human thinking,
assuredly, there are certain prerequisites, that the world may be at
all a sphere for moral training and action. What are these
prerequisites for a moral world? There must be, in the first place, a
_sphere of universal law_, to count on, within which all actions take
place. In a lawless world, action could hardly take on any
significance--least of all ethical significance. That freedom itself
should mean anything in outward expression, there must be the
possibility of intelligent use of means toward the ends chosen.
There must be, in the second place, some _real ethical freedom_, some
power of moral initiative. We need not quarrel about the terms used;
but, as Paulsen intimates, no serious ethical writer ever doubted that
men have at least some power to shape their own characters.[16]
Without that assumption, we have a whole world of ideas and
ideals--many of them the realest facts in the world to us--that have
no legitimate excuse for being, that are simple insanities of the most
inexplicable sort. The very meaning of the personality, indeed, which
the social consciousness must demand for men, is some real existence
for self, that is, some real self-consciousness and moral initiative.
And freedom is not enough; there must be also _some power of
accomplishment_. To ascribe mere volition to man seems, it has been
justly said, sophistical. Results are needed to reveal the character
of our acts, even to ourselves--to make that character real. Lotze's
charge that the world is imperfect because it might have been so made
that only good designs could be carried out, or so that the results of
evil volitions would be at once corrected,[17] is itself similarly
sophistical. Such a world, in which the outward results of action
never appear, would be but a play-world after all--only a nursery of
babes not yet capable of character. It could be no fit world for moral
training.
And still more, not less, must this law of the necessary results of
actions hold in our relations to other persons. There can be, least of
all, a moral universe where we are not _members one of another_.
Character, in any form we can conceive it, could not then exist. Our
best, as well as our worst, possibilities are involved in these
necessary mutual relations. Moral character has meaning only in
personal relations. The results, therefore, which follow upon action,
if the character of our deed is to have reality for us, must be
chiefly personal. The realm of character has fearful possibilities.
This _is_ no play-world. We can cause and be caused suffering, and our
sin necessarily carries the suffering, if not the sin, of others with
it.
2. _The Ideal World Requires, thus, the Facts of the Social
Consciousness._--All this could be changed in any vital way only by
shutting up every soul absolutely to itself, and with that result life
has simply ceased.
For we cannot really conceive a person as having any reason for being
without such relations. He would be constantly baffled at every point,
for he is made for persons and personal relations. Love, too, the
highest source of both character and happiness, requires everywhere
personal relations. Religion itself, as a sharing of the life of God,
would be impossible without some relation to others; for God, at
least, could not be separated from the life of all. That is, persons,
love, religion, in such a world, have gone.
This, then, simply means that the ideal world ceases to be, with the
denial of the facts that the social consciousness reflects. We must be
full persons, social beings in the entire meaning demanded by the
social consciousness--hard as the consequences involved often are--if
ideal interests are to be supreme. Indeed, the very moral judgment,
that incessantly prompts the problem of evil for every one of us, is
required, for its own existence, to assume the validity of the
relations about which it questions. For it complains, for the most
part, of those facts that follow inevitably from the necessary mutual
influence of men; but the chief sources of the joy it requires, that
it may justify the world, lie in these same mutual relations. It
assumes, thus, in its claims on the world, the validity and worth of
the very relations of which it complains in its criticism of the
world. Or, slightly to vary the statement, the major premise, even of
pessimism, is that a really justifiable world must have worth in the
joy it yields in personal life, impossible out of the personal
relations of a real moral universe. And there can be no moral universe
without the facts reflected in the social consciousness. The ideal
world requires, then, the facts of the social consciousness.
[16] _System of Ethics_, pp. 467 ff.
[17] _Philosophy of Religion_, p. 125.
CHAPTER IV
_THE ULTIMATE EXPLANATION AND GROUND OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS_
The most important and fundamental inquiry as to the possible help
of theology to the social consciousness still remains: What is the
ultimate explanation and ground of the social consciousness? This
question includes two: (1) How can it be metaphysically that we do
influence one another? (2) What is required for the final positive
justification of the social consciousness as ethical? Theology's
answer to both questions is found in the being and character of God,
the creative and moral source of all.
I. HOW CAN IT BE, METAPHYSICALLY, THAT WE DO INFLUENCE ONE ANOTHER?
First, then, how can it be that we do influence one another? What is
the final explanation of the constant fact of our reciprocal action?
For in our final thinking we may not ignore this question.
1. _Not Due to the Physical Fact of Race-Connection._--It may be worth
while saying, first, that the physical fact of race-connection, if
that could be proved, would be no sufficient explanation. The race
may, or may not, be dependent upon a single pair, but in any case this
is not the essential connection. The race is one by virtue of its
essential likeness, however that comes about. Men might have sprung
out of the ground in absolute individual independence of one another,
and yet if there were such actual like-mindedness as now exists, the
race would be as truly one as it now is, and as capable of reciprocal
action, and its members under the same obligation to one another. No
ideal interest is at stake, then, in the question of the actual
physical unity of the race as descended from one pair.
One may say, of course, that the physical unity of the race would
naturally result, according to the laws apparently prevailing in the
animal world, in likeness. And this may, therefore, seem to him the
most natural proximate explanation. But, even so, it is well to know
that our entire _moral_ interest is in the essential likeness and
mutual influence of men, however brought about, and not in the
physical unity of men. Theology has no occasion to continue its
earlier excessive and quite fundamental emphasis upon this physical
unity. Moreover, such an explanation is necessarily but proximate.
Back of it lies the deeper question, Why just these laws, and modes of
procedure?
2. _We are not to Over-Emphasize the Principle of Heredity._--Nor can
theology, from any point of view, afford to over-emphasize the
principle of heredity if it wishes to keep human initiative at all. It
is a dangerous alliance which the old-school theology with its racial
sin in Adam has been so ready to make with the principle of heredity.
That principle, as they wish to use it, proves quite too much; and
careful thinkers, really awake to ideal interests, may well rejoice in
the comparative relief which science itself, through the probably
somewhat exaggerated protest of the Weismann or Neo-Darwinian school,
seems likely to afford from the incubus of a grossly exaggerated
heredity. The main interest for the ideal view lies right here. We can
see why this law of the "inheritance of acquired characteristics," in
Professor James' language, "_should not_ be verified in the human
race, and why, therefore, in looking for evidence on the subject, we
should confine ourselves exclusively to lower animals. In them fixed
habit is the essential and characteristic law of nervous action. The
brain grows to the exact modes in which it has been exercised, and the
inheritance of these modes--then called instincts--would have in it
nothing surprising. But in man the negation of all fixed modes is the
essential characteristic. He owes his whole preëminence as a reasoner,
his whole human quality of intellect, we may say, to the facility with
which a given mode of thought in him may suddenly be broken up into
elements, which re-combine anew. Only at the price of inheriting no
settled instinctive tendencies is he able to settle every novel case
by the fresh discovery by his reason of novel principles. He is, _par
excellence_, the educable animal."[18]
To over-emphasize the principle of heredity, then, is to strike at one
of the most fundamental distinctive human qualities, and so to
endanger every ideal interest. The growing like-mindedness of men and
their mutual influence are not forthwith to be ascribed to an
omnipotent principle of heredity.
3. _Not Due to a Mystical Solidarity._--Nor is the mutual influence of
men to be explained by any mystical solidarity of the race considered
as a _finite_ whole. It is a simple and reasonable scientific demand,
that we should not assume a mysterious, indefinable and incalculable
cause, where known and intelligible causes suffice to explain the
phenomena in question. Do we need, or can we intelligently use, a
mystical solidarity? The only solidarity of the race which we seem
really to need, or with which we seem able intelligently to deal, is
the actual like-mindedness and the actual personal relations
themselves--the reciprocal action of spirits--the only kind of
reciprocal action which we can finally fully conceive. Any other
finite solidarity than this, though it has often figured in theology,
seems to me only a name without significance. In any case, we need to
insist in theology, much more than we have, upon that unity of the
race which is due to the actual likeness of men and their actual
mutual personal influence. Such a unity we know and can understand,
and it is of the highest ethical and spiritual importance. But to make
much of the physical unity is to ground the spiritual in the physical;
and, on the other hand, to take refuge in a mystical solidarity--and
this is often felt to be a rather deep procedure--for whatever
theological purpose, is to hide in the fog of the obscure and
unintelligible.
4. _Grounded in the Immanence of God._--But back of all finite
phenomena, we may still ask for an ultimate explanation of the
possibility of any reciprocal action even between spirits. And it is,
perhaps, this ultimate explanation after which the idea of a mystical
solidarity of the race is blindly groping. Unless one chooses to
accept reciprocal action as a necessarily given fact in any universe
(and this position, I think with F. C. S. Schiller, may be reasonably
defended),[19] he must somewhere in his thinking ask for its final
explanation. And most of those, who try to think things through, feel
this pressure. And metaphysics, we do well to remember with Professor
James, "means only an unusually obstinate attempt to think clearly and
consistently."[20] As Lotze puts it: "How a cause begins to produce
its _immediate_ effect, how a condition is the foundation of its
direct result, it will never be possible to say; yet that cause and
effect _do_ thus act must be reckoned among those simple facts that
compose the reality which is the object of all our investigation. But
there is an intolerable contradiction in the assumption that, though
two beings may be wholly independent the one of the other, yet that
which takes place in one can be a cause of change in the other; things
that do not affect each other at all, cannot at the same time affect
each other in such a manner that the one is guided by the other."[21]
This question is fairly thrust upon us by the facts of the social
consciousness. How can it be that we do so influence one another? how
is our reciprocal action metaphysically possible? The answer of
theistic philosophy to this question is found in the being of God.
Upon the metaphysical side, theistic philosophy affirms that we can
ascribe independent existence in the highest sense only to God. All
else is absolutely dependent for its existence and maintenance upon
him. The kind of reality that we demand for man is not that he be
_outside_ of God, independent of him; this would not make man more,
but less. Every thorough-going theistic view must have this at least
in common with pantheism, that it recognizes everywhere a real
immanence of God. We are, because God wills in us. This metaphysical
relation of the finite to the infinite, to be sure, is not to be
conceived spatially or materially; nor, least of all, is it be so
conceived as to deny a real self-consciousness and a real moral
initiative to the finite spirit; but it does involve the absolute
dependence of all the finite upon the will of God. As to our _being_,
we root solely in God. And the unity and consistency of the being of
God are the actual ground of our possible reciprocal action. Only so
is that contradiction of which Lotze spoke avoided. We are not
independent of one another, because we are all alike dependent for our
very being upon God. And we are thus members one of another,
ultimately, only through him.
The further fact, that we are never fully able to trace causal
connections anywhere; that even in the clearest case no possible
analysis of one stage in the process enables us to prophesy,
independently of experience, the next stage, also compels us to admit
that the full cause is not really present in any of the finite
manifestations we can follow; that we have always to take account of
the "hidden efficacy of the Infinite everywhere at work," and so must
recognize once again the indubitable immanence of God, the absolute
dependence of the finite upon his will, and our reciprocal action as
possible only through him.[22]
Or, to put the same thing a little differently, any adequate theory of
causality seems to lead us up inevitably to purpose in God. As
Professor Bowne states it:[23] "The fundamental antithesis of purpose
and causation is incorrect. The true antithesis is that of mechanical
and volitional causality." And he intimates the probability that all
causality, even in the physical world, is ultimately volitional. "It
becomes a question," he says, "whether true causality can be found in
the phenomenal at all, and not rather in a power beyond the phenomenal
which incessantly posits and continues that order according to rule."
The unity and consistency of the immanent will of God, then, are the
ultimate metaphysical ground of all reciprocal action. The mutual
influence, that is, even of spirits, finds its final full explanation
only in God.
The social consciousness, therefore, so far as it is an expression of
the possibility and inevitableness of our mutual influence, is a
reflection of the immanence of the one God in the unity and
consistency of his life.
But this, after all, is not the most important element of the social
consciousness. So far as it is _ethical_ at all, it can have no final
explanation in the metaphysical, considered as mere matter of fact. We
are driven, therefore, to ask the second question involved in the
subject of the chapter.
II. WHAT IS REQUIRED FOR THE FINAL POSITIVE JUSTIFICATION OF THE
SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS ETHICAL?
1. _Must be Grounded in the Supporting Will of God._--It is not enough
that we should be able to think of the unity of One Life pervading
all, or even of One Will upholding all. If the social consciousness,
as distinctly ethical, is to have any final justification, it must be
able to believe that it is in league with the eternal and universal
forces; that the fundamental trend of the universe is its own trend;
in other words, that the deepest thing in the universe is an ethical
purpose conceivable only in a Person; that the ideals and purposes of
finite beings expressed in the social consciousness are in line with
God's own; that the loving holy purpose of the Infinite Will quickens
and sustains and surrounds our purposes.
Let us distinctly face the fact that, unless the social consciousness
can be so grounded in the very foundation of the universe, it must
remain an illogical and unjustifiable fragment in the world, without
real excuse for being. That is, if the social consciousness is not to
be an illusion, it must be, as Professor Nash contends, cosmical, and
not merely individual, and ethics must root in religion. This is the
very heart of his stimulating book, _Ethics and Revelation_,
expressed, for example, in such sentences as these: "Nothing save a
sense of deep and intimate connection with the solid core of things,
nothing save a settled and fervid conviction that the universe is on
the side of the will in its struggle for that whole-hearted devotion
for the welfare of the race, without which morality is an affair of
shreds and patches, can give to the will the force and edge suitable
to the difficult work it has to do. But this sense of kinship with
what is deepest and most abiding in the universe--what else is meant
by pure religion." And again: "We, as founders and builders of the
true society, find ourselves shut up to an impassioned faith in the
sincerity of the universe and the integrity of the fundamental being.
Our religion is a deep and wide synthesis of feeling, whereby that
personal will in us, which grounds society, comes into solemn league
and covenant with the fundamental being. Here is the focus-point of
the prophetic revelation. At this point, the deep in God answers to
the deep in Man.... All that He is He puts in pledge for the
perfecting of the society He has founded."[24]
Paulsen expresses only the same fundamental conviction, from the point
of view of the philosopher, and, at the same time, the heart of his
own solution of the relation between knowledge and faith, when he
says: "There is one item, at least, in which every man goes beyond
mere knowledge, beyond the registration of facts. That is his own life
and his future. His life has a meaning for him, and he directs it
toward something which does not yet exist, but which will exist by
virtue of his will. Thus a faith springs up by the side of his
knowledge. He believes in the realization of this, his life's aim, if
he is at all in earnest about it. Since, however, his aim is not an
isolated one, but is included in the historical life of a people, and
finally in that of humanity, he believes also in the future of his
people, in the victorious future of truth and righteousness and
goodness in humanity. Whoever devotes his life to a cause believes in
that cause, and this belief, be his creed what it may, has always
something of the form of a religion. Hence faith infers that an inner
connection exists between the real and the valuable within the domain
of history, and believes that in history something like an immanent
principle of reason or justice favors the right and the good, and
leads it to victory over all resisting forces." And Paulsen holds that
this implicit faith characterizes necessarily every philosophical
theory. "What the philosopher himself accepts as the highest good and
final goal he projects into the world as its good and goal, and then
believes that subsequent reflections also reveal it to him in the
world."[25]
We must be able, then, to believe that the best we know--our highest
ideals--are at home in the world, or give up all faith in the honesty
of the world, and all hope of philosophy, to say nothing of religion.
