Part 6 (1/2)

THEISM WITHOUT CHRIST

By Theism without Christ is not meant a system like Judaism or Mohammedanism, but a modern school which maintains that faith in G.o.d becomes weakened and impaired by being a.s.sociated with faith in Jesus.

There are those who cling with tenacity to the first article of the Apostles' Creed, 'I believe in G.o.d the Father Almighty,' but who reject with equal fervour the second article of the Creed, 'And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.' They resist with horror the suggestion that the world is under no overruling Providence, or that the humblest human being is not regarded with the tender love of the Infinite G.o.d: they rival the most {128} mystical wors.h.i.+pper in the ardour of the language with which in prayer they address the Father in Heaven, but they refuse to bow in the Name of Jesus: they go to the Father, as they think, without Him: they a.s.sert that to look to Him is virtually to look away from G.o.d. They are as hostile as we can be to the Subst.i.tutes for Christianity which we have been considering. They have no sympathy with those who loudly deny that there is a G.o.d, or with those who say that it is impossible to find out whether there is a G.o.d or not, or with those who think that the Creator and the Creation are one, that the universe is G.o.d, or with those who, not believing in any Unseen and Eternal G.o.d, insist that the proper object of the wors.h.i.+p of mankind is man. In the proclamation of the existence of an All-Wise and All-holy Being, in the proclamation that He has made the world and rules it to its minutest detail, in the proclamation that {129} there is a life beyond the grave, they are the allies of the Christian Church. But then they go on to argue, For those who hold these doctrines, Christ is quite superfluous: to hold them in their purity Christ must be dethroned and His name no longer specially revered. Some may still wish to speak of Him as among the Great Teachers of the world, but some, in order to preserve these precious truths unmixed, decline in a very fanaticism of unbelief to a.s.sign Him even that position.

I

The declaration of our Lord, 'No man cometh unto the Father but by Me,'

has been a chief stumbling-block and rock of offence. Are we to believe, it is asked, that only the comparatively few to whom the knowledge of Jesus Christ has come can possibly be accepted of the Father? When the words were spoken the number of His disciples was exceedingly small. Did he mean that the {130} Father could be approached only by that handful of people, that all beyond were banished from the Divine Presence and must inevitably perish? That this is what He meant both the friends and the foes of Christianity have at times been agreed in holding. The friends have imagined that they were thereby exalting the claim of Christ to be the One Mediator.

It may be a terrible mystery that the vast majority of the human race should have no opportunity of believing in Him, should be even unacquainted with His Name. We can only bow before the inscrutable decree, and strive with all our might, not only that our own faith may be deepened, but that the knowledge of Christ may be diffused over all the earth, so that some here and there may be rescued. There is little wonder that such a view should have given rise to questionings and opposition, should have been rejected as inconsistent with mercy and with justice. It is an {131} interpretation on which hostile critics have laid stress as incontestably proving the narrowness and bigotry of the Christian Creed.

If we bear in mind Who it is that is presumed to say, 'No man cometh unto the Father but by Me,' the misconception disappears. It is not merely an individual man, separate from all others, giving Himself out as a wise and infallible Teacher. He Who makes the stupendous claim is One Who by the supposition embodies in Himself Human Nature in its perfection, Who is identified with His brethren, Who says, 'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.' The Life which He manifests is the Life of G.o.d. He is set forth as the Way to the Father: in mercy and in blessing the Way is disclosed in Him: it is not in harsh and rigid exclusiveness that He speaks, debarring the ma.s.s of mankind: it is in tender comprehensiveness, inviting all without distinction of race or circ.u.mstance, opening a new {132} and living way for all into the Holiest. It is the breaking down of all barriers between man and man, between man and G.o.d, not the setting up of another barrier high and insurmountable. When Christ declares 'No man cometh unto the Father but by Me,' He is not declaring that the way is difficult and impa.s.sable, He is pointing out a way of deliverance which all may tread. So far from laying down a hard and burdensome dogma to be accepted on peril of pains and penalties, He is imparting a hope and a consolation in which all may rejoice.

