Part 4 (1/2)

”Religion is not a science, hence it cannot be proved nor disproved.” ”Therefore man's view of the world does not depend on the intellect, but solely on his will.... The ultimate and highest truths, truths by which man lives and for which he dies, have not their source in scientific knowledge, but come from the heart and from the individual will.” In a similar strain _R. Falkenberg_ writes: ”The views of the world growing out of the chronology of the human race, as the blossoms of a general process of civilization, are not so much thoughts as rhythms of thinking, not theories but views, saturated with appreciations.... Not only optimism and pessimism, determinism and doctrine of freedom, but also pantheism and individualism, idealism and materialism, even rationalism and sensualism, have their roots ultimately in the affections, and even while working with the tools of reason remain for the most part matters of faith, sentiment, and resolve”

(Geschichte der neuen Philosophie, 5th ed., 1905, p. 3).

You may look up any books or magazines of modern philosophy or Protestant theology, and you will find in all of them ”that faith is a kind of conviction for which there is no need of proof” (_H.

Luedemann_, Prot. Monatshefte IX, 1903, 367). This emotional faith has been introduced into Protestant theology especially by _Schleiermacher_. It is also this view of the more recent philosophy that the modernists have adopted. They themselves confess: ”The _modernists_ in accord with modern psychology distinguish clearly between knowledge and faith. The intellectual processes which lead to them appear to the modernists altogether foreign to and independent of one another. This is one of our fundamental principles” (Programma dei Modernisti (1908), 121).

Religious instruction for children will then have to become altogether different. The demand is already made for ”a recast of thought from the sphere of the intellect into the sphere of affection.” Away, so they clamour, away with the dogmas of creation, of Christ as the Son of G.o.d, of His miracles, as taught in the old schools! For all these are religious ideas. Pupils of the higher grades should be told ”the plain truth about the degree of historicity in elementary religious principles.... The fundamental idea of religion can neither be created nor destroyed by teaching, it has its seat in sentiment, like-excuse the term-an insane idea” (_Fr. Niebergall_, Christliche Welt, 1909, p. 43).

This dualism of ”faith” and knowledge is as untenable as it is common. It is a psychological _impossibility_ as well as a sad _degradation of religion_.

How can I seriously believe, and seriously hold for true, a view of the world of which I do not know whether it be really true, when the intellect unceasingly whispers in my ear: it is all imagination! As long as faith is a conviction so long must it be an activity of the intellect. With my feeling and will I may indeed wish that something be true; but to wish simply that there be a G.o.d is not to be convinced that there actually is a G.o.d. By merely longing and desiring I can be as little convinced as I can make progress in virtue by the use of my feet, or repent of sins by a toothache. It is et?as?? e?? ???? ?????. A dualism of this kind, between head and heart, doubt and belief, between the No of the mind and the Yes of the heart, is a process incompatible with logic and psychology. How could such a dualism be maintained for any length of time? It may perhaps last longer in one in whom a vivid imagination has dimmed the clearness of intellect; but where the intellectual life is clear, reason will very soon emanc.i.p.ate itself from a deceptive imagination. One may go on dreaming of ideal images, but as soon as the intellect awakens they vanish.

Hallucinations are taken for real while the mind is affected, but they pa.s.s away the moment it sees clearly.

_Kant_ himself, the father of modern agnostic mysticism, has made it quite clear that his postulates of faith concerning the existence of G.o.d and the immortality of the soul, have never taken in him the place of earnest conviction. Thus in the first place _Kant_ holds that there are no duties towards G.o.d, since He is merely a creature of our mind. ”Since this idea proceeds entirely from ourselves, and is a product of ours, we have here before us a postulated being towards whom we cannot have an obligation; for its reality would have to be proved first by experience (or revealed)”; but ”to have religion is a duty man owes to himself.”

Again, he dislikes an oath, he asks whether an oath be possible and binding, since we swear only on condition that there is a G.o.d (without, however, stipulating it, as did _Protagoras_). And he thinks that ”in fact all oaths taken honestly and discreetly have been taken in no other sense” (Metaphysik der Sitten, II, -- 18, Beschluss).

_Prayer_ he dislikes still more. ”Prayer,” he says, ”as an internal form of cult, and therefore considered as a means of grace, is a superst.i.tious delusion (feticism).... A hearty wish to please G.o.d in all our actions, that is, a disposition present in all our actions to perform them as if in the service of G.o.d, is a spirit of prayer that can and ought to be our perpetual guide.”

”By this desire, the spirit of prayer, man seeks to influence only himself; by prayer, since man expresses himself in words, hence outwardly, he seeks to influence G.o.d. In the former sense a prayer can be made with all sincerity, though man does not pretend to a.s.sert the existence of G.o.d fully established; in the latter form, as an address, he a.s.sumes this highest Being as personally present, or at least pretends that he is convinced of its presence, in the belief that even if it should not be so it can do him no harm, on the contrary it may win him favour; hence in the latter form of actual prayer we shall not find the sincerity as perfect as in the former. The truth of this last remark any one will find confirmed when he imagines to himself a pious and well-meaning man, but rather backward in regard to such advanced religious ideas, surprised by another man while, I will not say praying aloud, but only in an att.i.tude of prayer; any one will expect, without my saying so, that that man will be confused, as if he were in a condition of which he ought to be ashamed. But why this? A man caught talking aloud to himself raises at once the suspicion that his mind is slightly deranged; and not altogether wrongly, because one would seem out of mind if found all alone making gestures as though he had somebody else before him; that, however, is the case in the example given” (Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, 4. Stueck, 2, -- 4, Allgemeine Anmerkung). Thus it happens that in his opinion those who have advanced in perfection cease to pray.