Ultimately, now, this means that nothing short of full Christian
conviction is needed to support the social consciousness. We need to
be able to believe that the spirit of the life and death of Christ is
at the very heart of the world. Nothing less will suffice. And this is
exactly the support which the Christian revelation offers to the
social consciousness.
2. _God's Sharing in Our Life._--But if the social consciousness is
only a true reflection of God's own desire and purpose, then in a
sense far deeper than the merely metaphysical, our life is the very
life of God. He shares in it. And no man can really see what that
means, and not find a new light falling on all the world, and himself
carried on to take up a new confession of faith in the solemn words of
another: "For the agony of the world's struggle is the very life of
God. Were he mere spectator, perhaps, he too would call life cruel.
But in the unity of our lives with his, our joy is his joy, our pain
is his." And from the vision of this self-giving life of God we turn
back to our own place of service, saying with Matheson: "If Thou art
love then Thy best gift must be sacrifice; in that light let me search
Thy world."[26]
We probably cannot better express this unity of our highest ethical
life with the life of God than by renewing our old faith that we are
children of a common Father, who have come, under God's own
leading--so far as a social consciousness is ours--voluntarily to
share in God's loving purpose in the creation and redemption of men.
We do not work alone; nay, we are co-workers with God.
3. _The Consequent Transfiguration of the Social Consciousness._--And
as soon as we have thus really and deeply come into the meaning of
Christ's thought of God as Father, and into his revelation in his life
and death as to what the spirit of that Fatherhood is, we turn back to
the elements of our social consciousness to find them all
transfigured.
Our _likeness_ is the likeness of common children of God reflecting
the image of the one Father, capable of character and of indefinite
progress into the highest.
Our _mutual influence_ roots in a real Fatherhood, both in source of
being and in the one purpose of love, alike creating and redemptively
working for all.
Our _sense of the value and sacredness of the person_ now for the
first time gets its full justification. Men are not only creatures
capable of joying and suffering, but children of God with a
preciousness to be interpreted only in the light of Christ, and with
the "power of the endless life" upon them. Concerning the value of the
person, it is worth stopping just here, to notice that it is
peculiarly true of the social consciousness, that it is not free to
ignore such considerations upon immortality as those which weighed
most with John Stuart Mill and Sully. Of the hope of immortality, Mill
says: "The beneficial influence of such a hope is far from trifling.
It makes life and human nature a far greater thing to the feelings,
and gives greater strength as well as greater solemnity to all the
sentiments which are awakened in us by our fellow-creatures, and by
mankind at large." And Sully adds: "I would only say that if men are
to abandon all hope of a future life, the loss, in point of cheering
and sustaining influence, will be a vast one, and one not to be made
good, so far as I can see, by any new idea of services to collective
humanity."[27]
Our _sense of obligation_ deepens with all this deepening of the value
of men, and our conscience becomes only a true response to God's own
life and character--in no mere figurative sense the voice of God in
us.
And our _love_ becomes simply entering a little way into God's own
love, a sharing more and more in his life.
And when one has once seen the social consciousness so transfigured in
the light of Christ's revelation, he must believe that then, for the
first time, he has seen the social consciousness at its highest, and
that it is impossible for him to go back to the lower ideal. If the
social consciousness is not an illusion, Christ's thought of God and
of the life with God ought to be true; and if the world is an honest
world, it is true. It is not only true that Christ has a social
teaching, but that the social consciousness absolutely requires
Christ's teaching for its own final justification. The Christian truth
_is_ so great that it alone can give the social consciousness its
fullest meaning, alone can enable it to understand itself, and alone
can give it adequate motive and power; for, in Keim's words, "to-day,
to-morrow, and forever we can know nothing better than that God is our
Father, and that the Father is the rest of our souls."[28]
[18] James, _Psychology_, Vol. II, pp. 367, 368.
[19] _The Philosophical Review_, May, 1896, p. 228.
[20] _Psychology_, Briefer Course, p. 461.
[21] _Microcosmus_, Vol. II, p. 599.
[22] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 54, 84, 102.
[23] _Theory of Thought and Knowledge_, pp. 91, 111.
[24] _Ethics and Revelation_, pp. 50, 243, 244.
[25] _Introduction to Philosophy_, pp. 8, 9, 313.
[26] _Searchings in the Silence_, p. 46.
[27] Quoted by Orr, _The Christian View of God and the World_, pp.
160, 72.
[28] Quoted by Bruce, _The Kingdom of God_, p. 157.
THE INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THE CONCEPTION OF
RELIGION
INTRODUCTION
From the question of the support which Christian faith and doctrine
give to the social consciousness, we turn now to the second part of
our inquiry: How does this growing social consciousness, not by any
means always consciously religious, naturally react upon and affect
our conceptions of religion and of theological doctrines?
In this inquiry, we cannot always be sure historically of the exact
connection, and, for our present purpose, this is not of prime
importance. But we can see, for example, in this second division of
our theme, the relations of religion and the social consciousness, and
how religion must be conceived if the social consciousness is fully
warranted; and this is the main question.
If the definition of theology which has been suggested be adopted--the
thoughtful and unified expression of what religion means to us--then
it is obvious that any change in conception or emphasis in religion
will necessarily affect theological statement. Our inquiry as to the
influence of the social consciousness, therefore, naturally begins
with religion.
The discussions of this division, moreover, will really include all
that part of theological doctrine which has to do with the growth into
the life with God.
The natural influence of the social consciousness upon the conception
of religion may be, perhaps, summed up in four points, which form the
subjects of the four succeeding chapters: (1) The social consciousness
tends to draw religion away from the falsely mystical; (2) it tends to
emphasize the personal relation in religion, and so keeps the truly
mystical; (3) it tends to emphasize the ethical in religion; (4) it
tends to emphasize the concretely historically Christian in religion.
CHAPTER V
_THE OPPOSITION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO THE FALSELY MYSTICAL_
I. WHAT IS THE FALSELY MYSTICAL?
Two very clear answers made from different points of view deserve
attention.
1. _Nash's Definition._--In trying to set forth the "main mood and
motives of religious speculation" in the early Christian centuries,
Professor Nash takes, as perhaps the two strongest influences in
determining the type of man to whom Christian apologetics had then to
appeal, Philo and Plotinus, and says: "By what road shall the mind
enter into a deep and intimate knowledge of God? That is the decisive
question. Plotinus the Gentile and Philo the Jew are at one in their
answer. The reason must rise above reasoning. It must pass into a
state that is half a swoon and half an ecstasy before it can truly
know God. Philo gave up for the sake of his theory, the position of
the prophets. Plotinus, for the same theory, forsook the position of
Plato and Aristotle. The prophets conceived the inmost essence of
things, the being and will of God, as a creative and redemptive force
that guided and revealed itself through the career of a great national
community. Plato and Aristotle conceived the essence of life as a
labor of reason; and, for them, the labors of reason found their
sufficient refreshment and inspiration in those moments of clear
synthesis which are the reward of patient analysis. Revelation came to
the prophet through his experience of history. To the philosopher it
came through hard and steady thinking. But Philo and Plotinus together
declared these roads to be no thoroughfares. The Greek and the Jew met
on the common ground of a mysticism that sacrificed the needs of sober
reason and the needs of the nation to the necessities of the
monk."[29] Mysticism is here conceived as unethical, unhistorical, and
unrational.
2. _Herrmann's Definition._--Herrmann's definition of mysticism is the
second one to which attention is directed. He says: "When the
influence of God upon the soul is sought and found solely in an inward
experience of the individual; when certain excitements of the emotions
are taken, with no further question, as evidence that the soul is
possessed by God; when, at the same time, nothing external to the soul
is consciously and clearly perceived and firmly grasped; when no
thoughts that elevate the spiritual life are aroused by the positive
contents of an idea that rules the soul--then that is the piety of
mysticism. He who seeks in this wise that for the sake of which he is
ready to abandon all beside, has stepped beyond the pale of Christian
piety. He leaves Christ and Christ's Kingdom altogether behind him
when he enters that sphere of experience which seems to him to be the
highest."[30] The marks of mysticism for Herrmann, then, are: that it
is purely subjective; that it is merely emotional and unethical; and
hence that it has no clear object, and is abstract, unrational,
unhistorical, and so unchristian.
II. THE OBJECTIONS OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO THE FALSELY MYSTICAL
Against this neo-platonic, falsely mystical conception of religion,
the social consciousness seems to be clearly arrayed, and, so far as
the social consciousness influences religion, it will certainly tend
to draw it away from this falsely mystical idea.
1. _Unethical._--For, in the first place, this neo-platonic conception
of religion has nothing distinctly ethical in it. The ethical is
manifestly not made the test of true religious experience, as it is in
the New Testament. The social consciousness, on the other hand, is
predominantly and emphatically ethical, and can have nothing to do
with a religion in which ethics is either omitted or is wholly
subordinate. At this point, therefore, the pressure of the social
consciousness is strongly against a neo-platonic mysticism.
2. _Does not Give a Real Personal God._--In the second place, the
social consciousness cannot get along with the falsely mystical,
because it does not give a real personal God. Let us be clear upon
this point. Is not Herrmann right when he says that all that can be
said of the God of this mysticism is "that he is not the world? Now
that is precisely all that mysticism has ever been able to say of God
as it conceives him. Plainly, the world and the conception of it are
all that moves the soul while it thinks thus of God. Only
disappointment can ensue to the soul whose yearning for God in such
case keeps on insisting that God must be something utterly different
from the world. If such a soul will reflect awhile on the nature of
the God thus reached, the fact must inevitably come to the surface
that its whole consciousness is occupied with the world now as it was
before, for evidently it has grasped no positive ideas--nothing but
negative ideas--about anything else. Mysticism frequently passes into
pantheism for this very reason, even in men of the highest religious
energy; they refuse to be satisfied with the mere longing after God,
or to remain on the way to him, but determine to reach the goal
itself, and rest with God himself."[31]
Now we have already seen that the social consciousness can find
adequate support and power and motive only in faith that its purpose
is God's purpose, that the deepest thing in the universe is an ethical
purpose, conceivable only in a personal God; and, therefore, neither
an empty negation nor pantheism can ever satisfy it.
3. _Belittles the Personal in Man._--The false mysticism, moreover,
belittles the personal in man as well as in God; for it does not treat
with real reverence either the personality, the ethical freedom, the
sense of obligation, or the reason of man. This whole thought of "a
state that is half a swoon and half an ecstasy" is a sort of swamping
of clear self-consciousness and definite moral initiative, in which
the very reality of man's personality consists. It is a heathen, not a
Christian, idea of inspiration which demands the suppression of the
human, whether in consciousness, in will, in reason, or by belittling
the sense of obligation to others. But mysticism has at least tended
toward failure in all these respects.
And yet, from the time that Paul argued with the Corinthians against
their immense overestimation of the gift of speaking with tongues,
this fascination of the merely mystical has been felt in Christianity.
(1) The very mystery and unintelligibility of the experience, (2) its
ecstatic emotion, (3) its sense of being controlled by a power beyond
one's self, and (4) its contrast with ordinary life--all these
elements make the mystical experience seem to most all the more
divine, although in so judging they are applying a pagan, not a
Christian, standard. So far as these experiences have value, it is
probably due to the strong and realistic sense which they give of
being in the presence of an overpowering being. If thoroughly
permeated and dominated with other elements, this sense is not without
its value.
But it is interesting to notice that, although Paul does not deny the
legitimacy of the gift of speaking with tongues, he nevertheless
absolutely subordinates it, and insists that the most ecstatic
religious emotions are completely worthless without love. Evidently
the considerations which weighed most with the Corinthians in valuing
the gift of unintelligible ecstatic utterance weighed little with
Paul; and one can see how Paul implicitly argues against each of those
considerations: (1) God is not an unknown, mystic force, but the
definite, concrete God of character, shown in Christ. (2) He speaks to
reason and will as well as to feeling, and he best speaks to feeling
when he speaks to the whole man. True religious emotion must have a
rational basis and must move to duty. (3) Religion, he would urge, is
a self-controlled and voluntary surrender to a personal God of
character, not a passive being swept away by an unknown emotion. (4)
God has most to give, be assured, he would have added, in the _common_
ways of life.
Now, in every one of these protests, the social consciousness
instinctively joins. It cannot rest in a conception of religion that
belittles the personal in God or man; for it is itself an emphatic
insistence upon the fully personal. And it can, least of all, get on
with the mystical ignoring of the rational and the ethical, for it
holds that the social evolution moves steadily on to a rational
like-mindedness, and to a definitely ethical civilization. Giddings
puts the sociological conclusion in a sentence: "It is the rational,
ethical consciousness that maintains social cohesion in a progressive
democracy."[32] Now that which is clearly recognized as the goal in
the relations of man to man will not be set aside as unwarranted or
subordinate in the relations of man to God. And we may depend upon it.
4. _Leaves the Historically, Concretely Christian._--Once more, the
social consciousness cannot approve of the mystical conception of
religion in its ignoring, in its highest state, the historically and
concretely Christian. With mysticism's subjective, emotional, and
abstract conception of the highest communion with God, and of the way
thereto, the historical and concrete at best can be to it only
subordinate means, more or less mysteriously connected with the
attainment of the goal, and left behind when once the goal is reached.
The social consciousness, on the other hand, requires historical
justification, and definitely builds on the facts of the historical
social evolution.
In the case of the prophets and psalmists, for example, who alone in
the ancient world most fully anticipated the modern social feeling,
the social consciousness plainly arose in the face of the concrete
historical life of a people. No result of modern Old Testament
criticism is more certain. So that, speaking of "the religious aspects
of the social struggle in Israel," McCurdy can use this strong
language: "It is not too much to say that this conflict, intense,
uninterrupted, and prolonged, is the very heart of the religion of the
Old Testament, its most regenerative and propulsive movement. To the
personal life of the soul, the only basis of a potential, world-moving
religion, it gave energy and depth, assurance and hopefulness, repose
and self-control, with an outlook clear and eternal."[33] But it was
this standpoint of the prophets that the falsely mystical conception
of religion abandoned. We may well take to heart, in our estimate of
mysticism, the gradual but steady elimination of ecstasy in the
development of Israel, and its practically total absence in those we
count in the highest sense prophets.[34]
The social consciousness, moreover, has almost entirely to do with
men, and hence naturally must lay stress on human history, rather than
on nature, as a source of religious ideas. Indeed, it will have no
doubt that what nature is made to mean religiously will be chiefly
determined by the prevalent social ideals. It can, therefore, least of
all ignore the historical in Christianity.