If we believe Him to be the Word of G.o.d made Flesh, if we see in Him the Brightness of the Father's glory, it becomes a truism to say that only through Him can life and healing be imparted to mankind. When He Himself says, 'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life,' it is natural for Him to add, 'No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.' It will {133} be granted by all who believe in G.o.d that, apart from G.o.d, no soul of man can have life eternal. The most strenuous advocate of the salvation of the virtuous heathen will grant that their salvation does not descend from the idol of wood and stone before which they grovel.

It is from the True G.o.d, the Living G.o.d, that the blessing proceeds.

It is His touch, His Spirit, His Presence which has consecrated the earnest though erring wors.h.i.+p of the poor idolater. No one who believes in the Infinite and Eternal G.o.d could possibly say that the monstrous image whose aid is invoked by the devout heathen is itself the answerer of his prayer, the cause of his deliverance from sin, the bestower of immortality upon him. The utmost that can be said is that in the costly sacrifices, the painful penances, the pa.s.sionate prayers which he presents to the object of his adoration, the Almighty Love discerns a longing after something n.o.bler and better, {134} and accepts the service as directed really, though unconsciously, to Him.

The feeble hands and helpless, Groping blindly in the darkness, Touch G.o.d's right hand in that darkness And are lifted up and strengthened.[1]

But it is the hand of G.o.d that they touch. It is from the One Omnipotent G.o.d that every blessing comes: it is the One Omnipotent G.o.d Who turns to truth and life and reality every sincere and struggling and imperfect attempt to serve Him on the part of those who know not His Nature or His Name.

And what is true of G.o.d is equally true of Christ, the manifestation of G.o.d. Only grant Him to be the Incarnate Word of G.o.d, and it becomes plain that salvation can no more exist apart from Him than apart from the Father. This Word of G.o.d is the Light that lighteth every man.

Whatever truth, whatever knowledge of the Divine, anywhere {135} exists is the result of that illumination. The sparks which s.h.i.+ne even in the darkness of heathendom betoken the presence of that Light, not wholly extinguished by the folly and ignorance of man. That is the One Sun of Righteousness which gives light everywhere, though in many places the clouds are so dense that the beams can scarcely penetrate. Now, if that Word has become Flesh, if that Light has become embodied in Human Form, we are still constrained to say, There is no true Light but His, it is in His Light that all must walk if they would not stray, there is no Guide, no Deliverer, save Him. Christ discloses, brings to view, all the saving health which has ever been, all the power of restoring, cleansing, healing, which has ever worked in the souls of men. The one Power by which any human being, in any age or in any land, has ever been fitted for the presence of the All Holy G.o.d, is made manifest in Christ. 'Neither is there {136} salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.'

We need have no hesitation in a.s.serting that all who in any age or in any land, or in any religion, have come to the Father must have come through the Son of Man, the Eternal Word made Flesh. We do not contend, as has too frequently been contended, that beyond the limits of Christianity, beyond, it may be, the limits of one section of Christianity, there is no truth believed, no acceptable service rendered. We hail with grat.i.tude the lofty thoughts and the n.o.ble achievements of some who do not in word acknowledge Christ as Lord. In the vision of the Light that lighteth every man, we see

How light can find its way To regions farthest from the fount of day.[2]

'Now,' as is well said by the present Bishop {137} of Birmingham, who will hardly be accused of any tendency to minimise the claims of Christianity, 'this is no narrow creed. Christianity, the religion of Jesus, is the Light: it is the one final Revelation, the one final Religion, but it supersedes all other religions, Jewish and Pagan, not by excluding, but by including all the elements of truth which each contained. There was light in Zoroastrianism, light in Buddhism, light among the Greeks: but it is all included in Christianity. A good Christian is a good Buddhist, a good Jew, a good Mohammedan, a good Zoroastrian; that is, he has all the truth and virtue that these can possess, purged and fused in a greater and completer light.

