Part 1 (1/2)
The Next Step in Religion.
by Roy Wood Sellars.
FOREWORD
The purpose of this book is positive and constructive, although it may not at first appear such to the reader whose inherited beliefs are freely challenged. But let the reader ponder the fact that the deepest spiritual life has always concerned itself with the appreciation and maintenance of values. He who acknowledges, and wishes to further, human values cannot be said to be irreligious or unspiritual.
The center of gravity of religion has been openly changing for some time now from supernaturalism to what may best be called a humanistic naturalism. The history of this change is traced in many of the chapters of the book. There have been many steps forward in the past, for every age must possess its own religion, a religion concordant with its knowledge and expressive of its problems and aims. The sincerity and adequacy with which this necessary task is done measures the spiritual greatness of the particular age.
I have called the book _The Next Step in Religion_ because the time is ripe for one of the great steps forward. The setting of religion must be adjusted to man's knowledge. Let it not be feared that man's spiritual life will be injured thereby. Rather will it be made saner, healthier and more creative.
The first phase of religion reflected man's helplessness and fear. He peopled his surroundings with conscious powers, sometimes adverse, sometimes friendly, but always jealous. Man became their slave. As man became less of a savage, these G.o.ds of his fancy became n.o.bler.
But they still acted like magnets to draw his attention away from his own problems. The coming phase of religion will reflect man's power over nature and his moral courage in the face of the facts and possibilities of life. It will be a religion of action and pa.s.sion, a social religion, a religion of goals and prospects. It will be a free man's religion, a religion for an adult and aspiring democracy.
A book must in the main carry its own credentials. But there may be those who will wish to carry the quest further and deeper. To those interested in my share in this larger work I may mention my _Critical Realism_ and _The Next Step in Democracy_.
R. W. SELLARS.
Ann Arbor, Michigan, August 5, 1918.
THE NEXT STEP IN RELIGION
CHAPTER I
SUGGESTIONS
More than people are consciously aware, a new view of the universe and of man's place in it is forming. It is forming in the laboratories of scientists, the studies of thinkers, the congresses of social workers, the a.s.semblies of reformers, the studios of artists and, even more quietly, in the circles of many homes. This new view is growing beneath the old as a bud grows beneath its covering, and is slowly pus.h.i.+ng it aside. While the inherited outlook, still apparently so strong, is losing effectiveness and becoming a thing of conventions and phrases, the ideas and purposes which are replacing it possess the vigor and momentum of contact with the living tendencies and needs of the present.
Mankind grows away from its traditional beliefs as inevitably as does the boy or girl from childhood fancies, and often with much the same lack of realization. But the time is certain to come to both when the change is pressed home and there is need for interpretation and serious self-communing. At such a time, kindly--yet uncompromising and veracious--explanation of the nature and implications of the crisis is the course dictated by wisdom. Nothing can be more cruel, disorganizing, and, in a way, insulting than the attempt to {2} harmonize what cannot in the long run be harmonized. The agony is then sure to be long drawn out and the strength of soul, given by fearlessness, is lost. I feel that the first law of personality is _spiritual courage_. Actions and methods founded on a doubt of this primary law lead to a blunting of the fine edge of the self, an injury greater than which can scarcely be conceived.
In this day of testing, when so few have been found lacking in courage and the capacity for self-sacrifice, it seems peculiarly fitting that spiritual values and beliefs be boldly thrown into the arena, there to prove themselves. In the years after the Great War, mankind must build its life afresh and it will be wisest to see that the foundation is a sound one. And, as a matter of social psychology, I doubt that a people which is unwilling to look carefully to the framework of its social and spiritual edifice can build a n.o.ble mansion. Mechanical efficiency and cleverness will not be enough for this task of spiritual creation. We must find lasting values around which to build a humane life. And this, also, is a kind of warfare. Some have expressed to me a doubt whether America is prepared for this effort at reconstruction of a basic, yet intangible, sort. I have hopes, although not blind ones. I refuse to take the vulgarities and ignorances of popular evangelists as completely diagnostic of America's soul.