The social consciousness recognizes increasingly, too, with the
clearing of its own ideals and with the deepening study of the
teaching of Jesus, that it really is only demanding, in the concrete,
and in detailed application to particular problems, and to all of
them, the spirit shown in its fullness only in Christ, as Professor
Peabody's eminently sane treatment of the social teaching of Jesus
seems to me fairly to have proven. The social consciousness,
therefore, cannot help becoming more and more consciously and
emphatically Christian.
In a single sentence, because of the steps of its own long evolution,
the social consciousness instinctively distrusts the highly emotional,
unless it is manifestly under equally strong rational control, and
unless it has equal ethical insight and power, and is historically
justified. It tends, therefore, necessarily to draw away from the
falsely mystical in religion, which is lacking in all these respects.
And the same reasons, which array the social consciousness against the
falsely mystical in religion, lead it into natural sympathy with a
positive emphasis upon the personal, the ethical, and the historically
concretely Christian in religion.
[29] Nash, _Ethics and Revelation_, p. 33.
[30] Herrmann, _The Communion of the Christian with God_, pp. 19, 20.
[31] Herrmann, _Op. cit._, p. 27.
[32] Giddings, _Elements of Sociology_, p. 321; cf. also pp. 155 ff,
302, 320, 327.
[33] McCurdy, _History, Prophecy, and the Monuments_, Vol. II, p. 223;
cf. pp. 214, ff.
[34] G. A. Smith, _The Book of the Twelve Prophets_, Vol. I, pp. 30,
84, 89; Cornill, _The Prophets of Israel_, pp. 41, 46; _The Expository
Times_, Jan., Feb., 1902, article, _Prophetic Ecstasy_.
CHAPTER VI
_THE EMPHASIS OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THE PERSONAL RELATION
IN RELIGION, AND SO UPON THE TRULY MYSTICAL_
I. THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS TENDS POSITIVELY TO EMPHASIZE THE PERSONAL
RELATION IN RELIGION
1. _Emphasizes Everywhere the Personal._--The social consciousness
sees man as preëminently the social animal, made for personal
relations, irrevocably and essentially knit up with other persons. It
deepens everywhere our sense of persons and of personal relations. It
may be itself almost defined as the sense of the fully personal.
Religion, then, if it is to be most real to men of the social
consciousness, must be personally conceived, that is, must be
distinctly seen to be a personal relation of man to God. And this
conception, as the highest we can reach, is to be followed fearlessly
to the end; only guarding it against wrong inferences from the simple
transference to God of finite conditions, and recognizing exactly in
what respects the personal relation to God is unique.[35]
The social consciousness, moreover, as we have seen, must have a
conception of religion that can really justify the social
consciousness, and, therefore, must do justice to the fully personal
in God and man; and this need also leads the social consciousness
naturally to the conception of religion as a personal relation.
2. _Requires the Laws of a Deepening Friendship in Religion._--When
this conception is carried out, it is found that growth in the
religious life, in communion with God, follows the laws of a deepening
friendship.[36] These laws can, therefore, be known and studied and
formulated; and religion, at the same time, ceases to be
unintelligible and ceases to be isolated--cut off from the rest of
life, and becomes rather that one great fundamental relation which
gives being and meaning and value to all the rest. In absolute
harmony, then, with the genesis of the social consciousness, religion,
in this conception, is bound up with the whole of life; and we catch a
glimpse of the real and final unity of life in true love, the relation
to God and the relation to man each helping everywhere the other. If
religion is truly a personal relation, and its laws are those of a
deepening friendship, then every human relation, heartily and truly
fulfilled, becomes a new outlook on God, a revelation of new
possibilities in the religious life. And, on the other hand, in that
mutual self-revelation and answering trust upon which every growing
personal relation is built, every fresh revelation of God is an
enlarging of our ideal for our relations to others. Even biblical
literature, perhaps, furnishes no more perfect example of the
interplay of the human and divine relations than Hosea's account of
his own providential leading through the human relation into the
divine, and back again from the divine to a still better human.
3. _Requires the Ideal Conditions of the Richest Life in
Religion._--And if religion is to be justified in its supreme claims
by the social consciousness, it must be felt to offer, besides, the
ideal conditions of the richest life. As a personal relation to God,
religion need not shrink from this test. Our great needs are character
and happiness. Psychology seems to me to point to two great means and
to two accompanying conditions of both character and happiness. The
means are association and work; the corresponding conditions are
reverence for personality, and objectivity--the mood of both love and
work. The great essentials, therefore, to the richest life are (1)
association in which personality is respected, and (2) work in which
one can lose himself. Now, when would these conditions become ideal?
On the one hand, as to association, when the association is with him
who is of the highest character and of the infinitely richest life,
and relation to whom is fundamental to every other personal relation;
when, secondly, God is made concrete and real to us in an adequate
personal revelation of his character, and of his love toward us; and
when, third, the association is individualized for each one, who
throws himself open to God, in God's spiritual presence in us,
constantly and intimately, and yet _unobtrusively_, coöperating with
us. And, on the other hand, as to work, when the work is God-given
work, to which one is set apart, and in which he may lose himself with
joy. These are the ideal conditions of the richest life. Just these
ideal conditions Jesus declared actualities. For the fulfilment of
just these, in the case of his disciples, he prayed in his double
petition,--"Keep them," "Sanctify them," "Keep them in thy name," that
is, through the divine association. "Sanctify them"--set them apart
unto their God-given work. "As thou hast sent me into the world, even
so have I also sent them into the world." Such a conception of
religion can fairly claim to meet, broadly and deeply, the most
exacting demands of the social consciousness for emphasis upon the
personal relation in religion.
II. THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS THUS KEEPS THE TRULY MYSTICAL
I have no predilection for the term mystical, and would gladly confine
it to what I have termed the neo-platonic or falsely mystical, were it
not that, in spite of the dictionaries and the histories of philosophy
and the histories of doctrine, the term is used in two quite different
senses. Many, it seems to me, are defending what they call the
mystical in religion, who have no idea of defending what Herrmann and
Nash call mystical. And many, on the other hand, are defending and
teaching the falsely mystical through an undefined fear that else they
will lose the truly mystical. Theology and religion both greatly need
a clear discrimination of terms here. Many are involved, in both
living and thinking, in a self-contradiction, which they feel but
cannot state; and are urging with themselves and with others a means
of religious life and a corresponding method of conception, which
really contradict their highest convictions in other lines of life and
thought. Can we find our way out of this confusion?
If one studies carefully the historical representatives of mysticism,
and especially such a strong type as Jacob Böhme, whom Erdmann calls
the "culmination of mysticism," and still keeps his head, certain
dangers in mysticism, it would seem, must become apparent. And it may
be worth while to attempt a brief, but definite, analysis of the
justifiable and unjustifiable elements in these mystical movements.
1. _The Justifiable and Unjustifiable Elements in Mysticism._--(1) The
first danger in mysticism seems to me to be the tendency to make
simple emotion the supreme test of the religious state. Whether this
emotion is thought of as ecstatic--such as some of the old mystics
called "being drunk with God," or, as quietistic--in which
imperturbability, passionlessness, become the highest good--is
comparatively indifferent. The justifiable element here is the
insistence that religion is real and is life; for feeling is perhaps
the most powerful element in the sense of reality. So James says:
"Speaking generally, the more a conceived object excites us, the more
reality it has."[37] The unjustifiable element is the perilous
subjection of the rational and ethical. Such a view must always lack
any positive and adequate conception of our active life and vocation
in the world.
(2) A second closely connected danger in mysticism is the tendency
toward mere subjectivism. There is here a justifiable element in the
emphasis on one's own personal conviction and faith; an unjustifiable
element in the tendency to underrate anything but the purely
subjective, to ignore all correcting influences from others, from the
church, and from the Scriptures.
(3) A third danger follows from this: the marked tendency to
underestimate the historical. The justifiable element here is, again,
the emphasis on personal conviction and faith; the unjustifiable
element is the tendency toward the greatest one-sidedness, and toward
emptiness, especially of ethical content. Advising our young people
simply to "listen to God," without the strongest insistence upon the
historical revelation of God at the same time, is exposing them to the
great danger of mistaking for an indubitable, divine revelation the
veriest vagary that may chance in their empty-mindedness next to come
into their thought. With the reason in supposed abeyance, the door is
thus thrown open to the grossest superstitions. Honest attempts to
deepen the religious life may thus become dangerous assaults upon true
religion.
(4) A fourth danger in mysticism is so strong a tendency toward
vagueness, that the common mind is not without warrant in identifying
mysticism and mistiness. The justifiable element here is in the real
difficulty of expressing the full content of the entire religious
experience; the unjustifiable element is, once more, the slighting of
the historical, the ethical, and the rational, especially in talking
much of the contradictions of reason, and of what is above reason.
Mysticism naturally lacks positive content.
(5) Another danger--the tendency toward pantheism--comes in partly, as
Herrmann has suggested, as a meeting of this lack of content, and
partly as the logical outcome of such an insistence upon losing
oneself in God as amounts to a being swept out of one's self--a loss
of clear and rational self-consciousness, which is next interpreted
speculatively as a real absorption in God, and is then made the goal.
This is the familiar road of Indian and neo-platonic mysticism, and
its phenomena are real enough, but probably of only the slightest
religious significance. Tennyson tells somewhere of the immense sense
of illumination that came to him once from simply repeating
monotonously his own name--"Alfred Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson." This
may be as effective as looking at the end of one's nose and
ceaselessly reiterating "Om," as does the Hindu ascetic. A still
shorter and more certain method is through nitrous-oxide-gas
intoxication, of which Professor James says: "With me, as with every
other person of whom I have heard, the key-note of the experience is
the tremendously exciting sense of an intense metaphysical
illumination. Truth lies open to the view in depth beneath depth of
almost blinding evidence. The mind sees all the logical relations of
being with an apparent subtlety and instantaneity, to which its normal
consciousness offers no parallel; only as sobriety returns, the
feeling of insight fades, and one is left staring vacantly at a few
disjointed words and phrases as one stares at a cadaverous-looking
snow-peak from which the sunset glow has just fled, or at the black
cinder left by an extinguished brand." "The immense emotional sense of
reconciliation," he felt to be the characteristic mood. "It is
impossible to convey," he says, "an idea of the torrential character
of the identification of opposites as it streams through the mind in
this experience."[38]
Now it is not safe to ignore such facts, when we are seriously trying
to estimate the religious significance of intense emotional
experiences, the reality of which we need not at all question. The
vital question is, not that of the reality of the experiences, but
that of the real cause of the experiences; and the only possible test
of this is rational and ethical. But from this test, mysticism tends
from the start to shut itself off, and so, assuming the experience to
be truly religious, ends often in virtual pantheism.
The justifiable element in this insistence upon absorption in God is
the necessary moral relation of complete surrender to God. The
unjustifiable element is in belittling the personal in both God and
man, and in making essentially religious an experience that has almost
nothing of the rational and ethical in it, and that, on that very
account, fosters the irreverent familiarity with Christ so deplored by
more than one careful student of mysticism. A natural and common and
most dangerous accompaniment of such an intense emotional experience
is the tendency afterward, to excuse sin in oneself. In the case of
the most conscientious, it is worth noting, such an emphasis upon
intense experiences tends to lead them to distrust the reality of the
normal Christian experience if they have not had these intense
emotions, or if they have had them, tends to bring them into despair
when they find these marked experiences actually proving less powerful
in effects upon life than they had expected.
(6) The last danger in mysticism, to which reference will be made, is
the tendency to extravagant symbolism. This is closely connected with
"the immense emotional sense of reconciliation," and is much stronger
by nature in some than in others. The born mystic finds his own
subjective views symbolized everywhere, and is in grave danger of
being led into an ingenious, practically unconscious intellectual
dishonesty. The justifiable element here is that sense of the unity
and worth of things which is the most fundamental conviction of our
minds. The unjustifiable element has been sufficiently indicated.
The justifiable elements in mysticism, then, may be said to include:
the insistence on the legitimate place of feeling in religion as a
real and vital experience; the emphasis on one's own conviction and
faith; the real difficulty of expressing the full meaning of the
religious experience; the demand for a complete ethical surrender to
God; and the faith in the real unity and worth of the world in God.
Now if one tries to bring together these justifiable elements in
mysticism, the truly mystical may all be summed up as simply a protest
in favor of the whole man--the entire personality. It says that men
can experience and live and feel and do much more than they can
logically formulate, define, explain, or even fully express. Living is
more than thinking.
2. _The Protest in Favor of the Whole Man._--The element to which
mysticism has tried most to do justice is feeling, and so it has been
liable to a new and dangerous one-sidedness. But the truly mystical
must be a protest alike against a narrow juiceless intellectualism,
against a narrow moralistic rigorism, and against a blind and
spineless sentimentalism. It is a protest particularly against making
the mathematico-mechanical view of the world the only view; against
making logical consistency the sole test of truth or reality; against
ignoring all data, except those which come through the intellect
alone; that is, against trying to make a part, not the whole, of man
the standard; in other words, against ignoring the data which come
through feeling and will--emotional, æsthetic, ethical, and religious
data, as well as those judgments of worth which underlie reason's
theoretical determinations.
Man stands, in fact, everywhere face to face with an actual world of
great complexity, that seems to him at first what James says the
baby's world is, "one big blooming buzzing confusion;" "and the
universe of all of us is still to a great extent such a confusion,
potentially resolvable, and demanding to be resolved, but not yet
actually resolved, into parts."[39] In one sense, man's whole task is
to think unity and order into this confusion. The problem really
becomes that of thinking the universe through in several kinds of
terms, and then finally bringing all together into one comprehensive
view. All these are alike ideals which the mind sets before itself.
The easiest of these problems is the attempt to think the world
through, in mathematico-mechanical terms. But the attempt to think the
world through in æsthetic or ethical or religious terms is equally
legitimate, though it is more difficult. Not only, then, is the
mathematico-mechanical view not the sole justifiable view, but it
really has its justification in an ideal, and success in this attempt
affords just encouragement for the hope of success in the other more
difficult problems.[40]
The truly mystical holds, then, that the narrow intellectualism is
unwarranted, because natural science, the mechanical view of the
world, is itself an ideal--the "child of duties," as Münsterberg calls
it--and so cannot legitimately rule out other ideals; because we have
just as immediate a conviction concerning the worth, as concerning the
logical consistency of the world; because a narrow intellectualism
would make conscious life but a "barren rehearsal" of the outer world,
without significance; because if we can trust the indications of our
intellect, we ought to be able to trust the indications of the rest of
our nature; and because, thus, the only possible key and standard of
truth and reality are in ourselves--the whole self, and "necessities
of thought" become necessities of a reason which means loyally to take
account of all the data of the entire man.
