Part 5 (2/2)
According to the orthodox doctrine, altho sin is defined in the New Testament as the ”transgression of the law,” it is something _more_ than this;--a direct personal offence against G.o.d; and that therefore its penalties are punitive and vindictive, designed to vindicate the person of G.o.d against insult and injury by disobedience to his law.
Punishment was therefore believed to be administered judicially, according to the extent of the offense, that the sinner might be made to suffer _purely for suffering's sake_, measure for measure. I long ago abandoned this doctrine. I accept fully the New Testament teaching that ”sin is the transgression of the law,”--not the law of Moses or any other penal code,--but the great universal, immutable law of Nature in the moral world. That G.o.d is the author of this law does not make its violation any more a personal offense against G.o.d than the violation of a State statute is a personal offense against the Governor, or legislature, or the judge that administers it. G.o.d cannot be personally sinned against. If so He is neither infinite nor immutable. To const.i.tute a personal offense the person offended must take cognizance of it, which necessarily involves _a change of mind_ toward the offender,--otherwise it is not an offense. The same condition would be involved in a second change of mind toward the offender, upon his repentance and forgiveness. Neither is consistent with any idea of infinity or immutability. Neither does G.o.d ever punish sin. Sin is its own punishment, and it operates automatically.
No sin was ever committed that the sinner did not pay the penalty in full. From this there is no more escape than there is from the law of gravitation. If I put my hand into the fire I cannot avoid being burned. If I take poison I cannot avoid the consequences. The fact that there may be an antidote for the poison in no way destroys the truth of this fundamental law.
”The moving finger writes, and having writ Moves on; Nor all your piety nor wit Can lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.”
Jesus ill.u.s.trated this law fully and beautifully in the parable of the Prodigal Son, and I can do no better than quote its substance here.
This young man left his father's house. This was not a personal offence against his father, altho the father may well have conjectured what would be the result. He was of age and had a right to go. He spent his funds in riotous living, and as a consequence was reduced to want and suffering, his punishment for his sin. To thus waste his funds was sin, _He punished himself_ by his own conduct. His sufferings became so intense and severe that he resolved to abandon his present surroundings and return home at any cost, even to becoming a menial servant in his father's house. Here we get a clear view of the _purpose_ of punishment, not as vindictive, but remedial and corrective. The young man suffered until his sufferings accomplished their end in correcting and changing his life. As soon as this was done his punishment ended. Just so with all punishment for sin. It will continue until its remedial and corrective purpose is completed and no longer, whether in this life or some other. When the young man returned home his father received him, not as a servant, but a son.
But remember, _his wasted fortune was not restored_. ”Was he not freely forgiven?” Yes; but forgiveness does not blot out nor restore the past; nor absolve one from the natural consequences of his own acts already committed. It simply means a new opportunity and a new start, but with the handicap of the consequences of the past life. The returned prodigal was forgiven. He had the opportunity to begin life anew as a son, just as he was before. But his material resources represented in his squandered fortune, and the time he lost while squandering it, were lost forever! Be as diligent and frugal as he might, he could never, thru time or eternity, reach that attainment _which he might have reached_, had he used the same diligence and frugality from the start, in the use of his natural inheritance as his operating capital.
Hence, one sins, not against G.o.d, but most of all _against himself_, by violating the law of his own being, and of humanity. And the _consequences_ of sins committed can never be escaped, in this world or any other. If this kind of gospel had been preached to humanity during all these past centuries of Christianity,--instead of a gospel that teaches that no matter how vile, wicked and sinful one may be, nor how long he may thus live in sin, if, in the last hour of life he will only ”believe in Jesus,” at death he will go sweeping thru the gates of heaven into eternal glory on a complete equality with the n.o.blest saints and purest characters that ever lived on earth,--this world would now be much better than it is.
”Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,” whether divinely inspired or not, is as eternally true, certain, and unescapable in the moral world as are the stars in their courses. Man sins against society in transgressing those natural laws of social relations that bind society together. But even in this, while society suffers from his sins, the sinner himself must ultimately suffer for his own sins above all others.
The question has often been asked me, ”If a man cannot sin against G.o.d, but only against himself and society, by what standard, gauge, or measure am I to determine what is right or wrong?” I think the Golden Rule answers that question completely. All sins are either personal or social or both. A man may, by some sort of self-indulgence or abuse or by his own secret thoughts sin against himself _only_, from which he alone must suffer. He may also sin against society by doing some evil to or against some one else or against society as a whole, from which both he and others may suffer. A simple rule of conduct may be this: In view of any proposed course of conduct, word or act, these questions may be asked: ”What may be the result? Will it in any way injure me, or any one else? Is any possible evil consequence, either to myself or any one else, likely to come of it?” If the answer is in the affirmative, it is wrong; otherwise not. These are my simple views of sin.
_SALVATION_
What is salvation? Almost the universal answer of Christendom has been for eighteen centuries, escape from h.e.l.l hereafter and the a.s.surance of heaven. Yet, according to the record we have of him, Jesus never taught any such doctrine. It is true that he refers several times to the Gehena of the Jews, ”where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched,” but always as a natural consequence of some failure to do, or perform certain things that they should do; but never does he appeal to any one to do or perform anything _for the purpose of escaping it_.
