Part 7 (2/2)

137: ”The Realm of Ends,” p. 387.

(_b_) The humanitarian view narrows too much the horizons of religion.

It would exclude from religion the sense of infinite dependence, and of devotion to and communion with a personal higher Power. A religion of humanity merely will seem superficial to the mood which cries out, ”My soul is athirst for G.o.d,” or ”I seek _Thee_ in order that my soul may live.” If the religion of the anchorite was one-sided, so equally is that of the humanitarian.[138] Neither sin nor righteousness can be interpreted in exclusively social terms, unless the conception of the community be so enlarged as to include the Great Companion and the Great Demander. The social theory, again, has no apparent place for the religion of solitude which finds G.o.d in nature. A New England writer says of Mount Ranier:

138: The hermit saints, from this modern standpoint, would not deserve to be called religious at all, as witness this remark of Ames: ”If religion is partic.i.p.ation in the ideal values of the social consciousness, then those who do not share in this consciousness are non-religious.”--”Psychology of Religious Experiences,” p. 356.

”I saw the mountain three years ago: Would that it might ever be my lot to see it again! I love to dream of its glory, and its vast whiteness is a moral force in my life.” ”Climb the mountains,” says one of the best known of American mountaineers, John Muir, ”and get their good tidings.

Nature's peace will flow into you as suns.h.i.+ne flows into trees. The winds will blow their freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while care will drop off like autumn leaves.”[139]

139: See J. H. Williams: ”The Mountain That Was 'G.o.d,'” pp. 40, 113.

(_c_) The religion of humanity must look outside itself for its highest inspiration for social service and for the norm of social progress. It was Christianity that created the atmosphere in which ”the enthusiasm of humanity” and zeal for social service could flourish. Christianity has emphasized the value of the individual, and the sacredness of family relations.h.i.+ps and the brother-hood of the children of the one Father.

Without divine love as its pattern and inspiration human love would lose in comprehension and in intensity.

Society in its progress has ever waited for the signal to be given by some prophet from the deserts, or some seer who has brought from the mount of vision the pattern of a better social order. Those who see in social service the essence of religion are faced with the paradox that the wisest and most beneficent social influences have flowed from those experiences in which the individual turned his back on society and flaunted its ideals. A declaration of independence of society seems needed before there can be the most effective social service. By an unsocial act Abraham left his country and his kindred and his father's house, and yet in him all the families of the earth have been blessed; through Paul's unsocial act in deserting the traditions of his fathers, the course of Western civilization has been profoundly influenced; George Fox's unsocial act in depriving his town of the services of a useful tradesman, and making for himself a suit of leather, has been called by an acute observer, Carlyle, doubtless by an over-emphasis, the greatest event of modern history. Religion, in fact, first a.s.serts itself as something over and above all social relations before its social mission can be performed.

4. The interpretation of religious experience by the psychologists has not always been favourable to theistic or Christian belief, but the failure of other explanations, if established, will lead us to seek a more adequate one by referring to a Reality transcending human experience and social relations.h.i.+ps. The study of religious psychology has, in fact, furnished a broad basis from which a metaphysical or theistic inference can be drawn. Such an inference, c.u.mulative in its effect, may be drawn from the universality of religious belief, from the imperativeness of social obligations implying a supersocial sanction, and from the regenerative effects of religion to an adequate cause. ”G.o.d is real since He produces real effects.”[140] But the study of religious experience has not only strengthened the older theistic arguments, but has in effect formulated two new arguments, the pragmatic and the mystical.

140: ”Varieties,” p. 517.

The Pragmatic Argument for theism has been stated by James in the spirit of his later philosophy. Taking religions as including creeds and faith-states, James says that without regard to their truth ”we are obliged, on account of their extraordinary influence on action and endurance, to cla.s.s them amongst the most important biological functions of mankind.”[141] The pragmatic argument would then run: ”The uses of religion, its uses to the individual who has it, and the uses of the individual himself to the world, are the best arguments that truth is in it.”[142] There is a satisfaction, a fullness of life, an energy and an expansiveness flowing from religion which are not enjoyed apart from it, and its usefulness, from this standpoint, is a guarantee of its truth.