And the same point may be thus stated. We use the word rational in two
quite distinct senses: in the narrow sense, as meaning simply the
intellectual; in the broad sense, as indicating the demands of the
entire man. The true mysticism stands for the broadly rational.
So, too, we speak of the necessary fundamental assumption of the
honesty or sincerity of the world; but this includes two quite
distinct propositions: one, that the world must be thinkable,
conceivable, construable, a logically consistent whole, a sphere for
rational thinking,--where the test is consistency; the other, that the
world must be worth while, must not mock our highest ideals and
aspirations, must in some true and genuine sense satisfy the whole
man, be a sphere for rational living,--where the test is worth. All
our arguments go forward upon these two assumptions. Now, a true
mysticism contends that the second principle is as rational as the
first, though it must be freely granted that it is not as easy to
employ it for detailed conclusions, and it is consequently much more
liable to abuse. The true mysticism wishes to be not less, but more,
rational. It knows no shorthand substitute for the hard and steady
thinking of the philosopher, or for the historical experience of the
prophet; it needs and uses both.
In all this, it is plain that the truly mystical is a legitimate
outgrowth of the emphasis of the social consciousness upon recognition
of the entire personality. Phillips Brooks finds just this in the
intellectual life of Jesus. "The great fact concerning it is this," he
says, "that in him the intellect never works alone. You never can
separate its workings from the complete operation of the entire
nature. He never simply knows, but always loves and resolves at the
same time."[41]
3. _The Self-Controlled Recognition of Emotion._--Moreover, it
probably may be fairly claimed that all of the mystical recognition of
the emotional which is valuable or even legitimate, is preserved, and
far more safely and sanely conceived, in a strictly personal
conception of religion. It may well be doubted, if it is possible in
any other way, both to do justice to feeling in religion, and at the
same time to keep feeling in its proper place. Is it possible briefly
to indicate both the recognition of emotion and the control of emotion
in religion?
The true mysticism recognizes that the supreme joy is "joy in personal
life"--joy in entering into the revelation of a person; and it
believes with reason that a growing acquaintance with God must have
such heights and depths of meaning as no other personal relation can
have. It is not, therefore, afraid or distrustful of true emotion--of
joy or peace, of intense longing or of keen satisfaction--in the
religious life.
But the true mysticism knows at the same time that deep revelation of
a person is made only to the reverent, that the conditions are in the
highest degree ethical, and above all must be recognized to be so in
religion. It does view, then, with deep distrust an emotional emphasis
in religion that ignores the ethical. It cannot forget that Christ
thought that everything must be tested by its fruits in life. Paul,
too, insisted on applying the test of an active ministering love to
the highly valued emotional experiences of the Corinthians; and writes
to the Galatians that there is but one infallible proof of the working
of the Spirit in them--a righteous life: "love, joy, peace,
longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance."
And a true mysticism knows that the spirit, reverent of personality,
leads to a self-restraint that does not seek the emotional experience
simply as such on _any_ conditions; but, knowing the supreme
psychological conditions of happiness and character and influence, it
loses itself in an unselfish love and in absorbing work, and
understands that it must simply let the experiences come. It will have
nothing, therefore, to do with strained emotion, or with the working
up of feeling for its own sake. It seeks health, not merely the signs
of health. It prizes, therefore, the joy that simply proclaims itself
as the sign of the normal life and so positively strengthens and
cheers, but it will have nothing of the strain of emotion which is
drain.
It is interesting to notice that it is exactly this true psychological
attitude concerning the emotional life that Phillips Brooks believed
that he found perfectly reflected in Jesus. "The sensitiveness of
Jesus to pain and joy," he says, "never leads him for a moment to try
to be sad or happy with direct endeavor; nor, is there any sign that
he ever judges the real character of himself or any other man by the
sadness or the happiness that for the moment covers his life. He
simply lives, and joy and sorrow issue from his living, and cast their
brightness and their gloominess back upon his life; but there is no
sorrow and no joy that he ever sought for itself, and he always kept a
self-knowledge underneath the joy or sorrow, undisturbed by the
moment's happiness or unhappiness."[42]
How far from this objectivity and this healthful emotional life is the
atmosphere of most of our devotional books, and, one might say, of all
the manuals of ordinary mysticism! That this difficulty should
confront us in devotional literature is very natural; for such writing
commonly aims to give the emotional sense of reality in religion; and
is, therefore, particularly under the temptation to show and to
produce a straining after the emotion, as for its own sake. Moreover,
the very introspection, almost inevitably involved in the reading and
writing of devotional books, tends to bring about an artificial change
in the religious experience, and so to introduce into it the abnormal.
But the social consciousness, so far as it affects religion, not only
tends to draw away from the falsely mystical, and to emphasize the
personal, and so to keep the truly mystical, but it is even more plain
that it must tend to insist upon the ethical in religion.
[35] Cf. King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, p. 201 ff.
[36] _Op. cit._, pp. 210 ff.
[37] James, _Psychology_, Vol. II, p. 307.
[38] James, _The Will to Believe_, pp. 294, 295.
[39] _Psychology_, Briefer Course, p. 16.
[40] Cf. James, _Psychology_, Vol. II, 633-677; especially 633, 634,
667, 671, 677; Münsterberg, _Psychology and Life_, pp. 23-28.
[41] Brooks, _The Influence of Jesus_, p. 219.
[42] _The Influence of Jesus_, p. 156.
CHAPTER VII
_THE THOROUGH ETHICIZING OF RELIGION_
I. THE PRESSURE OF THE PROBLEM
The social consciousness looks to the thorough ethicizing of
religion. If the social consciousness is to be regarded as
historically justified, it must believe that this growing sense of
brotherhood and consequent obligation is simply our response to the
on-working of God's own plan, God's own will expressing itself in us.
The purpose to recognize the will of God, thus necessarily involves
the recognition of human relations, since, as soon as conscience is
strongly stirred in any direction, religion can but feel, in this
demand of conscience, the demand of God, and, therefore, must bring
the convictions of the social consciousness into religion. Indeed, it
may be well believed that Kaftan is right in his insistence that it is
exactly through the practical, that is, in the realm of the ethical,
that knowledge arises from faith.[43]
In any case, it is evident that the old problem of faith and works, of
religion and ethics, of the first and second commandments, meets us
here in a way not to be put aside. With an ethical demand so insistent
as that of the social consciousness no religion can be at peace that
is not with equal insistence ethical. We are bound, then, to show how
communion with God, the supreme desire to find God, necessarily
carries with it active love for men. We must show how we truly commune
with God in such active service. The social consciousness, thus,
positively thrusts upon every religious man, who believes in it, the
problem of the thorough ethicizing of religion. Or, to put the matter
in a slightly different way, if the sense of the value and the
sacredness of the person is one of the two greatest moral convictions
of our time, then religion must be clearly seen to hold this
conviction, or lose its connection with what is most real and vital to
us. This is the problem.
II. THE STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
All will probably agree that religion is communion with God. We have
seen why the social consciousness cannot accept a falsely mystical
view of that communion. For similar reasons, it must make absolutely
subordinate all non-ethical and simply mysterious means which make no
appeal to the conscience and to the reason--the falsely sacramental.
Only the person is truly sacramental. Much else may be of value, but
the touch of personal life is the only absolute essential in religion.
We have seen, also, why the social consciousness tends to regard
religion as a strictly personal relation.
Our problem thus becomes: How does the desire for personal relation
with God, the desire for God himself, lead directly into the ethical
life--into the full and practical recognition of the ethical demands
of the social consciousness?
To guard against any possible misconception, it is, perhaps, well to
say at the start that the desire for a personal relation with God has
no purpose of returning by another route to the false position of
mysticism, in the claim of special private revelations that are
exclusively for it. It expects, rather, personal conviction of that
great revelation that is common to all, and, moreover, it knows well
that no personal relation is essentially sensuous, and it certainly
looks for no sensuous relation to God.
It may be worth while, too, to reverse our question for a moment, and
ask how morality necessarily involves religion. The true moral life is
the fulfilment of all personal relations, and as such can least of all
omit the greatest and most fundamental relation which gives being and
meaning and value to all the rest--the relation to God. The fully
moral life, therefore, must include religion. The unity of the two may
be thus seen.
But the present inquiry looks at the matter from the other side, and
seeks a careful and thoroughgoing answer to the question: Why is the
Christian religion, as a personal relation to God, necessarily
ethical?
III. THE ANSWER
1. _Involved in Relation to Christ._--In the first place, then, it
probably may be safely claimed that there is no test of the moral life
of a man so certain as his attitude toward Christ. Setting aside, now,
any special religious claims of Christ altogether, and recognizing him
only as earth's highest character, the supreme artist in living, who
knows the secret of the moral life more surely and more perfectly than
any other, he becomes even so the surest touch-stone of character; and
the iron filings will not be more certainly attracted to the magnet
than will the men of highest character be attracted to Christ when he
is really seen as he is. There is no test of character so certain as
the test of one's personal relation to the best persons. The personal
attitude toward Christ is the supreme test. In receiving him, in
becoming his disciples in a completer sense than we own ourselves the
disciples of any other, we make the supreme moral choice of our lives;
and, if no more is true than has been already said, we so accept as a
matter of fact the fullest historical revelation of God at the same
time. The ethical and religious here fall absolutely together. And all
the subsequent choices of our Christian life, if true to Christ, are
necessarily moral.
2. _The Divine Will Felt in the Ethical Command._--In the second
place, the sense of the presence of God, of the divine will laid upon
us, if we have the religious feeling at all, comes to us nowhere in
our common life so certainly and so persistently as in a sense of
obligation which we cannot shake off, a sense of facing a clear duty.
To run away from this, we are made to feel, is plainly to run away
from God. Is this not a simply true interpretation of the common
consciousness? Here, then, the religious experience is in the very
sphere of the ethical, and identical with it.
3. _Involved in the Nature of God's Gifts._--Again, God's gifts in
religion are of such a kind that they simply cannot be given to the
unwilling soul; just to receive them, therefore, implies willingness
to use them; and faith becomes inevitably both "a gift and an
activity." However one names God's gifts in religion, so long as the
relation is kept a spiritual one at all, receiving the gift requires a
real ethical attitude in the recipient. A real forgiveness, for
example, involves personal reconciliation, restored personal
relations; and reconciliation is mutual. One cannot, then, be said in
any true sense to accept forgiveness from God who is not himself in an
attitude of reconciliation with God, of harmony of will with him. In
the same way, peace with God, the gift of the Spirit, life, God's own
life, cannot be really given to any man without an ethical response on
his part in a definite attitude of will. Anything arbitrary here is,
therefore, necessarily shut out. God's gifts in religion are of such a
kind that they simply cannot be given to the unwilling soul. They are
not things to be mechanically poured out on men. We have no need,
consequently, to guard our religious statements in this respect. We
cannot even receive from God the spiritual gifts of the religious
relation without the active will. Here, too, religion is certainly
ethical.
4. _Communion with God, through Harmony with His Ethical Will._--Or,
one may say, desire for real communion with God seeks God himself, not
things, or some experience merely. But the very center of personality
is the will; any genuine seeking of God himself, therefore, to commune
with him, requires unity with his ethical will. The deepest religious
motive is at the same time, thus, an impulse to character.
5. _The Vision of God for the Pure in Heart._--Christ's own
statement--"Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see
God"--suggests another aspect of this essential unity of the religious
and the ethical. The connection in the beatitude is no chance one. The
highest and completest revelation of personality, human or divine, can
be made only to the reverent. God reveals himself to the reverent
soul, and most of all to the pure--to those souls that are reverent of
personality throughout and under the severest pressure. Therefore, the
pure in heart shall see God. "The secret of the Lord is with them that
fear him."[44] The vision of God requires the spirit that is reverent
of personality, and this spirit is the abiding source of the finest
ethical living.
6. _Sharing the Life of God._--But perhaps the clearest and most
satisfactory putting of the relation is this. The very meaning of
religion is sharing the life of God. As soon, now, as God is conceived
as essentially holy and loving, a God of character, a living will and
not a substance--and Christianity to be true to itself, must always so
conceive him--so soon religion and morality are indissolubly united.
God's life, according to Christ's teaching, is the life of constant
and perfect self-giving. To share the life of God, therefore, to share
his single purpose, is to come into the life of loving service. The
two fall together from the point of view of the social consciousness.
And we are "saved," we come into the real religious life, only in the
proportion in which we have really learned to love. "Everyone that
loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God."[45] The old separation of
religion and character is impossible from this point of view.
7. _Christ, as Satisfying Our Highest Claims on Life._--But we may
still profitably press the question: Is the Christian religion--the
special faith in the revelation of God in Christ, the best way to
righteousness? does it necessarily, most naturally, most
spontaneously, and most joyfully carry righteousness of life with it?
If this is to be true, Christian faith, in Herrmann's language, "must
give men the power to submit with joy to the claims of duty."[46] It
may be doubted whether any one has dealt with this question as
satisfactorily as Herrmann himself, and a few sentences may well be
quoted from his discussion. "We know that the ordinary instinctive way
in which men seek the satisfaction of all the needs of life makes it
impossible to submit honestly to the demands of duty, and we see,
also, the falsity of the childish idea of the mystics that this
instinct should be extirpated; it follows, then, that we can only seek
moral deliverance in a true and perfect satisfaction of our craving
for life.... Now just such a feeling of perfect inner contentment is
possible to the Christian, and he has it just in proportion as he
understands that God turns to him in Christ.... This is redemption,
that Christ creates within us a living joy, whose brightness beams
even from the eye of sorrow, and tells the world of a power it cannot
comprehend. And the power that works redemption is the fact that in
our world there is a Man whose appearance can at any moment be to us
the mighty Word of God, snatching us out of our troubles and making us
to feel that he desires to have us for his own, and so setting us free
from the world and from our own instinctive nature."[47]
Christ, that is, has no desire to withdraw himself from the test of
the largest life. He is able to satisfy the highest demands for life.
He courts the trial. He claims to offer life, the largest life. "I
came," he says, "that they may have life, and may have it
abundantly."[48] His way of deliverance is not negative but positive,
not limiting but fulfilling. He is able to give such largeness of life
in himself, such inner satisfaction of the craving for life, as makes
a lower life lose its power over us, the larger and higher life
driving out the meaner and lower. This is positive victory,
supplanting the lower with the higher; just as in literature, in
music, in friendship, and in love, we expect the best to break down
the taste for the lower.
8. _The Vision of the Riches of the Life of Christ, Ethically
Conditioned._--But the thought of Christ's satisfying our highest
claim on life deserves to be carried further, if it is to be saved
from vagueness and to have its full power with us. The highest value
in the world is a personal life. So Christ has made us feel. It is
finally the only value, for all other so-called values borrow their
value from persons. The highest joy conceivable is entering into the
riches of another's personal life through his willing self-revelation.