Did the reader ever notice that in all the record we have of the sayings of Jesus, he is nowhere quoted as having ever said one word about the great, fundamental doctrines of Christianity, over which pagans and Christians wrangled for four centuries; and over which Christians have wrangled and fought with each other for fourteen centuries? Do we find where Jesus ever said one word about the Garden of Eden, the fall of Adam, original sin, total depravity, vicarious atonement, the mode of baptism, the Trinity, the possession of the Holy Spirit, or any form of ecclesiastical organization or church polity?
Salvation, and Jesus so taught, pertains to this life exclusively. It simply means _to save this life_,--not from physical death, nor h.e.l.l hereafter,--but to its proper function, use and purpose, according to the will of G.o.d, as revealed in nature and human experience. In simpler words, it is to save this life from sin, wrong doing of every kind, and making of it the highest, n.o.blest and best it is capable of.
This is what Jesus taught; and Jesus is the savior of mankind _only_ in that he has taught mankind _how to live_,--not by dying for it. Thus to save this life to the highest, n.o.blest and best of which it is capable, is to save it from sin unto righteousness; and this is to save it both here and hereafter. He that _continually lives right_ cannot die wrong. And whatever the next life may be, it is but a continuation, a larger unfolding and fruition of this. Salvation is here, not hereafter.
_HEAVEN AND h.e.l.l_
But do I not believe in heaven and h.e.l.l? Yes, and no. I believe in both, and neither. I do not believe in either the kind of heaven or h.e.l.l I was taught in the church. Yet, I have already said that I did not believe any sin ever committed by man ever went unpunished, either here or hereafter, until the full penalty was paid, and the punishment had completed its remedial and corrective purpose. And I will say here that I do not believe any good deed or word ever performed or said by man ever went unrewarded up to the full value of its merit, either here or hereafter. But I believe both heaven and h.e.l.l to be _conditions_,--not places,--and we have them both here in this life, and will have them hereafter. Each individual makes his own heaven, or his own h.e.l.l, and carries it with him when he leaves this life. To quote from Omar Khayyam:
”I sent my Soul thru the invisible Some letter of that After-life to spell; And by and by my Soul returned to me And answered: I myself am Heaven and h.e.l.l; Heaven's but the vision of fulfilled desire, And h.e.l.l the shadow of a Soul on fire.”
The idea of a literal lake of fire and brimstone to be the eternal abode of by far the larger part of the human race, according to the orthodox doctrine of Christianity, is not only unreasonable, but unthinkable. If it exists G.o.d must have made it; and such a thought is a caricature of G.o.d. Such a view of h.e.l.l practically involves the necessity of the personal devil that has always been a.s.sociated with it; and this is also both unreasonable and unthinkable. If such a being exists he is either co-eternal with G.o.d--which is unreasonable--or G.o.d created him--which is unthinkable. The idea that there is in this universe two co-eternal antagonistic spirits in eternal warfare with each other challenges human credulity. If the Bible story of creation and the fall of man is true, as interpreted by orthodox Christianity, the devil got the best of G.o.d right from the start, and has held it ever since; and according to the current doctrines of the plan and means of salvation, will hold it eternally.
This leads us inevitably to one of two conclusions: G.o.d is neither Infinite, Omniscient, nor Omnipotent, else He would not have permitted such a condition to come about, and permit Himself to be thus defeated in his plans and purposes, and lose eternally ninety percent of the highest product of his own creation, Man, whom He made in his own image and likeness. If we still insist that G.o.d is Infinite, Omniscient, and therefore knew in advance all that ever would take place, including the fall of Adam and its consequences, Omnipotent, and therefore able to prevent it, but did not, it only makes the matter worse.
But to take the other horn of the dilemma, that G.o.d _created_ the devil first an angel in heaven, who afterwards led a rebellion in heaven and had to be cast out, and that h.e.l.l was then created as a place in which to put him, but where it proved afterwards that he could not be kept, but got out and robbed G.o.d of the n.o.blest product of his creative genius at the very threshold of creation, corrupting the very fountain of human life itself, whereby he became the ultimate possessor of nine-tenths of all the race forever, is only to make the matter still worse than before. He certainly was not Omniscient, and therefore able to foreknow what this newly created angel would ultimately do, else He would not have made him; nor was He Omnipotent, else He would have prevented it. But if it still be insisted--and unfortunately it is by far the greater part of Christianity--that G.o.d is, nevertheless and notwithstanding, Infinite, Omniscient and Omnipotent, and either deliberately planned or supinely sat by and permitted these things to take place, _then He is not_ a G.o.d of goodness, love, justice, truth, mercy and benevolence, but an unthinkable monster, more diabolical and cruel than the wildest savage ever known to the earth, or the most ferocious beast of prey in the jungle. I might naturally fear such a G.o.d, but never love or respect, but eternally hate him.
I have already given my views of the story of Eden and the fall of man; that man never fell, but is still incomplete, but progressing onward and upward forever; that he was never, on the general average, higher or better than now; and as the years and ages go on he will continue thus to grow better and n.o.bler, making his own heaven as he goes along, and destroying his own h.e.l.l by learning his lessons of suffering for wrong doing, and leaving it behind him. No, G.o.d did not make man in his own image, implant in his very nature that eternal aspiration upward that is possessed by every normal human being, and then make a devil to tempt and ruin him, and a h.e.l.l in which to eternally torment him.
I quote again from Omar Khayyam:
”Oh, Thou who didst with pitfall and with gin Beset the road I was to wander in, Thou wilt not with predestined evil round Enmesh, and then impute my fall to sin.
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