Nor does it seem that _Kant_ is serious about his postulate of the _immortality_ of the soul. Asked by _Lacharpe_ what he thought of the soul, he did not answer at first, but remarked, when the question was repeated: ”We must not make too much boast of it”

(_H. Hettner_, Literat. Gesch. des 18. Jahrh., III, 4. ed., 3, p.

26. From _Varnhausen's_ Denkwuerdigkeiten).

Thousands have with _Kant_ destroyed their religious conviction by a boastful scepticism, and, like him, finally given it up to replace its lack by artificial autosuggestions.

And is not the religious life of man thereby made completely valueless?

The highest truths on which the mind of man lives, and which from the first stage of his existence not only interested but deeply stirred him, become fiction, pictures of the fancy, suggestions of an effeminate mind, that cannot make a lasting impression on stronger minds. And how can the products of autosuggestion give comfort and strength in hours of need and trial? It is true they do not impose any obligations. Every one is free to form his own notions of life; they are not to be taken seriously anyway, whether they be this or that; they are all equally true and equally false.

Buddhism is just as true as Christianity, Materialism as true as Spiritualism, Mohammedanism as true as Quakerism, the wisdom of the Saints as true as the philosophy of the worldly. ”The most beautiful flower is growing on the same soil (that of the emotions) with the rankest weed”

(_Hegel_). The decision rests with sentiments which admit of no arguing.

Thus all is made over to scepticism, to that constant doubting which degrades and unnerves the higher life of modern times, to that _modern agnosticism_ which, though bearing the distinction of aristocratic reserve, is in reality dulness and poverty of intellect; not a perfection of the human intellect, but a hideous disease, all the more dangerous because difficult to cure. It is the neurasthenia of the intellect of which the physical neurasthenia of our generation is the counterpart.

The distinguis.h.i.+ng mark between man and the lower animals has ever been held to be that the former could knowingly step beyond the sphere of the senses, into that world of which his intellect is a part. The conviction has always prevailed that man by means of his own valid laws of thought, for instance, the principle of causality, could safely ascend from the visible world to an invisible one. Thus also the physician concludes the interior cause of the disease from the exterior symptoms, the physicist thus comes to the knowledge of the existence of atoms and ions which he has never seen, and the astronomer calculates with _Leverrier_ the existence and location of stars which no eye has yet detected.

One thing has certainly been established: a _free sentiment_ can now a.s.sert itself with sovereignty in the most important spheres of intellectual life, without any barriers of stationary truths and immovable Christian dogmas; one is now free to fas.h.i.+on his religion and ideals to suit the _individuum ineffabile_. The latter asks no longer what religion demands of him, but rather how religion can serve his purposes. ”For the G.o.ds,” it is said, ”which we now acknowledge, are those we need, which we can use, whose demands confirm and strengthen our own personal demands and those of our fellow-men.... We apply thereby only the principle of elimination of everything unsuitable to man, and of the survival of the fittest, to our own religious convictions”; ”we turn to that religion which best suits our own individuality” (_W. James_). Arrogant doubt can now undermine all fundamental truths of Christian faith until they crumble to pieces; beside it rises the free genius of the new religion, on whose emblem the name of G.o.d is no longer emblazoned, but the glittering seal of an independent humanity.

Relative Truth.

Freedom of thought appears still more justified when we take a further step which brings us to the _consequence of subjectivism_; _i.e._, when we advance so far as to a.s.sert that there are no unchangeable and in this sense no absolute truths, but only temporary, changeable, relative truths.

And modern thought does profess this: there is no absolute truth, no _religio et philosophia perennis_; different principles and views are justified and even necessary for different times and even cla.s.ses. This removes another barrier to freedom of thought, viz., allegiance to generally accepted truths and to the convictions of bygone ages.

The logicalness of this further step can hardly be denied. If the human intellect, independent of the laws of objective truth, fas.h.i.+ons its own object and truth, especially in things above the senses, why can it not form for itself, at different periods and in different stages of life, a different religion and another view of the world? Cannot the human subject pa.s.s through different phases? He indeed changes his costume and style of architecture; why not also his thoughts? Every product of thought would then be the right one for the time, but would be untenable for a further stage of his intellectual genesis and growth, and would have to be replaced by a new one. The nature of subjectivistic thought is no longer an obstacle to this. Besides, we have the modern idea of _evolution_, already predominant in all fields: the world, the species of plants and animals, man himself with his whole life, his language, right, family, all of them the products of a perpetual evolution, everything constantly changing. Why not also his religion, morality, and view of the world? They are only reflexes of a temporary state of civilization. Hence also here motion and change, evolution into new shapes!

Therefore, so it is said, we have now broken definitely with the ”dogmatic method of reasoning” of the belief in revelation, and of scholastic philosophy which adhered to absolute truth. They are replaced by the historical-genetical reasoning of the _saeculum historic.u.m_ which ”has discarded absolute truth: there are only relative, no eternal truths”

(_Paulsen_, Immanuel Kant, 1898, 389). We are further a.s.sured that ”this treatment of the history of thought prevails in the scientific world; the Catholic Church alone has not adopted it. She still clings to dogmatic reasoning, and that is natural to her; she is sure that she is in possession of the absolute truth” (Idem, Philosophia militans, 2d ed., 1901, 5). Outside of this Church every period of time is free to construct its own theories, which will eventually go with it as they came with it.

We meet this relative truth, and all the indefinable hazy notions identified with it, _in all spheres_.

The modern history of philosophy and religion concedes to every system and religion the right to their historic position: they are necessary phases of evolution. The notion of immutable problems and truths by which any system of thought would have to be measured has been lost. ”The appearance and rejection of a system,” says _J. E. Erdmann_, ”is a necessity of world-history.