Now it is no fine fancy that the supremely rich life of the world's
history is Christ's. God can only be known, if we are not to fall back
into the vagaries of mysticism, in his concrete manifestation; and God
opens out in Christ, the New Testament believes, the inexhaustible
wealth of his own personal life. It is God's highest gift, the gift of
himself. "No one knoweth the Son save the Father; neither doth any
know the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son willeth to
reveal him."[49] "This is life eternal, that they should know thee,
the only true God, and him whom thou didst send."[50] So it seemed to
Paul: "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this
grace given, to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of
Christ."[51] Do we not here catch a glimpse of what the depth of that
satisfaction with the inner life of God in Christ may be?
"For He who hath the heart of God sufficed,
Can satisfy all hearts,--yea, thine and mine."
Only the riches of a personal life can satisfy our claim on life, our
desire for life; and, ultimately, we can be fully satisfied only with
God's own life in the fullest revelation he can make of it to us men.
Only this can be "the unspeakable gift." The thirst for God, for the
living God, is a simply true expression of the human heart when it
comes to real self-knowledge.
But the riches of the personal life of Christ are necessarily hidden
to one who does not come into the sharing of Christ's purpose. The
condition of the vision is ethical. The very satisfaction, therefore,
of our craving for life constantly impels to a more perfect union with
the will of Christ; for such complete entering into the life of
another with joy implies profound agreement. The desire for life,
therefore, for God's own life, for communion with God, itself impels
to character. Faith does here give "the power to submit with joy to
the claims of duty," and religion is ethical in the very heart of it.
9. _The Moral Law, as a Revelation of the Love of God._--The same
unity of the religious and ethical life is helpfully seen, if we put
the matter in one further and slightly different way. Only the
Christian religion, faith in God as Father revealed in Christ, enables
us to welcome the stern demands of duty and so gives us inner
deliverance, joy, and liberty in the moral life; for now the moral
demand is seen, not as task only, but as opportunity. For Christ, the
law of God is a revelation of the love of God; it is a gracious
indication--a secret whispered to us--of the lines along which we are
to find our largest and richest life; it is not a limitation of life,
but a way to larger life. Not, then, the avoidance, as far as
possible, of the law of God, but the completest fulfilment of it is
the road to life--following the hint of the law into the remotest
ramifications, and into the inmost spirit, of the life.
The other attitude which assumes that the law is a hindrance to life
is a distinct denial of the love of God. It implies that God lays upon
us demands which are not for our good. It refuses to accept as reality
Christ's manifestation of God as Father. Real belief in the love of
God, on the other hand, must take the fearful out of his commands. To
be "freed from the law," now, has quite a different meaning: not the
taking off from us of the moral demand, but the inner deliverance,
that would not have the command removed, but finds life _in_ it, and
obeys it freely and joyfully. Only a thoroughgoing and fundamental
faith in the Fatherhood of God can bring such inner deliverance, even
as we have seen that only such a faith can really ground the social
consciousness. And such a faith only Christ has proved adequate to
bring.
With this light, now, we feel, in every demand of duty, the presence
of God, and in this presence of God the pledge of life, not a
limitation of life. The religious life desires God, and it finds God
never so certainly as in the purpose fully to face duty. Every one of
the relations of life is, thus, turned to with joy by the religious
man, as sure to be a further channel of the revelation of God. The
thirst for God drives to the faithful fulfilment of the human
relation. Religion becomes joyfully ethical.
Nor is there any possibility of abandonment to the will of God _in
general_, as the mystic seems often to feel. God's will means
particulars all along the way of our life; and there is no communion
with God except in this ethical will in particulars. At no point,
therefore, can the religious life withdraw itself from the daily duty
and maintain its own existence. The constant inevitable condition of
the religious communion is the ethical will. Our providential place is
God's place to find us. Where God has put us, just there he will best
find us. This is further seen in the fact that the true Christian
experience is a constant paradox: God ever satisfying, and yet ever
impelling--never allowing us to remain where we are, but holding up to
us the always higher ideal beyond; the law is ever, "Of his fulness we
all received, and grace in place of grace."[52] The deepening
communion with God is only through a constantly deepening moral life.
Such a thoroughgoing ethicizing of religion as the social
consciousness demands, we need not hesitate, therefore, to believe is
possible. The truer religion is to its own great aspiration after God,
the more certainly is it ethical.
But the social consciousness, so far as it influences religion, not
only tends to draw away from the falsely mystical, and to emphasize
the personal and the ethical, it also tends to emphasize in religion
the concretely, historically Christian.
[43] Cf. _American Journal of Theology_, Oct., 1898, p. 824.
[44] Psalm 25:14.
[45] I John 4:7.
[46] _The Communion of the Christian with God_, p. 230.
[47] _Op. cit._, pp. 232-234.
[48] John 10:10.
[49] Matt. 11:27.
[50] John 17:3.
[51] Eph. 3:8.
[52] John 1:16. Cf. Herrmann, _Op. cit._, pp. 92, 93.
CHAPTER VIII
_THE EMPHASIS OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THE HISTORICALLY
CHRISTIAN IN RELIGION_
The fact that the social consciousness tends to emphasize in
religion the concretely historically Christian, has been so inevitably
involved in the preceding discussions, that it can be treated very
briefly.
I. THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS NEEDS HISTORICAL JUSTIFICATION
The justification of the social consciousness, we have seen,[53] must
be preëminently from history. Neither nature nor speculation can
satisfy it. It needs to be able to believe in a living God who is in
living relation to living men. It needs just such a justification as
historical Christianity, and only historical Christianity, can give;
it needs the assurance of an objective divine will in the world,
definitely working in the line of its own ideals. It needs also to be
able to give such definite content to the thought of God as shall be
able to satisfy its own strong insistence upon the rational and the
ethical as historical.
II. CHRISTIANITY'S RESPONSE TO THIS NEED
If religion is to be a reality to the social consciousness, then,
there must be a real revelation of a real God in the real world, in
actual human history, not an imaginary God, nor a dream God, nor a God
of mystic contemplation. This discernment of God in the real world, in
actual history, is the glory even of the Old Testament; and it came,
as we have seen, along the line of the social consciousness. And it is
such a real revelation of the real God that Christianity finds
preëminently in Christ. It can say to the social consciousness: Make
no effort to believe, but simply put yourself in the presence of a
concrete, definite, actual, historical fact, with its perennial
ethical appeal; put yourself in the presence of Christ--the greatest
and realest of the facts of history,--and let that fact make its own
legitimate impression, work its own natural work; that fact alone, of
all the facts of history, gives you full and ample warrant for your
own being.
If this be true, it can hardly be doubted that, so far as the social
consciousness understands itself and influences religion at all, it
will tend to emphasize, not to underestimate, the concretely,
historically Christian.
The natural influence of the social consciousness upon religion, then,
may be said to be fourfold: it tends to draw away from the falsely
mystical; it tends to emphasize the personal in religion, and so to
keep the truly mystical; it tends to emphasize the ethical in
religion; and it needs the concretely, historically Christian.
[53] Cf above, pp. 59 ff.
THE INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINE
CHAPTER IX
_GENERAL RESULTS_
The question of this third division of our inquiry is this: To what
changed points of view, and to what restatements of doctrine, and so
to what better appreciation of Christian truth, does the social
consciousness of our time lead? The question is raised here, as in the
case of the conception of religion, not as one of exact historical
connection, but rather as a question of sympathetic points of contact.
It means simply: With what changes in theological statements would the
social consciousness naturally find itself most sympathetic?
Certain general results are clear from the start, and might be
anticipated from any one of several points of view.
I. THE CONCEPTION OF THEOLOGY IN PERSONAL TERMS
In the first place, the social consciousness means, we have found,
emphasis on the fully personal--a fresh awakening to the significance
of the person and of personal relations. Its whole activity is in the
sphere of personal relations. Hence, as in the conception of religion,
so here, so far as the social consciousness affects theology at all,
it will tend everywhere to bring the personal into prominence, and it
certainly will be found in harmony ultimately with the attempt to
conceive theology in terms of personal relations. These are for the
social consciousness the realest of realities; and if theology is to
be real to the social consciousness, then it must make much of the
personal. Theology, thus, it is worth while seeing, is not to be
personal _and_ social, but it will be social--it will do justice to
the social consciousness--if it does justice to the fully personal;
for, in the language of another, "man is social, just in so far as he
is personal."[54]
The foreign and unreal seeming of many of the old forms of statement,
it may well be noted in passing, has its probable cause just here.
They were not shaped in the atmosphere of the social consciousness.
They got at things in a way we should not now think of using. The
method of approach was too merely metaphysical and individualistic and
mystical, and the result seems to us to have but slight ethical or
religious significance. The arguments that now move us most, in this
entire realm of spiritual inquiry, are moral and social rather than
metaphysical and mystical. It is interesting to see, for example, how
such arguments for immortality as that of the simplicity of the soul's
being--and most of those used by Plato--and how such arguments even
for the existence of God as those of Samuel Clarke from time and
space, have become for us merely matters of curious inquiry. We can
hardly imagine men having given them real weight. A similar change
seems to be creeping over the laborious attempts metaphysically to
conceive the divinity of Christ. The question is shifting its position
for both radical and conservative to a new ground--from the
metaphysical and mystical to the moral and social; though some
radicals who regard themselves as in the van of progress have not yet
found it out, and so find fault with one for not continually defining
himself in terms of the older metaphysical formulas and shibboleths.
The considerations, in all these questions and in many others, which
really weigh most with us now, are considerations which belong to the
sphere of the personal spiritual life. Ultimately, no doubt, a
metaphysics is involved here too; but it is a metaphysics whose final
reality is spirit, not an unknown substance--Locke's "something, I
know not what."
The unsatisfactoriness of even so honored a symbol as the Apostles'
Creed, as a permanently adequate statement of Christian faith, must
for similar reasons become increasingly clear in the atmosphere of the
social consciousness. One wonders, as he goes carefully over it, that
so many concrete statements could be made concerning the Christian
religion, which yet are so little ethical. The creed seems almost to
exclude the ethical. It has nothing to say, except by rather distant
implication, of the character of God, of the character of Christ, or
of the character of men. The life of Christ between his birth and his
death are untouched. The considerations that really weigh most with
us--as they did with the apostles--in making us Christians, certainly
do not come here to prominent expression. This whole difference of
atmosphere is the striking fact; and were it not that we instinctively
interpret its phrases in accordance with our modern consciousness, we
should feel the difference much more than we do.
What the previous discussion has called the truly mystical--the
recognition of the whole man, of the entire personality--is coming in
increasingly to correct both the falsely mystical and the falsely
metaphysical. We are arguing now, in harmony with the social
consciousness, from the standpoint of the broadly rational, not from
that of the narrowly intellectual.
II. THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD, AS THE DETERMINING PRINCIPLE IN THEOLOGY
One might reach essentially the same general results from the
influence of the social consciousness, by seeing that, so far as it
deepens for us the meaning of the personal, it will deepen immediately
our conception of the Fatherhood of God--the central and dominating
doctrine in all theology--and so affect all theology. For, with a
change in the conception of God, no doctrine can go wholly untouched.
Every step into a deeper feeling for the personal--and the growth of
the modern social consciousness is undoubtedly a long step in that
direction--deepens necessarily religion and theology. Perhaps the
possible results here can be illustrated in no way better than by
recalling Patterson DuBois' putting of the needed change in the
conception of the proper attitude of a father toward his child. We are
not to say, he writes: "I will conquer that child, no matter what it
may cost him," but we are to say, "I will help that child to conquer
himself, no matter what it may cost me." Now that change in point of
view is a well-nigh perfect illustration of the social consciousness
in a given relation, and it cannot be doubted that it is a true
expression of Christ's thought of the Fatherhood of God; but has it
really dominated through and through our theological statements?
Manifestly, what it means to us that God is Father depends on what we
have come to see in fatherhood. And Principal Fairbairn, in the second
part of his _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, has given us a
good illustration of how much it means for theology to be in earnest
in making the Fatherhood of God the determining doctrine in theology.
III. CHRIST'S OWN SOCIAL EMPHASES
Again, if the general influence of the social consciousness upon
theological doctrine is to be recognized at all, it is evident that a
Christian theology must take full account of Christ's own social
emphases. By loyalty to these, it will expect best to meet the need of
an enlightened social consciousness. It will strive thus--to use
Professor Peabody's instructive summary of "the social principles of
the teaching of Jesus"--to be true to "the view from above, the
approach from within, and the movement toward a spiritual end; wisdom,
personality, idealism; a social horizon, a social power, a social aim.
The supreme truth that this is God's world gave to Jesus his spirit of
social optimism; the assurance that man is God's instrument gave to
him his method of social opportunism; the faith that in God's world
God's people are to establish God's kingdom gave him his social
idealism. He looks upon the struggling, chaotic, sinning world with
the eye of an unclouded religious faith, and discerns in it the
principle of personality fulfilling the will of God in social
service."[55]
And every one of these three great social principles of Jesus has
obvious theological applications, not yet fully made.
The social consciousness, indeed, well illustrates Fairbairn's
admirable statement of how progress is to be expected in theology.
"The longer the history [of Christ]," he says, "lives in the
[Christian] consciousness and penetrates it, the more does the
consciousness become able to interpret the history in its own terms
and according to its own contents. The old pagan mind into which
Christianity first came could not possibly be the best interpreter of
Christianity, and the more the mind is cleansed of the pagan the more
qualified it becomes to interpret the religion. It is, therefore,
reasonable to expect that the later forms of faith should be the truer
and purer."[56]
Now the social consciousness itself is a genuine manifestation of the
spirit of Christ at work in the world, and the mind permeated with
this social consciousness is consequently better able to turn back to
the teaching of Jesus and give it proper interpretation.
IV. THE REFLECTION IN THEOLOGY OF THE CHANGES IN THE CONCEPTION OF
RELIGION
Once more, theology, as an expression of religion, will at once
reflect any change in the conception of religion. The influence of the
social consciousness upon religion, already traced, will, therefore,
inevitably pass over into theology. This means nothing less than a
changed point of view, in the consideration of each doctrine. For
theology must then recognize clearly that it can build on no falsely
mystical conception of communion with God; but, while keeping the
elements in mysticism which are justified by the social consciousness,
it will require of itself throughout a formulation of doctrine in
terms that shall be thoroughly personal, thoroughly ethical, and
indubitably loyal to the concretely historically Christian. Many
traditional statements quite fail to meet so searching a test; but no
lower standard can give a theology that should fully meet the demands
of the social consciousness.