In the following pages, which are devoted to a clear statement of the new view of man and nature which, in its essentials, has come to stay, I shall act according to this law of personality, to wit, spiritual courage. I shall explain the spiritualized naturalism to which we are ascending in the same spirit that the scientist presents his facts--impersonally, calmly, and simply. {3} Such, at least, is my purpose and desire. What I write here is in its way a confession of faith. The values and loyalties which I shall proclaim as true, redemptive and invigorating are those which my own life and concrete reflection have selected. In them I see the possibility of high spiritual attainment.
The new view of the universe is founded upon, influenced by, and has for its necessary setting, the exact knowledge which the various special sciences, mental as well as physical, have been acc.u.mulating.
This knowledge is rounding into something of the nature of a whole whose interpretation does not admit of doubt. Incomplete in detail though his knowledge be, man is no longer in the dark as to the main features of the world and his own origin and destiny. He knows that he is an inhabitant of a small planet in one of the many solar systems of the stellar universe, that he is the product of an age-long evolution in which variation and survival have been the chief methods of advance, that his mind as well as his body has its natural ancestry. While it will always remain a wonder, so to speak, that there is a universe in which and to which we awaken, it is equally certain that the only sensible thing to do is to seek to find out its character and laws. Is it not like exploring the chambers and corridors of a house in which one shall live for a stated period?
As a matter of fact, man has always been curious about his world. Yet before he hit upon the proper methods of investigation, he could only guess and dream about it, under the sway of hopes and fears which too easily threw themselves like gigantic shadows before him. The fire of his untrained intelligence was feeble and unpenetrating and, so, distorted the world which it {4} dimly revealed. The result was what must be called the older religious view of the world--a view which saw personal and super-personal agency at the heart of things. This primitive interpretation of the world we shall be led to criticize, but, in so doing, we shall be the servants of truth and of a more adult spirituality.
It is not surprising that the patiently acquired knowledge, obtained by science, philosophy and a matured human wisdom, has been found to conflict with the first interpretation of the world. The recognition of this conflict dates back now some centuries--the warfare between science and religion also has its history--but each generation has seen the addition made of some new element to the clash which is leading man to a new view of the world.
What is striking about the present situation is the increase of the positive elements in the outlook which is forming in men's minds. In the past, the traditionalist had some justification in speaking of the opposed ideas as largely negative. What positive doctrine there was in the physical science which theology had to meet, to its discomfort, had only an indirect bearing upon life. But the nineteenth century was the witness of a distinct revolution in this regard. I do not refer merely to the fact that the idea of evolution was applied to man. That was prophetic and strategic rather than revolutionary. It symbolized the pa.s.sage of science from the periphery to the center, from the outlying regions of the universe to man's very self. All the time, however, a new perspective had been arising in man's interests and values. The possibilities and needs of this life were replacing the dream of another life in {5} another world. A busy concern with the things of this world was everywhere evident. Man was seeking to master his environment.
During the first stage of this revolution, the industrial and political changes were the most prominent. A change in the instrumentalities of life, physical, economic and political, occupied men's thoughts to a larger degree than ever before. But as the nineteenth century circled to the twentieth, deeper notes became audible. Humanitarianism, constructive reform, social democracy became the watchwords of the day.
I do not think that it has yet been clearly realized how completely these new aims and interests fit in with the results of science and yet pa.s.s beyond them to the service of human values. The truth seems to be that, by an imperceptible process, new values and hopes have been replacing the traditional ones, and that these values and aims both find themselves in harmony with the new knowledge and rest upon it.
In spite of the conflict between the rising view of man and nature and the traditional religious conception, there is yet, I believe, a profound continuity in the genuinely spiritual achievements of humanity. It is a pity to be so ridden by the new that the n.o.ble in the old is forgotten. Tenderness and love, however obscured at times by formalism and bigotry, owe much to their nurture by Christianity.