Christianity, I say, supersedes all other religions by including these fragments of truth in its own completeness. You cannot show me any element of spiritual light or strength which is in other religions and is not in Christianity. Nor can you {138} show me any other religion which can compare with Christianity in completeness of light: Christianity is the one complete and final religion, and the elements of truth in other religions are rays of the One Light which is concentrated and s.h.i.+nes full in Jesus Christ our Lord.'[3]

II

From whatever cause, whether as a reaction against the mode in which this great truth has been at times presented, there have been, and there are, attempts to supersede Christianity because of its narrowness. Religion must not be identified with any one name: G.o.d manifests Himself to all, and no Mediator is needed. Theism, therefore, the wors.h.i.+p of the One Almighty and Eternal Being, not Christianity, in which a Human Name is a.s.sociated with the Divine Name, can alone pretend to be the Universal Religion, the {139} Religion of all Mankind. It is not the first time that such an attempt to do without Christianity and to do away with it has been made. In the eighteenth century there was a similar movement. To this day at Ferney, near Geneva, is preserved the chapel which Voltaire erected for the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, of G.o.d as distinguished from Christ as Divine or as Mediator between G.o.d and man. Voltaire thought that he could overthrow and crush the Faith of Christ, but he none the less erected a temple to G.o.d. The Deists upheld what they called the Religion of Nature and repudiated Revelation. _Christianity not Mysterious; Christianity as old as the Creation_, were among the works issued to show the superiority of Natural Religion, its freedom from difficulties, its agreement with reason, its universality. The most enduring memorial of the controversy is Bishop Butler's _a.n.a.logy of Religion to the Const.i.tution and Course of Nature_, {140} in which it was argued that the Natural Religion of the Deists was beset by as many difficulties as the Revelation of the Christians, that those who were not hindered from believing in G.o.d by the problems which Nature presented need not be staggered by the problems which were presented by Christianity. Bishop Butler's argument was directed against a special set of antagonists, an argument, it may be said, of little avail against the scepticism of the present day. The argument seems to have been unanswerable by those to whom it was addressed. The grounds on which they rejected the Revelation of Christ were shown to be inadequate. When they accepted this or that article of Natural Religion, they had accepted what was as difficult of belief as this or that part of the Revelation which they rejected. The mysteries which existed in the religion with which they would have nothing to do were in harmony with the {141} mysteries which existed in the religion which they declared to be necessary for the welfare of society. That retort may be made with even more effect to those who so far occupy that same ground to-day. They rejoice to believe that there is a G.o.d, that He is not far off, that He communicates Himself to their souls, that the love which we bear to one another is but a faint image of the love which He bears to us, that the n.o.blest qualities which exist in us exist more purely, more gloriously in Him, that we are in very deed His children and are called to manifest His likeness. It is by prayer, both in public and in private, both in congregations and alone with the Alone, that His Love and His Help can be comprehended and used. He is no absent G.o.d: His Ear is not heavy that it cannot hear, nor His arm shortened that it cannot save.

With this belief we, as Christians, have no dispute: we gladly go along with Theists in a.s.serting it: we {142} only wonder at their unwillingness to go along with us a little further. For if G.o.d be such as they glowingly depict Him, if our relations to Him be such as they esteem it our greatest dignity to know, there is nothing antecedently impossible in the thought that One Man has heard His Voice more clearly, has surrendered to His Will more entirely, than any other in the history of the ages and the races of mankind: nothing antecedently impossible in the thought that to One Man His Truth has been conveyed more brightly, more fully than to any other; that in One Man the lineaments of the Divine Image may be seen more distinctly than in any other. If G.o.d be such, and if our relations to G.o.d be such, as Theists describe, why should they shrink with distrust or with antipathy from a Son of Man Who has borne witness to those truths in His Life and in His Death with a steadfastness of conviction which none other has ever surpa.s.sed; Who, according {143} to the records which we possess of Him, habitually lived to do the Father's Will and died commending His Spirit into the Father's Hands: a Son of Man Who could truly be said to be in heaven while He was on earth? If G.o.d be such, and our relations to G.o.d be such, as Theists describe, would not that Son of Man be the confirmation of their thoughts? Would not His testimony be of infinite value on their side? Would He Himself not be the radiant ill.u.s.tration, the eagerly longed for proof of the truth for which they contend? They believe in G.o.d: why should it, on their own showing, be so hard to believe in Christ?

III

The Theism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is in some respects different from the Deism of the eighteenth. It is not so cold, the G.o.d in whom it believes is not so distant from His creatures.