The general results of the influence of the social consciousness upon
theological doctrine, then, may be said to include: The emphasis upon
the fully personal, and so conceiving theology in terms of personal
relation; the deepening of the conception of the Fatherhood of God,
and making this the determining principle in theology; the application
of the social principles of the teaching of Jesus to theology; the
reflection in theology of the natural changes in the conception of
religion wrought by the social consciousness. Now any one of these
general results indicates the certain influence of the social
consciousness upon theology, and any one might be followed out into
helpful suggestions for the restatement of theological doctrines.
But we shall probably most clearly and definitely answer the question
of our theme, if we ask specifically concerning the several elements
of the social consciousness: How does a deepening sense of the
like-mindedness of men, of the mutual influence of men, of the value
and sacredness of the person, of personal obligation, and of love,
tend to affect our theological point of view and mode of statement?
And our inquiry will follow these separate questions in separate
chapters, except that for the purposes of theological inference, the
last three may be appropriately grouped together.
[54] Nash, _Ethics and Revelation_, p. 259.
[55] Peabody, _Jesus Christ and the Social Question_, p. 104.
[56] Fairbairn, _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 186.
CHAPTER X
_THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE LIKE-MINDEDNESS OF MEN
UPON THEOLOGY_
In definitely considering the influence of the social consciousness
upon theological doctrines, our first question becomes: How does the
deepening sense of the like-mindedness of men affect theology?
Obviously, here, the change will be largely one of mood. We shall look
at our themes with a different feeling, and so speak differently,
modifying our methods of putting things in those slight ways that do
not seem specially significant to one who judges in the mass, but mean
very much to one who feels the finer implications of personal life.
These finer changes no one can hope to follow out in detail. Certain
of these finer changes will naturally find incidental expression in
the course of the more formal treatment.
But our attention must be mainly given to the statement of some of the
most important of the plainer results of the principle in theology.
I. NO PRIME FAVORITES WITH GOD
In the first place, this conviction of the like-mindedness of men
means that there can be no prime favorites with God.
It can hardly help affecting the thought of election. Election will,
indeed, be thought of as qualified by the character of the chosen; for
even Paul's argument in Romans clearly recognizes this, and is, in
fact, itself a distinct argument against a narrow doctrine of
election, as others have recognized.[57] But, beyond this, the
conviction of the like-mindedness of men will especially view election
as a choice for service. The divine method of election must be in
harmony with Christ's fundamental principle of his kingdom, and with
the developing social consciousness: "Whosoever shall be first among
you, shall be servant of all."[58] It is no accident that this thought
of election as choice for preëminent service, which is indeed soundly
biblical, has come into special prominence in these days of the social
consciousness. The same change is passing over our view of the
"elect," as of the "privileged" and "governing" classes. We shall not
return to the older feeling of prime favorites of God, and the problem
of evil will find herein a certain alleviation. We shall feel
increasingly that each race and each individual have their calling and
have their compensating advantages; and that, when it comes down to
the final test of opportunity, the differences in opportunity between
individuals are far less than they seem; for to each one is given the
possibility of the largest service any man can render--the possibility
of touching closely with the very spirit of his life a few other
lives. "There are compensations," as James says, "and no outward
changes of condition in life can keep the nightingale of its eternal
meaning from singing in all sorts of different men's hearts."[59]
II. THE GREAT UNIVERSAL QUALITIES AND INTERESTS, THE MOST VALUABLE
Moreover, since equality of need among men,[60] implies, as we have
seen, a common capacity--even if in varying degrees--of entering into
the most fundamental interests of life, this belief in the essential
likeness of men is likely to carry with it that most wholesome
conviction for theology, that the great universal qualities and
interests are the most valuable. Not that which distinguishes us from
one another, but that which we have in common is most valuable. As
Howells tells the boys in his _A Boy's Town_, "the first thing you
have to learn here below, is that in essentials you are just like
every one else, and that you are different from others only in what is
not so much worth while."[61] This consideration is no small help in
facing that most difficult problem for any ideal view of the
world--the problem of evil.
In God's world, we feel that the most common things ought to be the
best. And this growing conviction of the social consciousness comes in
to confirm our faith. The constant and simple insistence of Christ on
receptivity as a fundamental quality in his kingdom is built, in fact,
on an optimistic faith in the value of the common things.
It is interesting to notice the varied confirmations of the value of
the common. How often we have to feel that the deepest discussions
come out with only deeper insight into the great common truths; and,
on the other hand, that in stilted philosophizing, what seems at first
sight a great discovery, proves only a perversely obscure way of
putting a common truth.
It is the very mission of genius--of the poet in the larger sense, we
are coming to feel, to bring out the value of the common. His
distinctive mark is that he has kept a fresh sense for the great
common experiences of life. So Kipling prays:
"It is enough that through Thy grace
I saw naught common on Thy earth.
Take not that vision from my ken."
So, the greatest in art, Hegel contends, has a universal appeal.
It is a wholesome and heartening conviction, I say, to bring into
theology, that the really best things are common, accessible to all,
actually shared in, to an extent beyond that which our superficial
vision seems to show. For, after all, this conviction of the social
consciousness is only bringing home to us, in a new and appreciable
way, Christ's own optimism and his own faith in the love of the
Father. It is only another illustration of Fairbairn's principle of
the Christian consciousness becoming more Christian, and so better
able to understand and interpret Christ.
And it leads us back by this route of the social consciousness, to
emphasize in life, and in our theological thinking upon the conditions
of entering the kingdom of God, Christ's own insistence upon the two
universally human characteristics found in every child--susceptibility
and trust, which, voluntarily cherished, become teachableness and
belief in love. If God is Father indeed, and we are intended to come
to our best in association with him, these qualities must be the most
fundamental ones. And they imply no lack of virility, either, for the
highest self-assertion, as Professor Everett pointed out in his
criticism of Nietzsche, is in complete self-surrender to such a will
as God's. "When Jesus said, 'He that loseth his life shall save it,'
he said in effect--The self-surrender to which I call you is the
truest self-assertion. We find thus in the teachings of Christianity a
summons to strength far greater than that implied by the
self-assertion which is most characteristic of the teachings of
Nietzsche, because it is the assertion of a larger self."[62]
Our outlook becomes well-nigh hopeless, when we make our tests of
admission to the kingdom so much more exclusive than Christ himself
made them.
III. ESSENTIAL LIKENESS UNDER VERY DIVERSE FORMS
It is particularly important for theology that this conviction of the
like-mindedness of men has come from a growing power to discern
essential likeness under very diverse forms; for this consideration
bears not only on the problem of natural evil, but also on the problem
of sin and of the progress of Christianity.
We have taken some curiously diverse paths to this understanding of
diverse lives. Travels, history, biography, autobiographical
fragments, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and--to no small
degree--fiction, with its stories of out-of-the-way places and
out-of-the-way peoples and of unfamiliar classes,--all have been
thoroughfares for the social consciousness here.
We are slowly learning to see the likeness under the differences, and
so to transcend the differences even between occidental and oriental.
All this means much, not only for our practical missionary putting of
the truth, but also for our final theological statements. They will
inevitably grow simpler, larger, more universally human, and at the
same time more deep and solid.
We are slowly learning, too, to discern a deep inner content of life
under conditions that have no appeal for us, and to see like ideals
and aspirations under very diverse forms of expression. Take, for
example, these three or four sentences--a small part of that quoted by
Professor James in his essay, _On a Certain Blindness in Human
Beings_,--from Stevenson's _Lantern-Bearers_: "It is said that a poet
has died young in the breast of the most stolid. It may be contended
rather that a (somewhat minor) bard in almost every case survives, and
is the spice of life to his possessor. Justice is not done to the
versatility and the unplumbed childishness of man's imagination. His
life from without may seem but a rude mound of mud; there will be some
golden chamber at the heart of it in which he dwells delighted."[63]
And, later, on the side of ideals, Stevenson is quoted once again: "If
I could show you these men and women all the world over, in every
stage of history, under every abuse of error, under every circumstance
of failure, without hope, without help, without thanks, still
obscurely fighting the lost fight of virtue, still clinging to some
rag of honor, the poor jewel of their souls!"[64] And now, having
quoted Howells and Stevenson as theological authorities, I shall be
pardoned if, for a moment, I erect Kenneth Grahame's _Golden Age_ into
a "theological institute": "See," said my friend, bearing somewhat on
my shoulder, "how this strange thing, this love of ours, lives and
shines out in the unlikeliest of places! You have been in the fields
in early morning? Barren acres, all! But only stoop--catch the light
thwartwise--and all is a silver network of gossamer! So the fairy
filaments of this strange thing underrun and link together the whole
world. Yet it is not the old imperious god of the fatal bow--+herôs
hanikate machan+--not that--nor even the placid respectable
+storgê+--but something still unnamed, perhaps more mysterious, more
divine! Only one must stoop to see it, old fellow, one must
stoop!"[65]
It means very much for the sanity of our outlook on life, and for any
possible theodicy, that we can believe the heart of such a view as
this for which Stevenson and Grahame are here contending. And what is
all this attempt to get away from this "certain blindness in human
beings," of which Professor James speaks, but a growing into one of
the fixed habits of Jesus, what Phillips Brooks calls "his discovery
of interest in people whom the world generally would have found most
uninteresting?" "And this same habit," he adds, "passing over into his
disciples, made the wide and democratic character of the new
faith."[66]
IV. AS APPLIED TO THE QUESTION OF IMMORTALITY
It may probably be safely said that this steadily growing conviction
of the social consciousness, of the essential likeness of all men,
which is daily confirmed afresh, and the more confirmed the more
careful the study, is not likely to take kindly to the idea--which
comes into a part of Dr. McConnell's argument concerning immortality,
in his interesting book, _The Evolution of Immortality_--that living
creatures classed as men on physical grounds are not, therefore, to be
so classed on psychical grounds.[67] The considerations and
illustrations brought forward by Dr. McConnell, in connection with
this proposition, I cannot think would seem at all conclusive to
either the trained psychologist or sociologist. It is exactly the
like-mindedness of men which the social consciousness affirms, and it
has not come hastily to its conclusion. It will not quickly surrender
that conclusion. There _is_ an "evolution of immortality," and it has
been age-long, but it is pre-human. The belief in immortality so far
as it does not rest purely on the question of the moral quality of a
given human life (where the hypothesis of "immortability" may properly
enough come in) is grounded upon characteristics--like that of the
possibility of absolutely indefinite progress[68]--which in sober
scientific inquiry cannot safely be denied to any man, and must be
denied to all creatures below man. In any case, the new theory of
"immortability," so far as it is based upon the proposition here
considered, has its battle to fight out with this established
conviction of the social consciousness of the essential
like-mindedness of all men.
There are various considerations, not all of them wholly creditable,
which will lead many to turn a willing ear to this new prophesying;
but, though it makes much of evolution, it seems to me to have the
whole trend of the social evolution against it, and to give the lie to
that patient sympathetic insight into the lives of other classes and
peoples, which is one of the finest products of the ethical evolution
of the race. If one is tempted to believe that a good large share of
the human race are really brutes in human semblance,--and our
selfishness and pride and impatience and unloving lack of insight and
desire to dominate may naturally tempt in this direction,--let him
read that chapter of Professor James to which reference has already
been made, _On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings_, and its pendant,
_What Makes a Life Significant_. It may help his theology. Let him
recall the words of Phillips Brooks concerning this "strange
hopelessness about the world, joined to a strong hope for themselves,
which we see in many good religious people." "In their hearts they
recognize indubitably that God is saving them, while the aspect of the
world around them seems to show them that the world is going to
perdition. This is a common enough condition of mind; but I think it
may be surely said that it is not a good, nor can it be a permanent,
condition. God has mercifully made us so that no man can constantly
and purely believe in any great privilege for himself unless he
believes in at least the possibility of the same privilege for other
men."[69]
V. CONSEQUENT LARGER SYMPATHY WITH MEN, FAITH IN MEN, AND HOPE FOR MEN
This whole conviction of the social consciousness, of the
like-mindedness of men, leads naturally to increased _sympathy with
men_, and this in turn to still better discernment of moral and
spiritual realities. And this is of prime importance for the
theologian; for sympathetic insight, it must never be forgotten, is
the true route to spiritual verities. So far as our insight into
actual human life becomes truer, so far our theology becomes clearer
and more reasonable.
This conviction leads also to increased _belief in men_, and
consequently to increased belief in the effectiveness of the higher
appeals. The temptation to disbelief in man was one of the underlying
temptations of Christ as he looked forward to his work; but he turned
resolutely from it, and refused to build his kingdom on any lower
appeal that implied a lack of faith in men. Nothing seems to me more
wonderful in Christ than his marvelous faith in man; for, though he
has the deepest sense of the sin of men, there is not the slightest
trace of cynicism in his thought or life.
This recognition of likeness under diversity, too, leads to increased
_hope for men_, here and hereafter. In James' words: "It absolutely
forbids us to be forward in pronouncing on the meaninglessness of
forms of existence other than our own.... Neither the whole of truth
nor the whole of good is revealed to any single observer.... No one
has insight into all the ideals. No one should presume to judge them
off-hand."[70]
This thought helps us to greater hope for men, because, indeed, it
helps us to the discernment of genuine ideals under very different
forms of life, of the universal sense of duty and some loyalty to it,
though there is great diversity of judgment as to what is duty.[71]
But, it is here to be noted, also, that the thought of the
like-mindedness of men brings greater hope, because it helps to the
discernment of likeness, even under difference in important terms
used. We are coming to see that there is sometimes, at least, a really
strong religious faith where men do not acknowledge the term. Thus,
Bradley says: "All of us, I presume, more or less, are led beyond the
region of ordinary facts. Some in one way, and some in others, we seem
to touch and have communion with what is beyond the visible world. In
various manners we find something higher, which supports and humbles,
both chastens and transports us. And," as a philosopher he adds, "with
certain persons, the intellectual effort to understand the universe is
a principal way of thus experiencing the Deity."[72]
Even where the term Deity would be entirely abjured, we have seen with
Paulsen,[73] that a real faith essentially religious in character may
be clearly manifest. We are even coming to see that men may seem to
themselves to be contending upon opposite sides of so fundamental a
question as that of the personality of God, and yet be near together
as to their own ultimate faith and attitude, and possibly even as to
their real philosophical views of God; but the same term has come to
have such different connotations for the men, from their different
education and experience, that they simply cannot use it with the same
meaning.
I have not the slightest desire to reduce the concrete, ethical,
definitely personal religion of Jesus to the ambiguities of
philosophical dreamers; the world is going to become more and more
consciously and avowedly Christian. But I do not, on the other hand,
as a Christian theologian, wish to shut my eyes to great essential
likenesses in fundamental faiths and ideals and aspirations, because
they are clothed in different garb. The life and teaching of Jesus
have worked and are working in the consciousness of men far beyond the
limits our feeble faith is inclined to prescribe. There is doubtless
much "unconscious Christianity," much "unconscious following of
Christ."[74] And we are only following Christ's own counsel, when we
refuse to forbid the man who is working a good work in his name,
though he follows not with us.[75] Certainly, if we accept the witness
of a man's life against the witness of his lips when the witness of
his lips is right, we ought to accept the witness of his life against
the witness of his lips when the witness of his lips is wrong.