It is merely to state this argument in the more familiar terms of cause and effect to say as James does elsewhere that ”work is actually done upon our finite personalities, for we are turned into new men, and consequences in the way of conduct follow in the natural world upon our regenerative change.”[143] G.o.d is real since He produces real effects.

141: ”Varieties,” p. 506.

142: _Ibid._, p. 459.

143: _Ibid._, p. 516.

The Mystical Argument for theism is based on the claim that in religious experience there is a more immediate certainty of the presence of G.o.d and a stronger a.s.surance of His existence than can be gained from purely intellectual processes. This evidence, it is clear, may be of the strongest possible kind to the mystic himself, but may seem to be weak or even negligible to the outsider, since the experience in the nature of the case is private and incommunicable. Before the mystical claim is appraised we must distinguish further the various kinds of mysticism. We must distinguish between the absorption of the Buddhist with his pa.s.sion for annihilation, and the Christian's delight in the Lord; and between a mysticism which means ident.i.ty of substance and the deification of man, and a moral mysticism which realizes at once that G.o.d is infinitely near in His grace but infinitely far in His holiness.

It is fair to ask whether the a.s.surance of the presence of G.o.d enjoyed by many Christians in all ages, according to their testimony, is immediate or inferred knowledge, and whether it should be called knowledge or faith. The answer of the mystic might be that there is a ”felt indubitable certainty of experience” which is not dependent on the solution of epistemological problems. Otherwise we could not be sure of our own existence or of that of our fellows until we had specialized in the theory of knowledge and solved the problem, which has haunted modern philosophy, of the knowledge of other selves. If it be objected again that a subjective experience cannot ground an inference to an objective, and much less to a supernatural, cause,[144] it may be said that the experience itself, if correctly reported, is supernatural in character.

Whether it be Paul's ”peace that pa.s.ses understanding,” or Peter's ”joy unspeakable and full of glory,” or Edwards' ”inward sweet delight in G.o.d and divine things,” or a modern scientist's consciousness of the presence of G.o.d, said to be ”as strong and real to me as that of any bodily presence,”[145] it is of such a character that no other inference than that to a supernatural cause can properly be drawn. The mystical argument is not based like the other arguments of natural theology upon the regular course of things, but upon what claims to be a new supernatural experience, a new life with new capacities and powers, and new emotions and insights.

144: See Hoffding: ”Philosophy of Religion,” p. 99.

145: ”A Scientist's Confession of Faith,” by E. L. Gregory, 1898, p.21.

It must be noticed, in conclusion, that the evidence which the psychologists have so industriously collected, showing that religion is good for the individual and for society, has been taken almost exclusively from the circle of Christian influences. We might paraphrase James' pragmatic argument and say that Christianity is true because it is good for the individual and for society. His argument from cause might also be applied to Christianity, for the mystical experiences adduced are in great measure not merely those of communion with G.o.d but of communion with G.o.d in and through Christ. By no a.n.a.lysis in fact, as D. W. Forrest says, is the Christian ”able to distinguish his communion with the Father from his communion with Christ. They are blended as consciously real in one indivisible experience.”[146] The testimony of Christian experience is to a Power and a Presence which the Christian feels only as he hears and accepts the gospel message and looks to Christ for forgiveness, guidance, and help. ”A man who is converted, in the New Testament sense, is one who has surrendered to a force immeasurably greater than anything he has of himself; one who has awakened to the overwhelming consciousness of a spiritual world brought to a focus before him in the Person of Jesus Christ.”[147] The Christian believes that he receives grace from the Father and the Son. ”When Jesus deals with us and works within us, He does what only G.o.d can do. All Christian experience is nothing if it is not this.”[148]

146: ”The Christ of History and of Experience,” p. 166.

147: H. Wheeler Robinson: ”The Christian Doctrine of Man,” 1911, p. 322.

148: P. C. Simpson: ”The Fact of Christ,” pp. 130, 131.

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