But it is not {144} less vehement in its depreciation of Christianity as a needless and even harmful addition to the Religion of Nature.

Conspicuous among the advocates of this modern Theism have been Francis William Newman, Miss Frances Power Cobbe, and the Rev. Charles Voysey.

Francis Newman, in his youth, belonged, like his brother the famous Cardinal, to the strictest sect of Evangelicals, but, like the Cardinal also, drifted away from them, though in a totally different direction.[4] As he found the untenableness of certain views which he had cherished, the insufficiency of certain arguments which he had employed, he came with much anguish of mind to the conclusion that the whole fabric of historical Christianity was built upon the sand. He rapidly renounced belief after belief, and caused widespread distress and dismay by a crude attack upon the moral perfection of {145} our Lord. His conviction that Christianity had nothing special to say for itself, and that one religion was as good as another, seems to have been mainly brought about by a discussion which he had with a Mohammedan carpenter at Aleppo. 'Among other matters, I was particularly desirous of disabusing him of the current notion of his people that our Gospels are spurious narratives of late date. I found great difficulty of expression, but the man listened to me with much attention, and I was encouraged to exert myself. He waited patiently till I had done and then spoke to the following effect: ”I will tell you, sir, how the case stands. G.o.d has given to you English many good gifts. You make fine s.h.i.+ps, and sharp penknives, and good cloth and cottons, and you have rich n.o.bles and brave soldiers; and you write and print many learned books (dictionaries and grammars): all this is of G.o.d. But there is one thing that G.o.d has withheld {146} from you and has revealed to us; and that is the knowledge of the true religion by which one may be saved.”'[5]

But although Newman was led to give up Christianity, and practically to hold that one religion was as good as another, he clung tenaciously to what he supposed to be common to all religions, belief in G.o.d, a belief deep and ardent. The rationalism of the Deists did not approve itself to him. 'Our Deists of past centuries tried to make religion a matter of the pure intellect, and thereby halted at the very frontier of the inward life: they cut themselves off even from all acquaintance with the experience of spiritual men.'[6] He nourished his soul with psalms and hymns: he sought communion with G.o.d. He saw the weakness of Morality without the inspiring power of Religion. 'Morals can seldom gain living energy without the impulsive force derived from Spirituals.... However {147} much Plato and Cicero may talk of the surpa.s.sing beauty of virtue, still virtue is an abstraction, a set of wise rules, not a Person, and cannot call out affection as an existence exterior to the soul does. On the contrary, G.o.d is a Person; and the love of Him is of all affections by far the most energetic in exciting us to make good our highest ideals of moral excellence and in clearing the moral sight, so that that ideal may keep rising. Other things being equal (a condition not to be forgotten) a spiritual man will hold a higher and purer morality than a mere moralist. Not only does Duty manifest itself to him as an ever-expanding principle, but since a larger and larger part of Duty becomes pleasant and easy when performed under the stimulus of Love, the Will is enabled to concentrate itself more on that which remains difficult and greater power of performance is attained.'[7] Where shall we find a more {148} vivid or more spiritual description of the rise and progress of devotion in the soul than in the words of this man, who placed himself beyond the pale of every Christian communion? 'One who begins to realise G.o.d's majestic beauty and eternity and feels in contrast how little and transitory man is, how dependent and feeble, longs to lean upon him for support. But He is _outside_ of the heart, like a beautiful sunset, and seems to have nothing to do with it: there is no getting into contact with Him, to press against Him. Yet where rather should the weak rest than on the strong, the creature of the day than on the Eternal, the imperfect than on the Centre of Perfection? And where else should G.o.d dwell than in the human heart? for if G.o.d is in the universe, among things inanimate and unmoral, how much more ought He to dwell with our souls!

and they, too, seem to be infinite in their cravings: who but He can satisfy them? Thus a restless {149} instinct agitates the soul, guiding it dimly to feel that it was made for some definite but unknown relation towards G.o.d. The sense of emptiness increases to positive uneasiness, until there is an inward yearning, if not shaped in words, yet in substance not alien from that ancient strain, ”As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O G.o.d; my soul is athirst for G.o.d, even for the Living G.o.d.”'[8]