With reference to all the preceding inferences from the deepening
sense of the like-mindedness of men, it is particularly worthy of
note, that this conviction of the essential likeness of men has come
into existence side by side with the growing conviction of the moral
unripeness of many men, and in spite of that conviction. The careful
study of different social classes is forcing upon both the scientific
sociologist and the practical social worker, the sense of the ethical
immaturity of men. But deeper than this recognition of moral
unripeness, deeper than the vision of the sad defectiveness of moral
and spiritual ideals and standards, deeper than the clear sense of the
immense differences among men as to _what_ is duty, deeper than the
differences in even the most important terms used, lies this great
conviction of likeness--that all men are moral and spiritual beings,
made for relation to one another and to God; that they have ideals
that have a wide outlook implicit in them, and have some loyalty to
these ideals; that they do have a sense of obligation; that the moral
and spiritual life is a reality, a great universal human fact.
VI. JUDGMENT ACCORDING TO LIGHT, AND THE MORAL REALITY OF THE FUTURE
LIFE
It is no accident, now, that accompanying this double social
conviction, there has come into theology a new insistence upon the
principle of judgment of a man according to his light, and
consequently also, what Professor Clarke calls "a tendency toward the
recognition of greater reality and freedom in the other life, and thus
toward the possibility of moral change."[76] Our conception of the
future life was certain to be modified by the social consciousness;
and it may be doubted if any influence of the social consciousness
upon theology can be more clearly traced historically than this. The
motives that have been working in our minds here include, on the one
hand, a wholesome sense of the imperfection of even the best human
lives; a glad discernment, on the other hand, of the presence of
genuine ideals in lives where we had thought there were none; the
certainty that, as Dr. Clarke says, "for at least one-third of mankind
the entire life of conscious and developed personality is lived in the
other world;"[77] an experienced unwillingness to say, where we cannot
see, the precise point at which the very diverse lives of men under
very diverse conditions come to full moral maturity; and the
conviction that a life that is to be moral at all must be moral
everywhere and through all time, and that where even we can see a
little, God can see much more. All these motives, now, make us refuse,
with Christ, to answer the question, "Are there few that be saved?"
And both with increasing hope, and with that increasing sense of the
seriousness and significance of life which so characterizes the social
consciousness, to urge: "Strive to enter in." The growing sense of the
likeness of men does affect our thought of the future life. The best
men, under the clearest light, have only begun; for the best, there is
still much need of growth. Who has not begun at all? For whom is there
no growth?
Let us make no mistake here. It is no light-hearted indifference to
character, to which the genuine social consciousness leads. No age,
indeed, ever saw so clearly as ours that the most essential conditions
of happiness are in character, or was more certain that sin carries
with it its own inevitable consequences. It is not a less, but a more,
profound sense of the seriousness of the problem of moral character,
that makes us hesitate to dogmatize concerning the future life.
To bring together, now, the conclusions of the chapter: The first
element in the social consciousness--the deepening sense of the
likeness of men--seems likely to affect theology, especially by
modifying the thought of election through emphasis upon choice for
service, and through the clear recognition that there are no prime
favorites with God; by strengthening the conviction that the great
common qualities and interests are the most valuable, and that genuine
and largely common ideals may be found under very diverse forms and
conditions; and thus, on the one hand, by opposing the denial of the
psychical likeness of men, as applied to the problem of immortality,
and, on the other hand, by bringing us to larger sympathy with men, to
larger faith in men, and to larger hope for men; and, finally, by
laying new emphasis upon judgment according to light, and upon the
moral reality and freedom of the future life.
[57] Cf. e. g., Clarke, _Outline of Christian Theology_, p. 145.
[58] Mark 10:44.
[59] James, _Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals_, p. 301.
[60] Cf. Giddings, _Elements of Sociology_, p. 324.
[61] Howells, _A Boy's Town_, p. 205.
[62] _The New World_, Dec., 1898, pp. 702, 703.
[63] James, _Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals_, p. 237.
[64] _Op. cit._, p. 282.
[65] P. 112.
[66] Brooks, _The Influence of Jesus_, p. 253.
[67] McConnell, _The Evolution of Immortality_, pp. 75 ff.
[68] Cf. James, _Psychology_, Vol. II, pp. 348 ff., p. 367; Lotze, _The
Microcosmus_, Book V, especially Vol. I, pp. 713, 714.
[69] _The Candle of the Lord, and Other Sermons_, p. 154.
[70] _Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals_, pp. 263, 265.
[71] Cf. above, p. 121 ff.
[72] Bradley, _Appearance and Reality_, pp. 5, 6.
[73] Cf. above, pp. 46, 47.
[74] Cf. Fremantle, _The World as the Subject of Redemption_, pp.
250 ff, 320 ff; Lyman Abbott, _The Outlook_, Dec. 24, 1898.
[75] Mark 9:38, 39; Cf. Matt. 10:40-42.
[76] _An Outline of Christian Theology_, p. 475.
[77] _Op. cit._, p. 469.
CHAPTER XI
_THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF MEN
UPON THEOLOGY_
From this first element of the social consciousness, we turn now to
the second, and ask, How does the deepening sense of the mutual
influence of men affect theology?
I. THE REAL UNITY OF THE RACE
1. First, then, taken with the sense of the likeness of men, it can
hardly be doubted that sociology's strong feeling of the mutual
influence of men deepens for theology the thought of the real, not the
mechanical, unity of the race. The theologian believes, more than he
did, in a race whose unity is preëminently moral, rather than physical
or mystical. The truly scientific position for the theologian seems to
be, to make no mysterious assumptions, where well-known causes are
sufficient to account for the facts; and those causes which the social
consciousness clearly sees to be at work seem, in all probability,
adequate to account for the facts in discussion so far as those facts
are finite at all.[78] The theologian knows, then, a true moral
universe, with a unity which is that of the close personal, mutual
relations of like-minded spiritual beings.
The natural goal of such a race, the only one in which they can truly
find themselves, is the kingdom of God. This conception of Christ is
first thoroughly at home with us, when we see that the true unity of
the race is that of personal moral relation. So far as men turn from
that goal, this same racial unity of the inevitable and most intimate
personal relations converts them into something approaching Ritschl's
conception of an opposing "kingdom of sin."
Are we prepared to be thoroughly loyal to just this conception of the
unity of the race throughout our theological thinking; and so to give
up cherished ideas of "common," "transmitted," "inherited," or
"racial" sin or righteousness, of "mystical solidarity," and racial
ideal representation, etc.? It probably may be said with truth that
few, if any, theological systems have been thus loyal. Indeed, under
what seems a mistaken application of the social consciousness, and
particularly under the misleading influence of the analogy of the
organism, men have believed themselves attaining a deeper theological
view, when they have, in fact, turned away from the sober teaching of
the social consciousness.
It may not be in vain for our theology to hear and receive with
patience a sociologist's definition of the "social mind." Upon this
point Professor Giddings says explicitly: "There is no reason to
suppose that society is a great being which is conscious of itself
through some mysterious process of thinking, separate and distinct
from the thinking that goes on in the brains of individual men. At any
rate, there is no possible way yet known to man of proving that there
is any such supreme social consciousness." Nevertheless, he adds: "To
the group of facts that may be described as the simultaneous
like-mental-activity of two or more individuals in communication with
one another, or as a concert of the emotions, thought, and will of two
or more communicating individuals, we give the name, the social mind.
This name, accordingly, should be regarded as meaning just this group
of facts and nothing more. It does not mean that there is any other
consciousness than that of individual minds. It does mean that
individual minds act simultaneously in like ways and continually
influence one another; and that certain mental products result from
such combined mental action which could not result from the thinking
of an individual who had no communication with fellow-beings."[79]
Just so far, it may well be supposed, and no farther may we go, in
theology, in moral and spiritual inferences from the unity of the
race. We are members one of another for good and for ill, one in the
unity of the inevitable, mutual influence of like-minded persons.
II. DEEPENING THE SENSE OF SIN
And this conviction, in the second place, not only deepens our sense
of the real unity of the race, it deepens also the sense of sin. And
we can hardly separate here the influence of the third element of the
social consciousness--the sense of the value and sacredness of the
person. As against a rather wide-spread and often expressed contrary
feeling, this deepening sense of sin may yet, it is believed, be
truthfully maintained, _so far as the social consciousness is really
making itself felt_. There are some disintegrating tendencies here, no
doubt, like the tendency under some applications of evolution and
evolutionary philosophy to turn all sin into a necessary stage in the
evolution. But had not Drummond reason to say: "There is one
theological word which has found its way lately into nearly all the
newer and finer literature of our country. It is not only _one_ of the
words of the literary world at present, it is perhaps _the_ word. Its
reality, its certain influence, its universality, have at last been
recognized, and in spite of its theological name have forced it into a
place which nothing but its felt relation to the wider theology of
human life could ever have earned for a religious word. That word, it
need scarcely be said, is sin."[80]
Contrast this modern sense of sin with the almost total lack of it
among even so gifted a people of the ancient world as the Greeks, and
feel the significance of the phenomenon. But it is particularly to be
noted that this sense of sin in literature is largely due to a keener
social conscience. In fact, if the social consciousness is not a
thoroughly fraudulent phenomenon, it could hardly be otherwise; for
the social consciousness, in its very essence, is a sense of what is
due a person; and sin is always ultimately against a person, failure
to be what one ought to be in some personal relation, including
finally all the relations of the kingdom of God. We simply cannot
deepen the sense of the meaning and value of personal relations, and
not deepen, at the same time, the sense of sin. The meaning of the
Golden Rule, and so the sense of sin under it, deepens inevitably with
every step into the meaning of the person. If the one great
commandment is love, then the sin of which men need most of all to be
convicted is lack of love.
The self-tormenting and fanciful sins of some of our devotional books
very likely are less felt. But the very existence of the social
consciousness seems to be proof that there never was so much good,
honest, wholesome sense of real sin as to-day--such sin as Christ
himself recognizes in his own judgment test.
It may be that, in temporary absorption in the human relations, the
relation of all this to the All-Father may seem forgotten; even so, we
may well remember Christ's "Ye did it unto me." But, in fact, we must
go much farther and say, The social consciousness can only be true to
itself finally, as it goes on to see its acts in the light, most of
all, of that single, personal relation which underlies all others. We
have already seen that the social consciousness requires for its own
justification its grounding in the manifest trend of the living will
of God. With this felt identification of the will of God with love for
men, men can still less shake off easily the conviction of sin.
Probably, most religious men argue a diminishing sense of sin, because
they feel that less is made of those consequences of sin which have
been usually connected with the future life. There may be real danger
here from shallow thinking; but here, too, the social consciousness
has only to be true to itself to be saved from any shallow estimate of
the consequences of sin here or hereafter. As the sin itself is
always, finally, in personal relations, so the most terrible results
of sin, in this life and in all lives, are in personal relations. What
it costs the man himself in cutting him off from the relations in
which all largeness of life consists, what it costs those who love
him, what it costs God,--this alone is the true measure of sin. So
judged, sin itself is feared as never before. Surely, Principal
Fairbairn is right in saying: "And so even within Christendom, sin is
never so little feared as when hell most dominates the imagination; it
needs to be looked at as it affects God, to be understood and
feared."[81] But it is the inevitable result of the social
consciousness to bring us to the deepest conviction of all these
personal relations, and so to the deepest conviction of sin.
Another consideration deserves attention. We have a growing conviction
that our social ideal is personally realized only in Christ, and we
have given unequaled attention to that life and have such knowledge of
it, in its detailed applications, as no preceding generation has ever
had. This simply means that we have both such a sense of our moral
calling, and are face to face with such a living standard, as must
steadily deepen in us a genuine sense of real sin, in our falling so
far short of the spirit of Christ.
Theology needs, further, to make unmistakably clear, and to use the
fact, that _this mutual influence of men holds for good_ as well as
for evil; that few greater lies have ever been told, than the
insinuation that only evil is contagious, the good not. And this
conviction of the contagion of the good, of mutual influence for good,
concerns theology particularly in three ways, all of which may be
regarded simply as illustrations or aspects of the one kingdom of God.
We are members one of another (1) in attainment of character, (2) in
personal relation to God, and (3) in confession of faith. And each of
these forms of mutual influence will need careful attention.
In considering separately here attainment of character and relation to
God, it is not meant for a moment to admit that separation of ethics
and religion which has been already denied, but only to single out for
distinct treatment the one most important and fundamental relation of
life--relation to God. We are certainly never to forget that the
indispensable condition of right relations to God, is that a man
should have been won into willingness to share God's own righteous
purpose concerning men.
III. MUTUAL INFLUENCE FOR GOOD IN THE ATTAINMENT OF CHARACTER
We know no deeper law in the building of character, than that
righteous character comes through that association with the best in
which there is mutual self-giving. The problem of character implies
not only a bare recognition of a man's moral freedom, but a sacred
respect at every point for his personality. If a man is ever to have
character at all, it must be absolutely his own; he must be won freely
into it. In this free winning to character, no association counts for
its most that is not mutual. I become in character most certainly and
rapidly like that man with whom I constantly am, to whose influence I
most fully surrender, and who gives himself most completely to me.
We may analyze the phenomenon psychologically, as, indeed, we have
already done in showing that a true personal relation to Christ
necessarily carries with it a true ethical life. And that which held
true for religion cannot be false for theology, we may be sure. But,
in any case, we always come back finally to the fact, that character
is truly and inevitably contagious in an association in which there is
mutual surrender. Character is caught, not taught. The inner strength
of another life to which we surrender is, as Phillips Brooks somewhere
says, "directly transmissible." I suspect that the ultimate
psychological principle at work here is that of the impulsiveness of
consciousness. But, whether that be true or not, the witness to this
contagion is wide-spread among students of men. "The greatest gift the
hero leaves his race," one of our great novelists says, "is to have
been a hero." In almost identical language, a great ethical and
philosophical writer adds: "The noblest workers of our world bequeath
us nothing so great as the image of themselves. Their task, be it ever
so glorious, is historical and transient, the majesty of their spirit
is essential and eternal."
But one might still think, here, only of an example. The other life,
however, must be more to me than mere example. For the highest
attainment in character I need the association of some highest one,
who will give himself to me unreservedly. Redemption to real
righteousness of life cannot be without cost to the redeemer. And it
is a psychologist, facing the ultimate problem of will-strengthening,
who urges in words that might seem almost to look to Christ: "The
prophet has drunk more deeply than any one of the cup of bitterness;
but his countenance is so unshaken, and he speaks such mighty words of
cheer, that his will becomes our will, and our life is kindled at his
own."[82] It _is_ the one great certain road to character--as it is to
appreciation of every value--to stay in the presence of the best, in
self-surrender to it. No wonder Christ said, "I am the Way."
1. _The Application to the Problem of Redemption._--It is hardly
possible to ignore this one great known law of character-making, which
the social consciousness so presses upon us, in any thinking that is
for a moment worth while concerning our redemption by Christ. And
whatever our point of view, this consideration ought to have weight
with us. Nay, must we not make it necessarily the very center of all
our thought here? For all the realities in this problem of redeeming a
man from sin to righteousness are intensely personal, ethical,
spiritual. Now, are we to reach a deeper view of redemption, by
turning away from the deepest ethical fact to the unethical? Do we so
ground our view the more securely? Is there something holier than the
holy ethical will seen realized in Christ's life and death? For, if it
is the will in his death by which we are sanctified,[83] there can be
no sharp separation of the life and death. Must we not rather expect
that the clearest light, on the holiest in God and our personal
relation to him, will be thrown by the holiest we know in life, in our
human personal relations?
Is not the precise method of redemption, then, to no small degree,
cleared for us right here, in this conviction of the social
consciousness of the contagion of the good in a self-surrendering
association--the only solidarity of which we can be certain? Christ
saves us, in the only certain way we know that any man is ever saved
to better living, through direct contagion of character, through his
immediate influence upon us. The power of the influence of a redeeming
person must depend upon two facts: the richness of the self that is
given, and the depth of the giving. The supremely redeeming power must
be the giving of the richest self, unto the uttermost. God has not yet
done his best for men, until he gives himself in the fullest
manifestation which can be made through man to men, and gives to the
uttermost, with no drawing back from any cost. Is it not because,
after all, back of all theories and even in spite of theories, men
have seen in the life and death of Christ just this eternal giving of
God himself, that they have been caught up into some sharing of the
same spirit, and so felt working directly and immediately upon them
the supremest redeeming power the world knows? The cross of Christ has
been God's not only _saying_, "I will help that child to conquer
himself, whatever it costs me," but God doing it, and perpetually
doing it. Not less than that must be the cost of a man's redemption.
Character is directly transmissible in an association in which there
is mutual self-giving. It is most easily so transmissible, only at its
highest, in its most perfect manifestation, in its completest
self-giving at any cost.
The self-giving on the part of one trying to win another into
character must precede the self-giving of the sinner; for the sinner's
own willingness to yield himself to the influence of the character of
the other must first of all be won. This initial winning of the
coöperative will of the other is the heart of the whole battle. And
here the power relied on is not only the unconscious contagion and
imitation of character that enlists a man's interest almost by
surprise, but also the mightiest influence men know in breaking down
the resisting will and winning men consciously and with final
abandon--the influence of a patient, long-suffering, persistent,
self-sacrificing love that cannot give the sinning one up.
Most certainly, then, redemption cannot be without cost to the
redeemer of men--not only that cost to the hero of the superior
showing of superior character in a superior task, but that other cost,
indissolubly linked indeed with this, of reverently, patiently, to the
bitter end, helping another to conquer himself--the inevitable
suffering of all redemptive endeavor for those whom one loves. This
involves (1) suffering in contact with sin, (2) suffering in the
rejection by those sinning, and most of all, (3) suffering in the sin
itself of those one loves because one loves them--suffering which is
the more intense, the more one loves.
2. _The Consequent Ethical and Spiritual Meaning of Substitution and
Propitiation._--Can we go yet a step farther here? It may be fairly
taken for granted that where the church has strongly and persistently
stood for certain modes of putting a doctrine--though the precise
putting may be unfortunate--that in all probability there is there
some real and important truth after which the consciousness of the
church is dimly feeling. Starting, now, from this same great law of
the contagion of character and the inevitable influence of an
association in which there is mutual self-giving, is it not possible
to show that there is a strict ethical and spiritual sense that we can
understand, in which Christ's suffering may be truly called vicarious,
and himself a substitute for us, and a propitiation?
It is, of course, not for a moment forgotten that, in Dr. Clarke's
language, "a God who will himself provide a propitiation has no need
of one in the sense which the word has ordinarily borne. Some richer
and nobler meaning must be present if the word is appropriate to the
case."[84] But it is not likely that a purely ethical and spiritual
view of the atonement, which sees the problem as a strictly personal
one--and this seems to the writer the only true position--can ever
succeed in the hearts of the great body of the membership of the
churches, if it cannot show, at the same time, that it is able in some
real way to take up into itself these thoughts of substitution and
propitiation. The writer finds much of the old language about the
atonement as offensive to his moral sense as any man well can. But
that there is an absolutely universal human need for something like
that to which the old language of substitution and propitiation
looked, he cannot doubt. It seems to show itself in this, that no man
with real moral sense, probably, cares to put himself at the end of
his life, say, in the attitude of the Pharisee rather than in that of
the Publican. If one sets aside all spectacular elements in the
judgment, and even denies altogether any great single final assize for
all men, still he cannot avoid the thought of some judgment upon his
life. As Dr. Clarke says again: "We are not our own masters in going
out of this world; we go we know not whither. Yet our going is not
without its just and holy method. Our place and lot in the life that
is beyond must be determined righteously, in accordance with the life
that we have lived thus far, that the next stage in our existence may
be what it ought to be."[85]
However, now, that judgment of God may be expressed, no man can hope
to face the test proposed by Christ in the twenty-fifth of Matthew,
still less the test implied in Christ's own life, and feel that he has
_already_ attained. He knows himself to be at best only a faulty
growing child, with some real spirit of obedience in his heart. And it
is particularly to be noted, that exactly that man must stand most
definitely for the reality of some genuinely ethical judgment, who has
most insisted upon the necessarily ethical character of the religious
life. Moreover, the normal experience of the deepening Christian life
is an increasing sense of sin. Upon this point, too, the social
consciousness is witness.
What, now, makes it possible for a man to expect, in any sense, a
favorable judgment of God upon his life? If God makes any separation
of men in the world to come, he certainly cannot divide them into
perfect and imperfect men. Judged by any complete standard, all are
imperfect. Or if, without separation, God in any sense, in the most
inner way, passes judgment, how does approval fall upon any? And upon
whom does it fall? Must not every man who wishes to be clear and
honest with himself fairly face these questions?
And Christ's own thought of God as Father must be our key here. And
the matter may well be counted worth a more careful analysis than it
often gets. How does a father distinguish between what he calls an
obedient and a disobedient child? Both are faulty. How in any fair
sense may one be called obedient? To the earthly father, that child is
called an obedient child, not who is deliberately setting his will
against his father's with no intention to coöperate with the father's
purpose for him, but whose loyal intention is to do the father's will,
really to coöperate with the father in the father's own purpose for
the child's life. When, now, this child is carried away by some gust
of temptation and disobeys, and then returns in penitence to the
father, evidently viewing the sin, so far as his experience allows, as
the father views it, and heartily putting it away, the father, _either
with or without penalty_, restores the child to full personal relation
to himself; and that is the vital point. And, though he neither judges
the past life as without failure, nor expects the future to be without
failure, he approves the child, as in a true sense obedient. He is an
approved child.
What is it that satisfies the father in such a case? Upon what does he
rely in his hope for matured character in the child? What, in biblical
language, "covers" for the father the actual disobediences of the past
and the certain disobediences of the future, and enables him in a
sense to ignore both in his approval of the child? Certainly, the
present purpose of the child, the child's honest intention to
coöperate with the father in the father's purpose for him. Yes; but as
certainly, it seems to the writer, _not that alone_. The father's hope
for his child's steady growth in righteousness depends not only on the
child's present intention, but much more upon the father's own
intention never to give up in his attempt at any cost to help that
child to conquer himself.[86] The father may be said here in a true
sense to propitiate himself; and his own fixed purpose has become a
partial substitute for the wavering purpose of the child.
And the child's full righteousness is seen, not merely in an attitude
of immediate present obedience, but especially in his loyal acceptance
of his filial relation--in his honest surrender to his father's
influence. And the father can now say, Because my child accepts
heartily his relation to me, and honestly throws himself open to it to
let it be to him all it can and work its own work in him, I may
approve him; for this relation to me which he so takes has only to go
on, to work out its complete results in a matured character. In the
hearty acceptance of this filial relation to me, there is contained
the promise of the end.
Just this attitude exactly, and no other, it seems to the writer, God
takes toward men in his revelation in Christ. Christ is God's own
showing forth of himself. "God was in Christ reconciling the world
unto himself."[87] "Propitiation," Beysclag truly says, "is blotting
out, making amends for sin in God's eyes. Now what can cover the sin
of the world in God's eyes? Only a personality and a deed which
contain the power of actually delivering the world from its sin."[88]
We have seen, it may be hoped, just how God's self-revealing in Christ
does have this actual power, and becomes, thus, a true propitiation in
the highest moral sense, in the only sense in which God can wish a
propitiation, and in the only sense in which we can ever need a
propitiation. Our final hope for that true salvation, which is the
sharing of the life of God and the involved likeness of character with
God, is in God's own long-suffering, redeeming activity. Only as
_that_ may be remembered, in connection with our surrender to it, may
we hope to stand approved before the judgment of God. We are not
judged alone before the judgment of God. In a very real sense the
judge himself stands with us. Not what God is able to believe about
this man thought of as standing alone, but what he may believe about
this man standing in a living, surrendering association with himself,
is the ground of judgment. We may not separate here the work of God
and the work of Christ, as the New Testament does not separate them.
In constant reliance upon the constant redeeming activity of the
Father here and hereafter, we children go hopefully on our way.
Put into the language of the blood covenant, where the blood has all
its significance as life--the giving of life, the sharing of life, the
closest and most indissoluble union of lives--this is to say, there is
no atonement, no reconciliation, no remission of sins, no
forgiveness--and these are all essentially identical terms--without
shedding of blood, that is, without complete giving of life on both
sides, Christ giving himself not only _for_ us in seeking us out, but
_to_ us in complete reconciliation and renewal of life. It means that
only God, the very life of God, sharing God's life, can really save
one from his sins. God must pour his life into one, and he does, in
Christ.
This seems to be the heart of the whole matter; but certain
considerations may be still added, as indicating how far a purely
ethical and spiritual view of the atonement may go, in meeting the
human need expressed in these older terms of substitution and
propitiation.
There must be a wrath of God against wilful sin, a complete
disapproval of it, and all the more because God loves the sinner. God
is a consuming fire for sin in us, because he loves us. That wrath
cannot be propitiated, that disapproval cannot be satisfied, in any
effective way, so long as the sin continues. The punishment of the sin
in its inevitable consequences, will go on in the very fidelity of
God. But for any real satisfaction of God, the sin itself must cease,
and there must be assurance of righteousness to come. The sinner must
come to share God's hatred of the sin and God's positive purpose of
love. Hence the expiation of the sin, the propitiation of the wrath of
God, the satisfaction of God--so far as these terms still have
meaning, and so far as they express Christ's work--consist (1) in
winning men to repentance, to sharing God's hatred of their sin, (2)
in helping men to a real power against sin, and (3) in the assurance
of perfecting righteousness which is contained in the relation to God
honestly accepted by men. When, now, the unfilial spirit is thus
changed into a completely filial spirit--through the fullest
acceptance by the child of the father's purpose for him, and through
the child's throwing himself completely open to the influence of the
father--the personal relation _is_ thereby inevitably changed,
personal reconciliation is achieved. It is impossible to think it
otherwise. And so the chief pain in the previous relation is done away
both for God and man; though the punishment, in the consequences of
sin in other respects, is not thereby set aside.
But, further, so far now as the power of this new personal relation to
God in Christ begins actively to counteract the consequences of sin in
us, as it will assuredly do, God's work in Christ becomes a direct
substitute for that punishment of us that would else inevitably
follow. And yet the process is wholly ethical; for the results of
righteousness can actually occur in us, only in so far as we come into
harmony with Christ's purpose for us.
Even so far, we may believe, does the social consciousness, in its
emphasis upon the mutual influence of persons go, in leading us into
the secret of the attainment of character--into the heart of God's
redemption of men.
IV. MUTUAL INFLUENCE FOR GOOD IN OUR PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD
What, now, in the second place, does the mutual influence of men for
good mean for theology in the individual relation to God? Here it may
be said at once, that faith is as directly contagious as character.
1. _In Coming into the Kingdom._--We are introduced through others
into all spheres of value, including friendship even with God. In the
atmosphere of those who already feel the value, our interest is
aroused; we find it possible at least to take those initial steps of a
dawning attention, which give the value opportunity to make its own
impression upon us, and bring us to an appreciation, to a faith of our
own. Only so is that most difficult of all tasks in the redemption of
a man--that first stirring of a new appetite, a new desire, a new
aspiration, a new ideal--accomplished.
We are members one of another here to an extent that deserves ever
fresh emphasis. We cannot too often say to ourselves, Had it not been
that there were those who actually entered into the meaning of the
revelation of God in Christ--who, in John's language, "beheld his
glory"--the record of that revelation never could have come down to
us. Christianity must have perished at its birth. "Hence," in the
vital language of Herrmann, "the picture of his inner life could be
preserved in his church or 'fellowship' alone. But, further, this
picture so preserved can be understood only when we meet with men on
whom it has wrought its effect. We need communion with Christians in
order that, from the picture of Jesus which his Brotherhood has
preserved, there may shine forth that inner life which is the real
heart of it. It is only when we see its effects, that our eyes are
opened to its reality so that we may thereby experience the same
effect. Thus we never apprehend the most important element in the
historical appearance of Jesus until his people make us feel it. The
testimony of the New Testament concerning Jesus is the work of his
church, and its exposition is the work of the church, through the life
which that church develops and gains for itself out of this treasure
which it possesses."[89]
The Christian is no Melchizedek, then, without father or mother; he
comes into life in a community of life, and usually, moreover, through
the personal touch of some other individual life. It is the one primal
law, of life through life.
2. _In Fellowship within the Kingdom._--And not only in coming into
the kingdom, but also within the religious fellowship of the kingdom,
we are emphatically members one of another. In bringing us into that
love which is God's own life, God evidently has no intention of
allowing us to cut ourselves off from our brethren, to climb up to
heaven by some little individual ladder of our own. That humility or
open-mindedness, which constitutes the first beatitude and the initial
step into the kingdom, and that self-sacrificing love, which
constitutes the last beatitude and the crown of the Christian life,
are both possible and cultivable only in personal relations to others.
No man ever got them alone. And, for this very reason, in the
discussion of the religious life, we found the New Testament guarding
most carefully against all over-estimation of marvelous experiences as
such. For these tended to make a man feel that he had such an
individual ladder of his own to heaven, and had no need, consequently,
of his brethren; and so led him into the very reverse of the
fundamental Christian qualities--into unteachableness instead of
humility and open-mindedness, and into censoriousness instead of love.
That objective attitude which is essential in all character and work
and happiness, cann
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